Tips for creating and delivering an effective presentation

Choose a font style that your audience can read from a distance.

Choosing a simple font style, such as Arial or Calibri, helps to get your message across. Avoid very thin or decorative fonts that might impair readability, especially at small sizes.

Choose a font size that your audience can read from a distance.

Try to avoid using font sizes smaller than 18 pt, and you may need to go larger for a large room where the audience is far away.

Keep your text simple and minimize the amount of text on your slides

Use bullets or short sentences, and try to keep each to one line; that is, without text wrapping.

You want your audience to listen to you present your information, rather than read the screen.

Some projectors crop slides at the edges, so long sentences may be cropped.

You can remove articles such as "a" and "the" to help reduce the word count on a line.

Use art to help convey your message.

Use graphics to help tell your story. Don't overwhelm your audience by adding too many graphics to a slide, however.

Make labels for charts and graphs understandable.

Use only enough text to make label elements in a chart or graph comprehensible.

Make slide backgrounds subtle and keep them consistent.

Choose an appealing, consistent template or theme that is not too eye-catching. You don't want the background or design to detract from your message.

See Combining colors in PowerPoint – Mistakes to avoid.

For information about using themes, see Add color and design to my slides with themes.

Use high contrast between background color and text color.

Themes automatically set the contrast between a light background with dark colored text or dark background with light colored text.

See Combining colors in PowerPoint – Mistakes to avoid.

Check the spelling and grammar.

To earn and maintain the respect of your audience, always check the spelling and grammar in your presentation.

Show up early and verify that your equipment works properly.

Make sure that all equipment is connected and running.

Don't assume that your presentation will work fine on another computer.

Disk failures, software version mismatches, lack of disk space, low memory, and many other factors can ruin a presentation.

Turn off screen savers, and ensure you have the appropriate files and versions of software that you need, including PowerPoint.

To ensure all files are accounted for when you copy them to a USB drive and carry them to your presentation location, see Package a presentation for CD or USB flash drive.

Consider storing your presentation on OneDrive so it can be accessible to you from any device with an internet connection.

Verify that the projector's resolution is the same as the computer on which you created your presentation.

If the resolutions don't match, your slides may be cropped, or other display problems can occur.

Turn your screen saver off.

Keep your audience focused on the content of your presentation.

Check all colors on a projection screen before giving the actual presentation.

The colors may project differently than what appears on your monitor.

Ask your audience to hold questions until the end.

Questions are an excellent indicator that people are engaged by your subject matter and presentation skills. But if you save questions until the end of the presentation, you will get through your material uninterrupted. Also, early questions are often answered by ensuing slides and commentary.

Avoid moving the pointer unconsciously.

When you are not using the pointer, remove your hand from the mouse. This helps to stop you from moving the pointer unconsciously, which can be distracting.

Don't read the presentation.

Practice the presentation so that you can speak from bullet points. The text should be a cue for the presenter rather than the full message for the audience.

Stay on time.

If you plan a certain amount of time for your presentation, do not go over. If there is no time limit, take less time rather than more to ensure that people stay engaged.

Monitor your audience's behavior.

Each time that you deliver a presentation, monitor your audience's behavior. If you observe people focusing on your slides, the slides may contain too much data or be confusing or distracting in some other way. Use the information you learn each time to improve your future presentations.

Practice makes perfect.

Consider rehearsing your presentation with Presenter Coach.