Read G. Gilgen Director, Learning Support Services, College of Letters and Sciences, Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison

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1 Improving PowerPoint Presentations Teryl R. Roper Professor, Dept. of Horticulture, Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison Read G. Gilgen Director, Learning Support Services, College of Letters and Sciences, Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison During its centennial meeting in Providence, ASHS entered a new era for oral presentations: data projectors were available in each room. Overall, the use of data projectors and PowerPoint presentations worked very well during the 2003 meeting. There were a few problems, however, most of which had little to do with the equipment or the technology. Preparing a digital presentation requires sometimes different approaches than preparing 2 x 2 slides. Over time, several articles have been published on preparing slides for meetings (Fretz et al., 1979; Fisher 1978; Maxie and Nelson, 1970). These are now relics of history. The de facto software standard for our meetings is computer-based presentation software, most commonly Microsoft PowerPoint. The purpose of this article is to suggest ways we can use this software more effectively and more efficiently. PowerPoint is a powerful tool to assist in communicating ideas and results to an audience. The medium of communication should not obfuscate the message. The first step in creating a presentation is to decide what the main points are that you wish to communicate and just what you want the audience to remember. The next step is to decide what data you will need to show to support those points. The last step is to create the presentation. We offer the following points as suggestions or points for consideration as you assemble presentations for scientific presentations, lectures or Extension meetings. Too much information on a slide This problem is not unique to PowerPoint. Fretz et al. (1979) included this as one of their concerns. Perhaps the expense of making many 2 x 2 slides encouraged putting too much material on an individual slide, but the marginal cost of an additional slide in PowerPoint is only your time. Although PowerPoint automatically shrinks the text to get more information on a slide, this also makes the text harder to read in the highly populated back rows. More is less. A title along with three to four rows of information is usually sufficient. Hard to read fonts Research has shown that sans serif fonts like Helvetica, Tahoma, Arial, and Geneva are easier to read when projected than serif fonts like Times Roman (Gilgen 2003). Use bold fonts for emphasis, not for general text. Limit the use of decorative fonts such as scripts, which are hard to read when projected. Try to limit yourself to two to three fonts during a presentation. Also, using obscure fonts can be risky because when you try to show your presentation on someone else's computer, Windows automatically substitutes fonts when it can't find the original ones. You never know what will be substituted for your fancy fonts. Stick to fonts that are likely to be found on any computer, such as Arial or Times New Roman. Color White and very light colored backgrounds often give the best contrast for text or graphics. However, such backgrounds can be too bright, especially in darkened rooms, making it hard for the audience to look at your slides for a long period of time. Darker colors with light colored text and graphics are

2 easier on the eyes in a darkened room. Be very careful with solid color backgrounds and colored text to make sure the text is readable. For example, red text on a dark blue or green background is very difficult to read. Be aware that many people have some form of color blindness, red/green being the most common. Avoid color combinations that depend on these colors for contrast. Use the Color/Grayscale button on PowerPoint's main toolbar to preview a slide in gray tones to see if there's enough contrast without color. Avoid using photos as a background for text except perhaps for title slides. If you do use text on photos, try using a contrasting color and a text shadow effect to make the text stand out better. Overusing bullet lists PowerPoint's default body slide is a bullet list, thus making such slides easy to rely on. Using only slide after slide of bullet lists will cause your audience to lose interest. Try mixing bullet lists with graphics, charts, or other types of slides. When you do use bullets, don't put too much text in them; a single word or two is sufficient to be a cue for the audience and the presenter. When bullets are too long, you find it tempting to simply read the bullets to the audience members, thus insulting their intelligence. Finally, stick with standard bullet symbols available in basic fonts. Otherwise, if you show the presentation on someone else's computer, Windows might substitute bullets with symbols that may surprise you. Gratuitous animations Animation is a powerful tool in PowerPoint that can be used to help the audience focus on the current item, or on important information. However, when each item in every list is animated with different animations, attention is drawn to the animations and not to the information. More recent versions of PowerPoint group animations into basic, subtle, moderate, and exciting. Sticking to basic or subtle for scientific meetings seems prudent. Animated gif files (graphic images) might be fun for some projects, but in a scientific meeting presentation they tend to draw attention to themselves and obscure the message. Slide transitions can be overdone We suggest using a single subtle transition effect between slides throughout the presentation. Sound effects with transitions tend to distract from the information being presented. Building graphics If line or bar charts are created in PowerPoint rather than imported from a spread sheet or another graphics program, animation can be used to assemble the graph during the presentation by adding lines or series of bars as the graph is explained. For example, if you had conducted an experiment with three different treatments and wanted to describe the effect of each treatment, you could introduce the data for each treatment individually (Figure 1). This helps the audience to focus on the data being described at the moment. A. B.

3 C. D. Figure 1. With an electronic presentation you can introduce treatment or time data one set at a time, thus keeping the audience focused on the current information. Pointing tools Although laser pointers are handy for directing attention to items on a slide, most presenters have a tendency to wave a pointer at an object very quickly, making it hard for the audience to clearly know what is being emphasized. Instead, you can also use arrows or callout boxes from the AutoShapes collection to draw attention to a specific item on a slide (see Figure 1C). Such objects can be animated to appear or disappear as needed on a slide. Saving your presentation How you save your PowerPoint presentation can make a difference in how easy it is to move from one computer to another, and how quickly your slides display as you make the presentation. For example, if your presentation has many high resolution pictures in it, the saved PowerPoint file may be quite large. The resolution that PowerPoint and the projector are able to reproduce is relatively small. Down sampling pictures in your presentation (saving pictures with fewer dots per inch) can reduce the file size and speed up loading times. To compress or downsample pictures, select any picture in your presentation and then choose Format, Picture, and in the Format Picture dialog box click the Compress button. In the Compress Pictures dialog box, select the "web/screen" option, select All pictures in document, and then click OK. Compressing the pictures will not alter the appearance of your presentation, but it will reduce the file size considerably.

4 When your presentation is complete and you are sure you won't be making any additional changes, save it as a PowerPoint Show file (pps) instead of the normal PowerPoint (ppt) file. Choose File, Save As, and in the Save As dialog box change the Save As Type to PowerPoint Show (*.pps). When you open a pps file the slide show opens directly and begins playing, without the audience members seeing the editable file and the PowerPoint program. This method also embeds fonts, graphics, and pictures and thus avoids the problem of displaying boxes filled with a red X, which happens when you forget to transfer to a different computer those files related to the PowerPoint presentation. Moving your presentation An important step in making a successful presentation is to get your PowerPoint presentation from your computer back at the office to a laptop or to another computer at a conference. Virtually all laptops have CD drives, and thus placing your presentation on a CD is a preferred means of bringing files to meetings. Further, CD's can be read across platforms so presentations created using Macintosh or Linux operating systems can still be read on PC's or vice versa. The latest version of PowerPoint (2003) includes a feature that enables you to save your presentation directly to a CD, and includes all the files necessary to make it self-running, even if the host computer doesn't have PowerPoint installed. Another popular method for moving files is the USB flash drive. However, many laptops still usewindows 98, and this operating system won't recognize USB flash drives unless you also bring the flash drive's driver disk along. Arrive at the room early to leave enough time for the moderator to load your presentation onto the computer and to make sure it works properly. Even better, contact moderators ahead of time and provide them with a CD or perhaps the presentation before they leave for the meeting. This also allows moderators time to ensure presentations will function properly on their equipment. Room setup With slide projectors it was important to have the lights dimmed to have as much contrast as possible. Modern digital projectors are extremely bright. Even inexpensive data projectors produce 1000 lumens or more. The commercial projectors available this year exceed 1500 lumens. By contrast, Carousel Ektagraphic slide projectors are rated at about 1000 lumens. Since the data projectors are so bright, it may not be necessary to dim the lights much, thus giving audience members enough light to take notes during the presentation. Nevertheless, make sure lighting conditions allow your slides to be seen clearly. At ASHS meetings, the projectors are set up ahead of time. Focus, brightness, and keystone correction are already adjusted for the meeting rooms. At other venues, you may be doing the setup yourself. Keystoning is what happens when you project at an angle, and the top of the slide is wider than the bottom. Newer projectors have keystone correction that digitally reshapes the image, thus giving your presentation a more professional look. Also, make sure your projector is pointed at a 90-degree angle toward the screen. Side to side keystone correction is not usually possible. Some smaller projectors have photographic tripod mounts on the bottom. A tripod allows the projector to be manipulated beyond what is possible using only the front foot. To the extent possible, you also want to know your room layout ahead of time so you can plan how you will move about during your presentation. If you're presenting a formal paper, you might remain behind a podium. But if you're making a less formal presentation, look for ways to get out from behind the podium. Consider, for example, using a remote-controlled mouse that enables you to advance your slides without having to be tied to the computer keyboard, thus helping you interact more naturally with your audience. Polished Presentations

5 Great presentations don't happen by accident. They require careful planning and preparation. Certainly, the most important element of a successful presentation is the content itself, including how it is organized. Beyond that, you want to use tools that will make that content easier to understand: well-crafted slides, useful animations, and appropriate graphics. You want to avoid those things that distract from or make that content difficult to understand: poor choices of fonts, backgrounds, or colors; gratuitous graphics, animations, or sound effects; slides cluttered with too much, or irrelevant information. Finally, a good presentation requires practice. Know your slide show and know how to control it. After all, it's you, not the computer, that's making the presentation. Conclusion Like all other tools, it takes some effort and practice to use PowerPoint most effectively. This article certainly is not an exhaustive discussion of using PowerPoint to its full advantage. In addition to spending time experimenting on your own to figure out what works, many books are available that can help you discover the fine points of this software. As we improve our use of presentation software, the quality of our meetings will also improve. Literature Cited Gilgen, R.G Absolute beginners guide to Microsoft Office PowerPoint Que. Indianapolis, Ind. Fretz, T.A., D.E. Crean, and T.D. Sydnor Slide presentations. HortScience 14: Fisher, H.L What constitutes a better visual. HortScience 13: Maxie, E.C. and K.E. Nelson Preparing slides to show at scientific meetings. HortScience 5: < Prev