A presentation goes beyond the idea of crafting a catchy document to present in front of an audience. It is an art in which a person relies on communication skills to introduce a topic relevant to a group of people, regardless of its size. Different elements participate in this communication process, such as body language, presentation skills, visual tools, etc. and are key in delivering an effective presentation.
In this article, we shall present a detailed guide on how to make a presentation, intended both for newcomers in this subject but also for professional presenters who seek to improve the performance of their presentations. Let’s get started.
Table of Contents
It is essential to highlight the difference between Presentation and PowerPoint Presentation, often interchangeable terms. One thing is a presentation, an audiovisual form of communication to present information. A PowerPoint presentation is a subset of a presentation. Since PowerPoint remains the leading tool in the market for creating presentations, the term was coined by both spectators and presenters. Let’s begin by checking the main differences between the two terms.
A presentation is any situation in which a person or group has to transmit a message in front of an audience. The format by which the audience attends can answer the following categories:
Each one of these formats exposed above has specific requirements in terms of interaction with the audience. For example, in-company presentations will differ from common presentations that seek to capture the interest of new consumers. It is vital to establish the presentation’s intent from the very first moment and then narrow it down according to the topic to present, as well as the knowledge level of your target audience.
A presentation does not necessarily requires to create a slide deck. It is a tool presenters use to make the content more interesting for the audience and also memorable. However, it is well-known that influencer speakers such as Tony Robbins or Warren Buffet ignore PPT documents altogether, preferring to articulate their narrative on the go.
A PowerPoint presentation is a specific type of presentation, which involves the usage of a slide deck crafted with Microsoft PowerPoint. This kind of tool allows presenters to communicate a message through a vast range of mediums, such as images, graphs & charts, audio, and video for a better impact.
Creating a PowerPoint presentation is an easy process, and there are two routes for it: working from a blank slide or using PowerPoint templates.
Some of the advantages of building a PowerPoint presentation:
There are some elements that presenters must take into account when making a PowerPoint presentation. It’s not just drag-and-drop, then magic happens. Creating a PowerPoint presentation involves a process of generating the graphic content to display and the narrative around it. The purpose of PowerPoint is to serve as a tool to enhance communication, not to make it overly complex.
We emphasize the relevance of working the speech and graphic content together since the speech itself gives the timeframes for each slide, what elements it contains, or whether it is relevant to use a slide or not to speak about a topic.
Some points to highlight when preparing a presentation:
The first step in making a presentation is to plan the content according to our personal/business goals and the audience’s interest. Let’s break down each part in more detail.
There are two situations for this. The first one is that you are open to presenting any topic of your preference. This usually happens in business presentations, inspirational presentations, product releases, etc. The second scenario is restricted, by which you have to pick a topic among a selected number of references. That’s the typical situation in which presenters see themselves when taking part in significant events – as not all topics are suitable for the main content of the event, and this is where creativity comes to play.
How to choose a topic, you may ask. Brainstorming is a good technique as long as you remain within the boundaries of this formula:
What you know and feel confident about + What is relevant to the current moment + What can resonate with your audience = Quality Content.
Again, if you experience restrictions due to the nature of an event, but your objective is to share specific information about your business, here are some tactics that can come to play:
Another vital point to consider is how passionate you can be about the topic of your choice. Nothing speaks more about professionalism than a presenter being deeply involved with the topic in discussion. It sparks curiosity and gives validation as a reliable authority on the content. On the other hand, when a presenter delivers a talk about a topic they don’t connect with, body language usually betrays the presenter. Spectators feel that the speaker wished to be elsewhere, hence dooming the presentation’s performance (and badly impacting the presenter’s reputation).
Consider the purpose of the content to present. Is it going to be informative? Educational? Inspirational? That shall set the tone of your speech later on.
Like with any project, you can estimate the ROI of your presentation with two verifiable metrics: the behavior of the audience and how many contacts did you build after delivering an effective presentation.
Making a presentation has the implicit purpose of helping you construct your network of professional contacts. Even when the presentation has no explicit financial purpose – as in the case of non-profitable organizations, there is still the acknowledgment component. People want to feel validated for the work they do. People want to build long-lasting contacts that can later on turn to be part of a new project.
Considering the audience is imperative, and often one of the pitfalls many presenters fall prey to. You must be aware of the following:
On regards to presentation goals, they can be classified as professional goals (those who seek conversions or valuable business contacts), influential (to establish a brand in the market), educational (to inform a group of people about a topic you researched), etc. Depending on the presentation goals, you can then structure the content to list and the tone in which you speak to your audience.
No presentation can be made without reference material. Even when you believe you are the most prominent authority about a topic – you have to prove it with valuable, referenceable material. For some niches, this is critical, such as scientific poster presentations, educational presentations, and other areas in which copyright might be an issue.
References for the material you used can be listed in different formats:
As a tip, prepare a document in which you jot down the references used to create the presentation. They can serve whenever a question is asked about your presentation and you must research extra material.
We interpret the storyline as what is the connecting thread of your presentation. What do you wish to discuss? What motivated you to present this topic in this particular setting and in front of an audience? What can your message deliver in terms of new information and quality to your spectators?
All those questions are worth asking since they shape the narrative you build around your presentation. The storyline is the step before building an actual outline of your presentation.
Now that you have a clear idea of your reference material and the story to tell behind your presentation, it is time to list down your presentation structure in a Table of Contents format. Keep in mind this is for internal reference, as the outline is a tool for writing the speech and creating the slides. You don’t have to list the outline in a presentation; if you desire, you can do a simplistic version with an agenda slide.
Be specific. Don’t let any topic be broad enough to lead to confusion. Sometimes, it is best to list many elements in a presentation outline, then trim them down in a second iteration.
This is perhaps the biggest mistake presenters make in the professional context when creating a new presentation. Slides are free; you don’t have to jam everything in, wishing people get an instant idea about EVERYTHING you will discuss in one slide. Not only does it become overwhelming for the audience, but it is also a faux pas in terms of design: when you use too many elements, the hierarchy does not seem clear enough.
Opt for the “one-idea-per-slide” technique, which, as the term refers, implies using one slide per concept to introduce. Work with as many slides as required, but just one main idea by slide. Your presentation becomes clearer, easy to digest for a non-knowledgeable audience, and also serves as reference material on how to pace your presentation.
The following section contains guidelines about the different aspects that shape a presentation structure. If you are looking for an all-in-one solution that implements these teachings into presentation design, try SlideModel’s AI Presentation Maker. A time-saver AI-generation tool for presenters powered by Artificial Intelligence.
Event organizers have a saying in the presentation format, which can be online or a live event. Depending on which, users have to structure the elements of their presentation to match the final output. An example of this: it’s not the same to create a PPT slide deck for an event in which you stand on a stage, in front of a live audience, than when you present via Zoom call, using your computer screen to cast the presentation.
The format is different because text usage and images are perceived differently. For starters, an online presentation is most likely to draw users to read the entire content of your slides than a live presentation. The audience may not get your body language in an online presentation, merely watching slide after slide with the presenter’s voiceover. In some conditions, it can be incredibly dull and hard to follow.
Do your research with the event organizers about which format shall be used. When it comes to in-company presentations or educational presentations, the format is usually live, as the audience is selected and part of the same organization (that being a company or a school/university). If a webinar is required for an in-company format, ask the organizers about the length of the presentation, if it is possible to interact with the audience, deliverable requirements, etc.
The aspect ratio for a presentation format usually follows the 16:9 format or 4:3 format. Presentations built in 16:9 aspect ratio are the standard, rectangular format PPT templates, which also serve to be printed without many distortions in regular A4 files. As we work with a rectangular format, there are two axes – horizontal and vertical, in which presenters can arrange the content according to its importance (building a hierarchy). Working with a 4:3 format is more challenging as it resembles a square. Remember, in a square there are no visible tensions, so all areas have the same importance.
As a recommendation, the 4:3 aspect ratio is a safe bet for all projectors & beamers. When working with a 16:9 slide and the projector is 4:3, the content gets squeezed to fit the required ratio, and for that very reason, it is advised to increase the font size if you use a 16:9 slide on a 4:3 projector. Be mindful about logos or photographs getting distorted when this conversion happens.
The 16:9 ratio looks more visually appealing these days as we get used to TVs and mobile devices for browsing content. New projectors are usually intended for 16:9 format, so you won’t experience any inconvenience in this regard.
No, not every color works harmonically with other colors. Colors have a psychology behind their usage and impact, and to not make this guide extensive, we highly recommend you visit our article on color theory for presentations. You can find suggestions about which colors you should use for different kinds of messages to deliver and what each color represents in terms of color psychology.
The color you use in your presentations must be in accordance with your branding. For example: you should definitely not build a presentation with a bright, bold magenta neon tone when your logo contains green neon-like hues. If you work with a PPT presentation template that doesn’t match the color of your branding, we recommend you check our guide on how to change color themes in PowerPoint.
Regarding typefaces, do never use more than 3 different typefaces per design. It is best to stick to 1 or 2 typefaces, using the variations each font offers in terms of weight.
An example of this:
You create the heading title (H1 size) with Open Sans bold. Subtitles should be done in H2 size using Open Sans regular. Body text in paragraph size, using either Open Sans Regular or Light. Words to emphasize shall be bolded for important terms and italics for foreign terms to be explained.
Use a cohesive color scheme that fits the background, graphics (such as charts and bar graphs), text, and even images. It helps the audience to understand concepts more naturally and gives a pleasant experience to the sight.
Just as badly a slide deck filled with text is felt by the audience, the exact impact can be attributed to a slide deck that only contains images. The audience may feel disconnected, not understanding the purpose of the presentation. A second side-effect is when the spectators wish to browse the slides to study, as in the context of an educational presentation. If the presenter does not include any text guidance, the slide deck is a mere collection of images without any reference that helps remember the presentation.
Work in balance, like a 3:1 ratio between graphic elements and text. For every 3 graphic elements, a text box must be included.
Using metaphors in presentations is a great idea to introduce complex topics or to tell a story. Say, you want to make the audience aware of your company’s challenges to reach its current standing in the industry. Using a roadmap template that depicts a mountain is an excellent idea as it reinforces the ideas of “challenge” and “teamwork.”
Before giving any presentation, you should dedicate at least one day to this polishing process. Let’s break down the process for easier understanding.
After two complete iterations, your presentation is ready to go to the next stage.
Even though we believe the speech is partially built as you prepare your presentation slides, you should dedicate an extra section of time to prepare your speech correctly. This process involves the following steps:
Writing down your speech in notes is a must. It is the tool you can use to rehearse your presentation, and -in case you feel anxious- you can include some speaker notes in your presentation (which won’t be visible to your audience) to help you structure the speech.
Practice makes perfect. Rehearsing does not imply memorizing the entire presentation, as that would make your speech robotic, and prone to errors. How? Imagine a person asking you a question in the middle of your presentation, a question you didn’t expect. A prepared presenter can easily manage the situation because of the background built around the topic. A presenter that memorized a speech and robotically repeated its content can feel unease, losing focus for the remainder of the presentation.
Some valuable tips on the rehearsing process:
Now it’s time to talk about the presentation and your performance when delivering it in front of an audience. Giving a presentation has many aspects to discuss, from start to end, the techniques to keep your audience interested in the topic, and also recommendations to make a memorable event. Let’s get started.
There are multiple methods to approach a presentation and deliver an impactful presentation. Let’s be honest, not everyone feels comfortable when standing in front of an audience. For that reason, we want to lay out some fresh ideas to help you bring your best to your spectators.
The first element you ought to be aware of is body language. It has to feel natural, not overly acted but also not stiff. Think of a presentation as a similar scenario in which you have a deep conversation with a group of people about a topic you are passionate about. That mindset helps to ease anxiety out of the equation. Avoid crossing arms or constantly pacing across the stage – that only shows impatience and lack of interest.
Keep the concepts simple. Don’t overload your presentation with unnecessary jargon; if you feel something cannot be easily explained, go break down concept by concept until the whole idea is understandable. Graphics are a fantastic asset to help you in this process and boost your performance as a presenter.
Be mindful of not doing any of these common pitfalls:
One particularly interesting approach is by Guy Kawasaki, author of the book “The Art of the Start.” He considers the best presentations to be handled using 10 slides, lasting no longer than 20 minutes, and using a 30pt font size. That’s known as the 10-20-30 rule in presentations. It helps you to condense the content for the sake of information clarity.
In case you don’t use a PowerPoint presentation, there are multiple ways to make a presentation memorable:
Knowing how to start a presentation is a critical skill all presenters ought to master. There are several approaches for this behalf, but for the sake of this guide, let’s stick to the following ones.
Using the Link-Back formula
This consists of throwing a story in front of your audience that explains who you are, what your background is, and why your speech should make a difference in the life of the spectators.
The Link-Back formula is beneficial for creating an emotional connection with the audience.
Using a Hook
Asking a rhetorical question, using a powerful fact, or other well-known hook techniques is a plus when starting a presentation. We shall talk about hook techniques for presenters in the next section.
Using a captivating visual
Much like the power of storytelling, visuals impact the audience’s psyche, especially if the presentation is about a trendy topic. Create a quality graphic with any of our designs at SlideModel, a graphic designer’s help, an AI Image Generator, or work with a video.
A hook is a tactic used by presenters as an opening statement but can be used in different areas of the presentation if it has an ample length. Much like the metaphor suggests, they serve to attract the audience to what you are communicating.
Research on attention span during lectures suggests a gradual decline in the audience’s interest in the presentation. That’s exponentially increased if you miss the chance to give a powerful first impression. Check this list of hook techniques to enhance the performance of your presentation skills:
Photo 9: Slide using a hook
Most people assume that ending a presentation equals doing a recap. It is a bad idea since your audience feels as if you haven’t planned a conclusion for your presentation.
Another bad practice is to end with a Q&A format. Although questions and answers are often a required part of any presentation, they shouldn’t be the end of your presentation. You can include questions during your presentation or opt for a proper closure of the presentation past the Q&A session.
There are some powerful strategies to give a memorable ending to a presentation:
We recommend you check our article on how to end a presentation for more ideas before reaching this stage of your presentation.
In this section, we will see how to use PowerPoint to make a presentation. Starting from creating a blank presentation or choosing a pre-defined PowerPoint template to preparing the presentation structure by adding PowerPoint slides and then working on the design of the presentation, we will explain how to make a visually-appealing and eye-catching PowerPoint presentation and how to create a slideshow in PowerPoint.
When making a PowerPoint presentation, Professional PowerPoint Templates bring the advantage of not needing to think about complex graphic design decisions. However, there are certain aspects worth considering prior to picking the perfect PowerPoint template.
As in life, there are advantages and disadvantages of using Premium or Free PowerPoint Templates vs. starting from a blank slate.
Advantages of PowerPoint templates when making a presentation
Disadvantages of PowerPoint templates
When we create PowerPoint Design ideas, not every slide makes the cut for the final presentation. Users then feel overwhelmed about those slides: will they be visible in the final presentation? Should you make a new PPT file without those extra templates? How to clone the “good” slides into a new file?
Instead of worrying about that process, we have here a guide on how to add, delete and rearrange slides in PowerPoint that explains, step by step, how to get rid of the unwanted slides or add more content to your presentation.
Some presentation templates and slide decks include entirely editable placeholder areas, and those boxes do not imply text only – they can include images, graphs, videos, etc. Say you want to add more images to your slides – it is as easy as replicating one of those placeholder areas with CTRL+C / CTRL+V (CMD for Mac users) or going to Insert on the Ribbon’s menu, then Picture.
If you plan to move elements in your slide design, we recommend you get familiarized with how to lock an image in PowerPoint, so the images that shouldn’t be altered remain in position. This technique is ideal when your images are surrounded by plenty of editable graphics.
Presenters often struggle to remember key pieces of information due to performance anxiety or because they were moved from focus by an unexpected question. Using speaker notes in PowerPoint is the answer to prevent becoming stuck, since those notes won’t be available to the viewers – they remain visible only on the computer where the presentation is being streamed.
Keep in mind this technique works when the presenter is sitting next to the computer. If you have to stand in front of a crowd, opt to use different memory-recalling techniques when you feel out of focus.
Another technique presenters use adding animated objects or effects. This is as easy as following these steps:
Using animated presentation templates is an alternative when you don’t feel confident about adding animations.
Transitions are animated effects that happen when you change between slides during a presentation. Some people love them, while others prefer to stay away from them.
If you want to add transitions to your slides, follow these steps:
Sometimes, presenters opt to add audio narrations to the slides. The advantage of using this medium is to increase accessibility for visually impaired users. We created a guide on how to add audio narrations in PowerPoint that explains the procedure in detail.
There are multiple opinions on which typeface is ideal for presentations. Experience tells us the ideal typeface to work with is one that is system-available, meaning you don’t have to install a new font in the computer used to present. Why? You may ask. Simple: If the font used is not available on a computer, PowerPoint will automatically render a different font (sometimes even a different typeface) to replace and display the text appropriately. That action, which is replicated by other software such as Google Slides, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Apple Keynote, etc., can drastically change your design.
Font size for titles should be between 36-44 pt. Paragraph font size between 24-28 pt. Use bold to emphasize concepts, and italics to insert foreign terms or quotations. Alternatively, you can make quotations to be displayed on a single slide, using 36 pt size, in italics.
Remember, these recommendations about size are intended for presentations in a live format. If the presentation is streamed through Zoom, using screen sharing, reduce the font size by 10-15% to avoid incredibly large texts. Test your presentation beforehand to be on the safe side.
The color scheme used is a primary part of your presentation design. When defining the presentation color palette, we recommend working within the colors that make part of your branding scheme.
If we speak about a personal presentation or a presentation with no logo, then opt for pastel tones that don’t create harsh contrast between text and background.
Above all things, avoid these conflictive color combinations:
Sometimes, printables are a requirement by event organizers, which represents a challenge to many presenters. We want to give a helping hand on this behalf, offering tips that can improve your printing experience:
In this section, we want to list valuable tips to power up your presentations for their best performance. Some of these tips are tailored to presentation skills, others to design ideas, but ultimately, you can take in mind these tips the next time you need to make a powerful presentation in PowerPoint.
An alternative to conventional presentations is to work with video presentations. These are particularly useful in academic and educational environments since they can convey large chunks of information in a memorable, easy-to-digest format.
If we consider that social media platforms like YouTube and TikTok are transitioning into professional content for creatives, you should consider using video presentations when the situation arises. As a plus, you can repurpose that presentation on your website or other official social media channels for your company.
When we intend to create interesting contrasts between elements, color isn’t the only option to try. Learn how to work with drop shadows in PowerPoint to make images and objects stand out from the presentation. It is an effect that boosts a tri-dimensional feeling in the presentation.
Using text shadows in PowerPoint – with extreme caution – is an excellent method to highlight titles instead of using fancy colors or other 3D effects. Do not overdo the text shadow, as it makes the text illegible.
Giving presentations in front of an audience is, as we have seen, a process that involves many factors. One of those is the human element and the speaker’s ability to resonate with the audience. Therefore, we advise presenters to work on their presentation skills early, especially for mastering different kinds of presentation approaches, such as persuasive presentations (used in sales).
Sometimes, PPT presentation templates include quality backgrounds that make the design pop from the screen. Yet, some of those backgrounds may not be suitable for all brands in terms of color, textures, etc.
Learn today how to edit background graphics in PowerPoint and create outstanding presentations in just minutes.
Finally, we want to remind users that almost every PowerPoint template has compatibility with Google Slides – if you intend to upload the presentation into the Cloud. Google Slides is an online tool for creating slideshow presentations, and one of its features is that we can convert PowerPoint presentations into Google Slides format. The converted slides are entirely editable, allowing presenters to count with a backup plan in case the PPT file doesn’t work or the computer to use doesn’t count with PowerPoint.
This is not an exhaustive list of presentation tips, but they offer a starting point for those who want to create attractive and effective PowerPoint presentations. You can also create presentations in other ways, and leveraging AI, for example. Check out the article how to create a PowerPoint presentation with ChatGPT to learn how to use Large Language Models to prepare presentations.
As we have seen, making a presentation is a complex process involving different skills, from knowing how to deliver a speech to having essential graphic design criteria.
While it is true that PowerPoint presentation templates make the process far more manageable, we shouldn’t entirely rely on them. A PowerPoint presentation isn’t a presentation on its own. It is a medium by which presenters showcase their ideas and structure the speech, but one cannot live without the other.
We hope this guide can give you a better understanding of how to create a successful presentation. See you next time!
