PowerPoint Presentation Tips

Team Member Joined: 06 Jan 2002 Posts: 2564

On Tuesday I'll be doing a PowerPoint presentation at school. I don't have much experience with PowerPoint due to the fact that I rarely have access to a PC (I stick to transparents printed out from the PC - terribly costly in ink and materials Sad

). So, I was wondering if anyone has any particular tips for PowerPoint. Are there any effects/transitions which are especially good? Any tips? Wink

Thanks for any help.

Daniel

Posted: Sun May 25, 2003 8:18 pm (20 years, 11 months ago)

From watching a lot of bad power point presentations at my school, first thing I would say is do not simply type up what you're gonna say...you're audience can read, so there'd be no point in you being there. Just sumarize what you're going to say. Stay away from using lots of different animations, it may look kinda neat the first time you have a block of text spiral in, but it gets very annoying very fast. Stay away from sound effects! Try to use photo's to illustrate what you're talking about, but don't use clip art - it is in no way original. thats all I can think of for now...

Posted: Sun May 25, 2003 8:30 pm (20 years, 11 months ago)

Yeah. As adam says, do not use sound effects, and don't just type out what you're saying, or your audience will just switch off Smile

Your best bet would be to just use bullet points. (In my experience of doing powerpoint presentations, and having them for my uni lectures Razz

, limit yourself to about 4-5 bullet points per page).
As for animation, the best is either no animation Wink

, or a simple slide in effect. Pictures are good to get over lots of info.

Team Member Joined: 06 Jan 2002 Posts: 2564

Thanks for your comments, that's what I was looking for. I have actually never seen a PowerPoint presentation (other than on a PC - ie not on a big screen). I stayed away from sound effects anyway, since I'm not sure if I'll have access to sound equipment Smile

. The effects I'm using are slide in only (after a few seconds all is standing still Razz

). I have also used bullet points, since that seems to be what the software is meant for, and is indeed the default layout it presents you with when you create a new slide. I'll try to follow adam's tip on photos Smile

(I've only got one for now).

Posted: Tue May 27, 2003 8:21 pm (20 years, 10 months ago)

Here's a Do and a Don't, Daniel...

Do

Do backgrounds and design well ahead, so you avoid a crunch

Don't
Avoid, or use sparingly, PPT's clip art

WebHelper Joined: 01 Mar 2003 Posts: 69 Location: Texas

Make sure you use clean and large fonts. One rule of thumb I have seen is to view your slides at 50% scale on your screen... if you can still read it, it's fine. Otherwise folks in the back of the room will be squinting. Wink

Dave