Five Prevalent Errors Working with PowerPoint
February 20, 2010 by The Public Speaking Hacker
You are psyched about your upcoming speech and intend on preparing a sequence of PowerPoint slides for the speech. PowerPoint has grown into a very popular application; quite a few students learn to use it as early as middle school. Regrettably, this does not indicate that PowerPoint is fool-proof. Before you get started planning for your talk, get to know 5 prevalent mistakes regularly made by PowerPoint users.
- Possibly the most typical PowerPoint blunder is neglecting to embed the fonts into your presentation. If you do not embed fonts and the computer system showing your presentation doesn’t contain the fonts in your presentation, it will substitute another font, often with disastrous results. Together with making your presentation appear unprofessional, a change in font can easily have an impact on text wrapping and table spacing. You can keep this from taking place by using PowerPoint’s “Embed Fonts in File” capability, which assures that the font you used will display on a different computer even if that font has not been installed on the other machine.
- Playing around with the many different fonts, effects, templates and graphics in PowerPoint can be genuinely enjoyable. With that said, don’t go crazy. An effective presentation will use the same stylistic elements throughout for consistency. If the title of your first slide is written in size 12 Times New Roman, so should the rest of the titles within your slides.
- Steer clear of the temptation to write everything you would like to say on the slides. Large blocks of text are very difficult for your audience to read. The result is that the audience will either lose interest in the presentation or may try to read each and every word on the slide instead of listening to you. A more successful strategy is utilizing bullets to provide your major points. This will provide you with an outline to refer to while you speak in the event you lose your place or train of thought. The audience, meanwhile, will be able to rapidly scan the bullets and take notes while you speak.
- Just as crucial as the quantity of information on every slide is the quantity of slides in your presentation. By slide 20, your audience may begin to encounter difficulties retaining the data you’re presenting. Although there’s no formula for identifying the optimal number of slides, keep in mind that ten to fifteen slides are adequate for quite a few presentations. Review your slides and ask yourself whether or not the material of each is essential or is merely “filler.”
- Last but not least, never treat your PowerPoint slide show as the visual version of your talk. The PowerPoint slides are there to enhance your talk, not duplicate it. Make the effort to practice your talk several times. Get to know any supporting points that complement each of your primary points since these principal thoughts are going to be on the slides for you to refer to. You should have the ability to swiftly recollect the supporting information as you skim through the main points.
Stay clear of these five pitfalls and delight in a presentation that brings your ideas to life along with earning the admiration and appreciation of your audience.
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Good points, but…. (and with my tongue in my cheek:) )…..
“If the title of your first slide is written in size 12 Times New Roman, so should the rest of the titles within your slides.”
Frankly, if the title of your firs slide is written in size 12 Times New Roman you shouldn’t be giving a presentation. Full stop. There is nothing acceptable there. Nothing. Not one thing!
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