Best Fonts for Powerpoint Export

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30 points

Best Fonts for Powerpoint Export

My kids are often assigned Powerpoint presentations in school. As there are limited resources in the school's computer lab, they must often either complete presentations, or do them in their entirety, at home. They are currently using Keynote '06.

Does anyone know if Keynote '08 is any better at producing a Powerpoint compatible export over Keynote '06?

When exported to Powerpoint, the fonts often display improperly and headlines and body text sometime run over each other.

Are there fonts they can stick to in Keynote that will ensure proper display in Powerpoint? My thought, was that if they stuck to the limited "Web" fonts set they would be more likely to be common to both Mac and Windows applications. Any thoughts? Is this correct thinking? If I were to create my own Font set for export to Powerpoint, which should I use?

On occasion, for very important presentations, I have had them take my MacBook Pro to school and connect it to the projector in their classroom. This isn't the best solution, as I'm a bit paranoid about sending such an expensive piece of equipment to school and, on occasion, an ignorant teacher has refused to allow them to connect Mac out of "fear it will damage the projector." Sheesh.

Thanks for any input you may offer.

400 Mhz G3 iMac, 1.25Ghz G4 eMac, 17" G4 1Ghz iMac, Dual 2.7Ghz G5 PowerMac,, Mac OS X (10.4.10), 2.33Ghz 15" MacBook Pro, Homebuilt PC Clone, 3 iPhones, 4 iPods, 2-Airport Net

Posted on Sep 27, 2007 5:25 PM

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Answer 1

Sep 27, 2007 9:40 PM in response to ITpro4Mac

Someone has answered a similar question on the iweb forum, with a list of what fonts to substitute for best results when viewed on windows machines. I expect you could use the same fonts in keynote so that there is little change between machines. I believe the person who answered the question was Susan at mytic 11. She may also have something on her website about that.
Good luck
Mireille

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Answer 2

Sep 28, 2007 10:16 AM in response to ITpro4Mac

Yes, Web-safe fonts sounds like a sensible choice.

If they want some really fancy fonts but do not care that much about the animations, they could print a PDF file and use that one for the presentation.

And if they have a lot of harddisk space available, they could export to QuickTime, and play it that way.

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Answer 3

ITpro4Mac Author

Level 1

30 points

Sep 28, 2007 5:57 PM in response to SermoDaturCunctis

Thank you.

As Keynote allows for establishing a "Favorites" set of fonts, I think I will start off by placing web-safe fonts in the set, testing them on my PC (which has only PowerPoint Viewer) and then adding and testing others.

I suppose I could just buy and install PowerPoint as well but, my PC is intended only for work and is a very secure "for your eyes only" machine running Microsoft System Center Operations Manager software. I don't really like to let the kids tie it up.

By creating a known safe set, I will know which fonts will work beforehand and I won't find myself trying to fix their work late the night before it's do. Kids being kids, they often don't start their projects in time for adequate preview/testing.

On this last occasion, my daughter had, in fact, completed her project using PowerPoint at school but a "not too competent" computer lab technician accidentally deleted the work of an entire chemistry class. Fortunately, the smart little 15 year old minx, had emailed the almost completed PP project to herself and was able to open, and complete, it with Keynote.

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Answer 4

ITpro4Mac Author

Level 1

30 points

Sep 28, 2007 6:08 PM in response to Mireille Green1

Mireille Green1 wrote:
Someone has answered a similar question on the iweb forum, with a list of what fonts to substitute for best results when viewed on windows machines. I expect you could use the same fonts in keynote so that there is little change between machines. I believe the person who answered the question was Susan at mytic 11. She may also have something on her website about that.
Good luck
Mireille

Thanks for the response.

Did you mean Susan at 11Mystics ? I was trying to find the post you mentioned but was unable to do so as "mytic 11". I did find the mystic11 website and, as I see it deals with iWeb, I'll do more looking around to see what I find about Windows compatible fonts. Unfortunately, with all of my Windows training and certifications, web authoring and graphics was not part of it (though I dabble a bit).

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Answer 5

Sep 28, 2007 6:42 PM in response to ITpro4Mac

Sorry about that, I did mean 11 mystics. That was really a very bad typo even for the late hour I can't beleive I did not see that.
I am glad you found it.
Congratulations on having a smart kid who knows to email her work to herself. I wish my students would do that more often. I don't think that I would buy Power Point just because of the font issue. Keynote is so much better and as suggested in a previous post there is always the QT or PDF export option.
Mireille

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