Scattered around the web are lots of places suggesting you can/should use the b or w keys to turn you screen black or white when you’re presenting, at times when you want your audience to focus on you. Being slightly tongue in cheek, I’m amazed that there’s anyone left who doesn’t know this tip! :)
To be honest though, the sudden cutting in and out of black that this gives you is a bit shocking – far better to fade in. Besides, using the b/w keys means you have to be standing right next to your laptop and that’s very limiting… To avoid the problem you need simply to slip a black screen into your slides every now and again – at appropriate moments. My ‘darkest’ slide deck contains fully almost a quarter dark slides!
I know that’s unusual, but it’s the best way (I think!) to work on that particular topic. Certainly there are topics I’ve made presentations about when I’ve never wanted a blank slide, but they’re few and far between. It’s a matter of style and taste, obviously, but if nothing else, having the courage to go to a blank slide does wonders for how cool your audience will think you are! ;)
So far so good, though it doesn’t allow you to go to black on a whim, or when someone asks a question. Your solutions at that point seem to me (I’m sure I’m going to miss things here, so chip in!) either to use a remote control to get a black effect from the projector or do something more subtle with your slide deck.
I’m not particularly in favour of the former idea, basically as it involves carrying two remote controls around – one for the projector and one for your laptop. In the heat of the moment I know what would happen to me! Besides, having the second remote in your pocket is going to look bad! :)
The subtle approach is simple to have a black slide at the end of your slide deck and to know its number. If you need to go to a black slide, simply use your remote to skip to that slide. For goodness’ sake though, check what slide your presentation is currently showing, so that you can come back to it when you need.
Hi Simon’
I’ve got a logitech remote that has a button to replicate the effect of the ‘B’ key. Very useful.
Olivia
Hi Olivia – I don’t know the Logitech. Does it fade in/out of black?
For me, I’d spend half my life worrying about pressing the right remote: one for my laptop and one for my projector! :)
S
Hi Olivia – I don’t know the Logitech. Does it fade in/out of black?
For me, I’d spend half my life worrying about pressing the right remote: one for my laptop and one for my projector! :)
S
Good dispatch and this enter helped me alot in my college assignement. Thank you as your information.
To let you go to black on a whim, like when someone asks a question, you might enjoy these novel tips:
Black is back, but better – 3+ new ways to hide your slide
Would love to hear your thoughts on them, so please feel free to leave a comment!
Hi Craig – some good stuff there, so thanks for dropping buy. A trick I use is to have black slides between anything that might be an answer to a question, so that I can jump about slides in a Q&A session without the audience knowing I’m not running through slides in a linear order.