Artboard sizes for Presentations

[Lorie Zweifel]

Hello,

I am being asked to prepare a presentation which will be posted on Facebook, viewed online in a powerpoint presentation and presented on a wide screen via projector at the event.

Can someone please help me in determining correct sizes so that each of these presentations looks it's absolute best.

Thanks so very very much!!

[macpawel]

It's difficult to prepare one size of presentation best for all media, projectors, screens, TV

I hope preparing HD 1920x1080 size is a good choise. Most modern TV, Projectors, screens uses HD dimiensions

You can also try to use smaller size - best for laptops: 1366x768

Use wide margins and background color same as your presentation background. If you scale screen a little bit it wouldn't be a problem

Pawel

[Lorie Zweifel]

Well, I guess I am figuring that out.  I created one for the FB post but find the information is too small so starting over. 

It is so difficult because I am preparing for a presentation which will be viewed online in a huge variety of spaces...  I am on a 27" mac, the next guy could be on an iPad or iPhone and someone else on a laptop...  I know the presentation is a Power Point presentation so I assumed 11 x 8.5 but that didn't look the greatest on my screen.

I am going to try the 1920 x 1080 and hope for the best!

[ml2019]

Everybody talks about the screen size in PowerPoint, how about the dpi resolution? I have my Photoshop canvas set at 13.33 x 7.5, that fits perfectly my widescreen PowerPoint format. I've always used 100 dpi, it gets a bit bigger when importing it to PPT, but the proportions are perfect. I was told recently that I should save my images at 150dpi or higher, in Photoshop, for the new high resolution monitors. Is this correct?

[mark-heaps]

Presentation sizes will vary greatly with each devices, like you mentioned.

But our standard applications, like PPT or Keynote, build them in either 4:3 aspect ratio or 16:9 aspect ratio.

Powerpoint doesn't work in pixel dimensions so you'll have to calculate your sizes in inches.

10" x 7.5" is the (4:3) standard size
13.33" x 7.5" is the (16:9) standard size

It's never a bad thing having extra slides and not cramming them full. And audience distance to screen is more relative than what device it's on. This dictates point sizes for fonts, etc. Someone can read an 14pt font on an iPad, but you can't read an 14pt font on a big auditorium screen from 50' away.

My advice, design for the smallest screen you know will be used, and as that scales up, it's likely the audience will be scaling "up" by moving a further distance from the screen.

[Lorie Zweifel]

This is very good advice, thank you. 

So...  would you then, if you were me....  just set up an artboard at 13.33" x 7.5" and call it good for both the powerpoint presentation and the big screen (which by the way, I have no idea what size it will be, probably vary as well)

[ml2019]

Everybody talks about the screen size in PowerPoint, how about the dpi resolution? I've always used 100 dpi, it gets a bit bigger when importing it to PPT, but the proportions are perfect. I was told recently that I should save my images at 150dpi or higher, in Photoshop, for the new high resolution monitors. Is this correct?

[mark-heaps]

So set your artboard(s) up at that size. In my experience, make it the 16:9 widescreen format.

No when you are designing your slides, zoom out so that it the size of the artboard on your screen matches the physical size of a phone or device you would hold in your hand next to the screen. That's your Quality Test for legibility, etc. Now, note the percentage you are viewing it at. Let's say it's 25%. Now, when you zoom in, and the artboard increases in size relative to your monitor, take that growth rate, and move yourself farther away by that amount. So if it's at 25% and that size matches the physical size of an iPhone, great. But if when you blow it up to the size of your monitor that is at 125%, then you know that's 5x bigger. So you need to increase your distance by 5x and see if you can still read the content on the screen.

I run a presentation design service bureau, and this is one of the Quality tests all our designers use to check legibility and scale. It doesn't always grant us the beauty and sophistication of type designs we love, but it insures information design is successful, and that's priority number one.

[Mike_Gondek]

Figure out what slide size you are going to use

Change the size of your slides - PowerPoint

then create your Illustrator artboard to that size.

[Sebastian Bleak]

Hi Lorie

Tons of great info in this thread! For something like this I usually go with the Web profile, 1280x1024 preset. I find it looks great on phones and projectors. I've also started using 1920x1080 for displays with more pixels to play with.

Sounds like you're on the right track, best of luck to you!

[Lorie Zweifel]

Thank you!

[jean pierren79749150]

All really great advice I am trying to figure what the right canvas size should be for the web and in particular WIX websites - would you still go for 1280x1024 or is there a specific size guideline for WIX?

My end goal  create a digital interactive slide for a website that will be play video!

[defaultyb867fyredgp]

Keep in mind that Adobe products use 72 dpi where as the MS OS uses 96 dpi, so you'll need to enlarge your graphics by 33.33% in Illustrator to fit without resizing in an office product.