Itã¢ââ¢s Ok to Not Know Itã¢ââ¢s Not Ok to Not Try Clip Art

Slideshows are quick to produce, like shooting fish in a barrel to update and an effective manner to inject visual interest into well-nigh any presentation.

However, slideshows tin can also spell disaster fifty-fifty for experienced presenters. The key to success is to brand certain your slideshow is a visual assist and not a visual lark.

Tips for Making Effective PowerPoint Presentations

• Use the slide master feature to create a consistent and simple pattern template. It is fine to vary the content presentation (bulleted list, two-column text, text and image, etc.), but exist consistent with other elements such as font, colors and background.
• Simplify and limit the number of words on each screen. Use cardinal phrases and include only essential information.
• Limit punctuation and avert putting words in all-capital messages. Empty space on the slide will enhance readability.
• Use contrasting colors for text and groundwork. Light text on a dark groundwork is all-time. Patterned backgrounds can reduce readability.
• Avoid the use of flashy transitions such as text fly-ins. These features may seem impressive at first but are distracting and go old quickly.
• Overuse of special furnishings such as animation and sounds may make your presentation "cutesy" and could negatively affect your brownie.
• Employ good-quality images that reinforce and complement your message. Ensure that your image maintains its impact and resolution when projected on a larger screen.
• If you use builds (lines of text appearing each fourth dimension you click the mouse), take content appear on the screen in a consistent, uncomplicated manner; from the meridian or left is all-time. Employ the feature just when necessary to make your betoken, considering builds can slow your presentation.
• Limit the number of slides. Presenters who constantly "flip" to the next slide are probable to lose their audition. A skillful rule of thumb is 1 slide per minute.
• Learn to navigate your presentation in a nonlinear fashion. PowerPoint allows the presenter to jump ahead or back without having to page through all the interim slides.
• Know how to and practice moving forward and backward within your presentation. Audiences ofttimes ask to meet a previous screen again.
• If possible, view your slides on the screen yous'll be using for your presentation. Make certain the slides are readable from the back row seats. Text and graphic images should be large enough to read but not so big as to announced "loud."
• Have a Plan B in the effect of technical difficulties. Call up that transparencies and handouts volition not show blitheness or other special furnishings.
• Practise with someone who has never seen your presentation. Ask them for honest feedback nigh colors, content and any effects or graphic images yous've included.
• Practise non read from your slides. The content of your slides is for the audience, not for the presenter.
• Do not speak to your slides. Many presenters face their presentation onscreen rather than their audience.
• Exercise not apologize for anything in your presentation. If yous believe something volition be hard to read or understand, don't employ information technology.

The Seven Deadly Sins of PowerPoint Presentations

By Joseph Sommerville

It's not surprising PowerPoint© slideshows have become the norm for visuals in most business presentations. Slideshows are quick to produce, easy to update and effective to inject visual interest into the presentation. However, slideshows can also spell disaster even for experienced presenters. The key to success is to brand certain your slide bear witness is a visual aid and not a visual distraction. For the all-time results, avoid these common "seven deadly sins" of PowerPoint© presentations.

1. Slide Transitions And Audio Effects: Transitions and audio effects can get the focus of attention, which in plough 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 outcome is a sluggish, nearly comical when viewed. Such gimmicks rarely heighten the bulletin you're trying to communicate. Unless yous are presenting at a scientific discipline fiction convention, leave out the laser-guided text! Exit the fade-ins, fade-outs, wipes, blinds, dissolves, checkerboards, cuts, covers and splits to Hollywood filmmakers. Fifty-fifty "builds" (lines of text appearing each time you click the mouse) can be distracting. Focus on your bulletin, not the applied science..
   
2. Standard Clipart: Death to screen beans! PowerPoint© is now and then widely used the clipart included with information technology has become a "visual platitude." It shows a lack of creativity and a tired adherence to a standard form. First, make certain that you need graphical images to raise your bulletin. If y'all do, use your ain scanned photographs or better-quality graphics from companies such as PhotoDisc (world wide web.photodisc.com) or Hemera's Photo Objects (www.hemera.com). Screen captures tin add realism when presenting data about a Website or computer program. Ii popular screen capture programs are Snagit (www.techsmith.com) for Windows and Snapz Pro (www.ambrosiasw.com) for Macintosh. Both are available equally shareware.
   
3. Presentation Templates:Another visual cliché. Templates forcefulness you to fit your original ideas into someone else's pre-packaged mold. The templates frequently contain distracting backgrounds and poor color combinations. Select a good book on Web graphics and utilise the aforementioned principles to your slides. Create your ain distinctive look or utilise your visitor logo in a corner of the screen.
   
4. 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. Avert paragraphs, quotations and even consummate sentences. Limit your slides to five lines of text and use words and phrases to make your points. The audience will be able to digest and retain primal points more than easily. Don't use your slides as speaker'due south notes or to only projection an outline of your presentation.
   
5. The "Me" Paradigm: Presenters ofttimes scan a table or graphical image directly from their existing impress corporate material and include information technology in their slide bear witness presentations. The results are nigh always sub-optimal. Print visuals are usually meant to be seen from 8-12 inches rather than viewed from several feet. Typically, these images are besides small, too detailed and too textual for an constructive visual presentation. The aforementioned is true for font size; 12 point font is adequate when the text is in front of you. In a slideshow, aim for a minimum of 40 betoken font. Remember the audience and move the circle from "me" to "we." Make certain all elements of any particular slide are large enough to exist seen hands. Size actually does matter.
   
6. Reading: A exact presentation should focus on interactive speaking and listening, non reading by the speaker or the audience. The demands of spoken and written language differ significantly. Spoken language is shorter, less formal and more direct. Reading text ruins a presentation. A related indicate has to practise with handouts for the audience. Ane of your goals as a presenter is to capture and agree the audition'south attention. If you distribute materials before your presentation, your audition will exist reading the handouts rather than listening to y'all. Often, parts of an effective presentation depend on creating suspense to engage the audience. If the audience can read everything you're going to say, that element is lost.
   
7. Organized religion in Technology: You never know when an equipment malfunction or incompatible interfaces volition strength you to give your presentation on another computer. Exist prepared by having a back-upwardly of your presentation on a CD-ROM. Amend yet is a compact-flash memory menu with an adapter for the PCMCIA slot in your notebook. With it, you tin nonetheless make last-minute changes. It'due south also a good idea to set a few colour transparencies of your key slides. In the worst-example scenario, none of the technology works and you have no visuals to present. You should still be able to give an splendid presentation if you focus on the bulletin. Always familiarize yourself with the presentation, do it and be ready to appoint the audition regardless of the engineering that is available. It'southward almost a lost art.

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

Tips for Effective PowerPoint Presentations

Fonts

• Select a single sans-serif fonts such as Arial or Helvetica. Avoid serif fonts such equally Times New Roman or Palatino because these fonts are sometimes more hard to read.
• Use no font size smaller than 24 signal.
• Apply the aforementioned font for all your headlines.
• Select a font for body copy and some other for headlines.
• Use bold and dissimilar sizes of those fonts for captions and subheadings.
• Add together a 4th font for page numbers or as a secondary body font for sidebars.
• Don't employ more than than iv fonts in any one publication.
• Clearly label each screen. Use a larger font (35-45 points) or unlike color for the title.
• Use larger fonts to bespeak importance.
• Apply different colors, sizes and styles (e.1000., bold) for impact.
• Avoid italicized fonts as these are difficult to read apace.
• Avert long sentences.
• Avoid abbreviations and acronyms.
• Limit punctuation marks.
• No more than vi-8 words per line
• For bullet points, use the six 10 6 Rule. One thought per line with no more than half-dozen words per line and no more than than 6 lines per slide
• Apply night text on light groundwork or light text on dark background. However, nighttime backgrounds sometimes brand information technology difficult for some people to read the text.
• Practice not use all caps except for titles.
• Put repeating elements (like page numbers) in the same location on each folio of a multi-page document.
•  To examination the font, stand half dozen feet from the monitor and see if you can read the slide.

Design and Graphical Images

• Use blueprint templates.
• Standardize position, colors, and styles.
• Include simply necessary information.
• Limit the data to essentials.
• Content should be self-axiomatic
• Use colors that dissimilarity and compliment.
• As well may slides tin lose your audition.
• Keep the background consistent and subtle.
• Limit the number of transitions used. Information technology is often meliorate to apply only one and then the audience knows what to expect.
• Employ a single mode of dingbat for bullets throughout the page.
• Employ the aforementioned graphical rule at the top of all pages in a multi-page certificate.
• Apply one or two large images rather than several small images.
• Prioritize images instead of a barrage of images for competing attention.
• Make images all the same size.
• Use the aforementioned border.
• Arrange images vertically or horizontally.
• Utilise only enough text when using charts or graphical images to explicate the chart or graph and clearly label the image.
• Proceed the pattern clean and uncluttered. Get out empty space effectually the text and graphical images.
• Use quality clipart and use it sparingly. A graphical paradigm should relate to and enhance the topic of the slide.
• Try to use the aforementioned style graphical image throughout the presentation (e.k., cartoon, photographs)
• Limit the number of graphical images on each slide.
• Repetition of an image reinforces the message. Tie the number of copies of an image to the numbers in your text.
• Resize, recolor, reverse to turn 1 epitome into many. Use duplicates of varying sizes, colors, and orientations to multiply the usefulness of a single clip art image.
• Make a single image stand out with dramatic dissimilarity. Employ colour to make a dramatic change to a single copy of your clip art.
• Check all images on a projection screen earlier the actual presentation.
• Avoid flashy images and noisy animation furnishings unless it relates direct to the slide.

Color

• Limit the number of colors on a single screen.
• Bright colors brand pocket-size objects and thin lines stand out. However, some vibrant colors are hard to read when projected.
• Use no more than four colors on ane chart.
• Bank check all colors on a project screen earlier the actual presentation. Colors may project differently than what appears on the monitor.

General Presentation

• Plan carefully.
• Do your research.
• Know your audition.
• Time your presentation.
• Speak comfortably and clearly.
• Check the spelling and grammer.
• Do not read the presentation. Practice the presentation so y'all can speak from bullet points. The text should be a cue for the presenter rather than a bulletin for the viewer.
• Give a brief overview at the start. So present the information. Finally review important points.
• Information technology is often more constructive to have bulleted points appear one at a time and then the audience listens to the presenter rather than reading the screen.
• Employ a wireless mouse or pick upwardly the wired mouse then y'all tin move around as you speak.
• If sound effects are used, expect until the sound has finished to speak.
• If the content is complex, print the slides then the audience tin can have notes.
• Do not plow your dorsum on the audience. Try to position the monitor so yous can speak from it.

Additional Resources

• Download Interactive Slide Show | Designing Effective PowerPoint Presentations | 53 slides
• Legislative Staff Services

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Source: https://www.ncsl.org/legislators-staff/legislative-staff/legislative-staff-coordinating-committee/tips-for-making-effective-powerpoint-presentations.aspx

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