PowerPoint is Microsoft’s slide show presentation program. It comes bundled with Word, Excel, and other office productivity programs. The program uses slides to convey information using text, graphics, animation, transitions and other features. The term slide refers to the old slide projector, which PowerPoint effectively replaces.

Here are some useful tips for creating professional looking presentations.

Generally, a presentation will contain a title slide, an agenda or table of contents slide, the main content slides and a summary or conclusion slide. If applicable add a reference or works cited slide.

Keep PowerPoint Presentations Clean & Polished

Ideally you want your PowerPoint presentation to highlight your main talking points.

Your slides should contain the key parts of your story. Don’t fill your slides with too much text which can distract from your speech. You don’t want the audience spending all of their time reading. Use brief bullet points to summarize what you are saying.

You can use the 6×6 rule, the 6×6 rule is a widely known principle in presentation design. The rule limits each slide to six bullet points, with each point containing no more than six words. The slides will not overwhelm with too much reading while still covering key points.

Less is more, all content, animations, images, transitions and other content should serve a purpose. Review your presentation when it is complete and eliminate anything that is not necessary.

Spelling, Grammar & Punctuation

Spell and grammar check your presentation when you are finished and correct any errors. Limit punctuation, overdoing exclamation points and other punctuation can appear unprofessional.

Using Templates

PowerPoint has many templates to choose from, but some contain distracting backgrounds and poor color combinations. If you do choose a template select one that is professional looking with pleasing backgrounds and color choices, you can design your own presentation to create a unique look.

Be Consistent

PowerPoint offers many fonts, colors, designs and templates to choose from. When creating a presentation aim for consistency. All slides should contain a similar design and look. Choose a few simple, easy to read fonts, you might use one font for the headers, one for the sub-headers and one for the body. The font size should be easy to read from a distance but not too large that it takes up the entire slide. Slide content should be informative but not overloaded with T.M.I.

Choose Quality Images

When choosing images for your presentation select high quality images. Don’t use low-resolution images which can appear blurry and distorted. Images should emphasize and complement your presentation, don’t just use them as space-fillers. Often you can easily convey your message using an image with no or very little text on a slide. Avoid using ClipArt if possible, which can appear unprofessional and dated. Test your presentation to make sure the images retain their quality when projected on a big screen. 

Using Tables, Graphs & Charts

These visuals can present data in an organized manner. Don’t use unnecessary colors, borders and outlines which can distract from the content. Keep these visuals clean and minimalistic.

Using Animations

Animations, slide transitions, text fly-ins, sounds and other special effects should be used for emphasis and to support your narrative, too many can be distracting and make your presentation look unprofessional.

Using White Space

Use some white space around text, images and other elements. This keeps the look clean and organized and will draw attention to specific areas of your presentation.

Number of Slides

Consider the time allocated for your presentation and number your slides accordingly. Rushing through a presentation fails to get your point across and too many slides can bore the audience.