When you’re presenting, you need to have the right tools to help you make your points. Here are some of the most important presentation tools that you’ll need:

  1. A projector or screen. A projector is great for projecting images on a large screen, and it’s also perfect for showing slideshows and videos.
  2. A microphone and speaker. You’ll need a microphone to capture sound from your audience, and a speaker to hear them back.
  3. A notepad or paper. You’ll need to write down your ideas, plan out your presentation, and take notes during your talk. Paper is also great for taking pictures of your presentation if you want to share it with others later on!

Image by VectorOpenStock.

Several readers favorites PowerPoint alternatives to break out of the PP doldrums. Kaitlin writes:

If you were reading down the comments thread and not quite sure if you wanted to check out Prezi, Dan’s passion for the presentation tool might push you over:

On the hardware side of things, Mike is definitely a guy who has seen the horrors of the presentation wars and lived to talk about it:

Finally, if you’re looking for a presentation medium where you have total control over the content and format of the slides, you may want to take not of TheFu’s comment:

I’m always working on a new presentation. Gave up powerpoint years ago. Too limiting.

When building a presentation deck, I need a few more things: * Presentation tool called “S5″ – It is an html standards-based tool. 100% F/LOSS. * A custom perl script to convert textile markup into HTML slides. * Any editor, vi is preferred.

Why S5? I was tired of having to create 2 presentations – one for the meeting and one to post in a webhost later. PDF is wasteful compared to HTML. S5 supports slide decks, 1-page sheets, hidden information, and appendices with links. Javascript is not required to display the information, just for the slideshow. CSS handles styles and fonts nicely.

I love textile. It is the right mix of function and ease of use.

You can read more about S5 here. If you’re in the market for a cheap no-name clicker pen, you can pick one up for $12 here–we’ve been using this cheapie model for some time and have definitely gotten our twelve bucks worth.

For more tips and tricks, check out the full comment thread here.