One of the key choices you make when developing your presentation slides is what fonts to use and how to use them. Here are some guidelines to help you use fonts effectively in your next presentation. Font Categories There are three basic categories of fonts: Serif, Sans-Serif and Script. Here is a description of each…
Author: Dave Paradi
Dave Paradi has over twenty-two years of experience delivering customized training workshops to help business professionals improve their presentations. He has written ten books and over 600 articles on the topic of effective presentations and his ideas have appeared in publications around the world. His focus is on helping corporate professionals visually communicate the messages in their data so they don't overwhelm and confuse executives. Dave is one of fewer than ten people in North America recognized by Microsoft with the Most Valuable Professional Award for his contributions to the Excel, PowerPoint, and Teams communities. His articles and videos on virtual presenting have been viewed over 4.8 million times and liked over 17,000 times on YouTube.
The Top Ten Things You Can Do To Improve Your Next PowerPoint Presentation
[The ten items listed below are still great suggestions. I have a 2019 list of ten steps you can take to improve your presentation as well.] Decide on the Goal of the Presentation Most business presentations are either informative – trying to inform the audience of some information – or persuasive – trying to persuade…
Choosing Colors for Your Presentation Slides
What are the best background and text colors for a PowerPoint presentation? The best colors for slides have high contrast so they are easily seen. Dark backgrounds should have light text and bright accent colors. Light backgrounds should have dark text and bold accent colors. This way the audience can read the text and see…
Automatic Updating of Excel Tables in PowerPoint Slides
You probably arrived at this page because you are a business professional who has to present regularly to management or executives on analysis you have done in Excel. You don’t want to have to retype a table of numbers or recreate a graph in PowerPoint. Not only is that time you don’t have, but it…
How to Write Powerful Bullet Points
If you have sat through too many presentations where the presenter read the full text of their slides, you have probably wondered, “How can I avoid droning on and on and focus on just the key information that my audience needs?” One part of the answer is to create bullet points that you can expand…
Five Tips to Make PowerPoint Business Presentations More Effective
Using PowerPoint in a Business Presentation? These five tips will make your communication more effective It is almost expected today that you will use PowerPoint in business presentations. It can be used to add visuals to the message and is an easy way to create a leave-behind handout or e-mail the presentation to others later.…
Advanced Graphing Techniques webinar
Once you are comfortable creating basic graphs in PowerPoint, it is time to take your skills to the next level. By using advanced techniques, your graphs can communicate your message even more effectively. You are now comfortable creating graphs in PowerPoint and you agree that they show data better than a spreadsheet pasted on the…
Creating effective graphs for your PowerPoint slides webinar
The default graphs in PowerPoint are cluttered and hard to understand. Learn how to create graphs that are clean, clear, and instantly understood by your audience. If you present numerical information or financial information, graphs are likely a better way to show your message than a slide full of numbers. Unfortunately the default graph settings…
Finding and using photographs in your PowerPoint slides webinar
Photographs are an essential part of PowerPoint presentations today. Now you can learn how to find and use photos that have impact, without needing to be a photography expert. The era of ClipArt is over. Audiences see it and they immediately devalue your message. Photos have taken over and they are required in today’s presentations. To…
Ten Secrets For Using PowerPoint Effectively
You can take many courses on how to use PowerPoint from a technical standpoint, but when it is used effectively, it can add tremendously to our presentations. Here are ten secrets based on years of experience in developing and using presentation slides that will help you move from being technically proficient to using PowerPoint effectively.…