Best Practices for Creating Presentations for Use on an iPad

The iPad makes for an excellent presentation tool. It’s light, portable, and clearly made for delivering eye-catching visuals. Below are some of our tips for ensuring your presentations look their best when viewed on an iPad.

Things to Consider before Creating Your Presentation

First things first, you need to ensure your presentation environment is ideal for the iPad.

If you’re giving a talk in a small conference or lecture-style room, you can hook your iPad to a projector. However, bear in mind that you will not be able to use a remote control with your iPad, so you will have to be sitting nearby to be able to tap the screen.

Not planning on using a projector? You can also show clients your presentation straight from the device. However, with the iPad’s screen size, you will need to be seated close to your client. While this setup limits your presentation environment, it also allows you to present to your client in an engaging and conversational manner.

Once you’ve determined that the iPad is something you can work with for your presentation, you can then go on to creating your presentation.

Things to Consider When Creating Your Presentation

Presentation Size

First off, when designing your presentation, set the size to 1024×768, same as the screen size of the iPad, to avoid any viewer compatibility issues.

Your Presentation Tool of Choice

Creating presentations for the iPad is easy if you’re a Mac user and use Keynote to create your slideshows and presentations.

However, if your desktop computer uses Microsoft tools, bear in mind that PowerPoint is not supported by iPad.

Fortunately, there are solutions available for ensuring your presentation can still be viewed on an iPad:

• Turn your presentation into a video

To preserve the animation, transitions, audios, and video clips within your PowerPoint slides, there are PowerPoint-to-video converters out in the market that allow you to convert PowerPoint presentations to iPad supported video formats: .m4v, .mp4, and .mov.

You can also use screen-capturing software to convert your PowerPoint presentation into video.

• Convert your slides into pictures

If your presentation is made up mostly charts, tables, or photos, this is a great solution for you, since iPad is equipped with a slideshow photo viewer.

Unfortunately, animations, transitions, and sound and video clips will not be preserved when you convert your presentation to pictures. In that case, better stick to using video.

• Save it as a PDF file

If you have the newer versions of PowerPoint (2007 and 2010), you can create a .pdf copy of your slides. iPad supports .pdf files, so this works best if your presentation is mostly made up of graphic content.

Again, this method of conversion is not without its disadvantages. If your presentation has many animations, audios and video, these will not be retained once your .ppt file is saved as .pdf.

Your Presenter’s Visuals

One of the perks of using the iPad for your presentations is that everything looks better, brighter, and bolder in it. Images are clear and crisp, and if you’ve already got good design going, this will be enhanced further on the iPad’s screen.
In other words, the iPad makes for the ultimate storytelling device. Boost your message by backing your content with outstanding design.

• Less text, more images

If you intend to make full use of the iPad’s capabilities, you’re going to have to do better than just using titles and bullets, which you might have been used to with earlier presentations. Maximize the iPad’s vibrant display through the use of colorful pictures, images, and charts.

As pointed out later, being engaging and conversational is one way you can adapt to a presentation that’s mostly focused on visuals and less on text.

• Size Matters

Given the iPad’s limited screen size, using the “title on top, main points in the middle” setup may not be the most effective way to present your points.

That said, you will have to make sure each slide has one central point of interest, such as a large text, chart, or a picture.
Also, with the absence of a keyboard and a remote control, this means your finger will be moving around the iPad’s screen a lot. To compensate, you need to make your design bigger.

• Don’t knock motion

There was a time when animated slides didn’t have a place in “serious” presentations. However, remember that most people’s favorite activity for the iPad is watching video. Just imagine how engaging and powerful its impact can be if you recreate that same experience in your presentation.

Take note though that both generations of iPad do not support Flash. But don’t let this keep you from inserting great animation in your slides. CustomShow is just one of the many apps you can use to add movement to your presentation.

Conclusion

The iPad was a groundbreaking device when it came out, and for various reasons. However, whereas it was dismissed largely as an entertainment powerhouse, its usefulness in the office is proof that the iPad is a useful and multidimensional tool. And, if used properly and in a way that allows it to display its strength, the iPad can be an effective presentation tool as well.

About Wealth Management Marketing, Inc.

Wealth Management Marketing, Inc. is dedicated to providing marketing strategy and support for investment advisory, wealth management and financial planning firms. The firm enables independent advisors the ability to market with the same quality and consistency as their larger competitors by providing the resources of an entire marketing department at a fraction of the cost of a single employee. For more information, visit www.wealthmanagementmarketing.net.