How to Make a Professional Powerpoint Presentation

Microsoft's Power Point Presentation program has revolutionized the way that professional presentations are given. No longer are lecturers dependent upon the old fashion modes of pointing meter sticks and white boards or three-fold poster boards. Now, the power point technology has made the "acceptable" presentation become one where an animated computerized version of the presenter's notes is projected onto a large arena. While students in schools today are certainly familiar with this technology because they have grown up with it, many adults born before the computer era are not confident in their own ability to produce a "professional" looking power point presentation. The technicalities and the many options available to them in the making of a power point presentation is more troublesome than helpful and compiling a simple power point presentation can actually be a fearsome task for some. For anyone who is new to the world of power point presentations, here is a list of advice on how to make your presentation look professional and well put together.

First of all, always choose the same background for all of your slides. While it is possible to use different backgrounds for all of the different slides, this will only make your presentation look more tacky and scattered than well organized. I would suggest sticking with one of the simpler backgrounds, or even just a plain color. An all black background can actually look exceptionally nice, depending on the area where your presentation will be projected in.

Choose a standard font to be used throughout the entire presentation. Again, while the variety of fonts may prove tempting to alter the font on every slide, this will only make the presentation appear rather disjointed. You may, however, wish to change the size of the font in order to best fit your needs for a particular slide; feel free to do this, but always stick with the same font style throughout the entire presentation.

When picking a transition between slides, it can actually be to your benefit to choose a simpler one. Again, for a professional looking presentation, I would suggest using a uniform transition throughout the entire power point. A simple "slide in right" transition will be perfect for a clean looking presentation.

Finally, never overload your power point slides. Power point is meant to be used only to highlight the more important points of your presentation, leaving you as the presenter to fill in the supporting information. When you overload your slides with too much information, your presentation begins to look too crowded and unpleasing to your audience. As with any presentation, the point is to leave your audience with a clear picture of the material being presented; overloading the presentation may be tempting (because power point will allow you to put as much information into a slide as you wish) but resist the temptation to do so.

Compiling a power point presentation really is nothing to be feared. Follow these simple tips and you should have a clean looking presentation to use for your lectures.