One common cause of ‘Death by PowerPoint’ is trying to kill two birds with one stone – producing a presentation and a leave-behind at the same time. As a result both get done badly. As Jerry Weissman points out in The Art of Winning, there’s a lot of confusion between presentations and documentation.

"The Presentation-as-Document Syndrome represents one of the most common underlying problems that plague presentations. Presenters have become so accustomed to relying on graphics, especially PowerPoint slides, that they often think of the presentation as a mere accompaniment to those aids. In fact, many people act as if the presentation is completely dispensable. They’ll say, ‘I can’t attend your presentation next week. But it doesn’t matter. Just send me your slides!’ Or they sometimes say, ‘Send me your slides in advance.’ The PowerPoint slides then are treated as handouts."

You need two distinct, different documents:

• Your PowerPoint presentation, which should have as few words as necessary
• Your leave behind, which will have lots of background details, information and data

Problems often arise when a written document, such as a report or proposal, is re-purposed into a presentation. If there’s not much time, or the presenter isn’t aware of the PowerPoint/leave-behind issue, the slides can end up containing way too much information.

How much text per slide?

To avoid this issue, follow the ‘6 x 6 rule’. Use no more than 6 words per line and 6 lines per slide. This will limit the detail you include, with the advantage that neither you nor the audience gets drawn into ‘reading the slide’. Six words are usually enough to remind you of the point you want to make, but not too many to provide a distraction.

Of course, 6 x 6 is a counsel of perfection. You’re not always going to be able to achieve that. Sometimes you’ll have seven points, maybe eight – or you need slightly more than six words to capture the thought. Your aim, though, is to keep the number of bullets and their length to a minimum. Avoid complete sentences and chunks of text. If you end up with too much on one slide but can’t leave it out, consider running it across two or more slides.

What size text?

Readability is essential. Keep the font size reasonably large – minimum 20 point and maximum 32 point. 24 or 28 point is about right for most presentations. The text needs to be large enough to read from the back of the room. Some people make the mistake of using a size that’s appropriate for a written document, such as a report, which is 10-12 point. This is way too small for PowerPoint, and people will struggle to read it. A simple rule of thumb is to take the age of the oldest person in the room and divide it by two – that should be the size of your bullet points. In practise, 32 point is about as large as you can go without it appearing childish. The font you choose will affect the size too so you’ll need to exercise judgment over what gives the best result.

Headings need to be around 8 points larger than the bullet points, so there’s sufficient distinction in size between them. If the text is 28 point, the title needs to be 36 point – and so on.

Which font to use?

Don’t use lots of different fonts – it looks amateurish. Stick to one ideally, two at the most. Most operating systems provide lots of fonts to choose from – but many are unsuitable. Don’t use them just because they’re there. Serif fonts (those with small lines at the ends of the characters) such as Times New Roman are supposed to be easiest to read, but in practice sans serif faces such as Verdana, Gill Sans and Arial tend to be clearest. If there’s a possibility you might need to email your slides to others in the future, choose a font that’s standard on all PCs. If you decide to use a non-standard font, you’ll have to embed it for the recipient to be able to read it – which can increase the file size considerably.

Emphasising words and phrases

Sometimes you’ll want to emphasise certain words and phrases – what’s the best way of doing so? Well, as a general rule, don’t underline text. It looks ugly. A better way is to use bold, which makes it stand out on the screen, or, if the words are not in a phrase, put them in a slightly bigger font size.

Text mistakes to avoid

Most people know that you shouldn’t use capital letters in written communications, because it’s the equivalent of SHOUTING, but we still occasionally see slides full of upper case text. There’s nothing wrong with using capitals now and again for headings, but you must avoid them for the body copy – they really do annoy people intensely. And it’s best to avoid italic type for your bullet points, because they reduce the legibility of the words.

Think carefully about using coloured text, even if it’s your specified corporate shade. Black always looks crisp, gives a positive impression and is easy to read, even when the image is weak on the screen because of insufficient power in the projector or too much ambient light in the room. Text in red, yellow or green is best avoided because it looks cheap and tacky. Should you decide to ignore our advice and put your bullet points in a vivid colour, make sure it contrasts well with the background.

It’s also essential you check for spelling mistakes. Once a slide is blown up large on a screen it’s hard to miss errors, which make you look either careless or clueless.

Finally, make the words look attractive on the screen. Don’t crush them up against the edge of the slide – space the lines so it looks as though some thought has gone into the preparation.

It often aids comprehension to reveal one bullet at a time, building up a slide with a series of clicks. This prevents the audience jumping ahead. If you do plan to ‘reveal’ bullets in this way, be consistent in your method of reveal. Don’t have some points whizzing in from the side, some from above and some from below. It doesn’t make your presentation more interesting, if anything it draws attention to your lack of imagination. And please, please, please, don’t be tempted by all the sound effects. You’re not four years old!

David Slater, in the US Sales and Marketing Management magazine, speaks for many people when he says, "There’s a strong, growing intolerance for PowerPoint presentations with the old twelve-point font, the cheesy transitions, the car screech as a bullet comes across the street. You’re really viewed negatively if you use that stuff."

Pictures, graphs, charts and diagrams

Whenever you can, use visuals such as diagrams, illustrations, flow-charts, graphs and photographs. They’re a much more effective way of getting your message across and much more engaging than words. Put up a picture of your new product or factory and then tell the audience about them – rather than listing all the details as bullet points, which is immensely dull.

Make sure images are of sufficiently high quality – not low-resolution grabbed from your intranet or the web that pixelate when you blow them up. Many people consider clip art tacky and ‘old hat’, so it’s best to avoid it unless you really have no choice. Whenever possible use photographs and drawings you’ve had commissioned or charts instead.

Diagrams are great for explaining processes, such as the steps of a sales procedure. Charts are useful for illustrating quantitative data in a way that’s quick and easy to understand – such as pie charts or histograms.

Video Clips

Relevant video clips can really enhance a presentation, because they give a welcome change of pace. But keep them short. Your audience’s attention can easily drift if they’re more than five minutes long. Your company may pay for these to be produced professionally. It’s also relatively easy to capture action using a digital camcorder and edit the recording on your PC. The resulting file can be embedded in PowerPoint in seconds and can be set to start automatically when you come to the appropriate slide.

This article is an extract from ‘Teach Yourself Presenting’ by Amanda Vickers and Steve Bavister which will be out at the end of the year.

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