We have all been victims of the “Death by PowerPoint” experience. You know, those presentations that wiz and spin with so much text crammed into one slide and they seem to go on and on and on…..

PowerPoint can be a great presentation tool and that’s the key – remembering that PowerPoint is only a “tool” and not the presentation itself. Her are six tips to help you create professional PowerPoint presentations that enhance rather than detract from your theme.

1. Never read from the slides

Your presentation should be something to talk to, not to read from. Reading verbatim from your slides actually negates your reason for being there – you could have just e-mailed everybody the PowerPoint and saved everyone a lot of trouble. Use the presentation as a visual cue for both you and your audience – to keep you as the presenter on track and keep the audience focused on the topic.

2. Keep slides short, simple and clean

A good guideline is the “Five and Five” concept – no more than five words per line with no more than five lines per slide. This is not a hard and fast rule but it is best to keep your content short and simple. They do not need to be complete sentences – dot points work best. This will give your presentation a clean and uncluttered look and will keep and will carry your message to your audience clearly.

3. Use simple formatting

Stick to just two font styles for your presentation. Make sure that your font size is large enough even for the man at the back of the room who left his glasses in the car. This means titles should sized be at least thirty-six to forty and the text body be no smaller than twenty-four.

You can add color to your text – no more than two or three different colors and make sure it doesn’t clash with your background and make sure you use them consistently throughout your presentation.

4. Use graphics carefully

Using pictures, charts and diagrams is a great idea as they add interest and keep more visually-oriented audience members interested. For many people, a picture illustrates an idea better than any amount of words could. Make sure that the graphic is relevant to the concepts presented on the slide and fits in with the rest of the presentation in terms of color and style. Generally, think “slick” and “professional” rather than “cute” and “silly”.

If you are including a chart or diagram, don’t try to cram too much information in and make sure it is big enough for your audience to see.

5. Use the “slide master”

The slide master allows you to apply consistent formatting across your presentation. This includes font styles, sizes and colors, logos, bullet styles, etc. This will help give your presentation a professional look.

It can also save you a lot of time. Instead of manually formatting each slide, each slide will already be formatted exactly the way you want. If you are unsure about how to use the slide master and you use PowerPoint a lot, it is worthwhile investing in a book or course to learn how to use this time saving feature.

6. Save the special effects for the next George Lucas film

PowerPoint contains many amazing effects and transitions – that doesn’t mean you should use them! Occasional well placed transitions or effects can actually enhance a presentation but things spinning and sliding all the time just takes away from the message you are trying to convey to your audience.

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