Presentation Guidelines

Oral presentations

Oral presentations in parallel sessions in the FCCC will be synchronized. The time slot for oral presentations in all regular sessions is 20 minutes. This includes time for questions and discussions, plus some time to allow persons in the audience to go to another session. Your talk should therefore roughly be 15 minutes long.

Each room for oral presentations will be equipped with a PC running Windows XP. The PC's will have a DVD drive and Microsoft PowerPoint 2003, Acrobat Reader 7 and OpenOffice will be available. The use of PowerPoint 2007 is discouraged, unless files are saved in the old 2003 format, and checked to work with PowerPoint 2003. The PC's in the oral sessions will also have a wired internet connection.

You are requested to upload your presentation in the Speaker Ready Room at the latest 3 hours before the start of the session. You will not be allowed to use your own laptop for your presentation! Nor should you give your CD, DVD or USB stick directly to the technical staff in the session rooms!

You have to bring your presentation on a CD (ISO-9660 format), DVD (UDF format) or on a USB pen drive (DOS formatted) to Antwerp. Please hand the CD, DVD or USB stick to the technical staff in the Speaker ready room (in the back of the Loos Hall) at least 3 hours before the start of your session. They will upload your presentation and will make sure it is available in the relevant room before the start of your session. In the case of morning sessions, your presentation must be delivered the day before (before 16:00). Afterwards, please keep the CD, DVD or USB stick available during the presentation - this will only be needed in the case of emergency.

You are requested to check that your presentation is properly displayed by the equipment in the Speaker Ready Room at the time when you deliver it to the technician. Please note that the organisers cannot be held liable for any loss of images during data transfer. No slide editing facilities will be available in the session halls; desktop computers will be available for editing in the Speaker ready room for very limited last minute changes only. The PC's in the Speaker Ready Room have an identical setup as in the session rooms.

Please make sure to be in the session room about 15 minutes before the start of the session in order to check the presentation system with the technician.

Your presentation should be prepared in Microsoft PowerPoint (2000, 2003 or XP) format, in PDF format or in OpenOffice format. In case your presentation needs any special fonts, e.g. for phonetic symbols or for languages such as Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, etc., we recommend to generate a PDF document. Note that this will possibly disable some dynamic features of your PowerPoint presentation. If you really need those features, you can generate a self-contained version of your presentation using the "Pack and Go Wizard" in the PowerPoint file menu. Make sure to activate the switches "Include linked files" and "Embed TrueType fonts". You don't need to include the "Viewer for Windows", however. The two resulting files are "pngsetup.exe" and "pres0.ppz". You must create the “Pack and Go” files on your own computer. It is strongly recommended that you do this before you come to Antwerp. Also, we strongly recommend that you verify the correct operation of your “Pack and Go” presentation on another computer before you bring it to Antwerp. But even then, you should carefully test the presentation on one of the computers in the Speaker Ready Room.

Some points of attention regarding the content of your presentation:

• Please indicate your initial of your first name and the full last name in the footer of your PowerPoint slides (e.g. J. Smith)
• Preferred page set-up is landscape orientation (portrait orientation may not be displayed properly)
• Use high-contrast lettering and a readable font (minimum font size is 24)
• Use high-contrast colours: light text on dark background or vice versa
• A maximum of 7 lines/slide and 5 words/line will improve the communication value of your slide (use keywords rather than complete sentences).
• Name your presentation with your name and session number (eg. ThB.O1, i.e. oral session 1 in Time slot B on Thursday)
• It is absolutely necessary that the files with videos and pictures are located in the same folder of the PowerPoint presentation. Moreover, they need to be copied in the folder before they are inserted in the presentation.
• The size of your PowerPoint presentation should not be larger than 50 MB, videos excluded.
• Video and audio fragments included in the presentation should use the standard codecs that are available in Windows XP, or QuickTime, or DivX. The use of proprietary codecs is not allowed since this will lead to video or audio that cannot be played in the session rooms.
• It is recommended not to use more than one video associated with a single slide.
• Before importing the pictures into the PowerPoint presentation, be sure that they are optimized in size by means of graphic software such as for example “Imaging”, “Photoshop”, “Photopaint”, “Paint shop pro”, etc.
• To keep the presentation to a suitable size, please use compressed .gif and .jpg pictures (different types of extensions will be accepted as well, provided that they are recognized by PowerPoint).
• Avoid excessive animation in the slides.

Poster presentations

Please be aware that a poster is not intended to be a reproduction of your paper in the proceedings.

The size of your poster should not be smaller than A0 landscape format (1.189 meters wide x 0.841 meters high) and must not exceed the size of the poster board, which is about 2 meters wide x 1.2 meters high. These boards therefore allow you to use one landscape A0 poster (or slightly larger) or two portrait A0 posters side by side.

Poster sessions are mostly two hours long, as indicated in the session tables. This is the time interval you should be present at your poster to answer questions. Note that all posters of the morning sessions have to be installed during the coffee break at 9:30 and should be removed before 12:30. The posters of the early afternoon sessions have to be ready at 13:00 and the boards should be cleared during the coffee break. For the late afternoon sessions, the posters should be installed during the coffee break and cleared before 18:30. Please make sure to place your poster at the right board! A poster presentation labeled "ThBP3.14" in the program has to use board "P3.14" that is located in room "P3". In case you have any questions, please contact your session chairperson. He/she will be on site 20 minutes before the session starts.

Recommendations for Posters

These recommendations are primarily meant for authors who are less familiar with poster sessions at conferences.

Poster sessions are a valuable method for authors to present papers and meet with interested attendees for in-depth technical discussions. Therefore, it is important that you display your results clearly to attract people who have an interest in your work and your paper. In order to make your poster presentation a success you should:

... before the Conference:

• Your poster should cover the key points of your work. The ideal poster is designed to (1) attract attention; (2) provide a brief overview of your work; and (3) initiate discussion and questions.
• The title of your poster should appear at the top in capital letters about 25mm (1 inch) high. Below the title, put the author(s) name(s) and affiliation(s).
• Carefully prepare your poster well in advance of the conference. There will be no time or materials available for last minute preparations at the conference. If you think you may need certain materials to repair the poster after travelling, bring them with you.
• Use color for highlighting and to make your poster more attractive. Think about what attracts you to posters and other visual displays. Use pictures, diagrams, cartoons, figures, etc., rather than only text wherever possible.
• The smallest text on your poster should be at least 9mm (3/8 inch) high, and the important points should be in a larger size.
• Make your poster as self-explanatory as possible. This will save you time to use for discussions and questions.

... at the Conference:

• Please make sure to locate your poster board and attach your poster according to the instructions and using the materials provided on site (don't bring your own tape or pushpins).
• Prepare a short presentation (several minutes) that you can periodically give to those assembled around your poster. Be ready to give it several times as people move through the area.
• If there is more than one author attending the conference, all should attend the poster presentation to aid in the presentation and discussion and to provide the main presenter with a chance to rest and to answer questions.
• There will be no audio-visual equipment for poster presentations. You have to print it out on paper (before the conference), bring it along and attach it on the poster board that will be assigned to you. For demonstrations you have to use your own equipment. Power strips will be available with correct local power plugs (230V/50Hz).
• Wireless internet connections will be available in the poster session rooms.