"PowerPoint slide decks" - I hate anyone who refers to a presentation as a slide deck. I just do. It's not 1973 anymore, we don't have slide decks, we stopped using overhead transparencies over a decade ago. I'm sorry you didn't get the memorandum.
Side note: I also hate you if you name files "Johonson_Case_Explained_For_Management.doc" You don't need the underscores, you haven't for again, a decade. Please join the 90s, it was a lot of fun, the economy rocked and we were actively ignoring the fact that all major sport stars were using performance enhancing drugs.
"PowerPOint slide decks should be made so they can stand alone." No, no they shouldn't!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! PowerPoint is a presentation tool, we use it for PRESENTATIONS! I can't help it that some idiot is going to miss the presentation, print out the slides (instead of you know, looking at it in presentation mode on their computer) and then not undesrtand what they are looking at.
Slide transitions are stupid, and I don't know why they are still part of PowerPoint. But slide animations can be useful. This is where you make things appear and disappear, maybe even move. It's like witchcraft, but no one gets hurt.
Slide animations don't really show up well on paper print outs, nor do they show up if you don't view the presentation in "presentation mode" (which is a fairly self-evident name for a reason).
What people are asking for when they want a "standalone slide deck" is this new thing I've invented -
It's like a presentation, but with a lot of words. And instead of having a slide, it'd be like a page of printed material. It'd have a lot of words to thoroughly explain things.
Microsoft can even make a tool for this, and they'll give it some simplistically moronic name. One they intend to connotate how this is THE tool for creating documents, but in reality it'll just be annoying. Something like "Type" or "Document". But more simple and
stupid.
I can't stand how people insist on trying to turn PowerPoint into a Word document.
And stay away from me when they email you a "slide deck" that is in Portrait orientation. Now I'm enraged. They have literally turned PowerPoint into Word at this point.
I hate that I work in an environment where this is the standard, where it is required. I hate that I work in an environment where they look at well done presentations and are confused by the lack of words. I hate that I work in an environment where the expectation is you print out 25 copies of the "slide deck" so people can "read along". Which really means they skip to the end immediately, read the conclusion, disagree, and then ask questions the whole time trying to prove how they are smarter than you are and that your conclusion is flawed.
