Tips on making good PowerPoint slideshows?

[bluemagic]

It's sooo easy to make bad ones. How do I make mine sleek and interesting?

 

[danyllau]

If you are doing it at multiple places, make sure it looks good on low quality screens. Keeping things simple and clean, not too much texture details, etc..

 

[Milhouse]

Have you ever seen a good powerpoint slideshow? I haven't.

 

[greekonomist]

Lets see, I always start by not using PowerPoint.

Look into learning LaTeX.

 

[bluemagic]

Originally Posted by Milhouse

Have you ever seen a good powerpoint slideshow? I haven't.
That's the thing... Actually, I may use the Google Documents slideshow application.

 

[rdawson808]

There are a bunch of short "Don't do this/do do this" lists available out there for just this.

The basics are simple:

No animation
Make sure your font is large enough for the room
Font and background must have sufficient contrast to be seen.

Etc etc.

Your slides shouldn't be more important that your talk. Don't read off your slides, etc.

Frankly, I'm not sure how much better any other program would be. It's all up to the creator. And Latex? Sure if you have a lot of math to show.

b

 

[Syl]

Here's a trick my prof taught me once. If you don't have a projector to use, print your slides and put them on the floor. If you can't read them standing up, then the text is too small.

Second, if it takes more than 10 seconds to read the slide, there's too much text. There shouldn't be more than 1 idea, bullet etc.

NEVER read the text. You audience can read - no need to do it for them. The presentation should support you, not carry you. People should be there to listen to you talking, not to read anything.

It's corny but motion creates emotion. Don't stand behind a podium and talk. Walk around, gesture, look at people, point out thing in the slide. Be engaging. You should never, ever need to look at the screen or look behind you if you really know the material.

 

[Berticus]

Slideshows have always sucked. So far, the best professors I've had always used a project and wrote on transparent paper or on a white board/smartboard. That's not to say you can't have graphics. If you have a picture you'd like to show, by all means show it. If you have a chart or graph that's relevant, toss it up there.

Last time I used Powerpoint, or any kind of slideshow presentation software, the only page with text was the first one indicating the topic, the presenter (me) and date. Other than that, just pictures. Now, I don't even have an office suite. If I had to do a presentation, I'd fire up feh. Not sure what the Mac or Windows equivalent is. Or if I needed it to be portable, LaTeX. Another option would be to have a virtual machine with a very small and system. Another option would be to remotely log into my computer and forward X.

 

[aleeboy]

I used to work as a consultant. When I first started out, my manager told me that "you shouldn't do anything in Powerpoint!... you need to write it on paper". I have since found this to be true. I come from, like a lot of us here, the generations that wrote essays on paper and I hate the idea o putting everything in a Powerpoint.

I do similar consultancy style work now and I still give updates to my manager on paper. Something I think he appreciates rather than suffer more from the endless stream of Powerpoints that circulate.

So this would be my tip. Put it down on paper in a way that is clear in your mind. Once you have a clear flow, just replicate it in Powepoint. This also saves time playing around with boxes and shapes, as you have already thought about the layout and content.

AL

 

[bluemagic]

I now think it may just be full-screen pictures.

 

[AintDatRite]

...

 

[chuckseabreeze]

Originally Posted by rdawson808

The basics are simple:

No animation

b

Please follow this rule.

 

[dfagdfsh]

Sneak pornographic slides in a la Fight Club.

Seriously though, some things warrant a google search and not a thread =/

 

[chronoaug]

I just made 4 in the past day. What kinda slides you making, mang? Doing one now actually

 

[AintDatRite]

No animation

I dunno... not standard animation but MS Agent is a lil different. Use 'merlin' to narrate the presentation (everything from tapping on the 'screen' to flying around pointing to things on the slides).