Add POWER to Power Point Presentation
These instructions assume you are using a Microsoft Power Point version from Office XP or later and are familiar with MS Word.
Step1 - Know your audience.
It’s very important that you create your presentation with your audience always in mind. This means being aware of their knowledge, education, and backgrounds. Knowing more about your audience will help you mold your presentation to the needs of your audience. Do not make it too simple or overly complex.
Step2 - Outline your presentation
Before you try to put information into a PowerPoint presentation, outline the information you plan to present. Narrow your story down to a specific focus, and make sure that all of your slides support your main points. If your information is organized and laid out before you create slides, the process will be smoother. Your PowerPoint presentation should flow from slide to slide, keeping your audience engaged and interested.
Step 3 - Draft the presentation in Microsoft Word
Compose your presentation using precise paragraphs with headings that stand out. With a specific outline as a guide, you can express your key ideas more clearly and succinctly. In MS Word try out ‘styles and formatting’ and ‘themes’ from Format menu and ‘send to Power Point’ from Filemenu.
Step 4 - Be brief
Do not make your audience try to choose between reading paragraphs of text and listening to your explanation. Stick to Four-by-Four Rule: limit the content of each of your slides to no more than four bullet points containing no more than four words each. When giving a presentation, PowerPoint should be a visual aid and a brief summery of your talk; do not write your entire text out on the slides.
Step 5 – Type fonts and sizes
The key consideration when choosing type fonts and sizes is: What can your audience read most easily?. The type size you choose will depend on the amount of text you have on a slide, your background, and even the size of the room. As a general guideline, use the following rules of thumb for the font sizes:
• Opening presentation titles: 44 to 80 point
• Slide titles: 44 to 66 point
• Bulleted material: 28 to 40 point
In most cases your audience will find your slides easier to read if you choose a clean, uncluttered typeface. Typically this means selecting a sans serif font (type without the little “feet” and flourishes). Ariel is probably the most commonly used sans serif font.
Step 6 – Colour choices
In Power Point presentation, colour is more than an aesthetic decision. The colours you choose can make the difference between whether an audience can read your slides or not. Make certain that your text is clearly legible, whether in a brightly lit room, or from near or far away. Perhaps you want to choose colours that represent your country’s flag, institution logo or congregation’s identity. If you choose a dark background colour, use a contrasting colour such as white for the text. Whatever colours you choose, keep your colour scheme consistent throughout your presentation.
Step 7 - Use appropriate graphics
Where your Power Point presentation can use further explanation or visual evidence, use a photograph or graphic. Be sure that images are sized so that your audience will be able to make out details. If you have a photo will small details, consider using it as a full slide. To insert a photograph or graphic into a slide, select ‘Picture’ from the Insert menu and choose ‘From File’ to locate a photo or graphic on your computer (e.g. My Pictures), or ‘Clip Art’ to insert a Microsoft clip art image.
Add images of anyone you quote in the presentation, to give your audience a sense of who is “talking.”
Step 8 - Embed video clips
Video can enhance a PowerPoint presentation, as long as it is relevant to your presentation’s content. Edit your video into small, manageable clips, as they will load easier and keep your audience’s attention. To insert a video clip, select ‘Movies and Sounds’ from the Insert menu and choose ‘Movie from File’ to locate a file on your computer.
Step 9 - Design your own layout
In PowerPoint, choose ‘Slide Master’ from View menu to edit the design of your presentation. Any changes to the slides in this view will apply where they are used in the slide show. Add graphics, choose text size and color, and move elements around until you land on a design you like. The masters can be edited as many times as you need.
Step 10 - Insert sound effects
To add impact to your PowerPoint presentation, consider adding sounds. To insert a sound clip, choose ‘Movies and Sounds’ from the Insert menu. You can then select ‘Sound from Clip Organizer’ to insert a stock Microsoft sound file, or ‘Play CD Audio Track’ to insert a track from a CD. If your computer has recording technology, you can choose ‘Record Sound’ to record and insert a custom sound.
Step 11 - Don’t overuse animations and motion
PowerPoint has many options for having your text and graphics moving around. For example, you can have bulleted points appear one word at a time. Or you can have a graphic gradually fill-in. These things may look fancy and seem pretty cool. But they can also annoy an audience or take up valuable presentation time. Pick and choose carefully what should and should not be animated.
This also applies to transitions between slides. You don’t need to animate every single slide, plus what’s on those slides. You select particular slides to transition with an animated effect
This will draw attention to that particular one. Or can be useful to separate various sections.
Step 12 - Beware of different lightings
You can spend hours playing around with different backgrounds, graphics, and colors. But all this can go to waste if you don’t know what kind of lighting you’ll have during your presentation. So find out how the room will be lit in advance. For example, will you be able to dim the lights near the screen?
Will the entire room need to be dark? Can you turn off alternating lights, such as every other row?
This is important for two reasons:
a) If audience members want to take notes, it makes it much easier for them to see,
b) Different colors and backgrounds can look differently under various lighting conditions. For example, a red can appear more like orange.
TIP: You may want to have multiple versions or one without a colored background just in case lighting isn’t appropriate. This way, you’ll be ready just in case the lights won’t display things to your satisfaction. And it’ll save you the time of having to redo things before your actual presentation.
Step 13 - Print-out handouts
One nice feature of PowerPoint is the ability to print your slides with those notes. This way, you can keep them handy while you’re presenting. This can help you remember which slide has what information. That can come in handy if you need to refer back to a particular slide later on. And if you’d like, you can print handouts of just the slides without your notes. These can be given to your audience members to write on or review at their leisure.
Step 14 – During presentation
In many situations you will find that there is only a short cable between your computer and the LCD projector, making the room set up, and your location, awkward. If possible, bring a remote control so that you can advance your slides without having to stay behind your computer. If you don’t have a remote control, and the room set up is very awkward, ask someone else to sit at your computer and advance the slides when you tell them to.
Step 15 – Using notes during presentation
Power Point has a way by which you can have your notes to prompt your comments on each slide. In the ‘Normal Slide View’, Power Point provides a ‘Notes’ pane in the center window, below the slide, with a small caption “Click to add notes.”
When you want to view your notes during the presentation and you do not want your audience to see them, set up the slide show in Presenter View. To set up Presenter View, from the Slide Show menu, select ‘Set Up Show.’ In the popup box, select the Show Presenter View check box under Multiple monitors. (Note: Make certain both monitors are connected and on and your computer is capable of supporting multiple monitors and in most cares this means the LCD projector for the audience and the monitor of your computer.)
Step 16– Using your presentation
Sometimes you decide against using a presentation because you do not want to carry a laptop or do not have a computer at the place. You can easily covert the Power Point Presentation as a jpeg (‘Save As’ from File, then choose Jpeg) in your digital camera or flash memory. Connect your camera to a TV or projector and view your presentation as a slide show of photos. You will not have all the fancy features of movement of text or videos, but you will have a presentation tool for your talk.
A final note: Power Point can be a great addition to your presentation, or it can be a great distraction. To add POWER to Power Point, learn to design aesthetically and use slides effectively. The slides are for your audience, not notes for you. So never read from your slides during the presentation. Limit both the number of slides you use and the amount of information you put on any one slide. Maintain eye contact with your listeners and you focus on your message.
