Tip: When presenting, ALWAYS have backup formats [Field Notes]

A brief anecdote:

I prepared a presentation yesterday to present today to colleagues on subjects such as Continuous Integration, Unit / Spec Testing, Source management, etc.

I created the presentation in MS PowerPoint 2010, and saved it with some embedded fonts in .pptx format. It runs great. I open it on my work PC this morning, and it runs great. I save it to a thumb drive, and it opens fine.

We get into the conference room late, I log onto the PC that’s there, I open the presentation.. …and PowerPoint crashes.

I try copying it from the USB Drive to the Desktop, I open it …and PowerPoint crashes again.

Luckily, I saved a version in .ppt format so that it would be backwards compatible with PowerPoint 2000-2003. I open that …and PowerPoint crashes again.

Luckily, I also uploaded the presentation to SlideShare. I attempt to open that …and the computer has trouble connecting to the internet.

Luckily, I had also exported the presentation to a PDF file. I open that in Adobe Acrobat Reader, put it in full-screen mode, and gave the presentation.

I hope that illustrates the point well enough without further explanation.