InDesign Slide Presentation

Report · Aug 13, 2012

I got a InDesign file from a client, layed out in a slide-like presentation style, showing the graphic and text that they would like to use.

They would like a final PDF to be used on a table top display. The screen is 22 inches. It will be cycling through the slides on it's own.

I normally would create it in PowerPoint or Keynote. What are my options here?

Is it better to recreate it in PowerPoint or Keynote? Or if the client needs me to use their InDesign file, what kind of things I will need to consider or setting to modify from within InDesign and Acrobat?

Report · Aug 13, 2012

You can use the Indesign Document, then export to PDF for a slide presentation. There are some things you would set in Indesign and other things you would set in Acrobat. Content would be edited in Indesign. You can set transitions between slides, this can be done in either app, but keep in mind, to view transitions, the presentation needs to run in full screen. Full Screen mode is set in Acrobat's Document Properties. You can set a presentation to automatically cycle through slides. But this is an application preference, and if you are sending the document to some else, they would have to set the preference for looping and time advancement.

Report · Aug 13, 2012

What about dimensions? If the display width will be 22 inch (and I assume that's what the InDesign doc should be set up as), what about the depth? I am not sure if the client knows what it is? Is there some kind of formula to figure out the depth?

Also, since the presentation will be built in InDesign, should I keep the provided images hi-res or should I sample them down?

Report · Aug 13, 2012

When you have a PDF open in full screen, the document is sized so entire doc fits screen without truncating content. I would not worry about precise dimensions, rather build or modify your document to a proper aspect ratio, which it sounds like 16:9 would be suitable. As for image resolution, Acrobat's resolution can be customized but is generally around 99 pixels/inch. You can downsample images, but do this on the PDF export, not to native images. You would want to optimize the rendering settings in Acrobat like smooth image and line art. These are Acrobat application settings and need to be set on the machine showing slide show.

Report · Aug 16, 2012

Even though the client said that the presentation will be displayed on a 22 in screen, would it make sense to simply set up the dimensions to be 10" x 7.5" like PowerPoint uses?

I am assuming the only reason the client sent me the InDesign file with a dimension of 19.44" x 11" is that they were not sure what size to create, no?

Report · Aug 16, 2012

Even though the client said that the presentation will be displayed on a 22 in screen, would it make sense to simply set up the dimensions to be 10" x 7.5" like PowerPoint uses?

The monitor that runs this presentation will determine the best aspect ratio to create presentation. But, from what you stated: the client created a document at 19.44 x 11, which is at a 16:9 aspect ratio. I would leave it at that size. Do you know what monitor that will run presentation?

Report · Aug 24, 2012

It took sometime but I found a web site that suggest that for a 16:9 ration that I build the template at 10" x 5.63".

http://www.bluew.com/blog/aspect-ratios-what-you-need-to-know

Perhaps the client just guessed or randomly made up that 19.44" x 11" dimension.