How To Set Out A Powerpoint Presentation

People holding a virtual meeting Slideshows are quick to produce, easy to update and an constructive way to inject visual involvement into near whatsoever presentation.

However, slideshows can besides spell disaster even for experienced presenters. The central to success is to brand certain your slideshow is a visual aid and not a visual lark.

Tips for Making Constructive PowerPoint Presentations

Apply the slide master feature to create a consistent and simple pattern template. It is fine to vary the content presentation (bulleted list, ii-cavalcade text, text and paradigm, etc.), but exist consistent with other elements such as font, colors and background.
Simplify and limit the number of words on each screen. Use key phrases and include merely essential information.
Limit punctuation and avoid putting words in all-majuscule letters. Empty space on the slide will heighten readability.
Use contrasting colors for text and background. Light text on a dark background is best. Patterned backgrounds tin can reduce readability.
Avoid the use of flashy transitions such as text wing-ins. These features may seem impressive at outset but are distracting and get sometime quickly.
Overuse of special effects such every bit animation and sounds may make your presentation "cutesy" and could negatively bear on your credibility.
Use good-quality images that reinforce and complement your message. Ensure that your image maintains its touch and resolution when projected on a larger screen.
If y'all use builds (lines of text actualization each time you click the mouse), have content appear on the screen in a consistent, simple fashion; from the top or left is best. Use the characteristic merely when necessary to brand your bespeak, because builds tin ho-hum your presentation.
Limit the number of slides. Presenters who constantly "flip" to the next slide are likely to lose their audition. A good rule of thumb is 1 slide per minute.
Learn to navigate your presentation in a nonlinear fashion. PowerPoint allows the presenter to jump alee or back without having to page through all the interim slides.
Know how to and practice moving forward and backward inside your presentation. Audiences oft ask to encounter a previous screen again.
If possible, view your slides on the screen you'll exist using for your presentation. Make sure the slides are readable from the dorsum row seats. Text and graphic images should exist large enough to read simply not then large every bit to appear "loud."
Have a Plan B in the upshot of technical difficulties. Remember that transparencies and handouts will not prove animation or other special effects.
Practise with someone who has never seen your presentation. Enquire them for honest feedback well-nigh colors, content and whatever effects or graphic images y'all've included.
Do non read from your slides. The content of your slides is for the audience, non for the presenter.
Do non speak to your slides. Many presenters face their presentation onscreen rather than their audience.
Do not apologize for anything in your presentation. If yous believe something will be hard to read or sympathise, don't employ it.

The Seven Deadly Sins of PowerPoint Presentations

By Joseph Sommerville

It'due south non surprising PowerPoint© slideshows take get the norm for visuals in most business organisation presentations. Slideshows are quick to produce, like shooting fish in a barrel to update and effective to inject visual interest into the presentation. However, slideshows can also spell disaster even for experienced presenters. The fundamental to success is to make certain your slide evidence is a visual aid and non a visual distraction. For the best results, avoid these common "7 deadly sins" of PowerPoint© presentations.

Slide Transitions And Audio Effects: Transitions and sound effects tin can get the focus of attention, which in turn distracts the audience. Worse yet, when a presentation containing several effects and transitions runs on a computer much slower than the one on which it was created, the effect is a sluggish, almost comical when viewed. Such gimmicks rarely enhance the message you're trying to communicate. Unless yous are presenting at a scientific discipline fiction convention, go out out the laser-guided text! Leave the fade-ins, fade-outs, wipes, blinds, dissolves, checkerboards, cuts, covers and splits to Hollywood filmmakers. Even "builds" (lines of text actualization each time you lot click the mouse) can be distracting. Focus on your message, not the applied science..
Standard Clipart: Death to screen beans! PowerPoint© is now and then widely used the clipart included with it has go a "visual cliché." Information technology shows a lack of inventiveness and a tired adherence to a standard form. First, make certain that yous need graphical images to raise your message. If you do, apply your own scanned photographs or better-quality graphics from companies such as PhotoDisc (world wide web.photodisc.com) or Hemera'south Photo Objects (world wide web.hemera.com). Screen captures can add together realism when presenting data about a Website or computer plan. 2 popular screen capture programs are Snagit (www.techsmith.com) for Windows and Snapz Pro (www.ambrosiasw.com) for Macintosh. Both are bachelor as shareware.
Presentation Templates:Another visual cliché. Templates forcefulness you to fit your original ideas into someone else's pre-packaged mold. The templates ofttimes contain distracting backgrounds and poor colour combinations. Select a practiced book on Web graphics and employ the same principles to your slides. Create your own distinctive look or use your company logo in a corner of the screen.
Text-Heavy Slides: Projected slides are a good medium for depicting an idea graphically or providing an overview. Slides are a poor medium for detail and reading. Avoid paragraphs, quotations and even consummate sentences. Limit your slides to five lines of text and use words and phrases to make your points. The audition will be able to digest and retain key points more easily. Don't utilize your slides as speaker's notes or to only project an outline of your presentation.
The "Me" Paradigm: Presenters often scan a table or graphical image directly from their existing print corporate cloth and include information technology in their slide bear witness presentations. The results are almost always sub-optimal. Impress visuals are normally meant to be seen from 8-12 inches rather than viewed from several feet. Typically, these images are too pocket-sized, too detailed and besides textual for an effective visual presentation. The same is true for font size; 12 betoken font is adequate when the text is in front of y'all. In a slideshow, aim for a minimum of 40 indicate font. Think the audience and move the circle from "me" to "we." Brand certain all elements of any item slide are large plenty to be seen hands. Size really does matter.
Reading: A verbal presentation should focus on interactive speaking and listening, not reading by the speaker or the audience. The demands of spoken and written language differ significantly. Spoken linguistic communication is shorter, less formal and more direct. Reading text ruins a presentation. A related indicate has to practise with handouts for the audience. One of your goals as a presenter is to capture and concur the audience's attention. If you distribute materials earlier your presentation, your audience will exist reading the handouts rather than listening to you. Often, parts of an effective presentation depend on creating suspense to engage the audition. If the audience tin read everything y'all're going to say, that element is lost.
Faith in Technology: You never know when an equipment malfunction or incompatible interfaces will force yous to give your presentation on another computer. Be prepared by having a back-up of your presentation on a CD-ROM. Better yet is a compact-wink memory card with an adapter for the PCMCIA slot in your notebook. With information technology, you tin can yet make last-minute changes. It'southward besides a skillful idea to gear up a few colour transparencies of your primal slides. In the worst-case scenario, none of the engineering works and you take no visuals to present. You should all the same exist able to give an excellent presentation if you focus on the message. Always familiarize yourself with the presentation, practice it and exist prepare to appoint the audience regardless of the technology that is bachelor. It's nearly a lost art.

Joseph Sommerville has earned the title "The Presentation Skillful" for helping professionals design, develop and deliver more than constructive presentations. He is the principal of Peak Communication Functioning, a Houston-based business firm working worldwide to help professionals develop skills in strategic communication.

Tips for Constructive PowerPoint Presentations

Fonts

Select a single sans-serif fonts such equally Arial or Helvetica. Avoid serif fonts such equally Times New Roman or Palatino considering these fonts are sometimes more hard to read.
Utilize no font size smaller than 24 betoken.
Use the same font for all your headlines.
Select a font for body copy and another for headlines.
Use bold and different sizes of those fonts for captions and subheadings.
Add together a fourth font for page numbers or equally a secondary body font for sidebars.
Don't utilise more than 4 fonts in whatsoever one publication.
Clearly label each screen. Use a larger font (35-45 points) or different colour for the title.
Use larger fonts to betoken importance.
Utilize unlike colors, sizes and styles (east.g., assuming) for impact.
Avoid italicized fonts equally these are hard to read quickly.
Avoid long sentences.
Avert abbreviations and acronyms.
Limit punctuation marks.
No more than than 6-8 words per line
For bullet points, utilise the 6 10 6 Rule. Ane idea per line with no more than 6 words per line and no more than 6 lines per slide
Use dark text on low-cal groundwork or light text on nighttime background. However, night backgrounds sometimes make information technology difficult for some people to read the text.
Do non utilise all caps except for titles.
Put repeating elements (like folio numbers) in the same location on each page of a multi-page document.
To test the font, stand six feet from the monitor and see if you tin read the slide.

Design and Graphical Images

Use blueprint templates.
Standardize position, colors, and styles.
Include only necessary information.
Limit the data to essentials.
Content should be cocky-axiomatic
Use colors that dissimilarity and compliment.
As well may slides tin can lose your audience.
Keep the groundwork consistent and subtle.
Limit the number of transitions used. It is oft amend to use only i so the audience knows what to look.
Use a single style of dingbat for bullets throughout the folio.
Utilize the same graphical rule at the top of all pages in a multi-page document.
Use i or two large images rather than several small images.
Prioritize images instead of a avalanche of images for competing attention.
Make images all the same size.
Use the aforementioned border.
Arrange images vertically or horizontally.
Use just enough text when using charts or graphical images to explain the nautical chart or graph and conspicuously label the epitome.
Keep the pattern make clean and uncluttered. Leave empty space around the text and graphical images.
Use quality clipart and use it sparingly. A graphical image should relate to and enhance the topic of the slide.
Endeavour to use the same style graphical epitome throughout the presentation (eastward.k., cartoon, photographs)
Limit the number of graphical images on each slide.
Repetition of an prototype reinforces the message. Necktie the number of copies of an prototype to the numbers in your text.
Resize, recolor, contrary to turn 1 paradigm into many. Use duplicates of varying sizes, colors, and orientations to multiply the usefulness of a single clip art epitome.
Make a unmarried image stand out with dramatic dissimilarity. Utilise color to make a dramatic change to a unmarried copy of your prune fine art.
Check all images on a projection screen before the actual presentation.
Avert flashy images and noisy animation effects unless information technology relates directly to the slide.

Color

Limit the number of colors on a single screen.
Vivid colors make pocket-size objects and thin lines stand up out. Still, some vibrant colors are difficult to read when projected.
Use no more than four colors on one chart.
Check all colors on a project screen before the actual presentation. Colors may project differently than what appears on the monitor.

General Presentation

Plan advisedly.
Do your research.
Know your audience.
Fourth dimension your presentation.
Speak comfortably and clearly.
Check the spelling and grammar.
Do non read the presentation. Do the presentation so you can speak from bullet points. The text should be a cue for the presenter rather than a message for the viewer.
Give a brief overview at the start. So present the information. Finally review important points.
Information technology is often more effective to have bulleted points appear one at a time and so the audition listens to the presenter rather than reading the screen.
Use a wireless mouse or pick upwards the wired mouse and so you can move effectually as you lot speak.
If audio effects are used, wait until the sound has finished to speak.
If the content is circuitous, impress the slides then the audience tin can have notes.
Do not turn your back on the audience. Try to position the monitor so you can speak from information technology.

Additional Resources

Download Interactive Slide Prove | Designing Effective PowerPoint Presentations | 53 slides
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