It's been a long time since I've written on this subject and many new people who have joined the distribution list during that time. I believe practical information like this deserves to be replayed every now and then.What's the purpose of a good set of (PowerPoint) slides?

Well, it certainly isn't to act as notes for the presenter, which is what the vast majority of business speakers seem to think.

Slides (whether made with PowerPoint or similar) should reinforce the speaker's message. Let me dispel one myth straight away:

Many speakers seem to believe that reinforcement comes from saying exactly the same words as are being shown on the slide. Nothing could be more wrong. Far from increasing the amount information an audience remembers, this approach actually reduces what people remember - the precise opposite of the speaker's intent.

Two sections follow - the first relates to slides in general, the second relates to specific features of Microsoft's PowerPoint that don't seem to be widely documented or understood.

Features of good slides
Slides that support a speaker's vocal presentation well tend to have the following characteristics:

1. They are visually entertaining
They are eye catching and visually engaging, using high quality photographs or custom made graphics.

2. They are not obvious
Good slides need explaining. If the message is too obvious, the audience doesn't listen to the speaker's words.

3. They don't rely on words
Using words is tricky in slides - it can work, provided the speaker does not say the same words. I find it easier to use very, very few words on slides. The vast majority of mine are simple images.

4. They build a picture over time
It's really nice if you can get slides to build over time - especially useful for explaining complex processes, business models, etc.

Tricks in MS PowerPoint
Some lesser known, or lesser used features of PowerPoint, (available from Office 2003 onwards):

1. The F5 Key
Most people already know that the F5 key is the short cut key for starting a Slide Show from the first slide. However, quite often during the editing process it's useful to be able to start a show from the current slide - and you can achieve this with Shift + F5.

2. Jumping to a particular slide
Faced with less time than you originally planned, how do you get through your slides quickly, without making it look as though you're skipping any? If you've memorized your slide numbers you can skip to any slide by simply typing the slide number, pressing 'return' and the Slide Show will jump straight to that particular slide. For example, suppose to save time, you decide to skip the six slides after number 16. When you've finished talking to slide 16, you say a few words linking to the content of slide 23 and type '2' and '3' on the keyboard and then hit 'return'. The slide show jumps straight from slide 16 to slide 23.

3. Custom Animation
This standard and very useful capability seems to be very under utilised by many presenters. Access it via the menu options Slide Show > Custom Animation. It provides many useful and engaging ways of bringing movement to individual elements of PowerPoint slides. I encourage you to simply play around with the many options until you get used to them.

That's it folks for this week - as usual, your comments welcomed and appreciated, particularly with reference as to what you'd like to hear about. I do get quite a few emails by the way, and I read them all, so please don't feel shy about getting in contact.

Best wishes for the coming week.

Chris Davidson
Editor, Professional Speakers Journal
editor@professionalspeakersjournal.com