PowerPoint Presentation Help
Enhancing Your PowerPoint Presentations
“Enhancing your PowerPoint presentations” is a guide that provides valuable insights and tips on improving the quality of PowerPoint presentations. It begins with an introduction that sets the stage for the subsequent chapters. The author emphasizes the importance of choosing the right design in Chapter 2 and provides guidance on selecting appropriate visual themes and templates to enhance visual appeal. Chapter 3 focuses on creating engaging content by discussing effective techniques such as using storytelling, utilizing relevant examples, and incorporating multimedia elements. Chapter 4 highlights the significance of utilizing visual aids to support key points and engage the audience. This chapter explores various visual elements such as graphs, charts, and images, and advises on how to use them effectively within PowerPoint presentations. The final chapter, Chapter 5, revolves around delivering a powerful presentation. It provides strategies for effective delivery, including tips on body language, voice modulation, and engaging with the audience. Overall, this guide aims to equip readers with the necessary knowledge and skills to enhance their PowerPoint presentations and make a lasting impact on their audience.
Another important step in this PowerPoint’s creation process is choosing the right design. Impress’ design features are more comprehensive than PowerPoint’s legendary collection of title slides and bullet points. To access Impress’ slide and title master design features, go to Format on the top menu, and select Slide Design from the drop-down menu. Don’t be seduced by the first set of design templates that you find. Spend some time trying out the different design templates, and think about the different color schemes and slide layouts that you could use. If you click on the little drop-down arrow, you can pick design templates organized by color. Pick a color that compliments the idea of your presentation. If you are giving your presentation in a professional environment, avoid bright and garish colors. A nice-looking title slide can be used to give the audience some insight into the structural design of your presentation. Double-click on the title of your presentation, and a new default text box will appear with a set of green selection handles. Most design templates are based around the notion of a title frame that consists of the area where the title is displayed, and the main frame where the bulleted list appears. Double-click on one of the bullet points of your presentation, choose Custom Animation from the Slide Show menu and go to the Effects tab in the Custom Animation dialogue box. Select an item to add an effect and choose a type of animation from the Modify box. The summary field at the top of the dialogue box will give you a description of the animation. If you set the Start field to ‘On Click’, the animation will start when you click the mouse during a slide show. However, if you set the Start field to ‘With Previous’, the animation will begin at the same time as the other animations. The ‘Speed’ drop-down box allows you to set how fast the animation occurs. Finally, choose ‘Auto-reverse’ if you would like the item to return to its original state after the animation occurs. By following these steps and learning about all the different features and functions that are available to you, such as Design Templates, Master Slides, Custom Animation and so on, you will be able to create professional-looking, interesting, and well-structured presentations.
One of the most common mistakes in creating PowerPoint presentations shows an overload of information on a single slide. A good presentation, however, does not give all the information there is to be found in the subject – that is the job of the report being presented, not the presentation. Screens full of words or data are intimidating to an audience and they tend to switch off and not bother to read what is there. If you need to read the information being shown by a slide then you might as well have saved yourself the trouble and told the audience because you are not adding anything in terms of explanation of the data, and thus they don’t need you there! So the trick here is to put less information on the slide than you would in a report, and instead use the slides as prompts that you build on. Think of ways in which you can give the information in an interesting way giving the audience time to take in the data – for example, using the diagrams and charts revealed bit by bit using the animation facility. Also design and add to slides themselves with interesting backgrounds and interactive hyperlink functions. Next step will be to keep the audience focused on the message or topic. Information will be presented better but perhaps not as successfully as it could be if you choose a thin or small font. A topic, clearly visible to all and subtopics itself visible to you might be more helpful to keep on track. Order or sequence is also an important feature to be included in the presentation. Always give a title to your presentation. It’s your first opportunity to infuriate your audience – miss out the title and they probably will be; never give them a chance to switch off before you’ve even started! The old favorite of starting with a joke or humor is often not a good idea. Have one ready if the opportunity arises, that is fine, but it is never guaranteed that jokes will go down well and inappropriate joking could get your presentation off to a very bad start. Finally, keep an eye on everyone in the room – not just the people that are joining in or being particularly noisy. Making sure that you regularly glance around will engage all of your audience and you will be able to see if individual slides are taking too long to be absorbed or not long enough. One always has to readapt and keep an eye on the audience’s reactions to help keep the balance of information perfect.
Lastly, a brief note about additional help and resources such as PowerPoint Help and the countryside is provided. By understanding the linkage between each point and its visual actor, ensuring that the visuals are clear, and choosing the right layout for the slide, presentations can truly be improved powerfully. By using the rule of thirds and utilizing the white space on every slide, the experience that the audience has is significantly improved. Combining these principles with additional help and resources where needed will ensure a well-presented and effective presentation.
Then, the importance of creating visuals powerfully is mentioned. It’s helpful for people to take breaks, impact the white space on every slide, and be aware of the rule of thirds. The rule of thirds is represented visually on the PowerPoint slide and includes creating a grid of 2 equally spaced horizontal lines and 2 equally spaced vertical lines. The guide to good slide design shows that points of interest should occur within the intersections of these lines. When discussing the position of visuals, the author states that the most important visual should take priority and is often situated in the upper left-hand corner of the slide, as the human eye is naturally drawn to this area first. The author advises that the use of white space is crucial in creating effective visuals—specifically, that the background should only be used to contrast and create a space for the viewer’s eye to rest.
First, the use of visuals in PowerPoint is mentioned. Each point has its own slide, and each one is titled. There are a variety of common mistakes that people make when it comes to the use of visuals. It’s all too easy to clutter a slide with both visuals and main points. Audiences can feel lost in a multitude of photographs, and then the message gets lost and the purpose behind using visuals is gone. Therefore, it’s recommended that a maximum of 3 to 4 points be made on one slide and each point should be illustrated by its own individual visual. Moreover, it is also important to choose appropriate visuals. For example, the author discusses the choice of whether to use text or an image to convey certain types of info. This is an important issue to note, as using too many visuals can make it difficult for the audience to make the connections between each visual and each point that is being made. The author states that in general, using one visual per slide is sufficient to allow the audience to absorb and reflect on the information being presented.
When it comes to digital and virtual presentations, visual aids at the show, such as pictures, charts, graphs, and bullets, help to involve the audience and make the content clearer and more understandable. Research shows that if people hear a bit of info, after three days they’ll keep in mind about 10% of it. If that same info is given to them with a relevant image, they’ll retain about 80% of the info three days later. The power of pictures isn’t only strong in digital and virtual presentations—they are essential. Correct choice of images, graphs, and other visuals, as well as creating and positioning them effectively, is crucial in a powerful presentation.
Published in Business and Management – Helga July 3, 2018. In this section of the article, the author speaks about how to make an effective presentation with an emphasis on delivery. Public speaking is always a challenge, so a clued-up presenter will use a variety of different methods to get the message across, including eye contact, hand gestures, and change in vocal tone. The presenter’s body and the range – the level and fluency of his or her voice – are the keys to successful and effective presentations. The writer also speaks about the need to rehearse and prepare for a presentation. They suggest that this can be done best by ‘pacing and marking’. This is quite a simple method. The presenter should read the presentation out loud and then every ten to twenty seconds, the presenter should clap their hands to ensure that everything is clear and there are no long, drawn-out monologues. The writer explains how the presenter should ‘mark’ their script so that they have cues to look up and make eye contact with the audience. Moreover, the use of note cards in presentations is really helpful. Instead of writing full sentences, he suggests writing down topic headings in large print. This way, the presenter will be prompted to look up which in turn makes the audience feel involved in the presentation. Finally, the writer speaks about the benefit of modern technology when disseminating knowledge, suggesting that the advent of virtual learning and online courses has changed the way in which audiences and students engage with what is being presented. He notes that online courses now boast features such as quizzes, surveys, and all manner of interactivity. Moreover, these types of courses allow students to choose the presentation format that helps them to understand what is being presented in the most effective way. All the new enhancements and features introduced in PowerPoint 2016 and 365 don’t mean anything if we can’t talk the talk to accompany the slides. Instead, the presentation of the slides is key. He concludes by reminding us that ‘the beauty of PowerPoint is in the people’, and encourages us to think carefully about the best way for people to understand and engage with our material. All these comments are going to be extremely useful for my seventh graders who are just started to enlarge their knowledge about how to make a good PowerPoint presentation and strategies for using it more efficiently. I find the materials really good and extremely helpful for their agenda as well as my class.
