Can't triple click a word to select a line.

Can't quadruple click to select a paragraph.

Can't use the down arrow to move the selection point (cursor) to the next line.

When I export from Keynote to PPT, why don't you respect my line-spacing?

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.

No way to move an object by a measurement, only by dragging or using arrow keys.

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

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

You sound like the right crowd to try Acrobat.com Presentations.

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.

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.

Miguel, Acrobat doesn't help when the end user insists on using Power Point. I sort of miss the days of actual printed transparancies.

@Richard: Thank you very much for pointing to the BBC radio programme.

Professor Kjeldsens paper on The Rhetoric of PowerPoint may be of interest.

Client: - oh, and we need a PowerPoint in portrait format. Just in case someone wants to design a poster.

sigh.

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

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

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

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.

Jarrod, I don't know whether to applaud or feel sorry for you for knowing that. I'm kidding of course. Very helpful!

[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_tufte|Edward Tufte]]. The cognitive style of PowerPoint.

[[http://boingboing.net/2009/07/21/powerpoint-considere.html|PowerPoint considered militarily harmful]].

[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cagxPlVqrtM|How NOT to use PowerPoint]].

Schlein, A. PowerPoint backgrounds may be pretty but do they impede information processing? Honours thesis, Dalhousie University.