Friday, 31 January 2014
Tuesday, 14 January 2014
Tuesday, 7 January 2014
Tips for creating an effective presentation T
ip
Details
|
|
Minimize the number of slides.
|
To maintain a clear message and to
keep your audience attentive and interested, keep the number of slides in
your presentation to a minimum.
|
Choose a font style that your
audience can read from a distance.
|
Choosing the right font style,
such as Helvetica or Arial, helps to get your message across. Avoid narrow
fonts, such as Arial Narrow, and avoid fonts that include fancy edges, such
as Times.
To learn more about how you can
use pre-designed theme fonts
in your presentation, see All about themes, Quick Styles, cell styles,
and background styles.
|
Choose a font size that your
audience can read from a distance.
|
Choosing the right font size helps
to get your message across.
Note The following measurements indicate the size
of a font on your computer screen, not projected on a screen for your
audience in full screen mode. To enable full screen mode, on the View
tab, in the Presentation Views group, click Slide Show.
To learn more about how you can
use pre-designed theme fonts
in your presentation, see All about themes, Quick Styles, cell styles,
and background styles.
|
Keep your text simple by using
bullet points or short sentences.
|
Use bullets or short sentences,
and try to keep each to one line; that is, without text wrapping.
You want your audience to listen
to you present your information, rather than read the screen.
Some projectors crop slides at the
edges, so long sentences may be cropped.
You can remove articles such as
"a" and "the" to help reduce the word count on a line.
|
Use art to help convey your
message.
|
Use graphics to help tell your
story. Don't overwhelm your audience by adding too many graphics to a slide,
however.
|
Make labels for charts and graphs
understandable.
|
Use only enough text to make label
elements in a chart or graph comprehensible.
|
Make slide backgrounds subtle and
keep them consistent.
|
|
Use high contrast between
background color and text color.
|
Themes
automatically set the contrast between a light background with dark colored
text or dark background with light colored text.
To learn more about how you can
use themes to automatically set a visually satisfying contrast level, see All about themes, Quick Styles, cell styles,
and background styles.
|
Check the spelling and grammar.
|
To earn and maintain the respect
of your audience, always check the spelling and grammar in your presentation.
|
Tip
|
Details
|
Show up early and verify that your
equipment works properly.
|
Make sure that all equipment is
connected and running.
|
Don't assume that your
presentation will work fine on another computer.
|
Disk failures, software version
mismatches, lack of disk space, low memory, and many other factors can ruin a
presentation.
If the computer that you plan to
give your presentation on does not belong to you, make sure that it has
adequate disk space so that you don't have to present from a CD.
Turn off screen savers, and make
sure that you have the appropriate files and versions of software that you
need, including Microsoft Office PowerPoint.
To ensure all files are accounted
for when you copy them to a CD or network drive and carry them to your
presentation location, see Copy a presentation to a CD, network, or local
disk drive.
|
Verify that the projector's resolution is the
same as the computer on which you created your presentation.
|
If the resolutions don't match,
your slides may be cropped, or other display problems can occur.
|
Turn your screen saver off.
|
Keep your audience focused on the
content of your presentation.
|
Check all colors on a projection
screen before giving the actual presentation.
|
The colors may project differently
than what appears on your monitor.
|
Ask your audience to hold
questions until the end.
|
Questions are an excellent
indicator that people are engaged by your subject matter and presentation
skills. But if you save questions until the end of the presentation, you will
get through your material uninterrupted. Also, early questions are often
answered by ensuing slides and commentary.
|
Avoid moving the pointer
unconsciously.
|
When you are not using the
pointer, remove your hand from the mouse. This helps to stop you from moving
the pointer unconsiously, which can be distracting.
|
Do not read the presentation.
|
Practice the presentation so that
you can speak from bullet points. The text should be a cue for the presenter
rather than the full message for the audience.
|
Stay on time.
|
If you plan a certain amount of
time for your presentation, do not go over. If there is no time limit, take
less time rather than more to ensure that people stay engaged.
|
Monitor your audience's behavior.
|
Each time that you deliver a
presentation, monitor your audience's behavior. If you observe people
focusing on your slides, the slides may contain too much data or be confusing
or distracting in some other way. Use the information you learn each time to
improve your future presentations.
|
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)


