FAST LOVE

iA Presenter in three Minutes

As you can see, regular text paragraphs are not visible to your audience. This is by design. Body text is your script. Only you can see it. As you can see later, it will be present in the teleprompter when you present.

Easy like Sunday morning

Don’t stuff your slides with text

Putting a lot of text on a slide and reading it out to the audience is the #1 presentation killer.

⇥

(This is the symbol for Tab)

You can put a lot of text on the slide, but, really, don't do it. Let it go.

*Seriously.* Stop bothering people with walls of text. And if you have to show a lot of text, do not read it all from the slide. It’s a bad habit and a very common one. No one will listen to you if you do this. People will read your slide instead. No one will remember what you said.

They’ll be too distracted by the text to listen—and too distracted by your voice to remember what they have read. But no rule is without exception! If you have a good reason to show a wall of text, add a tab in front of your paragraph.

Use text as your script and choose visible elements carefully. Remember: less is more.

Bullet lists

- Increase cognitive load
- Look and feel robotic  
- Are distracting
- Bore the hell out of everyone
- Make you predictable
- Sound and look like notes
- Should be notes

These should be reading notes. This kind of slide looks like a lot of work, and it directly sabotages your presentation. It's as if you finished your sentences yourself.

Write it, cut it, paste it

Focus on the story

To make people listen to you, you need a good story. Stories connect. A good story has the power to make people look at the world through your eyes. The door to make them look through your eyes will not get unlocked with stock images, graphs, and bullet lists, but with your voice.

You need beginning-middle-end. Your presentation's visuals should help you get attention, make your point, and keep people oriented. With iA Presenter, you don’t design your presentation, you write it.

https://ia.net/presenter-assets/inspector.png x: left y: top

Use the text Inspector to format.

To write a headline, you add a hash in front of it. To add an image, you drag it into the Editor. Writing bold, you use two asterisks. To write a list, You just add a hyphen or a number with a dot. This is called Markdown.

If you play with Markdown for a couple of minutes, you’ll only need help for more difficult matters. Adding a link, footnote, or table requires more skills. To promote familiarity with advanced Markdown, we have added a formatting inspector.

Keep em separated

Discern what you say and what you show

In common presentations, the script is called “notes.” They are squeezed in at the bottom of the page. They’re an afterthought. With iA Presenter, your story is the very essence of every presentation. That doesn't mean that every presentation needs to be a TED talk. But every time you speak, you need to have something to say.

Usually, what you want to say already exists in some form. You can paste an existing text, and you are 50% done. All you need are page breaks and visuals. The story-centered text-first approach is what makes iA Presenter so much faster than graphic presentation tools.

To create a page break, you simply add three hyphens like this:

---

(Type this to create a page break)

Sound and vision

How to add images

And how do you add an image? Drag and drop.

Delete the image below and drag a new one in right below here:

You can use regular Markdown or the simpler Content Block syntax with the /andyourfilename.jpg. Or you can use an image from the web. Simply paste the URL of an image from your browser.

https://ia.net/presenter-assets/image-inspector.png

You can align images top, left, and bottom, or put them in the background. Just click on the little arrow next to the image for image positioning controls. Note: You cannot position them statically but only relatively, as the design will adapt to different screen sizes. What does that mean?

Use the image inspector on the right to see and manage all your used and unused images and movies.

Let it go

Auto layout!

You add your text and images, and Presenter picks the right layout for you.

Layouts are picked automatically depending on what type of visual elements you add.

Do not try to get it pixel perfect! Layouts are responsive. They adapt to screen size. So, no more pinching on the phone, no more pixel-pushing because you’re presenting on a different monitor.

This is an H3 title

Please note: You need a line break in between each element. If you leave out the line break, two elements will share the same cell. It's hard to describe. Just play with the line breaks to see how it works.

https://ia.net/presenter-assets/responsive-design-text.png

“But I need a certain design for my slides!”

You certainly do. But you don't work in a certain medium. If you design a static slide, your layout will break on a tablet, a phone, or wide screen.

iA Presenter adapts your slides to different devices. So no more static layouts! It takes time to get used to it. But layouts do not matter as much as PowerPoint wants you to believe. What matters is that you have a great story. And that people can enjoy your story wherever with whatever design ever. Welcome to the multi-screen future. Goodbye to static design.

https://ia.net/presenter-assets/responsive-design-pictures.png

Let it go...

In iA Presenter, the layout adapts to wide screens, different overhead projector ratios, Zoom windows, tablets, phones, watches, and toasters. No more static templates.

https://ia.net/presenter-assets/responsive-design-text-cclumn.png

Let it go...

Multi-column layouts inevitably break on mobile phones. We have gotten used to websites adjusting to our devices. It's time to do the same for presentations. No more pinching and smudging around on the phone.

She’s a rainbow

About that funky multi-color code

We use color to give you an additional hint on where you are inside a presentation. The cursor changes color, too!

Blue is a cold start Purple is to warm up Red is when things get heated Orange prepares you for a sweet end Gold is the afterglow

You are not forced to use these colors. We encourage you to deal with the design at the end of your process. You can change the design by picking different themes. Within a theme, you can edit colors, fonts, header, footer, and logo.

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https://ia.net/presenter-assets/paris.png y: top

https://ia.net/presenter-assets/milano.png y: top

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You can create your own very special theme. You can make a theme for your company, and then everyone's presentation will be spot on CI. But you’ll need some CSS skills. If you get a bunch of licenses, we'll help you.

Too funky for you?

Changing fonts and colors

Click on the inspector buttons in the title bar. The Design Tab lets you change fonts, colors, headers, and more.

https://ia.net/presenter-assets/style.png y: top

Our templates are colorful, typographic, and they work on every device.

Under pressure

How do I present?

Press play in the title bar top right to enter presentation mode. You have two windows: A teleprompter for you and the visuals for the audience.

Teleprompter: What you see

https://ia.net/presenter-assets/teleprompter.png size: contain

Visualizer: What they see

https://ia.net/presenter-assets/visualizer.png size: contain

We purposely do not go full screen right away. This allows you to work with the editor/teleprompter and presentation window on one screen. Why?

So you can prepare and rehearse your presentation on one screen.
Most presentations these days are done via video chat on a single-screen device.
Managing windows and making them fullscreen is easy and pleasant. Auto-fullscreen is unsettling and hard to manage.

Back in Black

Create a text document handout

What do I do after the presentation is done? You can send a PDF to your audience, with or without a script.

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https://ia.net/presenter-assets/handout.png size: contain

You can also export your presentation as an easily readable regular text document.

Faster Love

Use existing text

If you have a structured Markdown text with images, all you need to do to create a presentation is paste the Markdown and add page breaks.

You can also just open your existing Markdown file. iA Presenter will ask you if you want to convert it to slides, and your speech will be almost ready:

https://ia.net/presenter-assets/add-media.png size: contain

To add an image from the web, just paste the URL into the editor. You can do that with YouTube videos, too.

It's like a jungle!

Okay, but this is way too much default text!

You’re right. Now that you know how it works, you can edit the default text under Preferences > General

https://ia.net/presenter-assets/preferences.png size: contain y: top

There are more settings there. Check out the Help section for the 999 features we already have before asking for more.

Goosebumps

Now go and make nice things

And send us your presentations. We love to see what you do with it.