6 Useful Tips for PowerPoint Presentations #1

Here are a list of useful tips that you can take in mind before you run your PowerPoint presentation and project it in a projector for businesses or in the classroom.

1. Turn off Screensaver

Screen savers can ruin a successful presentation by removing the attention and focus of the presentation. Moreover, if you are speaking in front of an audience, you may not notice that the screensaver is active and this may worsen the situation.  Make sure you turn off any screensaver before running your PowerPoint PPT presentation to avoid distractions. Learn how to disable screensaver in Windows.

2. Check colors in the screen and projector

Make sure to check that the colors look ok in the projector. You may design the presentation using some colors that once you project the slides in the projector can look differently. If the color is important, for example in the corporate logo or charts, make sure to check look the same once projected.

3. Keep it Simple

You don’t need to overwhelm your audience with lot of unnecessary animations or transitions. Just keep your slides simple keeping only the needed text and avoiding too much special effects.

4. Arrive early to the meeting room or auditorium

Don’t arrive later! Make sure you arrive before your audience and with enough time to test the computer and projector connection. This will avoid that your audience keep sit down bored or distracted.

5. Don’t be too slow but or too fast

Keep in mind your audience. For some people slow presentations can be really bored, make sure you keep a good balance between the time spent on each slide and speech and avoid running it too slow or too fast.

6. If you need to exit PowerPoint, use Shift F5

Sometimes, you need to exit PowerPoint and switch to another program for example to run a software demo. Make sure that you exit PPT and then resume in the same slide. If you press F5 or start the slideshow from the beginning, then you will need to advance to the last slide. This can make your audience to wait and loss time. You can use Shift F5 to start the presentation slideshow in the last slide you was playing before exiting.