If you want to incorporate up-to-the-minute information into your presentation, you’ll take advantage of the huge array of multimedia tools available. However, if you want to minimize the stress of delivering a presentation and ensure that things run smoothly, it might pay to resist the temptation to overload on high-tech special effects. No matter how many times you practice your delivery, incorporating live Web sites into a presentation can often be a recipe for disaster. We’re all familiar with the unpredictability of the Internet, and as Murphy’s Law would have it, odds are you’ll get a bad connection or an overloaded site during your big presentation!

If you want to integrate Web sites into your presentation, while guaranteeing that things will run smoothly, fear not – there is a way! You can either paste the image of the Web site into your PowerPoint presentation (make sure you check out the copyright details), or you can simulate a live link with hyperlinking. In order to add a hyperlink, you’ll have to download the HTML files from the site onto your laptop’s hard disk.

The beauty of hyperlinking is that it appears to your audience that you are linking live to a site. In actuality, you are using a previously cached copy of that site, but your audience will never know the difference. You can retain your reputation as a tech wizard, without worrying about the likelihood of an Internet crash!

Step-by-step instructions for creating a hyperlink are available on Presentations' Web site.