Tips & Tricks for Speakers

A good present­a­tion requires some pre­par­a­tion. Much of the pre­par­at­ory work will focus on small details. How­ever, do not under­es­tim­ate the time this will take … and the res­ults.

Here is a list of pit­falls in which you, as a presenter, might be caught. The short list con­sists of the most ser­i­ous prob­lems and how to get eas­ily around them.

Saving your Presentation – or how to avoid ♫₤☼♣€Ω

In MS Power­Point nav­ig­ate to “Save as” → “Power­Point Show” and name your present­a­tion as fol­lows

Weekday_YourName.pps or Weekday_YourName.ppsx (e.g. Friday_Goodpresenter.ppsx)

Don’t use ppt or pptx files and don’t name your files any­thing oth­er than the above so that we can identi­fy your present­a­tion. Do not include your title or any oth­er text in the file name!

In addi­tion, make sure, you tick “Embed fonts in the file” which you can find in the Power­Point Save options. Oth­er­wise, your present­a­tion might become cor­rup­ted!

Size of your Presentation – or how to avoid waiting for slides to show up

Present­a­tions with sev­er­al mega­byte sizes are not neces­sary. The res­ol­u­tion of a data pro­ject­or equals roughly 96 ppi, mod­ern ones have 150 to 330 ppi. Con­sequently, you do not need the large graphs your cam­era provides you. Power­Point offers you a simple tool to downs­ize your present­a­tion. Double-click any pixel graph in your present­a­tion. You will find an option called “com­press pic­tures”. Under options, you tick 330 ppi and make sure you com­press all pic­tures. Save your file under a new name, because you need the ori­gin­al if you want to print your present­a­tion or if you want to con­vert it to a PDF file.

Time you need for one Slide – or how to avoid being interrupted by the Chair

Many tech­nic­al present­a­tions are too long. How­ever, this is not neces­sary! Each slide (includ­ing the title and the acknow­ledge­ments) needs 1.5 to 2.5 minutes of your present­a­tion. Con­sequently, if you have a 15-minute present­a­tion your present­a­tion must be 6–10 slides long (if you are well organ­ized that could go up to 15)! Because we will have up to three par­al­lel ses­sions, our chair­per­sons will cut you off after your time is fin­ished!

What you should avoid – or how to make a good presentation

• Power­Point offers you the pos­sib­il­ity that slides will change after a giv­en peri­od. Do not use it for a tech­nic­al present­a­tion!
• Too many anim­a­tions. Keep with one or two dif­fer­ent types of anim­a­tions. We already saw enough slides or graphs fly­ing into present­a­tions!
• Video sequences. If you are not sure of how to prop­erly use video sequences with­in Power­Point: ask an expert or leave it!
• If you are an expert, feel free to bring in ppsm files – oth­er­wise do not use them, please!

Tricks of the Trade – or what else you should know

• To start your present­a­tion if not saved as a “Power­Point Show” press F5
• To nav­ig­ate back one slide dur­ing a present­a­tion, press the “left arrow”, “page up”, or the “p” but­ton on the key­board – no need to use the mouse
• To nav­ig­ate to a spe­cif­ic slide dur­ing the ques­tion peri­od press the slide’s num­ber on the key­board and press the return but­ton (it is a good idea to have a thumb­nail prin­tout of your present­a­tion with all slides numbered in order to find the slide num­ber)
• If you want to explain some­thing and want a white or black screen press W (white) or (B) on the key­board
• Do not press “escape” at the end of your present­a­tion
• Test all of the above before you come to the Con­fer­ence so that you feel con­fid­ent when you give your present­a­tion

More Tricks by Don McMillan