Formats for Presentations on the Web

Pros and cons of various formats for posting presentations on the web

• html:
  • pros: easy to use the left nav to go directly to the slide you want, might be easier to interpret for people with disabilities
  • cons: can be ugly, clunky, hard to navigate, doesn’t always display well, difficult or impossible to print, large file size, time-consuming to produce a good-looking html version (many settings, etc.)
• ppt:
  • pros: easy to do whatever you want with it (print, etc.) if you have PowerPoint installed
  • cons: not everyone has PowerPoint installed, or installed in a configuration or operating system that will display correctly
• pdf:
  • pros: it’s an open standard that anybody can view; if you publish as one slide to a page, users can print any desired number of slides to a page using the multiple slides per page option on the printer — this option is available on the public printers in the library
  • cons: if you publish it with 2, 4, 6 etc. slides to a page, you’ve limited the printing options
• Summary: pdf is probably preferable in many instances, especially if you publish one slide to a page, but you might sometimes want to use another format, or possibly more than one format, for particular purposes