1. Effective Use of
Powerpoint as a
Presentation Tool
Carizza Gelyn E. Pantangco
SY1219

2. POWERPOINT
• Microsoft PowerPoint is the name of a
propriety commercial presentation program
developed by Microsoft. It was officially
launched on May 22, 1990 as a part of the
Microsoft Office suite and runs on Microsoft
Windows and Apple’s Mac OS X operating
system. The current versions are Microsoft
Office PowerPoint 2010 for Windows and
Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2011 for Mac.

3. Thoughts About How to Use PowerPoint
Effectively
• PowerPoint, when displayed via a projector, is
a useful tool for showing audiences things
that enhance what the speaker is saying. It is
a useful tool for illustrating the content of a
speech, such as by showing photos, graphs,
charts, maps, etc., or by highlighting certain
text from a speech, such as quotations or
major ideas. It should not be used as a slide-
show outline of what the speaker is telling the
audience.

4. • Slides used in a presentation should be spare,
in terms of how much information is on each
slide, as well as how many slides are used. A
rule of thumb is to put no more than eight
lines of text on a slide, and with no more than
eight to ten words per line. In most cases,
less is more, so four lines of text is probably
better. Don’t display charts or graphs with a
lot of information—if it’s useful for the
audience to see such things, pass them out as
handouts.

5. • Unless you’re an experienced
designer, don’t use the transition
and animation ―tricks‖ that are built
into PowerPoint, such as bouncing or
flying text. By now, most people roll
their eyes when they see these
things, and these tricks add nothing
of value to a presentation.

6. • Use high-contrast color schemes so that
whatever is on your slides is readable. Unless
you are a talented graphic designer, use the
templates that come with PowerPoint or
Keynote, and keep it simple—high concept
design in a slide presentation doesn’t help in
most circumstances, unless you’re in the
fashion or design fields. If you use graphics
or photos, try to use the highest quality you
can find or afford—clip art and low-resolution
graphics blown up on a screen usually detract
from a presentation.

7. • Rehearse your PowerPoint presentation and
not just once. Don’t let PowerPoint get in the
way of your oral presentation, and make sure
you know how it works, what sequence the
slides are in, how to get through it using
someone else’s computer, etc. Make sure that
you can deliver your presentation if
PowerPoint is completely unavailable; in other
words, make sure you can give your speech
without your PowerPoint presentation.

8. • Get used to using black slides. There are few
speeches that need something displayed on
the screen all the time. If you include a black
slide in your presentation, your audience will
refocus on you, rather than on the screen,
and you can direct them back to the screen
when you have something else to show them.
Put a black screen at the end of your
presentation, so that when you’re done, the
PowerPoint presentation is finished and off
the screen.

9. • Concentrate on keeping the audience focused
on you, not on the screen. You can do this by
using slides sparingly, standing in front of the
audience in a way that makes them look at
you, and, if possible, going to the screen and
using your hand or arm to point out things on a
slide. If you expect to be using PowerPoint a
lot, invest in a remote ―clicker‖ that lets you
get away from the computer and still drive
your presentation. If you don’t have one of
those, it’s better to ask someone to run the
presentation than to be behind a screen and
keyboard while you talk.

10. • If you show something on a computer that requires
moving the cursor around, or flipping from one screen
to another, or some other technique that requires
interaction with the computer itself, remember that
people in the audience will see things very differently
on the projection screen than you see them on the
computer screen. Keep motion on the screen to a
minimum, unless you’re showing a movie or a video. It’s
better to show a static screenshot of a Web page,
embedded on a slide, than to call up the Web page in
a browser on a computer. If you want to point out
something on a Web page, go to the screen and point
at it—don’t jiggle the cursor around what you want
people to look at: their heads will look like bobble-
headed dolls.

11. • Don’t ―cue‖ the audience that listening to your
speech means getting through your
PowerPoint presentation. If the audience sees
that your PowerPoint presentation is the
structure of your speech, they’ll start
wondering how many slides are left. Slides
should be used asynchronously within your
speech, and only to highlight or illustrate
things. Audiences are bored with oral
presentations that go from one slide to the
next until the end. Engage the audience, and
use slides only when they are useful.

12. • Learn how to give a good speech without PowerPoint.
This takes practice, which means giving speeches
without PowerPoint. Believe it or not, public speaking
existed before PowerPoint, and many people
remember it as being a lot better then than it is now.
A few people use presentation software in extremely
effective ways—Steve Jobs and Stanford Law
Professor Lawrence Lessig are two examples. Al
Gore’s use of Keynote in the movie ―An Inconvenient
Truth‖ was a good model. But these three examples
don’t look at all like the way most people use
PowerPoint. Avoiding bad PowerPoint habits means,
first and foremost, becoming a good public speaker.

13. • Start by creating an outline
The most important part of any presentation is the
content, not the graphical appeal. That is why you
should develop your presentation with the content
first, before deciding on the look (colours, graphics,
etc.) Create a good structure for your presentation
by reflecting on the goal of the presentation, what
your audience is thinking right now, and what points
you need to make in order to move the audience from
where they are to where you want them to be. Write
an outline on paper or use sticky notes so you can
move ideas around. By creating an outline first, you
ensure that the content of your presentation is solid
before you concern yourself with the visual elements.

14. • Use Contrasting Colours
If you want your audience to be able to see what you
have on the slide, there needs to be a lot of contrast
between the text colour and the background colour. I
suggest a dark background with light text – I usually
use a medium to dark blue background and white or
yellow letters. Some prefer a light background and
dark letters, which will also work well – which you
choose will depend on personal preference. Don’t
think that just because the text looks fine on your
computer screen that it will look fine when projected.
Most projectors make colours duller than they appear
on a screen, and you should check how your colours
look when projected to make sure there is still
enough contrast.

15. • Use a big enough font
When deciding what font size to use in your presentation, make
sure it is big enough so that the audience can read it. I usually
find that any font size less than 24 point is too small to be
reasonably read in most presentation situations. I would prefer
to see most text at a 28 or 32 point size, with titles being 36 to
44 point size. The only reason I would use a font less than 24
point is when adding explanatory text to a graph or diagram,
where you could use a 20 point font size. If you are given a
small screen in a big room, your font will look smaller because
the image will not be as big as it should be. In this case, see if
you can get a larger screen, use a wall instead of a screen to
project on, move the chairs closer to the screen or remove the
last few rows of chairs.

16. • Stop the moving text
When text comes on the screen, we want the
audience to read the text, then focus back on
the presenter to hear the message. If the
text moves onto the screen in any way – such
as flying in, spiral or zooming – it makes it
harder for the audience members to read
since they have to wait until the text has
stopped before they can read it. This makes
the presenter wait longer between each point
and makes the audience members focus more
on the movement than on what is being said.

17. • Turn the pointer off
During a presentation, it is very annoying to have the pointer
(the little arrow) come on the screen while the presenter is
speaking. It causes movement on the screen and draws the
audience attention from the presenter to the screen. The
pointer comes on when the mouse is moved during the
presentation. To prevent this from happening, after the Slide
Show view has started, press the Ctrl-H key combination. This
prevents mouse movement from showing the pointer. If you need
to bring the pointer on screen after this, press the A key. If
the pointer does appear during your presentation, resist the
urge to press the Escape key – if you do, it will stop the
presentation and drop you back into the program. Press the A
key or Ctrl-H to make the pointer disappear.

18. • Have Slides at the End of Your Presentation
The last slide you speak to should not be the last
slide in your presentation file. You should have three
identical copies of your last speaking slide so that if
you accidentally advance one too many times at the
end of your presentation, your audience never knows
because you don’t drop into the program, the slide
looks like it has not changed. After these slides, you
should include some slides that answer questions that
you expect to be asked. These slides will be useful
during Q&A sessions after the presentation. The final
slide should be a blank slide so that if you go through
all the other slides, you have a final backup from
dropping into the program.

19. • Be able to Jump to Any Slide
PowerPoint has a feature that allows you to be able to
move quickly and seamlessly to any slide in your
presentation. To do so, you need to know the slide
numbers. The easiest way to print a list of the slide
numbers and associated slide titles is to go to the
Outline View and collapse the details for each slide
(there is a button on the left side of the screen in
this view that will do this). Then print the view. To
jump to any slide, just enter the slide number on the
keyboard and press the Enter key. This will move you
directly to that slide. This technique is very useful
for moving to a prepared Q&A slide or for skipping
parts of your presentation if time becomes an issue.

20. • Blank the screen
Sometimes we want the image on the screen
to disappear so that the audience is focused
solely on the presenter. There are two ways
to do this. The first is if you want to blank
the screen with a black image, similar to
shutting the projector off (we used to do this
all the time with overhead projectors by just
shutting the projector off). Just press the
period key (.) on the keyboard and the image
is replaced with a black image. Press the
period key again and the image is restored.

21. • Draw on the screen during a presentation
Sometimes it can be valuable to be able to
draw on the screen during your presentation
to illustrate a particular point or item. This
can be done in the following way. Press the
Ctrl-P key combination to display a pen on the
screen. Then, using the left mouse button,
draw on the slide as you wish. To erase what
you have drawn, press the E key. To hide the
pen, press the A key or the Ctrl-H key
combination.

22. Respectfully Submitted to Prof.
Erwin M. Globio, MSIT