Create impactful PowerPoint presentations with these essential rules. From using templates effectively to engaging your audience with interactive tools, these tips will help you deliver clear, professional, and visually appealing presentations.
Making your presentation over-complicated is a very easy trap to fall into. Many speakers make the mistake of giving away too much information.
In reality, giving a presentation is an entirely different genre from writing a technical report.
A strong visual speaks louder than words. Improve the way you present, teach and promote yourself adn your ideas with striking presentations. Make sure you get the right people to 'Test Pass' your presentations. Your content might be great - but if it is displayed poorly - it will be overshadowed by its flaws.
So you have a shiny PowerPoint deck with heaps of great content, and you know what you want to say! Are you ready to present? No, not yet.
You need to practice it so that you know your stuff backwards as well as forwards.
PowerPoint templates are designed to engage your audience visually and save you time. When you start creating a new presentation file, always make sure you use a template.
Unfortunately, there is no easy solution to this. What we need is a 'version' field and an 'Update' button - See our Suggestions to Microsoft PowerPoint: Check for Updates
Different layouts have different purposes. While the default layout is nice, it's not the only option available. But remember to keep all things in moderation. You want the audience to focus on the content, not guessing what layout the next slide will use.
Make your positive and negative points a tick and cross.
Each font or style (italics or bold) should be used consistently throughout your presentation. While a different font face or color is a simple way of highlighting certain terms you want for focus, too much of it will do exactly the opposite and distract the audience.
Presentations are hard to get right, it's easy to fall into the trap of putting too much text on your slides.
Science says people can't read and listen at the same time. If they are looking at your slides, they are not listening to you. If they are listening to you, they are not reading your slides.
Add your logo and tagline for branding purposes. The tagline concept is to use a catchphrase that will sum up the tone of a brand and to reinforce the audience's memory of your company/product.
Neither of these elements is intended to distract, so they are placed subtly in the footer of the slide. It is present, but the influence is tiny and your audience's focus will remain squarely on the content.