Presentation software is computer software used to present information in a concise and professional format. These programs were designed especially to support course contents with visual elements. Presentations can be designed as slide shows that run on a computer and are projected with a video projector, as overhead transparencies or as 35mm slides.
Presentation software normally consists of an editor to insert and format text, a method for inserting and manipulating images, and a slide-show system to display the contents.
Presentation programs can supplement or replace older visual aid technology, such as handouts, flip charts and posters. Moreover, they offer a wide array of options for incorporating text, graphics, movies and other objects in the presentations. Slides can be displayed on-screen in sequence or can be printed.
Programs
One of the most widely used presentation programs is Microsoft PowerPoint. It offers slide templates, graphics, speakers’ notes, student handouts and other options for presentations. It allows you to prepare professional presentations with sophisticated multi-media elements. Used effectively, this tool can help you emphasise key concepts, stimulate interest and promote understanding.
PowerPoint seems to be the most popular presentation program, used by businesspeople, educators, and trainers. According to Microsoft, some 30 million presentations are made with PowerPoint every day. This was one of the reasons why we decided to use this program in designing our course on presentation software.
Other presentation applications available on the market include Impress (able to open and create PowerPoint files, and included in the open-source package OpenOffice.org) for PCs, Apple's Keynote (able to import and export PowerPoint files) and Adobe Persuasion for Macintosh.
Relevance for translation
This course covers basic and more complex skills that translators should master when using an application like PowerPoint or when translating PowerPointpresentations. It is important for translators to know how to change the structure of a presentation, edit master slides, format headers and footers when translating in case the original format is lost. Also it is essential to know how to track changes and add comments and questions to the slides for reviewers or clients.
Translators should also know how to use different characters, find and replace text and edit text in placeholders and autoshapes when translating. There are also language functions which are important for translators, such as the use of the spell-check function and the AutoCorrect option. It is equally important to know how to handle text in charts and text boxes (content must also be translated) and edit the data in charts if necessary.
Translators should also know how to save a presentation in an earlier or in a newer PowerPoint format in case they have to deal with different versions of PowerPoint. Finally, when choosing a translation memory tool, translators should know what type of presentation software files the tool supports and if its interface for translating presentations is user-friendly.
For further general and specific information on PowerPoint's functions, go to: