Job interview - powerpoint compatibilty between Mac and PC

[IceandIndigo]

I have a job interview next week and have been asked to give a powerpoint presentation. This sort of thing makes me nervous at the best of times. And, for the last 10 years I've been exclusively a Mac user, at home and work, but I'm guessing that this particular employer is more likely to be PC-based. If I've created the presentation using powerpoint for Mac, what's the best way to avoid any compatibility issues? Would it be reasonable to bring my own laptop? I know that memory sticks aren't normally compatible between Mac and PC.

TBH if they make me use a PC I am worried about pushing the wrong buttons and looking like an idiot who can't use a computer.

Within "Powerpoint for Mac" what do you have listed in the "Save As" options? I think the Windows version has an option to package the whole thing up in a way that means you can still run the presentation even if the presenting computer doesn't have Powerpoint installed, so I would guess there might be a "package this up so it will display on a PC happily" option.

Depending how complex your presentation is and how easy it is to cut and paste, you could transfer the presentation into Google Slides, which is the google-drive version of Powerpoint and would be accessible from any kind of computer.

I wouldn't take your own laptop - it would be offputting for a PC-based employer to think that you might be totally unfamiliar with the Windows environment, but it's totally understandable that some people might not have access to microsoft office applications as those licences are expensive!

I am a Mac user at home and a PC at work, never had any issues with compatibility ever. And honestly, there's nothing massively different about a PC these days.

I work in an environment where a lot of people give powerpoints with different software on different random computers

99% of regular USB memory sticks are compatible and are fine
99% of powerpoints are compatible and are fine (sometimes fonts go flaky).

if you want to be 100% confident

• save your powerpoint as a pdf as backup. you can show the pdf slides instead of the powerpoint because pdf is always compatible.
• bring your laptop - that is just fine. but make sure you have the adaptors for it (VGA and HDMI)
• Put your powerpoint on an online store (e.g. dropbox / google drive / apple cloud) and email a link to yourself. at the event from your phone, you can forward the link to the event organiser who can download your powerpoint to the event pc. This only works if you have plenty of setup time.

The one time I did a job interview with a tight schedule where I had to walk in & give the talk with no setup time, I did option 1.

Do you know anyone who would be able to lend you a windows laptop so you can check it looks OK, and familiarise yourself with a pc?

It's great you've identified this early - it's so easy to get caught out with this sort of thing. It might not be a bad thing to casually drop in during the interview - it demonstrates that you can anticipate problems and plan accordingly!

Can you save your PowerPoint slides as a pdf so you have a backup option?

Thanks everyone for your help.

Those people saying they've never had compatibility issues, does that include transferring files on a memory stick?

Yes I can save the files as PDF but I would lose the ability to use Presenter view with the slide timings and notes, which I find helpful as someone who isn't a super confident presenter. I have ASD and interviews cause me a lot of anxiety.

My husband has a PC but uses it constantly for his work, I might see if I can borrow it this weekend though.

I'll look into Google slides but have not used that before.

@FaazoHuyzeoSix the 'Save As' options are various Powerpoint formats and something called OpenDocument presentation, which may be the thing you're talking about?

Some of my slides have a lot of graphics so I'd be nervous they might not display properly in a non-Powerpoint format. I just had a look at Google Slides and uploaded them on there and several slides went wrong.

I haven't had problems with this either. Having pdf is a good emerback up as suggested and email the slides to yourself too so you can access them that way. If you use emails on your mac all the time, make sure you know the password for your email account.

Is your Powerpoint ready?

@OldPosterNewUsername I am still working on the presentation but mainly minor tweaks.

I can't help specifically, other than to think if it's Powerpoint, it should work on a PC as well as it does on your Mac. However, the one thing that did occur to me is to check that the font you're using is available on a PC as well as on your Mac.

A Powerpoint presentation created on a Mac should work on a PC and vice versa. However, it's worth trying the presentation out on your husband's PC to ensure that there are no problems.

If it would help you I can PM you an email address of mine (no names) to see if it opens on Windows.

Also best to use standard fonts rather than imported ones (Roboto Flex is one that doesn't travel well between Windows and Mac for example)

changing to Google Slides or OpenDocument will mess stuff up.

saving in pdf will NOT mess things up - pdf is like a printer, so what you see on the screen on computer A is what you see on computer B, for all types of computer. But it does not do animations etc.

USB keys work on all computers, as long as the document saved on the USB key is in the right format, i.e. powerpoint or pdf.