Question

What tools do data scientists use for presentations?

Answer

Quite a number of data scientists I know (myself included) use reveal.js. There are a few things that makes reveal.js nice to use:

  1. It integrates well with version control systems such as git.
  2. The fact that the presentation is hosted as a web page means that you don't need to send around PowerPoint files anymore. Just send around the link will be sufficient, and the audience will always access the newest version.
  3. It has a lot of bells and whistles built-in if you are willing to fiddle with html/css. Check out this presentation on reveal.js, made using, well, reveal.js.
  4. Editing the slide is actually pretty easy - most of the presentation I make can be handled with basic markdown syntax.

With that said, it's not without its drawbacks:

  1. If your presentation has to be modified by people who are not used to coding, it can be a no-go right off the bat.
  2. If you have confidential info in your presentation and your company doesn't have a infrastructure to host these presentations (as in a secure internal web server), you may have to set up servers yourself...
  3. Exact adjustments and placements with multiple elements (text boxes, tables, images, ... etc) is much easier to do in PowerPoint.

(Originally answered on quora: What tools do data scientists use for presentations?)


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