Saturday 17 April 2010

5 Things to Remember in Making a Powerpoint Presentation

Are you excited with your Powerpoint presentation? Before you get yourself ready and show off it to your friends, colleagues, and even your clients, you have to go back to your checklist. There are actually 5 things that you need to keep in mind in order to have an effective Powerpoint presentation.

What You Should Remember

1. Check the fonts. You may think that you can do anything with the fonts in your Powerpoint presentation. You're wrong. There are certain things that you have to consider, one of which is the font size. You have to ensure that the texts will remain visible even from at the farthest corner of the room. Hence, for your title, the ideal font size is between 36 and 40. For the body of your Powerpoint presentation, you can go for anything not less than 24. You also have to avoid using ultra-stylish font, especially those with too much curves, as they are harder to read. Arial, Times New Roman, and Verdana are the most suggested.

2. Check the Powerpoint templates. You also have to think about the Powerpoint templates that you're going to utilize. It's highly ideal to select one that you can use all throughout the Powerpoint presentation. Moreover, you are advised to stick with Powerpoint templates that are professional-looking and not too flashy. However, if you have a general theme in mind, perhaps in line with the product you're trying to launch or the purpose of the meeting, then you can go for themed templates. For instance, if you're going to talk about the city during the 1960s, you can make use of vintage-inspired Powerpoint templates. There are a lot that you can choose from these days. All you have to do is to surf the Internet.

3. Minimize the use of too much animation. Flying texts and complicated slide transitions should be used sparingly during a Powerpoint presentation. Not only are they unnecessary, but they can also drive the attention of your audience away from the meat of the discussion. They may sometimes be too annoying. They can also add more file size, which makes the Powerpoint presentation a lot harder to share to others or send through an e-mail. The images, videos, and even sounds should only be used if you want to emphasize something.

4. Choose your images well. Just like texts, you should make sure that the images can be seen even by the last person sitting at the back. Or else, they will appear to be pixilated once you increase the screen size. If the images are really small in nature, you can make use of a size converter, so you can magnify them. You may also have to avoid utilizing copyright-protected pictures unless they are yours or that you've asked permission.

5. Practice. Look for some time where you can practice your spiel together with your Powerpoint presentation. There are times when you have to jump from one slide to another, which you should get accustomed to. You don't want to break the momentum or invite monotony during your discussion.

Daniel McMillan operates Inspired Piece where you can download wide varieties of Powerpoint templates, which you can use for different purposes. They are completely for free.

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