Developing PowerPoint Presentation

Developing Your PowerPoint Presentation

One of the major factors resulting in bad PowerPoint presentations is Legibility. PowerPoint can be a wonderful multimedia tool used to aid an excellent presentation. However, presentations can be very good or very poor. It is up to you to make the difference. We have developed some guildeline that we think will make your presentation readable, captivating and sucessful.

Guidelines for Your PowerPoint Presentation

1. General

2. Templates

3. Font & Font Size

4. Background, Charts and Tables

5. Saving Your Presentation

General: Do's & Don't

	Don't read the text off your PowerPoint slides. If it is readable your audience will read it. If it is not than you should not include it in your presentation
	Don't use animations or sound effects unless they are crucial to your presentation. These things are a distraction to your audience.
	Keep your slide transitions simple and consistent.
	Don't pack too much information onto a slide, In PowerPoint, less is more.
	Don't use too many images on a slide. Your audience will spend more time looking at them than listening to you.
	Generally, you should have no more than 6 words per line, and no more than 6 lines per slide.
	Keep in mind that you are the presenter and PowerPoint is your visual aid.
	Slides that look great on your computer screen may not look as good projected on to a screen or in video / web converted presentations.
	Do come early as possible, to make sure the equipment and your presentation are working well in the room the presentations is given..

Templates:

	When creating slides, it is often easier to develop them using PowerPoint, even if they are not presented as a PowerPoint presentation
	The PowerPoint templates provide you with a model for creating text in the appropriate format for video or web transmission
	The PowerPoint templates generally default to font sizes that are more appropriate for video and web transmissions
	Set the template default to landscape format which is appropriate for video and web transmission
	PowerPoint slide templates are in the Auto layout option of the PowerPoint program
	The most common type of text slide used in lectures is called the "Bulleted List"
	Including an all black slide at the end of your presentation is a nice way to avoid the distraction of unrelated text on the screen during the question and answer period.

Fonts and Font Sizes:

	Use Font sizes in the range of 28 to 32 points. Anything smaller may not be readable from the back of the room.
	We recommend 32 point fonts, because this size is most appropriate for video or web transmission
	We recommend san serif fonts like Arial or Helvitica because they are are easier to read on a powerpoint slide. Fonts like Times New Roman may look nice on your monitor, but when your slide is being projected more than 20 feet, the text on the slide will appear blurry.
	Use a combination of upper and lower case. The combination generally makes it easier to read THAN ALL UPPER CASE
	If all your data won't fit on a slide at 28 pointt. Either condense your data or create another slide.
	Stay away from condensed or narrow fonts, they are not readiable at a distance.
	Generally, You should have no more than 6 words per line, and no more than 6 lines per slide.
	Don't use more than one font per slide.
	In general, when it comes to fonts, bigger is better.
	Font colors should be in the range of whites to yellow for dark backgrounds and black to dark blue for light backgrounds. Never use red. It doesn't project well and may agitate your audience.

Background, Charts and Tables:

	Colors on your slide will apprear much lighter when projected. Take notice, lighter does not mean brighter. Find a color scheme that works and stick to it.
	Use a solid background color, like medium blue. Stay away from dark green and reds. They don't project as well, and red can agitate your audience.
	Stay away from the gradient backgrounds. If you feel you must have them, make sure your text is in contrast with all of the gradiation. Keep your gradiation in range from black to medium dark colors. (Medium dark blue is generally a safe bet for the light part of the gradient)
	On dark backgrounds, we suggest your font colors to range from white to yellow. the higher the contrast the better.
	Light backrounds are acceptable provided the lettering is dark enough. Use only dark blue or black. We do not reccomend light backgrounds because the slides become more difficult to read during video or web transmission. Compare watching a television image with a white background and a dark background.
	Yellow backgrounds are acceptable only with black fonts
	If you are going to use a chart or data table use the PowerPoint wizards. They will create charts that are generally large enough to read from a distance. If you choose to import your own chart. It is good practice to stand at least 12 feet from your monitor if you can read the chart, that's great. If not don't use it.

Saving Your Presentation

	While you are developing your PowerPoint slides, save your presentations often.
	Click through the slides of your presentation, and make sure everything is how you want it before your save your project.
	A good rule of thumbs is to observe your presentation at a distance, this will let you know if your slides can be seen from the back of the room
	If your presentation is not to large, email it to yourself. You will always have access to it in case something happens to the media it was originally saved on.
	If your presentation is small enough, save it on a least two different diskettes.
	For larger presentations we recommend saving it on the computer you are going to use for the presentaion, on a recordable CD, or Powerpoint Packaging wizard. Zip disk are also acceptable, bare in mind, most computers do not have zip drives.
	Test run your presentation on a different machine, to make sure everything was saved correctly.
	If possible test run your presentation with the computer in the room the presentation will take place.