By itself, PowerPoint and Keynote are solid presentation tools. In the hands of almost any presenter, though, they become communication nightmares. Massive amounts of text abound, graphics are lacking and animations are WAY overused.

After attending even one presentation where the presenter reads the copious slides and does nothing else, one might ask “What can we do to stop the pain”? It would start with a better understanding of presentations - Garr Reynold’s book, Presentation Zen, is the best place to start in that area. At only $20, this is one of the best books you’ll ever buy.

From a tool standpoint, though, one potential solution to the problem is InDesign. Traditionally, InDesign is a page layout tool. But, used in the right way (and in partnership with Adobe Reader), it can create some great presentations.

Why Use InDesign as a Presentation Tool?

By itself, InDesign won’t solve presentation problems. But, having better graphics and slide layouts do help. The following are the reasons I like to create most of my presentations in InDesign.

• InDesign’s Master Pages Are More Flexible: InDesign allows for easier management of master pages, as well as more elegant slide customization of master page items.
• InDesign Integrates with Illustrator and Photoshop: I use a lot of graphics in my presenations. The ability to directly insert Photoshop and Illustrator files or copy/paste around makes things significantly faster.
• InDesign’s Graphic Tools Rock: InDesign isn’t the industry leader in page layout for nothing. Its tools for text, images and effects are much more flexbily and powerful than PowerPoint. It also supports styles and other features that allow me to more quickly create and update my slides.
• It Keeps People Out of the Presentation: This could be good or bad depending on your point of view. PowerPoint’s mass appeal and use has turned anyone and everyone into presentation creators. By moving it to InDesign, I can ensure some level of quality control on the presentations I create. The one downside is that I have to spend a significant amount of energy on working with people to understand why they can’t do the final work in PowerPoint. In many cases, they can still create it in PowerPoint, but I then transition it over to InDesign to ensure proper formatting, amounts of text, graphics, etc.

How to Use InDesign to Create Presentations?

This part is suprisingly simple. When opening InDesign, create a new document that has the same dimensions as a PowerPoint, 10 in x 7.5 in.

After the document is created, you can insert new pages and add text, background colors, etc. as if you were creating any other document. Each new page will be a new slide in your presentation.

When finished, export the document as a PDF.

How to Play the Presentation

Now that the presentation is in PDF, you can play it in Adobe Acrobat, or the free program, Adobe Reader. To do so, open the PDF and choose View > Full Screen Mode or press Ctrl (Cmd on a Mac) + L. Doing so sets the presentation to fill the screen. You can then use your mouse (clicking moves forward, right-clicking moves back) or the arrow keys (right key is forward, left key is back).

Another benefit to this method that I didn’t mention above is that it puts the presentation in a less editable form (PDF is more difficult to edit than PPTs, which are the format PowerPoint presentations are usually distributed in).

When InDesign Won’t Work

As with most nice solutions, there are times when this won’t work.

• Transitions are Critical: I can’t remember the last time I NEEDED to put a transition in my slides. In most cases, they should be suplements to speaking, not the main focus. And, if video or other items need to be included, they can be inserted into InDesign as well. Having said that, I’m sure others will find occasion to need PPT or Keynote transitions. If that is the case, InDesign probably isn’t the tool of choice.
• PowerPoint is the Foundation for Something Else: With PowerPoint becoming so popular, a lot of other programs are relying on PowerPoint as a basis for creating other things. For example, a program called Articulate allows you to create a presentation in PowerPoint and then quickly convert it to Flash, adding voice overs, etc.

So, in summary, InDesign is a great tool for creating presentations and in most cases can replace PowerPoint or Keynote. But, don’t forget that ultimately they are just tools and that basic presentation creation/delivery skills are even more important. I’ve seen some aweful slideshows that were part of decent presentations and some great slideshows that were part of terrible presentations.