A Few Quick Tips on Using PowerPoint For Your Presentation

A Few Quick Tips on Using PowerPoint For Your Presentation

  1.  Keep the slides simple and don’t put too many words on them.  The object is for your audience to see, not read, the material.
  2. Use “Title” page with the presentation’s name, Organization name, Company logo, and date.  Make sure the slide is not crowded.
  3. Prepare a bulleted Agenda Page
  4. The slides in the presentation’s body should contain only keywords or statements to discuss the main point.   Your talking points on each slide should not be displayed at the same time.  Instead, they should be presented one at a time, in bullet point form, each time you hit the space bar.  The audience will almost instantly read every slide as soon as it’s displayed if you do not do this.  If you have the next four points you plan to make up there, they’ll be three steps ahead of you, waiting for you to catch up rather than listening with interest to the point you’re making.  Remember, the text on a slide is primarily there for you to expand on.
  5. Graphs and charts are okay, just make sure they are as “stripped down” as possible (ie: you can’t have too much going on.  If it is too busy, you will lose the viewer).  Labeling is very important.
  6. For the most part, try to avoid the temptation to dress up your pages with the splashy effects available in the Program and focus instead on simple design basics.
  7. Avoid clutter in your slides, make sure text is aligned.  The alignment is usually left to right.  Centered text is harder to read and is often seen as amateurish.
  8. You should have dark text on a light background, not visa-versa and the font should be a simple sans serif font such as Ariel or Calibri.
  9. Your presentation should end with a Summary slide, listing the main points just discussed.
  10. You should also end with a “Questions” slide, providing the audience an opportunity to ask questions.
  11. Always try to have a backup plan.  In other words, a second copy of your  presentation on a flash drive and if possible, access to a second laptop or projector in case something goes wrong
  12.  Lastly, have fun with it!
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