Top 10 tips For a better Powerpoint Presentation

Whether in office or for any other use, Microsoft’s PowerPoint has no matches when it comes to presenting and communicating ideas at their best. Well, creating a presentation in Powerpoint is no cake walk. Formatting diagrams is much of a hassle and that double up when you can’t put lot of others things in place. Let’s say the fonts, they seem to be having a world of their own, where the trail and error doesn’t work. Adding to the woes, once you have completed you might find a number of similar looking PowerPoint presentations staring at you. There are ways to get out of the mesh. Well, if you have a Powerpoint presentation to deliver, have a look at our top 10 tips.

1. Setting up and using AutoLayout

Microsoft Powerpoint offers more than two dozens available layouts with just a single click. Open the Slide Layout task pane to view and access layout for text and an assortment of content. To open this task pan on the Format menu click Slide Layout.

Customize the position and appearance of the layout using the Slide Master. To access the Slide Master click on View menu select Master and then click Slide Master. With Slide Master you can view, you can reformat the font, bullets, and even the line spacing of text. Further you can alter the size and positioning of AutoLayout areas of master that control slide layouts for presentation.

2. Preparing the text

To make you text more appealing and flaunting you need to separate the development of your slide content from the formatting of presentation. In order to do this create your content in Microsoft Word using its Outline View. In Word 2007 choose the View tab> Outline and type the slide text.

The first-level headings become slide titles and second-level headings become the bullet points. In case you wanna have multiple items under each bullet point then you can use the third-level headings. Save and close the Word document.

To import the outline in your presentation click on the Home tab and click the down pointing arrow to the bottom left of the New Slide button. Click Slides from Outlines and navigate to and open the Word file containing the outline.

This will automatically convert the outline into slides and the text would be formatted to match the design that your have build. In a similar manner you can add other slides and edit the text as required.

3. Adding Diagrams

In case you wanna diagram on a slide use the PowerPoint SmartArt tool. To create a SmartArt diagram click Insert> SmartArt and choose the type of diagram to insert.

Some of the diagrams include placeholders that can be used to insert images into the diagram. To do it select the SmartArt, click the double-pointing arrows on the left of the object to type the text for each shape.

An alternate way to do this would be

To select text on a slide and from the Home tab and click the Convert To SmartArt graphic button in the Paragraphs collection to convert the text to a SmartArt graphic.

Format the SmartArt by selecting a SmartArt Style from the SmartArt Tools > Design tab.

In order to change the colors for the art click the Change Colors Button and choose a color.

4.  Making a better Slide Structure

While making a slide structure you need to keep in the mind the following

• Try to use 1 to 2 slides per minute for your presentation
• Always present the content in point form and avoid long sentences. If possible use more keywords and phrases.
• While giving a presentation focus on the slide structure

Now, what you shouldn’t include in the slide structure is distracting animations. Don’t overboard your presentation with animation and go for consistent animation.

5. Using Graphs

For any presentation involving quantitative analysis its better too use graphs rather than charts and words. Data in graphs is easier to comprehend and retain than raw data. It’s much easier to discuss trends with graphs.

While doing with the powerpoint graphs avoid using unnecessary gridlines, too small fonts, light or too vibrant colors, and shading. Don’t forget to add the title.

6.  Turn off  AutoCorrect layout options

PowerPoint offers several automatic formatting options that help in confirming the provided layouts. It can be a big timesaver and at times somewhat frustrating. In case, you don’t want the bulleted text to shrink automatically to fit content, or automatic change in the position of pasted objects, you can easily turn of the features. Look at the instructions below

Go to the turn off any AutoFormat options, on the Tools menu click AutoCorrect Options. Select the AutoFormat As You Type tab on that dialog box.

7.  Adding images and objects

After you have settled down with your text, it’s time to get on with the images and other content to your slide. In order to add image click on the insert tab and click picture to add an image from your disk or ClipArt to add an image from your clipart collection.

Preview the image, how it looks like before placing it on the slide. To format the picture go to Format > Picture Styles and choose from any one of the displayed styles. Hold the mouse pointer over each option to see how it looks.

In PowerPoint 2007 you can also add charts using a new feature that allows you to create Excel charts in PowerPoint slides. For that choose Insert > Chart to access this feature. Some of the other objects that you can include media clips such as audio and video clips that play when a slide appears.

8. Using sound recordings

Obviously a clean slide that emphasizes on key points is more effective than elaborate ones. But what if you are sending your presentation electronically.

To embed a recording narration to in your slides follow this.

On the Slide Show menu click Record Narration

To record sound for a single slide on the Insert menu select Movies and Sounds and then click Record Sounds.

9. Making transitions and animations

This is probably the most intricate and important step in a Powerpoint Presentation. The transition takes you from one slide to the next slide. To make an smooth transition here’s what you need to follow.

Go to the animations tab choose a transition option and click Apply to all. This will apply the transition to all the slides in presentation. If you need you might also select the transitions from specific slides.

Now if your are looking to animate the SmartArt diagram you need to select the object and click an option from the Animations area of the Ribbon and click an option in the Animate dropdown list. As an alternative, you can click Custom Animation and animate the object by selecting each of the individual parts. Specify how each should be animated. Click on the Preview to see the how the animation looks that you have configured.

Display the slideshow in a small window in the top corner of the screen. This would allow you to test the presentation and make the necessary changes at the same time. To view the presentation separately while working on it you need to hold the Control key and click the Slideshow button in the Status Bar.

10. Keep file size manageable

One of the common problems with PowerPoint presentationis that if the file size becomes too large its difficult to edit or to run presentation smoothly. This problem is easy to avoid by using smaller picture file types, compressing pictures, and using native PowerPoint features whenever possible like for instance  charts, tables, and AutoShapes, instead of embedding and importing objects.