This is the Guidelines for preparing your PowerPoint presentation or How to prevent PowerPoint abuse. You can apply these guidelines not only for PowerPoint presentation but also for WinEdit presentation or any other types of presentation using the computers. I hope it will help you in preparing your own presentation in the future.
PowerPoint is the professional standard for presentation software. It can be easily prepared, edited and arranged and is used to do the following:
-deliver a polished presentation
-guide your audience through the points you are making
-display the organization of your ideas
-link to other applications
PowerPoint is meant to complement what you are talking about; it shouldn’t be a subtitle for you. The audience should focus on what YOU are saying, not reading the slides. Your emphasis should not be on the PowerPoint itself but on the subject that you are talking about. It’s best used for outline of graphs, charts, pictures, etc. It’s not best to use it for text of paragraphs. The presenter should never read the slides; instead, the slides should be used for talking points. If possible, the presenter should build in interaction or Q+A and supplement with handouts or other visuals.
Things to think about and watch out for in slide design:
1. Font size is critical. Use nothing smaller than 18-point, and larger is best; text and visuals can use 18-24-point, and titles should be 32-point. Font style also matters; Tahoma is known to be best with PC and Arial best in Mac. Sanseraph styles are better than seraph (the simpler it is, the easier it is to read). ALL CAPITAL LETTERS is hard to read!
2. Be sure that you have one idea per slide. There should be plenty of empty space.
3. Use bullet points, key word outlines and phrases rather than full sentences or paragraphs. The general rule is that there should be no more than 5 bullet points per slide and no more than 17 words per bullet point.
4. Templates and backgrounds should never compete with the text. Dark backgrounds and light text work well.
5. Color, sound and action can be interesting, but in general, there shouldn’t be more than 3 colors used, and action or sound should never interfere with or overshadow content.
6. Be sure you are consistent with each slide regarding font size and style, capitalization, etc. with headings, bulleting, etc.
7. The general rule is to have no more than 1-2 slides per minute of your presentation (not including the title slide and outline)
8. Absolutely no spelling or grammar mistakes!!!!!!
Tips for presenting slides
1. Pros and cons for using pointers
2. Stand where you can avoid blocking the view of the screen
3. Maintain eye contact with the audience while presenting slides
4. Use transitions between slides.
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