3

I need to present my data in various graphs. Usually what I do is to take a screenshot of my graph (I almost exclusively make them with matplotlib) and paste it into my PowerPoint.

Unfortunately my direct superior seems not to be happy with the way I present them. Sometimes he wants certain things in log scale and sometimes he dislike my color palette. The data is all there, but because its an image there's no way I can change that in the meeting.

My superior seems to really care about those things and spend quite a lot of time telling me how to make plots in every single meeting. He (usually) will not comment on my data before I make a plot the way he wants.

That's where my question becomes relevant. Right now what I have in my mind is to have an interactive canvas embedded in my PowerPoint such that I can change the range of the axis, color of my data point, etc in real time. I have been searching online for such a thing but it comes out empty. I wonder if that could be done and how can it be done?

For some simple graphs Excel plot may work, but usually I have to present things in 1D or 2D histograms/density plots with millions of entries. Sometimes I have to fit points with complicated mathematical formulas and that's something Excel is incapable of doing and I must use scipy and pandas.

The closest thing to this I found online is rise with jupyter which convert a jupyter notebook into a slide show. I think that is a good start which allows me to run python code in real time inside the presentation, but I would like to use PowerPoint related solutions if possible, mostly because I am familiar with how PowerPoint works and I still find certain PowerPoint features useful.

Thank you for all your help. While I do prefer PowerPoint, any other products that allows me to modify plots in my presentation in real time or alternatives of rise are welcomed.

prosoitos
  • 6,679
  • 5
  • 27
  • 41
Tommy Tsang
  • 165
  • 1
  • 2
  • 9

3 Answers3

4

Why not to use Jupyter Slides?

if you have jupyter installed you should be able to run this command.

jupyter nbconvert name_of_your_jupyter_notebook.ipynb --to slides --post serve

Kamil Niski
  • 4,580
  • 1
  • 11
  • 24
  • While this link may answer the question, it is better to include the essential parts of the answer here and provide the link for reference. Link-only answers can become invalid if the linked page changes. - [From Review](/review/low-quality-posts/21007994) – Emil Stenström Oct 01 '18 at 12:49
  • 1
    Ok, i added the command which needs to be executed. Should be sufficient. – Kamil Niski Oct 01 '18 at 13:10
3

When putting a picture in PowerPoint you can decide whether you want to embed it or link to it. If you decide to link to the picture, you would be free to change it outside of powerpoint. This opens up the possibility for the following workflow: Next to your presentation you have a Python IDE or Juypter notebook open with the scripts that generate the figures. They all have a savefig command in them to save to exactly the location on disc from where you link the images in PowerPoint. If you need to change the figure, you make the changes in the python code, run the script (or cell) and switch back to PowerPoint where the newly created image is updated.

Note that I would not recommend putting too much effort into finding a better solution to this, but rather spend the time thinking about good visual reprentations of the data, due to the following reasons: 1. If your instrutor's demands are completely unreasonable ("I like blue better than green, so you need to use blue.") than it's not worth spending effort into satisfying their demands at all. 2. If your instrutor's demands are based on the fact that the current reprentation does not allow to interprete the data correctly, this can be prevented by spending more thoughts on good plots prior to the presentation. This is a learning process, which I guess your instructor wants you to internalize. After all, you won't get a degree in computer science for writing a PowerPoint backend to matplotlib, but rather for being able to present your research in a way suited for your subject.

ImportanceOfBeingErnest
  • 321,279
  • 53
  • 665
  • 712
  • Of course link the picture! How could I not know about this! Many thanks! Yes while I was typing my question I have a feeling that this maybe a xy problem. Probably you are right about your last paragraph. Until my graphing skill improves, I agree that anything more complicated than linking pictures do not worth the time. Thanks again for your valuable instructions. – Tommy Tsang Oct 01 '18 at 17:37
  • 1
    @TommyTsang Powerpoint's links can be quite fragile and break easily. If the link to your picture breaks, you get an image of a red x instead of your graph. However, PPT has a kind of Link+Embed option. When inserting the picture, click the triangle next to INSERT and choose Link and Embed. Powerpoint will then update the link when you change the picture IF the picture's available but will use the embedded picture if not. No missing images. – Steve Rindsberg Oct 02 '18 at 14:35
0

This would be my preferred and simplest solution

https://rise.readthedocs.io/en/docs_hot_fixes/index.html

The RISE Reveal.js extension install and then just click on the bargraph icon to launch. Runs in notebook not lab and allows you to edit slide in presentation mode without exiting.

Rodney Beard
  • 89
  • 9