There are many pitfalls to watch out for when designing a presentation. Here are some rules to help you design a better presentation.

Text:

• Limit the number of bulleted items per page. There should be fewer than 6 bullets per page.
• Don't try to put too much text on a slide. Each slide should have less than 10 lines of text.

Charts:

• Make sure that you include enough labels so that people will know what the chart refers to.
• Often a simple bar chart is much easier to read than a 3D chart. Many times it is difficult to compare the size of the bars in 3D charts.

Templates:

• Consider how much information you will be displaying on each page when picking a template. If you plan on presenting a lot of material per page, use a simple template.

Animation:

• Limit the amount of animation that you use.
• Don't have animation on most of your pages.
• If you animate your titles, have the rest of the slide appear after the title is displayed. If you don't, your audience won't know what the data refers to.

Colors:

• Overhead projectors have low contrast. Make sure you use high contrast colors or the colors will blend together on the overhead. For example, don't use white and light blue bars in a chart.

Final Checklist (or things to check when you think you are done).

• Does each slide have a title?
• Does all the information fit on the slide? Maybe you can move the text or graphic up, or perhaps you can widen the text boxes. If it is text, you might want to highlight the text and pick a smaller font. Make sure the text isn't too small though.
• Did you spell check the final copy? Spelling mistakes are embarrassing!
• Are any of the graphics overlapping text?
• Are the chart sufficiently labeled? Are the X and Y axes labeled?

Good Luck!

Animating Slides  |  Getting Started With PowerPoint  |  End of Tutorial