Tips to Become a PowerPoint Pro

Everyone has sat through a terrible PowerPoint presentation. Many of us have tolerated countless slides of spinning planet GIFs and paragraphs of 10pt font. Presentations aren’t a painful experience at their core, and following just a few simple rules will save your audience from PowerPoint hell.

Speak, don’t read

Your audience reads faster than you speak, anyway. Not to mention the site of a slide containing blocks of text sends most people into a bored stupor.

The slides should visualize your presentation rather than containing every bit of information you want to get across. This way, your audience will be paying attention to you and your words. Speaking to the audience rather than lecturing gives you the credibility rather than the slides themselves.

Ditch the print-outs

If your PowerPoint is designed well, your audience will be able to follow along just fine with the slides as they’re presented. Not to mention the slides shouldn’t have enough information on them to be valuable on their own anyway–your words should provide the meaning.

That said, there’s nothing wrong with providing a take-away resource. Either put together a document that highlights your points and gives a comprehensive overview of your presentation and email it after, or provide the PowerPoint along with detailed notes.

Think like a designer

You don’t have to be an artist to create an attractive looking presentation. Following just a few simple guidelines is all you really need to make professional looking slides

Clip art: not even once

And while we’re at it, ditch those pre-made themes within PowerPoint also. PowerPoint is a great presentation tool, but it is not a design tool. You’re better off sticking to quality stock photography or solid colors. There are plenty of great resources for free, original stock images.

Stock.XCHNG has hundreds of thousands of royalty-free photos and illustrations.
Flickr allows you to search for royalty-free images which are free to use as long as you give credit to the owner.

Choose a great color palette

Sometimes an attractive typeface and color combo is all you need to make a beautiful presentation. My recommendation? Use your brand colors as a starting point, then head over to Kuler. It has thousands of user-made color schemes for inspiration.

Don’t fear typography

Ask any designer—typography is important. Each typeface has its own personality and sends its own message. Some are clean and modern, while others are whimsical and unique. Both kinds have their place in presentations. Regular sans-serif fonts aren’t boring and should make up most if not all of your presentation. If you have a flashier font you really want to use, save it for headers and use them sparingly. Some great sites offering free typefaces for commercial use are Font Squirrel and Free Typography.

Most importantly, make sure it’s legible—particularly if you’re putting the text on an image background. White on white, even if it’s only for a small portion of the image, is a big no-no. In cases like that, either nix the background or put the text within a solid color block on top of it.

Still need some guidance? Try the 10/20/30 rule

The tried and true method from Guy Kawasaki is a great guideline if you’re lacking confidence in the presentation department.

10 slides
One concept per slide, with each slide speaking directly to a problem or key point.

20 minutes
Even if you have an hour set aside. This allows you to account for technical problems and set-up, as well as a Q&A.

30 point font
This forces you to keep your slides concise and focus on one concept at a time, plus ensures it’s easy to read. A great constraint for those of us who are tempted to cram every word they intend to say on their presentations.

Do you have any tips for making great presentations? Share them in the comments.