Open Office Impress Now has a Presenter Screen - Hooray!!!

When I spoke at the Lusaka Radio Summit last year, I used Chilu's macbook pro to project my presentation on to the screen. Like most mac users Chilu prefers to use keynote. I've heard a lot or people mention how good Keynote is for designing good presentation. Although, I have not been able to use it as a designer yet, the radio summit afforded me the opportunity to use it as a speaker.

Little Things Mean A Lot

What I grew to like about keynote in my little time spent interacting with it was the Presenters Screen. Most presentation software like powerpoint (the last version I used was 2007) will show you the current slide that you're speaking to on the screen of your laptop while you speak. A Presenters Screen has an added advantage in that it will also show you the next slide coming up, time and other handy things like notes that you might want to you while you speak. This is really helpful as it helps transition through slides as you speak with ease.

Since December, I've been using OpenSUSE since I formatted my machine and realised afterwards that my Ubuntu Installation CD was missing. Fortunately, I had an OpenSuse CD lying on the desk and that is how I came to change OS once again. 

I made a presentation to a client in Kitwe this morning - during which we brainstorm issues of content for their website. For my presentation today, I used my own laptop running OpenOffice Impress. You should have seen the beam on my face when I realised that the current version of OpenOffice can now display your presentations on a Presenters Screen like Macbook Pro. So, so cool ...

Small things like make a huge different in the experience of a speaker. Cheers to OpenOffice.