Microsoft PowerPoint Best Practices, Tips, and Techniques E-Book

Chantal Bossé

• Herausgeber: Packt Publishing
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 403

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

Giving great business presentations that stand out can mean the difference between getting and losing out on an important promotion, a critical client deal, or a grant. To start creating PowerPoint presentations that showcase your ideas in the best light possible, you’ll need more than attractive templates; you'll need to leverage PowerPoint's full range of tools and features.
This is where this PowerPoint book comes in, leading you through the steps that will help you plan, create, and deliver more impactful and professional-looking presentations. The book is designed in a way to take you through planning your content efficiently and confidently preparing PowerPoint masters. After you’ve gotten to grips with the basics, you’ll find out how to create visually appealing content using the application’s lesser known, more advanced features, including useful third-party add-ins. The concluding chapters will equip you with PowerPoint’s advanced delivery tools, which will enable you to deliver memorable presentations.
By the end of this book, you’ll be able to confidently choose processes to create and deliver impactful presentations more efficiently.

Leseprobe

Microsoft PowerPoint Best Practices, Tips, and Techniques

An indispensable guide to mastering PowerPoint’s advanced tools to create engaging presentations

Chantal Bossé

BIRMINGHAM—MUMBAI

Microsoft PowerPoint Best Practices, Tips, and Techniques

Copyright © 2023 Packt Publishing

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Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of the companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals. However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.

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To my best friend, life partner, and business partner, Patrice Perras – you introduced me to computers and technology 30 years ago, helping me discover how fun they are to use, even though I hated everything about them when I started. This book would not have been produced without that spark.

To my two sons, Alexandre and Vincent – what I learned by helping you use PowerPoint and prepare your school presentations has also been an inspiration for this book.

– Chantal Bossé

Contributors

About the author

Chantal Bossé has worked in instructional design and training for over 25 years and is the founder of CHABOS Inc., specializing in M365 training and high-stakes presentation design and coaching. She has been a Microsoft PowerPoint, M365 Apps & Services Most Valued Professional (MVP) since 2013 and has helped over 250,000 international French-speaking learners on LinkedIn Learning with her courses on PowerPoint, Teams, and communication. She thrives on helping people understand and leverage technology to help them work efficiently and deliver engaging and impactful presentations.

I became who I am because of many people that crossed my path through the years. Thank you to my friends at The Presentation Summit, my PowerPoint MVP peers, the Microsoft PowerPoint development team, and The Presentation Guild. You all have been an enormous source of inspiration and support. And thank you Packt for believing in and supporting me.

About the reviewer

Glenna Shaw has over 2 decades of experience in creating visual communications in the form of presentations, data visualizations, dashboards, demos, prototypes, and system user interfaces. She is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP) and a Microsoft PowerPoint MVP. Glenna is frequently sought out for her innovative information management solutions using SharePoint and Microsoft Office, as well as her creative visual communication designs. Glenna has been a spotlight speaker at events, a technical editor for books and training courses, and frequently teaches advanced Microsoft Office classes. She is also the author of tutorials on using sensory psychology to improve visual communications on her Visualology blog.

Under the penname The PowerPoint Magician, she is the author of the popular PowerPak for PowerPoint series, an innovative collection of lesson and educational game templates.

Glenna holds certificates in accessible information technology, graphic design, knowledge management, information design, and professional technical writing. Glenna was a mental health therapist for 10 years and now applies that background and knowledge of psychology to the art of visual communications.

Table of Contents

Preface

1

Analyzing Your Audience and Presentation Delivery Needs

10 questions to help you plan your presentation

Question 1 – what is my presentation’s goal?

Question 2 – what is at stake?

Question 3 – what is my main message?

Question 4 – what story can help the audience understand the message?

Question 5 – who is my target audience?

Question 6 – what is the duration of my presentation?

Question 7 – what type of venue will I present in?

Question 8 – what type of presenter am I?

Question 9 – what questions might be asked by the audience?

Question 10 – what content do I already have available?

Analyzing and sorting your content

What is the best way to start?

Sorting the content

Structuring and developing your message

The three-part model

Telling your story

Summary

Further reading

2

Using Industry Best Practices to Design Better Visuals

Technical requirements

Choosing fonts

Which font category should you use?

Font compatibility issues

Checklist to help you review font choices

Using the right font size

Learning about contrast

Choosing colors wisely

Decluttering your slide contents

Making the look and feel of your slides consistent

Summary

Further reading

3

Leveraging PowerPoint’s Slide Master for Design

Technical requirements

Understanding layouts and placeholders

Layouts

Placeholders

Accessing layouts and placeholders through a slide master

Choosing fonts and colors

Selecting the color palette

How to customize a color palette

Selecting title and body fonts

Configuring standard layouts

Try it yourself

Changes you can make and should avoid

Adding custom layouts

Reordering your slide layouts

Renaming your template to avoid Office Theme labeling

Using the Hide Background Graphics feature

Using a Microsoft stock image with a picture placeholder

Retrieving missing footer placeholders

Using the lock feature for placeholders or objects

Summary

Further reading

4

Using PowerPoint’s Document Masters for Accessible Handouts and Notes

Technical requirements

Configuring the Handout Master for a simple document

Adding graphic elements to your Handout Master

Adding your header and footer content

Configuring the Notes Master for a complete handout

Customizing your Notes Master

Adapting your presentation file for a handout and delivery notes

Making your presentations accessible

Printing your documents

Troubleshooting text contrast in grayscale

Exporting your document as a .pdf file

Summary

Further reading

5

Using Artificial Intelligence to Improve Your Visuals

Technical requirements

Creating great image layouts with Designer

Setting up Designer

Using Designer with images

Using Designer to create visual lists and timelines

Design ideas from a list

Design ideas from dates

Using Designer ideas to start a presentation theme from scratch

Bringing perspective to your data with Designer

Summary

Further reading

6

Adding and Modifying Visual Elements

Technical requirements

Inserting and modifying a map

Converting bullet points into SmartArt

Creating new shapes with Edit Points

Creating new shapes with the merging tools

Breaking apart a Venn diagram

Creating special text

Using and customizing stock images and other graphics

Using Picture Format tools

Customizing icons or illustrations

Summary

Further reading

7

Adding and Modifying Multimedia Elements

Technical requirements

Inserting and formatting videos

Supported video file formats

Inserting video files

Formatting video files

Inserting and formatting audio

Supported audio file formats

Inserting audio files

Formatting audio files

Using the Cameo feature

Inserting a screenshot or screen recording for a demo

Try it yourself

Creating a video file or GIF from a presentation

Exporting a presentation as a video

Creating an animated GIF

Summary

Further reading

8

Working with Transitions and Animations

Technical requirements

Using slide transitions wisely

Understanding transition basics

Viewing slide transitions

Adjusting the Timing options

Leveraging the Morph transition

Using Morph Effect Options

Creating a moving timeline with Morph

Creating movement and a zooming effect with Morph

Morphing an object into another using the !! naming scheme

Using advanced animation sequences

Reviewing animations basics with the Animation Pane option

Modifying existing animations and creating an advanced sequence

Adding new animations to objects already animated

Using triggers for on-demand animations

Using triggers with shapes and images

Using triggers with a video bookmark

Summary

Further reading

9

Building Flexibility and Interactivity into Your Presentations

Technical requirements

Using navigation elements in a presentation

Navigating with action buttons

Creating your navigation buttons

Using other slide objects for navigation

Creating custom shows

Using the Zoom feature to navigate your content

Creating a summary zoom

Inserting a section zoom

Inserting a slide zoom

Creating triggered menus

Summary

Further reading

10

Using PowerPoint Third-Party Add-Ins

Technical requirements

BrightCarbon

Using BrightSlide (for free)

Using BrandIn (paid)

Neuxpower

Using Neuxpower’s compression tools

Using Slidewise (paid)

Billion Dollar Graphics

Using Build-a-Graphic (paid)

PPTools

Using THOR (free)

Using PPTMerge (paid)

Summary

Further reading

11

Practicing Your Presentation Delivery

Technical requirements

Viewing and adapting Slide Show options

Leveraging Speaker Coach to help you practice your talk

Starting Speaker Coach

Analyzing your rehearsal report

Rehearsing timings and creating a recorded practice run

Using the new Record feature to practice

Summary

Further reading

12

Using Presenter View

Technical requirements

Defining and starting Presenter View

Using the display and navigation tools

Using the annotation tools

Using other tools

Making your presentation more accessible with live subtitles

Summary

13

PowerPoint Live and Interactive Features in Microsoft Teams

Technical requirements

Getting started with and using PowerPoint Live

Creating and using breakout rooms

Using Q&A and Polls to create more interactions

Using Q&A

Using Polls in a meeting

Improving the camera, lighting, and microphone setup

Checking Microsoft Teams device settings

Tips to help you improve how you look and sound

Summary

Conclusion

Further reading

Index

Other Books You May Enjoy

Preface

Using PowerPoint is something that many people have done at some point in their business life, and maybe before as students – but creating engaging and impactful presentations is something many users struggle with.

When I was asked to write on PowerPoint applications, it became obvious I also had to discuss more than just the tools. For close to 20 years now, I have seen clients struggle because they did not know about the industry’s best practices and did not have formal training to help them discover and use some more advanced and very helpful features. All the people I trained and all the clients I worked with also had a common desire: they all wanted to save time when creating their presentations.

This is why this book is different from most PowerPoint books. You have the choice to go on a journey through the most important tools to help you plan, craft, and deliver visually appealing and more flexible impactful presentations. Otherwise, you can choose to read any chapter or about any topic that will help you learn about features and tools that you didn’t know already.

Whatever method of reading you adopt, I can guarantee that you will be more knowledgeable on presentation best practices, PowerPoint features that help you create better presentations more efficiently, and how to improve your presentation delivery by the end of this book.

Who this book is for

This book is for business professionals without any formal design training or experience, but the advice contained in the book could also apply to executives and teachers. These professionals may have had some very brief PowerPoint training in the past, but many will be self-taught. Most will have used PowerPoint before and will therefore already be familiar with the basics.

What this book covers

Chapter 1, Analyzing Your Audience and Presentation Delivery Needs, introduces questions that will help you plan and structure your presentation content.

Chapter 2, Using Industry Best Practices to Design Better Visuals, helps you learn about important industry best practices to improve your design.

Chapter 3, Leveraging PowerPoint’s Slide Master for Design, talks about how the Slide Master can be used as a design automation tool.

Chapter 4, Using PowerPoint’s Document Masters for Handouts and Notes, covers how to leverage masters, which will help you make your presentation files serve more than one purpose and still be efficient and impactful.

Chapter 5, Using Artificial Intelligence to Improve Your Visuals, helps you understand how the Designer feature can save you some design time.

Chapter 6, Adding and Modifying Visual Elements, discusses how to use graphical elements and customize them to replace text and bullet points.

Chapter 7, Adding and Modifying Multimedia Elements, goes into how to improve your content by using and formatting audio and video elements.

Chapter 8, Working with Transitions and Animations, focuses on generating movement with purpose, which will improve the pace of your content and the audience’s understanding.

Chapter 9, Building Flexibility and Interactivity in Your Presentations, explains how to engage your audience by using navigation elements to adapt to their needs or show them special content.

Chapter 10, Using PowerPoint Third-Party Add-Ins, brings in a few ways to boost your content creation productivity and presentation management possibilities.

Chapter 11, Practicing Your Presentation Delivery, points out some of PowerPoint’s native tools that will help you practice your presentations so that you have a memorable effect on your audience.

Chapter 12, Using Presenter View, puts forward how this feature and its many tools can help you deliver more engaging presentations and have more control.

Chapter 13, Using PowerPoint Live in Microsoft Teams, has been included to help virtual presenters who use Teams discover many features that will help encourage engagement.

To get the most out of this book

This book will give you step-by-step instructions to help you find the right features and tools and use them. To get the most out of this book, you should try features that are new to you as you read about them. This is the best way to learn about and remember them. If your goal is to learn about how to implement a better presentation creation process, you should read the chapters in order, but reading chapters or picking up topics in any order can be valuable if you are a more advanced user.

Software/hardware covered in the book

Operating system requirements

PowerPoint

Windows

PowerPoint Live/Teams

macOS is compatible in most cases

BrightSlide

BrandIn

WeCompress/NXPowerLite

Slidewise

Build-a-Graphic

THOR

PPTMerge

If you work for an organization with an IT admin team, you might need to confirm with them if you find that your M365 PowerPoint version lacks some features, or if you want to install any of the third-party add-ins discussed in this book.

After reading this book, if you need a little support or have some questions, please consider filling in this form – https://forms.office.com/r/9kX3bapZdG – which will also give you access to a special LinkedIn private support group. Here is a QR code for your convenience:

Conventions used

There are a number of text conventions used throughout this book.

Code in text: Indicates code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles. Here is an example: “For example, you cannot have two objects named !!Shape on the same slide.”

Bold: Indicates a new term, an important word, or words that you see onscreen. For instance, words in menus or dialog boxes appear in bold. Here is an example: “If you uncheck the On Mouse Click checkbox, you can remove the option to navigate with the mouse or keyboard when the presentation is in slideshow mode.”

Tips or important notes

Appear like this.

Get in touch

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1

Analyzing Your Audience and Presentation Delivery Needs

I’m sure many readers might think it is odd to start a PowerPoint book with information about how to analyze your audience and presentation delivery needs. After many years as a presentation expert and public speaking coach, I can assure you that the first step in creating an impactful PowerPoint presentation is to avoid opening the application at all costs!

Like most business professionals, you’ve probably attended many presentations and conferences where using a PowerPoint presentation was almost a requirement. When you think about your experiences as an attendee, how many times did you think about how boring the content was? Or did you start to tune out, checking your emails or social media from your smartphone?

As a presenter, you might have imposed death by PowerPoint on your audiences a few times. If your main reason is always a lack of time to prepare, then I would advise trying to review your preparation timeline. There is no way anyone can plan, prepare, and deliver an impactful presentation in a few days, whatever the duration of it. As a matter of fact, the shorter the duration, the longer it will take you to choose the right content and deliver it in a memorable way.

There is one important reason I have heard many times throughout the years for not putting in more time to prepare presentations: I don’t know where to start. This is the main reason that I chose to have this topic as the first chapter in my PowerPoint book. You’ll know how to plan better presentations simply by following the three main sections in this chapter:

10 questions to help you plan your presentationAnalyzing and sorting your contentStructuring and developing your message

10 questions to help you plan your presentation

Before sharing my top 10 questions to help you plan your next presentation, let me ask you the first question I ask all my clients before they can even start the official planning process: What are the three most important elements your audience needs to remember or act on after your presentation?

This question usually triggers a long moment of silence, mainly because too many presenters are not clear on what they want their audience to remember. If that question triggers the same reaction for you regarding your next presentation, then make sure to take some time to think through what three elements need to be remembered or acted on by your audience before you dive into the next question. This will make your planning task even more efficient.

Here is a summary diagram of the 10 questions you should go through before you create your presentations:

Figure 1.1 – Planning questions summary diagram

Why’s the diagram in a circular representation? Because it is an ongoing process leading to more impactful presentations.

Question 1 – what is my presentation’s goal?

Presenting for an informative session does not have the same end goal as a project update, a training session, or an investor pitch deck. This is why you need to think through the actual goal of your next presentation. Not only will it improve your audience satisfaction, but you will be able to find more effective visuals for your content when you are clear on the goal you want to achieve.

Let’s see a few examples.

An informative session

Even if you think your task is only to inform the audience, make sure they will be leaving with clear takeaways. Many years ago, I remember attending an information session for a school trip program. Yes, it was full of nice and enchanting photos of the cities our kids would be visiting, but the trip coordinator made sure we had three clear action steps:

Meeting the due dates for paymentsMeeting the due date for passport validationAttending the vaccination clinic on the specified date

So, even though it was an information session, we all knew we had some specific tasks to accomplish and that there were date limits for each of them. This example can easily be transposed to any business information session. You just need to keep in mind any action steps that the audience needs to accomplish while you are preparing your presentation.

Project update presentation

This type of presentation is usually known to be very repetitive and boring in businesses. The main reason why is that most presenters only keep repeating the same type of information. Instead of simply stating the percentage of advancement or whether the team is on target budget-wise, find three key elements that stand out since the last update. As an example, if a team member found a new way to improve processes and avoid delays, put that information in your project update presentation. Take some time to reflect on why you have had successes or even failures. This will be a much more interesting report than simply stating data.

A client or investors pitch deck

This type of presentation serves the dual needs of helping the audience know about your product or service and convincing them to invest in your business or buy your product/service. If this is the type of presentation you need to prepare, you need to think about the advantages of your products or services and identify their perceived value. You need to gain and build your audience’s trust before anyone will buy your products or services, and simply listing features and processes won’t be enough. Of course, if you present to investors, your financial forecast needs to be realistic!

A corporate training session

Delivering corporate training requires clarity on the objectives of the session. Were you tasked to create training for new hires, or because current employees do not produce quality work? It might also be because there is a brand-new operating system or new applications that people need to get familiar with so they can still accomplish their daily tasks. Taking the time to reflect on whom you will train, for what reasons, and your management’s expectations will help you select important topics and decide on the type of content to create to help learners meet expectations.

Question 2 – what is at stake?

Time is the most precious resource in businesses. So, we need to know where we absolutely need to put in more time and effort for the best return on our investment. That is why you need to ask yourself what the impact will be if your presentation lacks preparation and practice. If you are preparing a bi-weekly update, the stakes are not as high as if you are preparing a pitch that can win you a $10 million grant for your project. If you are short on time for your project update, you can always do better at the next one. But if you don’t put in more time and effort for the grant pitch, you might wonder whether your presentation made you lose it if you don’t get the grant.

In a corporate training environment, the stakes might also be very high. You need to reflect on what happens if your training content does not meet the requirements. What happens to the company’s bottom line if employees cannot accomplish the desired tasks? Even if it is difficult to put a precise dollar sign on this, you can think in terms of increased efficiency by taking less time to accomplish certain tasks. If you estimate that your training will help employees gain 1 hour each week, you can then establish a dollar amount by adding hours saved for the whole group and multiplying by their salary to help management see the value of the training.

Question 3 – what is my main message?

This question is most important when you are putting together a presentation that will be a subset or a shorter version of the content you usually present. Knowing your main message helps you to decide what content needs to be kept and what needs to be put aside for the actual presentation. Every presenter I know works with a lot of content and usually thinks everything is important. But when we put our audience’s needs or expectations first, while making sure we have the main message as a thread line for our presentation, we soon realize that some content is not as relevant. In the presentation industry, less is more. Choose your content wisely so it will have more impact.

If you are creating training content, your main message also needs to be very clear. Make sure learners see the value of the training for them. I suggest that you think about two main messages for corporate training sessions: one that fits management expectations in terms of productivity or efficiency, and one that fits your learners’ expectations, whether they want to save some time on some tasks or understand their role better. There is no magic wand to help you craft messages that will appeal to learners and management. You will need to take some time to ask both parties about their expectations and pain points.

Question 4 – what story can help the audience understand the message?

Human beings love stories. When we look closely, we can even say that most of our decisions are influenced by stories. Have you ever taken a close look at popular advertisements? They all have a story attached to them, just like movies.

This is why you need to find a supporting story for your presentation to make it more impactful. I am not telling you to craft an intricate plot. You just need to look at a personal or client story that supports your content. For example, if you are presenting in front of a room full of potential clients, you could tell the story of a past client that came to you with a specific challenge. Tell the audience how, after using your product or service, the client was able to increase their overall productivity or increase their revenue. If you have permission to name your past client, or even get a testimonial you can use, that would be even better. The important part is to make sure any story you choose supports the main goal of your presentation.

In a corporate training setting, you could try to craft a story around a fictitious employee’s journey from before and after the training. Or, you could simply state the actual situation in the work environment versus what it can be after the training and how this will serve the learners too. When I was a trainer in a big telecommunications company for their customer service department, I usually used some client experiences I had when doing the job so they could relate and realize why some content was extremely important. It is okay to use stories in corporate training as long as it illustrates why your teaching points are important and their value when going back to the job.

Question 5 – who is my target audience?

Knowing whom you are presenting to will definitely help you craft a better presentation. The language and examples you use need to be aligned with the level of knowledge your audience might have about the topic. For example, if you are presenting to your peers or industry experts, you can use commonly used technical terms. But if you are presenting at a conference where your audience might be from different backgrounds, the language needs to be simpler. You also need to be aware that any acronyms or industry jargon might be too much for some people. I am not saying to not use them at all. But introducing them to anyone without the proper background could still help them to understand the high-level meaning.

When you are presenting within your company, and you know the topic could be controversial or not be well accepted by some colleagues, make sure to think through what objections they might have. This will help you to prepare content that will help them understand your point, even if they still don’t agree with it.

When preparing corporate training sessions, you need to think about who will be attending the training. If they are new hires, you will need to give more detailed information and make sure you avoid using jargon without giving proper definitions. When it is content destined for current employees, you need to consider what their actual level of knowledge might be before the session and what level of knowledge you are expecting after the training.

Question 6 – what is the duration of my presentation?

There is one rule I ask all my clients not to break: never go over the allotted time. By sticking to this, you are showing respect for your audience’s time and for other presenters coming after you, if you are speaking at an event. Remember what I said previously? More information is not always better. Quality and targeted information brings more value and is more impactful in the long run.

So, keeping in mind the duration of your presentation will also help you estimate how much detail you can include in your content. Also, always include enough time so attendees can ask questions and interact with you.

You might be wondering whether there is a simple way to figure out how much content you can plan according to the allotted time. Through the years, I have shared this rule of thumb with clients to help them out. It is not an exact science, but it worked every time I used it.

Content planning rule

Plan content for 75% of the allotted time. That means that if your talk is scheduled to be 1 hour, plan content for 45 minutes. You never know when technology glitches might get in the way, or if the event experiences scheduling delays. If you are wondering how this rule can be translated into the number of slides, we will address this burning question in Chapter 2, Using Industry Best Practices to Design Better Visuals, on industry best practices.

Depending on your topic, you could even consider having even less content and allowing more time for interactions. When the audience gets the chance to really participate, it will make your presentation more memorable and meaningful. Don’t be afraid of finishing early because the audience did not participate as much as you thought. In my 25 years in the industry, I have never seen anyone complain because a presentation finished earlier. Some people will use the extra time for a break before their next obligation, and others will take this as an opportunity to ask you more questions. In either case, everyone is happy.

Question 7 – what type of venue will I present in?

How you will be delivering your presentation is a very important question. Your content design needs to consider whether you will be presenting in a huge venue for 1,000 attendees – that usually means very large screens and some people very far away – a small meeting room, or even a remote virtual presentation that might be watched on regular computer screens, tablets, or mobile phones.

When you are presenting in large venues, you need to be informed of the size of the room and screen, and the lighting in the venue. This will allow using the best font sizes and contrast to make sure everyone in the room will be able to read any words you have on your slides, even from the back of the room. If you will be presenting virtually, you also need to keep in mind the various screen sizes from which your talk will be viewed. The smaller the screen, the less content you can have on slides to keep them readable.

Thinking about where your presentation will be delivered also allows you to plan what type of equipment will be used. When presenting for an event, you might have to use the venue’s computer instead of yours. This means you will need to make sure the presentation you design is compatible with the venue’s computer – is it Windows or Mac? Also, asking which PowerPoint version is used on the venue’s computer will help you to create your presentation file and avoid compatibility issues.

Question 8 – what type of presenter am I?

This question usually triggers some surprised looks! The reason I think this is important is to help presenters reflect on how comfortable they are with technology and equipment and to get them to consider whether they suffer from various levels of public speaking fears.

Being honest about our fears or lack of technological and equipment knowledge is important. It allows presenters to act on and refine elements that will improve their delivery, making them more impactful. Learning how to use a presentation remote when on stage for an event will allow you to get closer to the audience, instead of standing behind a lectern. Getting more familiar with PowerPoint’s native tools such as Presenter View, PowerPoint Live, and Presenter Coach will improve your presence and reduce your fear of public speaking. This is why I dedicated the last section of this book to delivering better presentations with PowerPoint’s advanced delivery tools. Presentation success is much more than your visuals!

Question 9 – what questions might be asked by the audience?

Through the years, this question triggered many discussions with my clients. Many did not see any value in thinking about potential questions from their audience. I usually replied that the more prepared you are, the less chance you have of being taken off-guard by questions that would have been so easy to prepare in advance.

For example, if you must present a new work process impacting workers in their daily tasks, ask yourself what resistance they might have to this change. Being able to acknowledge their fears and reassure them quickly is much better than having to tell them you will have to check and come back with an answer. If you are presenting your latest revolutionary product, be prepared to answer questions on what advantages your product might have compared to your competitors’ products.

Being prepared will give you much more control over how well your presentation will go. It does not mean you need to have answers to every question. Telling someone you will have to check more details and get back with an answer is proof that you are a professional. You just need to avoid having to do this for most questions asked during your presentation so that you don’t lose your credibility.

Question 10 – what content do I already have available?

This final question on my top 10 list is essential if you want to be efficient. Through the years, I have seen so many people re-creating content repeatedly, from scratch. Even if you have not done so before, take some time to go through previous presentations you created, and create an image and graphics library you can go to instead of starting the whole process over each time you create a presentation. Know what you have on hand, or what content your organization might have stored on a shared drive, so you can make your content production much more efficient.

Reading through the list of my top 10 questions before creating any slides might have put you in a bit of a panic. If that’s the case, breathe and relax! Just keep Figure 1.1 as a reference for your next presentation planning. Your presentation will improve, even if you take just one step at a time.

Now that you have planned your content, it is time to analyze and sort it. This is what you will learn in the next section.

Analyzing and sorting your content

Making sure your content has a good structure and that your message is clear requires you to take some time to analyze the content you already have. By content, I don’t mean only other PowerPoint files you might have created before. Any photos or graphics created for other corporate documents, or even your website, need to be looked at as potentially reusable content. In this section, you will learn how you can start the process and go through the sorting step using one of the printing features in PowerPoint.

What is the best way to start?

I’ll repeat myself once again: the last place to start is on a blank slide in the PowerPoint application. If you know you have content in other PowerPoint files that could be reused, you should open your files and print the relevant slides in the six-slides-per-page format.

If you have never done that, here is how it can be done. Each of the following steps is represented by the same number bubble in Figure 1.2:

From the File tab in PowerPoint, go to Print.Choose the 6 Slides Horizontal layout from the Handouts layouts in the drop-down list.Make sure you are not printing on both sides of the pages.

Figure 1.2 – Settings to print six slides per page

If you don’t need all the slides in your file, don’t forget to select them in the slide range field. I want to show you how to create more impactful presentations, but I also want to make sure you don’t kill too many trees in the process.

Once you have your pages printed, cut the small slides (Figure 1.3) so you can use them to play around with your content sequence:

Figure 1.3 – Printout with the six-slide layout

If you find any other type of visual content that could help you make your presentation more visual, then start a blank PowerPoint file in which you can add visuals, with each on its own slide, so you can again use the previous printing tip.

If you have any other idea that came to mind while planning your content, but don’t have any existing content for it, just use some plain index cards or any other type of paper on which you can quickly sketch or add keywords.

Sorting the content

Now that you have the printouts of visuals and index cards, you can start organizing and grouping your ideas (see Figure 1.4). Many times, people have asked me whether mind mapping software can be used instead of printouts and index cards; the answer is yes. But, working with physical elements that you can manipulate will help your creativity. It usually makes it easier to play around with groupings and start prioritizing what content is important.

Figure 1.4 – Organizing and grouping your ideas

If you went through the planning questions, you should already be able to start seeing which ideas or content will support your message. It is now time to start grouping ideas into two categories: need to know and nice to have. Maybe you have some interesting content that does not quite fit the actual purpose of your presentation, but could be part of extra content that could be shown on demand. Always keep in mind the most important question I shared at the beginning of this chapter: What are the three most important elements your audience needs to remember or act on after your presentation? This will help you determine what content is important for your talk.

Even if you have the feeling that you don’t have time to do this, trust me, it will save you a lot of time when you start building the content. Many times, I have had to tell people that they need to remove some irrelevant slides from their presentation deck. Most of them replied they did not want to because they had spent many hours building those slides. Putting in the time to plan, sort, structure, and develop your message outside of PowerPoint is how you will avoid spending hours creating irrelevant slides.

Structuring and developing your message

If you have accomplished the planning and analysis tasks from the previous sections, you are in a great position to create a more impactful presentation in less time than you thought possible. Putting aside, or even throwing away, ideas that were slide printouts or index cards is much easier to do than deleting slides you spent hours creating.

Now, you need to structure your message and content. There are many ways to accomplish this and you might even have heard of other models that can be used. Since I want to make this part as easy as possible for any business context, I’ll introduce you to the three-part model.

The three-part model

The three-part model might look familiar. This is because it’s the structure adopted by movies, novels, and even some ads. It starts with an introduction, flows through three important elements, and then concludes, as shown in Figure 1.5:

Figure 1.5 – The three-part model content structure

In case you have not realized it yet, it’s also the model I’ve used for this PowerPoint book. I started by introducing the main problems we see in business presentations and how they can affect how impactful your presentation will be, your credibility, and even the level of success, whether it is measured by reviews or sales. The content of the book is divided into three parts: planning and preparation, creating visually appealing content, and delivering better presentations by leveraging the advanced delivery tools in PowerPoint. As for my conclusion, you will be able to read it at the end of the book!

By using this model, you will be able to create your presentation using the following three steps:

Plan an introduction that will catch your audience’s attention:Think about a personal story that adds value to the topic you are presenting. Maybe you went through a challenge and overcame it with the elements that you will be discussing in your presentation.Maybe you have a client case study that shows how their situation was challenging before they came to you, and how your solution helped them.Think about any surprising statistics from your industry that show how important it is to find a solution.Ask a disrupting question, knowing that it will get the audience’s attention and that you will show them a different way to see things during your talk.Use anything that can help you show your audience that your message or solutions are linked to an everyday problem or their own lives. Make sure to address any problem or irritating situation they might be going through, its impact on them, and what can be done to resolve it.Choose the three most important points you want to talk about during your presentation:Your content is where you need to show your audience the difference you can make on their problem or challenge.Why three? Simply because human beings can easily remember three main points. When we think about it, we have seen many examples using the number three in our lives, whether in children’s stories (three blind mice, three musketeers) or from fast food restaurants with their combos that have three components. Increase your chances to be memorable and avoid having more than three main points in your talk.Plan an impactful conclusion:You can summarize your most important three points again, so the audience is reminded, one more time, of what they are.Make sure to have a specific call to action, helping your audience realize that they too can overcome a challenge or solve a problem if they use what you taught them during your talk.

My description of the three-part model is intentionally kept simple so you don’t feel overwhelmed or that you cannot apply it on your own. If you give yourself enough time before your next presentation, you will be able to reproduce the steps to improve your content.

Telling your story

Before ending this chapter, I want to talk a little more about using stories in your presentations. If I ask you to think about anything that you have seen or heard that you can still remember after a long time, was there a story attached to it? A specific emotion that comes back when you think about it? I bet this is the case. People remember things much longer when it has a story that either resonated with their daily lives or made them feel a special way.

Some people have saved their businesses because they found the perfect story to help their potential clients realize how important their product or service could be. I have had some workshop attendees tell me that their topic was much too serious to include stories. All human beings will react to emotions, and emotions are triggered best with relatable stories. Unless you are presenting to robots, there is no reason why you should avoid using stories. Of course, make sure your story is relevant to your audience and adapted to their level of expertise or needs.

Tip

When you have found the right story to convey your message, there is another element that you absolutely need to put into practice: use visuals, not endless bullet points.

Let me give you an example. A few years ago, I was asked to give a talk on taking advantage of artificial intelligence in the latest version of PowerPoint to help craft better presentations. The script for my introduction was as follows:

The means of human communication have greatly evolved since the drawings of cavemen.From the first art schools, where the teachings were mainly based on the art of public speaking.And then the creation of large, majestic libraries filled with books of all kinds.After that came the first films.Then the introduction of overhead projectors as a means of teaching.The technology then took over with desktop software, projectors, Apple TV, tablets, and even smartphones.But why do people still talk so much about boring presentations and death by PowerPoint?

Imagine if I had put that script onto slides as bullet points. First, asking my audience to listen to me and read slides would not have given me great results. People usually read faster than they can speak, so they would have reached the end of the bullet list without paying much attention to how I delivered the content. What I did instead was look for a series of nice photos that could relate to my script and go through them while I talked.

This is a screen capture of my presentation introduction (see Figure 1.6). After the title slide, each bullet in the previous list is matched to a slide with a photo. Take a look at each slide and read the preceding associated bullet.

Figure 1.6 – Presentation introduction using photos

Can you imagine how different the experience was for the audience? Instead of being forced to read sentences on a slide, they were listening to me and letting their eyes take in a visual, which was much more memorable than words alone.

I now challenge you to go back to your ideas for future PowerPoints and start thinking about visual elements that could replace sentences and bullet points in your presentation. You will then have a starting point for when you go through the chapters discussing PowerPoint features that will help you create visually appealing content.

Summary

In this chapter, we covered my top 10 questions to help you plan your presentation, considered how to analyze and sort your content, and discussed how to structure and develop your message. You now have a better understanding of how to improve your presentation’s impact by focusing on the key message, story, and structure.