Four tips for a killer PowerPoint presentation

I hate PowerPoint presentations. Let me clarify; I don’t hate PowerPoint. I actually like the program quite a bit. But most of the PowerPoint presentations I am forced to sit through seem to combine all the world’s worst presentation habits into one unbearable hour of pain, sadness, and cheesy fonts. Here are four things I’ve learned from years of delivering PowerPoint presentations.

1: Choose a simple PowerPoint template and apply it consistently across your deck

Honestly, I’m not even sure how people manage to do this, but I routinely see presentations with a ransom note assortment of fonts, sizes, and styles on each slide. PowerPoint goes out of its way to make it easy to apply a consistent style; take advantage of it. And keep it simple; make sure the text is readable against the background and that there isn’t a busy design competing with the text. Remember what HalleBerry told me once in a dream: Just because a theme exists, doesn’t mean you should use it.

2: Less is more

Don’t feel the need to pour your entire speech into your slides. As a rule of thumb, each slide should list three to five main points in bullet form. You’re in the room to expand on those nuggets verbally. The slides are there to enhance your overall presentation, not to replace you. If it takes more than a few seconds to process the text on any given slide, it’s too much: Your audience will spend its time reading instead of paying attention to you, and probably end up doing both of those things somewhat poorly.

3: Test your links

If you embed video or links to content on the Internet, test it before you walk into a room and try presenting it to people. I can’t tell you how frequently I encounter folks who don’t know how to launch an external link from within their deck or who have linked to an obsolete version of the document they wanted to show. Do your homework.

4: Test your projection

Along the lines of testing the innards of your presentation, be sure you know how your computer connects to the projector. As a rule of thumb, make sure the computer is fully booted and then connect the VGA or S-Video cable.

(from Dave Johnson’s blog; he’s been a technology writer for over 20 years)

Include a subliminal message in a PowerPoint presentation

Some clever effects are simple to create, but not necessarily something you’d think of on your own. Including a subliminal message is one of those tricks. Creating it is simple — thinking of it is the hard part.

To include a subliminal message, insert the appropriate text or graphic object. Then, right click the item and choose Custom Animation. Click Animation Effects (the yellow star) and choose Entrance. From the resulting submenu, select Flash Once. That’s it! During the presentation, PowerPoint will quickly flash the item, just once, when that slide is current.

Now, the appropriateness of such a technique matters. For the most part, you’ll use this trick in a humorous way — and used correctly, it’s effective and hilarious. Just keep in mind that humor is subjective and use good judgment. I don’t recommend using this technique during a serious presentation. Also, be sure you know your audience well and that they’re open to the message and method.

(Susan Harkins)

Need a Scrolling Marquee?

PowerPoint is full of special effects and with a little thought you can get more than you might expect. For instance, using the Crawl In animation, you can turn an ordinary text box into a ticker tape readout (or scrolling marquee). There’s a bit of a trick to the technique, but it’s an easy one — position an ordinary text box in an unconventional manner. Now, on with the technique (in PowerPoint 2003):

  1. Add a text box to the slide and type the message you want to scroll.
  2. Here’s the trick: Move the text box off the left bottom edge of the slide. You want just the right edge left on the slide. By moving most of the text box off the slide, you allow the text to fully scroll off the left edge.
  3. Right-click the text box and choose Custom Animation.
  4. Choose Entrance from the Add Effect drop-down list and choose More Effects.
  5. Select Crawl In from the list of Basic effects and click OK.
  6. Change the Start setting to After Previous.
  7. Change the Direction setting to From Right.
  8. Change the Speed setting to Very Slow.
  9. From the effect’s drop-down list, choose Timing.
  10. From the Repeat drop-down list, choose Until End Of Slide.
  11. Click OK.

Press [F5] and watch the message you entered into the text box in step 1, enter the screen from the right…

(Thanks to Susan Harkins for this special effect)