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PowerPoint makes me weep inside
Posted by Joe Pemberton in
5 Aug 2009 — 1:56pm
5 Aug 2009 — 1:56pm
Why do you insist on resizing my text in a text box as I type!? (Even when I uncheck the "shrink text to fit" box.)
Why does copy/paste not retain basic stuff like font attributes (size, color, font even)?
Why is everything positioned relatively (and not with coordinates or measurements)?
PowerPoint is the anti-typography.
Srsly.
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Comments
5 Aug 2009 — 2:09pm
Can't triple click a word to select a line.
Can't quadruple click to select a paragraph.
5 Aug 2009 — 2:09pm
Can't use the down arrow to move the selection point (cursor) to the next line.
5 Aug 2009 — 2:18pm
When I export from Keynote to PPT, why don't you respect my line-spacing?
5 Aug 2009 — 2:25pm
Responded to this thread on twitter - the holy anti-typography trinity is Powerpoint, Publisher and Word. I'm often asked to "customize" powerpoint templates from these other two programs (read: make something that doesn't look like a canned 'theme,' but is in a program that the user can still mess up by picking "pretty fonts."). Each time I simply open one of the three I hear a microsoft programmer's horns grow an inch.
5 Aug 2009 — 3:00pm
No way to move an object by a measurement, only by dragging or using arrow keys.
5 Aug 2009 — 3:08pm
I feel your pain. Recently I have been asked to design a VERRRYYYY long powerpoint for my company. I have to do it in PP because it has to be editable on the fly = I will fight powerpoint to the death and then pass it off and some one in the office will decide to add turquoise and purple on top of pink and it will be ruined.
c jONEs DESIGN
5 Aug 2009 — 3:25pm
One of the truly treasured things that came with my retirement from my day job 2 years ago was the knowledge that I would never, EVER have to reformat something in the "Four-P's" (Putrid PowerPoint Program) again.
My only hope is that the next version of Vista will not run the piece of ßhit so Microsoft will have to dump it in favor of shadow-puppet hands.
ChrisL
5 Aug 2009 — 4:34pm
You sound like the right crowd to try Acrobat.com Presentations.
5 Aug 2009 — 4:43pm
Powerpoint insists on capitalizing the first letter of the first word, every time you put a word in a text box. Treat me with some respect. If I want to write a Powerpoint in LOLspeak your software should let me.
6 Aug 2009 — 12:42pm
I've never used Powerpoint, but I do sometimes get Powerpoint files supplied as artwork!
I don't know if you'll be able to listen to this BBC radio programme if you're outside the UK, but it was very entertaining.
6 Aug 2009 — 1:48pm
Miguel, Acrobat doesn't help when the end user insists on using Power Point. I sort of miss the days of actual printed transparancies.
6 Aug 2009 — 3:29pm
@Richard: Thank you very much for pointing to the BBC radio programme.
Professor Kjeldsens paper on The Rhetoric of PowerPoint may be of interest.
7 Aug 2009 — 3:15am
Client: - oh, and we need a PowerPoint in portrait format. Just in case someone wants to design a poster.
sigh.
7 Aug 2009 — 5:27am
Joe,
I dislike PP as much as the next guy. But you can position/move using coordinates/inches.
If you select an object and Ctrl+click/right click, and choose Format Shape, you can move and item down to the hundredth of an inch. If you set the "origin" to the top left corner, that will give you a de facto coordinate system.
Helpful?
jarrod
7 Aug 2009 — 8:10am
Here's a thread I wrote a bit more than a year ago about how Microsoft Word has done more to set back understanding of typography than just about anything else.
http://www.typophile.com/node/44804
7 Aug 2009 — 11:31pm
After almost chanting "I hear you brother!" at my monitor as I read this thread...
I'm sure most of you have seen this picture, but it may be new to some;
http://www.crab.rutgers.edu/~goertzel/PowerPointTorture.jpg
12 Aug 2009 — 3:31pm
Ditto ditto!! Any of you try deleting the fonts Microsoft forces into your library when you install Office? What a horrible violation. It even overrides Font Book.
Oh how I wish Cmd-A worked... or the formatting palette actually offered more formatting options...
P A Hardy - thanks for the link. It made my day.
18 Aug 2009 — 2:57pm
Jarrod, I don't know whether to applaud or feel sorry for you for knowing that. I'm kidding of course. Very helpful!
18 Aug 2009 — 4:39pm
Edward Tufte. The cognitive style of PowerPoint.
19 Aug 2009 — 4:30pm
PowerPoint considered militarily harmful.
19 Aug 2009 — 4:35pm
How NOT to use PowerPoint.
20 Aug 2009 — 10:11am
Schlein, A. PowerPoint backgrounds may be pretty but do they impede information processing? Honours thesis, Dalhousie University.