2.  The most important part of any presentation is the
content, not the graphical appeal. That is why you
should develop your presentation with the content
first, before deciding on the look (colors, graphics,
etc.) Create a good structure for your presentation
by reflecting on the goal of the presentation, what
your audience is thinking right now, and what
points you need to make in order to move the
audience from where they are to where you want
them to be. Write an outline on paper or use sticky
notes so you can move ideas around. By creating an
outline first, you ensure that the content of your
presentation is solid before you concern yourself
with the visual elements.

3.  That’s bass-ackwards. Since the point of your slides is to
illustrate and expand what you are going to say to your
audience. You should know what you intend to say and
then figure out how to visualize it. Unless you are an
expert at improvising, make sure you write out or at
least outline your presentation before trying to put
together slides.
 And make sure your script follows good storytelling
conventions: give it a beginning, middle, and end; have a
clear arc that builds towards some sort of climax; make
your audience appreciate each slide but be anxious to find
out what’s next; and when possible, always leave ‘em
wanting more.

4.  If you want your audience to be able to see what you
have on the slide, there needs to be a lot of contrast
between the text colour and the background colour. I
suggest a dark background with light text – I usually use
a medium to dark blue background and white or yellow
letters. Some prefer a light background and dark letters,
which will also work well - which you choose will
depend on personal preference. Don’t think that just
because the text looks fine on your computer screen
that it will look fine when projected. Most projectors
make colours duller than they appear on a screen, and
you should check how your colours look when projected
to make sure there is still enough contrast.

5.  At any given moment, what should be on the screen is the thing
you’re talking about. Our audience will almost instantly read
every slide as soon as it’s displayed; 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.
 Plan your presentation so just one new point is displayed at any
given moment. Bullet points can be revealed one at a time as
you reach them. Charts can be put on the next slide to be
referenced when you get to the data the chart displays. Your job
as presenter is to control the flow of information so that you
and your audience stay in sync.

6.  When deciding what font size to use in your
presentation, make sure it is big enough so that the
audience can read it. I usually find that any font size
less than 24 point is too small to be reasonably read in
most presentation situations. I would prefer to see most
text at a 28 or 32 point size, with titles being 36 to 44
point size. The only reason I would use a font less than
24 point is when adding explanatory text to a graph or
diagram, where you could use a 20 point font size. If
you are given a small screen in a big room, your font will
look smaller because the image will not be as big as it
should be. In this case, see if you can get a larger screen,
use a wall instead of a screen to project on, move the
chairs closer to the screen or remove the last few rows
of chairs.

7.  Where most presentations fail is that their authors,
convinced they are producing some kind of stand-alone
document, put everything they want to say onto their slides,
in great big chunky blocks of text.
 Your slides are the illustrations for your
presentation, not the presentation itself. They should
underline and reinforce what you’re saying as you give
your presentation — save the paragraphs of text for your
script. PowerPoint and other presentation software have
functions to display notes onto the presenter’s screen that
do not get sent to the projector, or you can use notecards, a
separate word processor document, or your memory. Just
don’t put it on the screen – and for goodness’ sake, if you
do for some reason put it on the screen, don’t stand with
your back to your audience and read it from the screen!

8.  When text comes on the screen, we want the
audience to read the text, then focus back on the
presenter to hear the message. If the text moves
onto the screen in any way – such as flying in, spiral
or zooming – it makes it harder for the audience
members to read since they have to wait until the
text has stopped before they can read it. This makes
the presenter wait longer between each point and
makes the audience members focus more on the
movement than on what is being said. I suggest the
use of the "Appear" effect, which just makes the text
appear and is the easiest for the audience to read.

9.  Use a sans serif font for body text. Sans serifs like Arial, Helvetica, or Calibri
tend to be the easiest to read on screens.
 Use decorative fonts only for slide headers, and then only if they’re easy
to read. Decorative fonts –calligraphy, German blackface, futuristic, psychotic
handwriting, flowers, art nouveau, etc. – are hard to read and should be
reserved only for large headlines at the top of the page. Better yet, stick to a
classy serif font like Georgia or Baskerville.
 Put dark text on a light background. Again, this is easiest to read. If you
must use a dark background – for instance, if your company uses a standard
template with a dark background – make sure your text is quite light (white,
cream, light grey, or pastels) and maybe bump the font size up two or three
notches.
 Align text left or right. Centered text is harder to read and looks amateurish.
Line up all your text to a right-hand or left-hand baseline – it will look better
and be easier to follow.
 Avoid clutter. A headline, a few bullet points, maybe an image – anything
more than that and you risk losing your audience as they sort it all out.

10.  During a presentation, it is very annoying to have the
pointer (the little arrow) come on the screen while the
presenter is speaking. It causes movement on the screen
and draws the audience attention from the presenter to
the screen. The pointer comes on when the mouse is
moved during the presentation. To prevent this from
happening, after the Slide Show view has started, press
the Ctrl-H key combination. This prevents mouse
movement from showing the pointer. If you need to
bring the pointer on screen after this, press the A key. If
the pointer does appear during your presentation, resist
the urge to press the Escape key – if you do, it will stop
the presentation and drop you back into the program.
Press the A key or Ctrl-H to make the pointer disappear.

11.  There are two schools of thought about images in
presentations. Some say they add visual interest and
keep audiences engaged; others say images are an
unnecessary distraction.
 Both arguments have some merit, so in this case the
best option is to split the difference: use images only
when they add important information or make an
abstract point more concrete.

12.  Every two years I ask audiences what annoys them
about bad PowerPoint presentations. The latest
survey confirms that audiences are more fed up
than ever with the overload of text on slides. Instead
of using slides that only contain text, use visuals
such as graphs, diagrams, photos and media clips to
engage the audience.

13.  Remember, the slides on the screen are
only part of the presentation – and not the
main part. Even though you’re liable to be
presenting in a darkened room, give some
thought to your own presentation manner –
how you hold yourself, what you wear, how
you move around the room. You are the
focus when you’re presenting, no matter
how interesting your slides are.

14.  The last slide you speak to should not be the last
slide in your presentation file. You should have
three identical copies of your last speaking slide so
that if you accidentally advance one too many times
at the end of your presentation, your audience never
knows because you don’t drop into the program, the
slide looks like it has not changed. After these slides,
you should include some slides that answer
questions that you expect to be asked. These slides
will be useful during Q&A sessions after the
presentation. The final slide should be a blank slide
so that if you go through all the other slides, you
have a final backup from dropping into the program.

15.  Like the best writing, the best presentation
shook their audiences early and then reel them
in. Open with something surprising or
intriguing, something that will get your
audience to sit up and take notice. The most
powerful hooks are often those that appeal
directly to your audience’s emotions – offer
them something awesome or, if it’s
appropriate, scare the pants off of them. The
rest of your presentation, then, will be
effectively your promise to make the awesome
thing happen, or the scary thing nothappen.

16.  PowerPoint has a feature that allows you to be able to
move quickly and seamlessly to any slide in your
presentation. To do so, you need to know the slide
numbers. The easiest way to print a list of the slide
numbers and associated slide titles is to go to the
Outline View and collapse the details for each slide
(there is a button on the left side of the screen in this
view that will do this). Then print the view. To jump to
any slide, just enter the slide number on the keyboard
and press the Enter key. This will move you directly to
that slide. This technique is very useful for moving to a
prepared Q&A slide or for skipping parts of your
presentation if time becomes an issue.

17.  Questions arouse interest, pique curiosity, and
engage audiences. So ask a lot of them. Build tension
by posing a question and letting your audience stew
a moment before moving to the next slide with the
answer. Quiz their knowledge and then show them
how little they know. If appropriate, engage in a
little question-and-answer with your audience,
with you asking the questions.

18.  Sometimes we want the image on the screen to
disappear so that the audience is focused solely on
the presenter. There are two ways to do this. The
first is if you want to blank the screen with a black
image, similar to shutting the projector off (we used
to do this all the time with overhead projectors by
just shutting the projector off). Just press the B key
on the keyboard and the image is replaced with a
black image. Press the B key again and the image is
restored. If you want to use a white image instead of
a black image, press the W key each time.

19.  Especially when you’ve done a presentation before,
it can be easy to fall into a drone, going on and on
and on and on and on with only minimal changes to
your inflection. Always speak as if you were
speaking to a friend, not as if you are reading off of
index cards (even if you are). If keeping up a lively
and personable tone of voice is difficult for you
when presenting, do a couple of practice run-
throughs. If you still can’t get it right and
presentations are a big part of your job, take a
public speaking course or join Toastmasters.

20.  Sometimes it can be valuable to be able to draw on
the screen during your presentation to illustrate a
particular point or item. This can be done in the
following way. Press the Ctrl-P key combination to
display a pen on the screen. Then, using the left
mouse button, draw on the slide as you wish. To
erase what you have drawn, press the E key. To hide
the pen, press the A key or the Ctrl-H key
combination.