The Big Presentation: The Familiar, the Frustrating and the Flashy

"One of my biggest concerns when I adopted the Linux OS over Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) Windows was Linux's ability to supply me with a robust presentation program. I did lots of lecturing and instructional seminars. Those activities required a product that closely mimicked Microsoft PowerPoint quality. The resulting file also had to be compatible with PowerPoint.

"My first foray into a replacement for the Microsoft Office suite of which PowerPoint is an industry staple was the close look-alike bundle from OpenOffice.org. Its presentation module, called "Impress," did a great job of doing exactly that -- impressing me.

"Impress let me work much the same as if I were still using PowerPoint. It botched some of the display elements when viewed in PowerPoint, however. But if I avoided the really fancy stuff in my slide designs, I got few complaints from colleagues who imported the Impress presentations in Windows."

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