Any Powerpoint buffs out there? Tips required for a knock 'em dead presentation...

[northerner]

My content is good, but it all looks a bit bland. Any tips greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

Do you know how to put 'builds' into it so that different bits appear at different times and perhaps coming into the slide from different angles?

I'm not sure how to do it as we always had a creative dept to do that part but it might be obvious if you look at all the drop down menus at the top (or go to 'help'). I've done loads of presentations and I wish I could send you some but I'd get shot - they are very comercially sensitive.

Can you put info into 4 boxes or into coloured ovals to make it look more interesting. Could you put the data in boxes and link them with arrows if you have any point that flow from one another?

Can you use ticks and crosses for positive and negative points??

Oh, it's so hard to say what I mean!

Don't put everything you are going to say on the slides. Use the bullet points as a frame work for your talk.

I would avoid different types of animations drop, flying etc etc as that can get a bit wearing.

Intersperce your bullet point slides with pictures to help people focus their attention.

You can set your own backrowd, do it with some relevant graphics, but avoid changing the background too often as that gets a bit jarring.

Hi Northerner - whats the presentation on - I would work on having a master slide so that each slide looks essentially the same - and then you add relevant graphics. To develop a master click view and then master slide and then go from there.

To animate right click on the thing eg picture you want to animate and scroll down to custom animate and away you go!

I would avoid making it to glitzy as it gets difficult to present and just put the points that will prompt you.

HTH

Thanks guys. It's a presentation to try and win a very important tender. So very important!

Definitely have a standard format for each slide - background colour, logo and position of title etc. The more you can keep in one place, the more seemless it will look. (design a master slide first like ark says).
Use coporate colours and logo to keep your company name/identity there - but not too OTT or large a logo.
Keep it simple.
Stick to one or maybe 2 simple transition effects - builds are good where the bullet points add themselves in one by one.

I used to love doing presentations

Remember that the slides should ILLUSTRATE what you are saying, not repeat it.

My presentations always have lots of pictures, with short slogans, and I summarise what I actually want to say on the Notes pages. then I give handouts with the Notes printed below each illustration.

Thanks guys. Presentation is 1pm today. Fingers crossed!

My children are really good at powerpoint..I have never looked at it!!!

DOn't use those awful transitions, they are horribly naff.
Keep it simple.
Keep it consistent - same font, background etc throughout.
Don't make it busy - i.e. don't put in complicated tables or charts that will be difficult to see.
Nightynight's advice is good.

Less is most defnitely more!

I had a boss who used to include all sorts of animations, slide transitions, sound effects, graphics, formats etc. It was so distracting because once you'd noticed them, you couldn't stop looking at them (and counting them ), instead of the content!

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