108th General Meeting of the American Society for Microbiology

GUIDELINES FOR PREPARING AND DELIVERING ELECTRONIC PRESENTATIONS

Even if you are an experienced presenter, please take a moment to read the following information completely. If you have technical questions after you have finished please contact FREEMAN. For general questions, please contact avinfo@asmusa.org.

Contents

Overview
Movie formats
Macintosh Users
Advance Submission
Media Preparation
At the Meeting
Presentation

Overview

Presentations can be submitted in advance via the Presentation Management Web site or on-site by visiting us in the Speaker Ready Room. Save your files to a CD-ROM or a USB Storage Device. Presentations can be pulled off of laptops 24 hours prior to your session time. Presenters will receive an email announcement with login instructions once the site is ready.

To ensure that your presentation is a success, be sure to visit the Speaker Ready Room so we can get you checked-in. To ensure that your presentation is a success, all presenters are required to check in at the Speaker Ready Room 24 hours prior to their session time.

Once you are checked-in, you will be seated at a computer to review your presentation. If you submitted your presentation in advance via the website, a technician will get your presentation sent to the computer you are sitting at. If you brought media to the Speaker Ready Room a technician will help you load it onto the computer. You are allowed to make any changes that you need to while in the Speaker Ready Room. Technicians are available to assist you with issues that sometimes occur with presentations. Once you are done reviewing your presentation, be sure to notify a technician so he can verify that the presentation is saved and properly labeled. Once the technician has verified that the presentation is labeled correctly, please check-out of the Speaker Ready Room. This will ensure that your presentation gets to your session in a timely manner.

Please arrive in your session meeting room 30 minutes prior to your session starting. Each room will have a projectionist to assist you with any technical needs. Please introduce yourself to the projectionist prior to the beginning of the session. When it is your time to talk, the projectionist will open your PowerPoint presentation and start the slide show. On the lectern, is a mouse that will give you full control of the presentation. At the end of each session day, all presentations are deleted from the meeting room computers.

The computers in the presentation rooms and the Speaker Ready Room are identical. All computers are Microsoft Windows-based with Microsoft Office.

Steps to ensure your success

Movies: While we try to support as many PC video formats as possible, we can only accept movies created as MPEGs 1, WMV, MP4 or AVI with the following AVI codecs:

Microsoft - MPEG-4, RLE, Video1,
Windows Media Series 8 and 9
Xvid
Divx 3/4/5 and 3ivx
Intel Indeo Video <= v.5.11
TechSmith Screen Capture Codec
Huffyuv Lossless Codec
DV Format (Avid, Sony, Pinnacle, Canopus)
Asus Video Codec, On2VP3,
ATI VCR and YV12 Codecs
Aware MotionWavelets,br> Cinepak, MJPEG

SPECIAL NOTE ABOUT DVDs: If you plan to use a DVD as part of your presentation, please be sure to test the DVD for compatibility in the Speaker Ready Room.

Please be aware of the size of your video files. In most cases, lower resolution video files are very effective.

Pictures: Images inserted into PowerPoint are embedded into the presentation. Images that are created at a dpi setting higher than 75 dpi are not necessary and will only increase the file size of your presentation. Try to avoid overloading your presentation with unnecessary images. JPG images are the preferred file format for inserted images.

Fonts: We only supply fonts that are included in the basic installation of Windows. Fonts other than these should be embedded into your PowerPoint presentation. The fonts we suggest using are Times New Roman, Arial, Verdana and Tahoma. Use of fonts not included in Windows can lead to words that bleed into graphics or bullets that may be the wrong style. Microsoft provides a utility to determine if a Font can be embedded. It is located at the following link:

Fonts

Fonts are easily embedded into your presentation following these steps:

Office XP / 2003

Click File, and then Save As.
On the Tools drop down menu select Save Options
On that menu you will see an Embed TrueType Fonts check box. Check the box.

Office 2000

Click File, and then Save As.
On the Tools drop down menu select Embed TrueType Fonts.

Users of Macintosh Computers:

If transferring a presentation from a Macintosh environment to PC platform, it is imperative that you review your presentation in the Speaker Ready Room if it contains video files, graphs or pictures. All supplied computers will contain Windows Media Player and QuickTime for Windows; however this does not guarantee a successful presentation on a PC platform.

If you are producing your presentation on a Macintosh computer please be aware of the following issues. If you are using PowerPoint 2001, it is recommended that you install the Microsoft Office 2001 Service Release 1 before creating your presentation. You can find this at: PowerPoint Service Release 1

Movies: QuickTime is not native to Windows computers. PowerPoint only supports QuickTime movies up to version 2.5. To insure the best chance of success, create your movies as AVI files. In addition use Cinepak for compression instead of Sorenson. Movies saved as AVI's have the best chance of success on a Windows machine. You can also convert your movies to the mpeg format in QuickTime Pro. Please test your movies and slides on a Windows machine before finalizing your presentation. Use method outlined below for testing your movies on a PC.

It is imperative to test your "new" presentation on an actual Windows PC for verification.

The following test will determine the compatibility of movie files:

Click Start, and then click Run.
In the Open box, type the appropriate command for your operating system.
- In Microsoft Windows 98 or Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition (Me), type: mplayer.exe
- In Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 or Microsoft Windows 2000/XP, type: mplay32.exe

Images: Use common image formats that are cross platform compatible such as JPG, PNG, GIF, and BMP.

Fonts: Use common cross platform compatible fonts such as Times New Roman, Arial, Verdana and Courier. It will be necessary to load your presentation onto a Windows machine. If this occurs, many custom Mac fonts will not translate properly.

Animations: Use simple entry animation effects, such as fly in/out, appear, and dissolve. Also, do not use exit animations; PowerPoint 2000 for Windows does not support exit animations.

File Extensions: If your Mac version of Office does not append the file extension, be sure to include it in your filename. Use .PPT for PowerPoint files and .PPS for PowerPoint show files.

Preparing your Presentation for Transfer:

Advance Submission:

You may submit your presentation via the internet prior to leaving for the event. A link will be provided from your association website that will direct you to the advance submission site or access the following link: http://www.presentationmanagement.com/ASM.

Your PowerPoint will be reviewed for video playback issues. Only video format changes will be made, no other content modifications or image quality changes will be made.

In the event that you wish to make changes to a presentation that you have already submitted, please change your master copy and resubmit the files on the website.

Portable Media:

Save your files to a CD-ROM or a USB Storage Device. If you create a CD-ROM, be sure to close or finalize your session. If this step is not accomplished, you cannot access the CD from any computer.

When building your presentation, all files (PowerPoint & external, i.e. movie files) associated with your presentation must reside in the same folder. Be sure you bring your movie files along with your PowerPoint presentation; they are NOT embedded into the PowerPoint.

When creating your media for transfer, copy the entire folder to the portable disk. To ensure success of your presentation, create a backup copy presentation on a separate portable disk and transport it in a separate piece of luggage.

Label your media with the following information:

Your Name

Name of Meeting/Conference (i.e., ASM 108^th General Meeting)

Date & Time of Presentation

Meeting Room Number

File Name(s) - note: The file name must be the same as the presentation control number � see acceptance letter or invitation letter

If you are speaking in more than one session, please organize and clearly label your presentations in separate folders. Do not put more than one presenter's files on the same disk. Each presenter must have his or her own media.

At the Meeting

Speaker Ready Room

Speakers must check in at the Speaker Ready Room 6 hours before their scheduled presentation. This will allow time to prepare, rehearse, and finalize your presentation before submitting it. The computers in the Speaker Ready Rooms will be configured with hardware and software exactly like the computer in the meeting rooms. It is imperative that you review your presentation in the Speaker Ready Room if it contains video files, or if it was created on a Macintosh computer.

Once you are comfortable that your presentation is complete, save any changes in Power Point. The Speaker Ready Application will prompt you to save files back to the server. The server will send your updated file to the presentation room within 10 minutes if your presentation occurs on the same day. We recommend completing all final updates no later than 4 hours prior to your session.

Confirm the date, time, and room for your session. Be sure and sign out of the speaker ready app.

Presentation

Please arrive at your session meeting room at least 30 minutes before the start of your session. Introduce yourself to the AV Tech (who will be wearing an AVW/TELAV badge). Take time to familiarize yourself with the setup at the lectern. There will be a mouse on the lectern that will allow you to control/advance (left click will move forward, right click will move backwards) the slides during your presentation. The mouse pointer can also be used in lieu of a laser pointer. The projectionist will remain in the room throughout the session.

A lectern microphone will be provided in each meeting room. Speak directly into the microphone in a normal voice and do not handle the microphone while speaking. There should be a comfortable distance between your mouth and the microphone. If you turn away from the microphone, the audience may not hear you.

A confidence monitor will be provided in each meeting room. It will be located either at the head table or strategically in front of the lectern.