Serial Digital

The use of Plasma screens, LCD monitors, and modern 16:9 ratio projectors are becoming a common alternative to the traditional 4:3 projector screen for PowerPoint presentations. If you need to display a PowerPoint presentation on a 16:9 monitor, here are a few tips:

If you have the luxury of creating your PowerPoint presentation solely for a 16:9 screen, you can format your presentation in 16:9 – adjust the ‘Page Setup’ menu – in PowerPoint 2007, select the 16:9 slide preset, or in PowerPoint 2003 or earlier, enter a custom size of 16 in by 9 in.

If you need to display your presentation on a combination of different display devices, you need to decide whether to create your presentation in 4:3 and pillarbox it on a widescreen display, or create it in 16:9 and letterbox it on a 4:3 display.

When you get to outputting your presentation on a 16:9 display, you will need to configure your laptop or computer’s display output to run at a 16:9 aspect ratio – right-click your desktop, choose ‘Properties’ (or ‘Personalize, then choose ‘Display Settings’ in Windows Vista), and on the Settings tab, choose a widescreen resolution.

Unless you know the resolution of the projector, LCD, or Plasma display that you’ll be using, the most generic widescreen resolution is 1280×720 (which is the resolution for 720p HDTV).

If you want to display a 4:3 presentation on a 16:9 display, you still need to set the display output resolution of your computer or laptop to a 16:9 ratio, like 1280×720, but then simply run your 4:3 presentation, and PowerPoint will automatically Pillarbox it for you.

The reverse will apply if you want to display a 16:9 presentation on a 4:3 display – just set your display output to a 4:3 resolution such as 1024×768, and run your presentation, and PowerPoint will automatically letterbox the presentation for you.