10 Time Saving Tips for PowerPoint 2007

How to, Presentation, Time management0 comments

PowerPoint is a powerful tool for creating and designing eye-catching and dynamic presentations.  Below are 10 of the top functions that I use to help me work more effectively with PowerPoint.

• To quickly jump to slides during a presentation, type in the slide number and press Enter.  This is useful if you’re running out of time, and need to miss out on some slides without the audience knowing.

• In Slide Show view, pressing the B key makes the screen go black, which is great if you want your audience to focus on  what you’re saying for a moment rather than look at the slides.  Press the B key again to return to where you were before in the presentation.

• In Slide Show view, pressing Ctrl+H turns the pointer off so the cursor won’t appear during your presentation.  You can also turn the pointer on and off by pressing the A key.

• If you’ve ever presented, then you’ll know how frustrating it is when the screen freezes as you try to move between slides.  Well, there are various alternative ways of doing this.  To go to the next slide or animation build, press Down or Right arrow, Pg Dn, Spacebar, Left mouse click or Enter key.  To go to the previous slide or animation build, press Up or Left arrow, Pg Up, P key or Backspace key.

• To quickly animate multiple objects on one slide at the same time, select all the necessary objects and animate them as you normally would using the animation task pane.  This means that all the objects will be animated together.

• If you want to create a diagram with duplicate objects placed in particular locations on the slide, then create and format the object (eg rectangle), select it and with the Ctrl key held down, click your left hand mouse button and drag the object to the spot where you want it to be.  This is far quicker than copying and pasting the object and then having to spend time moving it to the correct location.

• Your file size can get too big if you have a lot of images in your presentation.  You can reduce the size of the file by up to 90% by compressing the images.  Select a picture in the presentation, go to the Picture Tools Format tab and click on Compress Pictures in the Adjust Pane.  Select OK to apply compression settings to all pictures, or click the check box to apply to selected pictures only.  You can adjust the settings by clicking on the Options button.

• To copy the formatting of text on one slide to another part of the presentation, select the original text then press down Ctrl+Shift+C, go to the text that you want to reformat and press Ctrl+Shift+V.  This command copies the formatting only, not the text.

• If you do find that you have too much text on one slide (there should be a maximum of 6 bullet points) then you can quickly split the slide into two using the Autofit option, which appears when you click inside the text box.  Click on the Autofit option to access the sub menu and select the Split Text Between Two Slides option.  PowerPoint will then automatically split the text evenly so both slides have as large font type as possible.

• Remember that if you are doing your presentation outside of your office, you will need to ensure that any videos or other linked objects are saved in a folder which you can access remotely, ideally the same one as the presentation.  Otherwise the media or objects will not display properly because the link they’re pointing to cannot be accessed.

I hope you’ve enjoyed these tips to help you save time and effort when working with PowerPoint.

5 Ways to Make Your PowerPoint Presentation Stand Out

How to, Presentation, Small business0 comments

When making a presentation, it’s all too easy to fall into the trap of relying on your PowerPoint slides to help get your message across.  Although PowerPoint may be a great tool to help you present your information in a creative and interesting way, it’s dangerous to rely on it fully as this will just turn your audience off from what you’re saying.

Here are 5 tips to help make your presentation stand out from the crowd.

1. Be Compelling

PowerPoint is a great tool to put together eye-catching presentations, but remember that your audience has come to hear you, not look at a slide.  So by all means make your PowerPoint presentation look professional and engaging but don’t forget that your speech needs to be compelling too.  Remember, your slides are there to support your spoken presentation, not the other way round!

2. Keep it simple

Don’t overwhelm your audience with a mass of data, graphics and animations.  The most effective PowerPoint presentations are simple — charts that are easy to understand, and graphics that reflect what the speaker is saying. It’s been suggested that there should be no more than five words per line and no more than five lines per individual slide. Any images, graphs and animations need to back up the information, not confuse the audience.

3. Be Engaging

Many of us have sat through a presentation where we have spent the whole time looking at the back of the speaker’s head!  They have spent so much time reading off the slides, they don’t engage with the audience.  PowerPoint works best with a speech that augments what’s on the screen rather than just reading off the slide. Remember, you need to interact with the audience in order for them to engage and listen to you.

4. Don’t use PowerPoint!

There’s a time and place for PowerPoint.  It should only be used as an accompaniment to the presenter’s script so let the screen go blank if you need  to.  This gives your audience a break, but also helps to focus their attention on what the presenter is saying, especially during the question and answer session.

5. Rehearse and edit

Once you’ve drafted your speech and slides then rehearse your presentation.  Do this preferably in front of someone else to ensure that what you are saying and presenting can be easily understood.  If something comes across as distracting or confusing then get rid of it.  Remember to keep the needs of the audience in your mind at all times as they are the ones who will be the ultimate judge of how successful your presentation has been.