Don’t read slides. Use them only as reference as you speak directly to the audience.
Don’t use full sentences on slides. Show only key phrases in bullet point form. The 5x5 rule says five bullet points per slide and five words per bullet is the accepted maximum to maintain readability.
Create sharp contrast between background and text colors. Use a dark background with a light text color or vice-versa.
Use parallel sentence construction in bullets:
Same verb tense.
Start with same part of speech.
Ensure consistency in:
Fonts.
Colors.
Formatting.
Capitalization (or not) at start of bullet.
Headlines
Avoid ornate, hard-to-read fonts. Choose a sans-serif font like Helvetica or Verdana over a font like Times Roman, which has serifs or lines.
Don’t overuse bold and italic.
Use a large enough point size to be easily readable from the back of the room:
28-36 for text.
48-60 for headings.
Use no more than two fonts on a slide.
Avoid excessive use of the “bells and whistles” available in PowerPoint, like fades, dancing text, etc. The more extreme your animation, the more you risk losing your audience’s attention.
Put a blank or thank-you slide at the end so you don’t click out of your slide show.
Hit Control-L after the slide show has started to prevent any mouse movement from showing the cursor on the screen. Hit Control-A to cancel.
If you are handing out a hard copy of your PowerPoint slides, leave enough space for taking notes.
Make sure you have a backup copy of your PowerPoint presentation on disc or USB drive in case of a malfunction.
