Creating Effective Presentations in PowerPoint

1. Creating Effective Presentations in PowerPoint Pamela Conway – Dir. Business Development CompuWorks Systems, Inc.

2. What Makes a Presentation Effective? • Three main elements: • Content • Design • Delivery

3. Color • Background v. foreground • Avoid color associations • Changing color on the fly • Use color to emphasize Before After

4. Fonts • Types: • Serif • San-serif • Script • Decorative Sample of font types

5. Fonts • Size minimums: • Title Font – between 36-44 point • Main Body Font – between 28-32 point • First Level Sub-Point Font – between 24-28 point • Second Level Sub-Point Font – between 24-26 point

6. Fonts • Avoid words with all upper case letters • Avoid italics • Do not use too much bold text • Avoid using too many fonts – no more than 2 Before After

7. Bullets • Active verbs, no punctuation • No more than 5-6 per page • No more than 36 words • No more than 2 levels • 1 line of text per bullet • Bullets into graphics? Example Example Before After

8. Animation & Action Settings • Avoid too many types of transitions in one presentation • Limit to providing highlights or use for emphasis • Good motion v. bad motion • What are Action Settings? Example Example Example

9. Graphics • Graphic file types • BMP – uncompressed format created by Microsoft • TIFF – uncompressed; used mostly for print purposes; large file sizes • GIF – compressed BUT only renders up to 256 colors • JPG – optimized for photos; compression adjustable

10. Graphics Recommendations Use JPG when possible Shrink photo size in other application Photoshop Fireworks GIF may work for medical scan, x-ray images

11. Thank You! Pamela Conway CompuWorks Systems, Inc. pconway@compuworks.com www.compuworks.com/ppt