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 Pedley's Powerpoint Pointers

• DO NOT USE THE STANDARD FONT, [times new roman]. It is boring and looks like an old fashioned typewriter typed it. Also because it narrows and widens in spots to look creative, it may be hard to distinguish some letters or words from the back. Use ARIAL or VERDANA or some such plain font so as not to distract from what you are trying to get across!
• Do NOT FILL every page with text! I know this error because I just love to do it by nature. Too much text is boring. Why do you think someone said, "A picture is worth a thousand words?" They were probably watching a boring presentation with lots of text and decided to warn others!
• DO NOT USE TOO MUCH COLOUR. [yes I am Canadian and we love to add those extra letters!] Another error I frequently do. Just enough to highlight certain main ideas.
• DO NOT HAVE TOO MANY ANIMATED GRAPHICS. Animated graphics can be fun. But if you are trying to make a point and everyone gets lost in the animation fun, will they remember your points?
• Use CONTRASTING COLOURS. Dark letters on a white, tan, beige, or weak yellow background contrast and make the words show up. Or the opposite, use a DARK BACKGROUND and white, tan, weak yellow or some other light colour which will stand out against the dark background.
• Use more slides and have less text per slide. Too much text tires the eyes even before we read it!
• You may want to consider putting your points up line by line as you make them so that the audience doesn't know where you are going next and decides to get some shuteye!

More on Presentations: I want to improve!

I am sure there are others but from 34 years of teaching school and attending conferences both business and educational, you learn a few things! Some of these also come from Powerpoint points from the following links.

Presenter's University
This site is provided by Infocus.com, the projector company, [yes we sell Infocus projectors].

Powerpoint or Worship backgrounds you can download
See links on the side. Remember this is also an Infocus store, so get what you came for and leave! However there are also FORUMS where people discuss such things.

Epson's Presenter's Online
Yes we sell Epson's too! But the free hints on How to do presentations, the clip art, templates, digital images and sound hints are worth wading through the site. Plus a great course in making PowerPoint slides.

Presentations Magazine
A professional magazine with lots of pointers and links to better presentations.

This will get you started at least!