Here are some highlights of our webinar, Taking Your PowerPoint Skills From Blah to Wow! This webinar begins with some interesting facts and statistics about PowerPoint. Did you know that it was originally created for use with Apple computers in 1984 by Forethought, Inc. and was given its name based on the product's goal of "empowering" individual presenters? By early 1987, Microsoft was seeking a new application to create presentations and acquired PowerPoint as its first major software acquisition…and the rest is history. There are over 500+million PowerPoint users worldwide with 30+million presentations created daily.
Here are the top 5 pitfalls that place a presentation in the “Blah” category:
- Too much content on the slide.
- Too many animation effects.
- Too many different fonts and colors.
- Images and text that are too small.
- Complex graphs.
Here are the top 5 ways to place a presentation in the “Wow” category:
- Consider where an audience looks first. An image with a face is one of the first features on a slide that draws attention as well as a bold headline and text that is presented as quick facts instead of lengthy paragraphs.
- Balance the placement of content on the slide. Use the guides and gridlines tools to align content as well as place a mix of images alongside text, such as bullets or numbered items, to keep the slide interesting.
- Use an appropriate chart or graph style to convey data visually. The vertical column chart is the best format to display data in chronological order. The horizontal bar graph is best used for data bars that have lengthy data labels. The stacked column or bar chart with contrasting colors can be useful to compare multiple parts to a whole relationship.
- Use images effectively. I’m sure you have heard the saying, “a picture is worth a thousand words” and this is so true in a PowerPoint presentation. However, the saying “less is more” is also true of avoiding the overuse of too many images. Avoid clipart and use the crop tools on images to remove distracting or irrelevant elements.
- Make the presentation easy to read. Select appealing and appropriate font styles, font sizes, and color themes and keep them consistent throughout the presentation.
This and a lot more was covered in our webinar, Taking Your PowerPoint Skills From Blah to Wow:
