How to make more professional slides on Powerpoint?

Photo: Sendsteps

To get successful presentation, skillful and professional powerpoint slides might help you a lot. Therefore, those tips might help you.

Start slideshows instantly

The audience doesn’t want to see the speaker’s cluttered desktop or unread emails as the PowerPoint presentation is being set up. Simply select the file and save it as a PowerPoint Show. Bypass the editing mode and start the show with a double click and end it with the Esc key.

Pull back the focus with blackouts and whiteouts

Audience members tend to lose focus or drift away when presentations are longer than usual. If you suspect audience members are starting to lose focus, hit the B key for a complete blackout or the W key for a total whiteout. Then hit any key or click the mouse to return to the slides — this technique helps get the eyes back on you, where they belong.

Say no to bullet points

Both Steve Jobs and Tim Cook agree that bulleted lists aren’t the ticket. A better way to create lists is to drop each item in one at a time, if possible, next to a big image that is the main focus of your presentation. Don’t forget to talk about each individual list item, but not with bullets.

Insert pictures from Flickr and OneNote

Jazz up presentations by including images or memes that’ll make the audience laugh instead of doze off. Head to the Insert tab and select Online Pictures — you’ll see Office.com Clip Art, Bing Image Search, Flickr, OneNote, and even Facebook. A vast pool of online imagery is now at your disposal.

Chart animation

The challenge doesn’t lie in inserting a chart into the presentation, but in making it interesting. Enter chart animation. After inserting the chart, click the Animations tab and activate the Animations pane. From there, click Add Animation. Pick an animated effect. Then, in the Animation Pane where you see the entry for the chart’s animation, right-click and select Effect Options.

This lets you customize sound and animation timing. But on the final tab — Chart Animation — be sure to change Group Chart from “As One Object” to “By Category.” This makes charts display on screen one element at a time as you click, with bars or pieces of pie arriving one after the other, as if each was its own slide.

Kiosk presentations

Kiosk mode simply plays your presentation on a loop without allowing any human intervention or desktop access. This is ideal for trade shows and kiosks that you’d find in malls. Simply click the Slideshow tab, then go to Setup Slideshow > Next (in the dialog box) to browse the kiosk. Duration, audio, animations, and transitions are fully customizable, cites techadvisory.

Extend music over multiple slides

To add music to your slide, go to the Insert tab, select Audio > Audio on My PC. Then, in the file explorer, find the music file you want to use and then select Insert. But why confine your favorite tunes to just one slide? Expand it over the duration of your presentation by clicking on the speaker icon that indicates the embedded audio. On the Playback tab, choose Play in Background to have the audio play across the next few slides or until the music stops.

Duplication

If you are constantly reusing the same element throughout your presentation, the good old Ctrl-C+Ctrl-V is fine, but Duplication is better. Hold Ctrl while you click and drag on the object to create an exact dupe; keep selecting and making dupes and they’ll all space themselves out evenly. You can even duplicate entire sets of slides: simply select one or more slides on the left navigation pane, select Insert > New Slide > Duplicate Selected Slides.

Animate, animate, animate

Any element of a PPT slide can be animated. Choose the element, go to the Animations tab, and at the right end of the Animations Gallery, click the down arrow to get “More.” You can choose from many options about how an element appears, gets emphasis, or disappears — but for animated motion, go to the fourth section. If you pick Custom Path, you can get the object to do just about any wild motions you want on the screen before it settles down.

Use animations to add flair to your presentations. Don’t overdo them — you don’t want your audience to get motion sickness.

Tips for Effective PowerPoint Presentations

Photo: Internet

Fonts

• Select a single sans-serif fonts such as Arial or Helvetica. Avoid serif fonts such as Times New Roman or Palatino because these fonts are sometimes more difficult to read.
• Use no font size smaller than 24 point.
• 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 a fourth font for page numbers or as a secondary body font for sidebars.
• Don’t use more than four fonts in any one publication.
• Clearly label each screen. Use a larger font (35-45 points) or different color for the title.
• Use larger fonts to indicate importance.
• Use different colors, sizes and styles (e.g., bold) for impact.
• Avoid italicized fonts as these are difficult to read quickly.
• Avoid long sentences.
• Avoid abbreviations and acronyms.
• Limit punctuation marks.
• No more than 6-8 words per line
• For bullet points, use the 6 x 6 Rule. One thought per line with no more than 6 words per line and no more than 6 lines per slide
• Use dark text on light background or light text on dark background. However, dark backgrounds sometimes make it difficult for some people to read the text.
• Do not use all caps except for titles.
• Put repeating elements (like page 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 can read the slide.

Design and Graphical Images

• Use design templates.
• Standardize position, colors, and styles.
• Include only necessary information.
• Limit the information to essentials.
• Content should be self-evident
• Use colors that contrast and compliment.
• Too may slides can lose your audience.
• Keep the background consistent and subtle.
• Limit the number of transitions used. It is often better to use only one so the audience knows what to expect.
• Use a single style of dingbat for bullets throughout the page.
• Use the same graphical rule at the top of all pages in a multi-page document.
• Use 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 same border.
• Arrange images vertically or horizontally.
• Use only enough text when using charts or graphical images to explain the chart or graph and clearly label the image.
• Keep the design 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.
• Try to use the same style graphical image throughout the presentation (e.g., 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 one image 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 contrast. Use color to make a dramatic change to a single copy of your clip art.
• Check all images on a projection screen before the actual presentation.
• Avoid flashy images and noisy animation effects unless it relates directly to the slide.

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