Are
you a businessman, a student, a teacher or from any other field that requires
communication to grow (which is required everywhere by the way), you probably
have a fair idea of how much trouble you go through while making a PowerPoint
presentation to reciprocate your ideas.
You
may have excelled in making presentations, but there is always something that
you can learn when it comes to PowerPoint. It is all about making the most out
of its designing tools, paying all the attention in order to take advantage of
what PowerPoint offers and a consistent styling pattern all the way through the
end.
And in
professional (or any other) presentations a broken link or image, or wrong
indentation can make all the difference, because a slightest bit of error shows
there and then that your PowerPoint skills are poor.
Why
were you asked to prepare a PowerPoint presentation in the first place?
It was
to support your speaking skills with visual effects, so if the target audience
ever gets distracted, the presentation can help them get back on track. This
proves that it isn't all about the topic of your presentation but rather the
correct use of powerpoint's features so that the audience cannot look away even
when they want to. The sole purpose being, regardless of the topic, developing
an interest among everyone who is there to listen to you.
You
may be smart but there will always be some tips that you can always use while
making a PowerPoint presentation.
Be
creative with PowerPoint tools
There
are a lot of tools that PowerPoint provides which fools you into thinking that
using everything that you can use will tell the audience that you know it all.
But
you need to remember that presentations aren't a matter of how much you know
but how well you present what you know.
Some
features that you can always pay extra attention to are-
- The already present templates should work for you but if they don't, look for other sources.
- Have a look at the action sounds of PowerPoint while keeping in mind your audience and your purpose.
- Experiment with as many fonts as you can, don't stick to PowerPoint's defaults.
- Be it using shapes or any other geometrical object, make sure that it does well at the time of slideshow.
- Always align your objects and stop guessing because we all know that objects create the most nuisance at the time of slideshow.
How
can you align objects?
- Select
all the objects - Select
'arrange' in the top option bar, and then select 'align or distribute' - Select
the alignment you want.
In
order to align to slides follow the first two steps, then select 'align to
slide' and then follow the second and the third step.
How
can you add images?
You
can also crop your images in accordance with your customized shapes. Doing this
is easy.
- You
need to select the images and go for 'format' in the option bar. - Choose
the 'Crop' option and then 'mask to shape' followed by choosing the shape you
want and you are done.
Pay
attention to your slide's size and design
As
much as you like to go for the default slide size, the presentation depends on
the hardware and the place (and its size) where you are supposed to give it. So
always set a custom size to avoid slideshow problems, and do that before adding
any object. This is how you can do that-
- File
> page setup - Choose
the height and width of your slide and click 'OK'. - Click
on 'OK' for the dialog box that appears as well.
Design
the template prior to starting the work on your presentation so that you don't
have to work on every slide for designing them individually. You can do this by
the following method-
- Click
on 'theme' in the top navigation. - Select
edit master > slide master - Then
make the changes you want and click on 'close master'. This way you made
changes will be applied to each and every slide in that particular PowerPoint.
Working
on shapes to bring out perfection
PowerPoint
has a lot to it than the traditional shapes that we know. Instead of writing
paragraphs or using bullets to write steps, one can use diagrams and flowcharts
to make their presentation appealing and interesting. Once you start using
shapes in your presentation you understand how simple the features have become
when you can add graphs as well in no time.
Custom
shapes can help you by fitting to your slide and presentation need perfectly
well.
You
can customize shape using Right click > edit points.
You
can merge shapes as well to bring out the desired result by using Right click
> grouping.
Grouping consists of options like combine, union, intersect and subtract.
Embed
everything
- Instead
of using links to websites to prove your point, embed websites in your
presentation itself. This can be done using a third party software and html
iframe. This can also help in embedding YouTube videos in high quality. - Another
problem is the fonts that you use on your system. They are not supported when
you change hardware because the other pc may not have the same font files as
your pc. This problem can be dealt with by going to the 'save as' option,
clicking on the 'embed TrueType check box' and selecting OK. - Embed
multimedia so that you don't need to exit your PowerPoint to play videos.
Embedding includes the video in the PowerPoint and so there won't be any
trouble at the time of slideshow.
A few
more things to keep in mind to make your PowerPoint flawless are-
- Use
Ctrl+H to make the cursor disappear and click 'A' to bring it back. - Include
presenter view in your PowerPoint to make it seem more natural. This area is
for notes, a timer/clock, and a presentation display. It is found in the slide
show tab. - Always
use your own hardware so that you don't need to go with any adjusting trouble
at the time of presentation because you can never be too much prepared.
All
the small things that you think you will handle later on creates the most
problems and when you are in front of an audience, you often make more mistakes
to cover up the previous ones and so keep track of something beforehand and you
can pay all the attention to your presentation instead of focusing on
troubleshooting.
