Creating Effective PowerPoint Presentations

Here are two web resources that will help you create an effective, well receieved, and attractive PowerPoint Presentation. The first one listed here outlines the planning steps you need to take for creating a Powerpoint presentation, including the word layout, fonts graphics, special effects, handouts and notes, and practicing. The second one reviews important advice regarding: your audience, speaking clearly, using templates, self-evident content, contrasting colors, effects and transitions, guidelines for wording, fonts, and punctuation, and using clip art and graphics.


Creating a Great Presentation

Table of Contents

   Click here to start – Creating a Great Presentation

   1. Plan

   2. Organize

   3. Develop Content

   4. Work on the word layout

   5. Work on the fonts

   6. Work on the graphics

   7. Use graphs appropriately

   8. Special Effects Use them at your own risk

   9. Use Handouts and Notes

   10. Practice before you preach



Creating an Effective PowerPoint Presentation

Hints for a successful presentation: 

• Plan carefully
• Do your research
• Know your audience
• Time your presentation 
• Practice your presentation 
• Speak comfortably and clearly 

• Use design templates
• Standardize position, colors and styles 
• Include only necessary information 
• Limit the information to essentials
• Content should be self-evident
• Use colors that contrast 
• Be consistent with effects, transitions and animation 
• Too many slides can lose your audience

• Generally no more than 6 words a line
• Generally no more than 6 lines a slide
• Avoid long sentences
• Larger font indicates more important information 
• Font size generally ranges from 18 to 48 point
• Be sure text contrasts with background
• Fancy fonts can be hard to read
• Words in all capital letters are hard to read
• Avoid abbreviations and acronyms
• Limit punctuation marks

• Should balance the slide 
• Should enhance and complement the text, not overwhelm 
• No more than two graphics per slide
• PowerPoint presentations can also saved in HTML format and inserted in a Web page.

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