How to Prepare A Presentation Profile on Powerpoint

I like to think of Microsoft PowerPoint as a test of basic marketing skills. To create a passing presentation, I need to demonstrate design skills, technical literacy, and a sense of personal style.

If the presentation has a problem (like an unintended font, a broken link, or unreadable text), then I’ve probably failed the test. Even if my spoken presentation is well rehearsed, a bad visual experience can ruin it for the audience. Expertise means nothing without a good presentation to back it up.

PowerPoint Presentation Style Tips

Step 1: Don’t let PowerPoint decide how you use PowerPoint.

Microsoft wanted to provide PowerPoint users with a lot of tools. But this does not mean you should use them all. Here are some key things to look out for:

• Make sure that preset PPT themes complement your needs before you adopt them.
• Try to get away from using Microsoft Office’s default fonts, Calibri and Cambria. Using these two typefaces can make the presentation seem underwhelming.
• Professionals should never use PPT’s action sounds. (Please consider your audience above personal preference).
• PowerPoint makes bulleting automatic, but ask yourself: Are bullets actually appropriate for what you need to do? Sometimes they are, but not always.
• Recent PPT defaults include a small shadow on all shapes. Remove this shadow if it's not actually needed. Also, don’t leave shapes in their default blue.

Step 2: Create custom slide sizes.

While you usually can get away with the default slide size for most presentations, you may need to adjust it for larger presentations on weirdly sized displays. If you need to do that, here's how.

1. In the top-left corner, choose "File."
2. Select "Page Setup."
3. Type the height and width of the background you'd like, and click "OK."
4. A dialogue box will appear. Click "OK" again.
5. Your background is resized!

Tip: Resize your slides before you add any objects to them or the dimensions of your objects will become skewed.

Step 3: Edit your slide template design.

Often, it's much easier to edit your PowerPoint template before you start -- this way, you don't have design each slide by hand. Here's how you do that.

1. Select "Themes" in the top navigation.
2. In the far right, click "Edit Master," then "Slide Master."
3. Make any changes you like, then click "Close Master." All current and future slides in that presentation will use that template.\

Step 4: Make sure all of your objects are properly aligned.

Having properly aligned objects on your slide is the key to making it look polished and professional. You can manually try to line up your images ... but we all know how that typically works out. You're trying to make sure all of your objects hang out in the middle of your slide, but when you drag them there, it still doesn't look quite right. Get rid of your guessing game and let PowerPoint work its magic with this trick.

How to align multiple objects:

1. Select all objects by holding down "Shift" and clicking on all of them. 
2. Select "Arrange" in the top options bar, then choose "Align or Distribute."
3. Choose the type of alignment you'd like.

How to align objects to the slide:

1. Select all objects by holding down "Shift" and clicking on all of them. 
2. Select "Arrange" in the top options bar, then choose "Align or Distribute."
3. Select "Align to Slide."
4. Select "Arrange" in the top options bar again, then choose "Align or Distribute."
5. Choose the type of alignment you'd like.

PowerPoint Presentation Design Tips

Step 5: Get more control over your objects' designs using "Format" menus.

Format menus allow you to do fine adjustments that otherwise seem impossible. To do this, right click on an object and select the "Format" option. Here, you can fine-tune shadows, adjust shape measurements, create reflections, and much more. The menu that will pop up looks like this:Although the main options can be found on PowerPoint’s format toolbars, look for complete control in the format window menu. Other examples of options available include:

Adjusting text inside a shape.

Creating a natural perspective shadow behind an object.

Recoloring photos manually and with automatic options.

Step 6: Take advantage of PowerPoint's shapes.

Many users don’t realize how flexible PowerPoint’s shape tools have become. In combination with the expanded format options released by Microsoft in 2010, the potential for good design with shapes is readily available. PowerPoint provides the user with a bunch of great shape options beyond the traditional rectangle, oval, and rounded rectangle patterns, unlike even professional design programs like Adobe Creative Suite or Quark.

Today’s shapes include a highly functional Smart Shapes function, which enables you to create diagrams and flow charts in no time. These tools are especially valuable when you consider that PowerPoint is a visual medium. Paragraphing and bullet lists are boring -- you can use shapes to help express your message more clearly.

Step 7: Create custom shapes.

When you create a shape, right click and press "Edit Points." By editing points, you can create custom shapes that fit your specific need. For instance, you can reshape arrows to fit the dimensions you like.Another option is to combine two shapes together. When selecting two shapes, right-click and go to the "Grouping" sub-menu to see a variety of options.

• Combine creates a custom shape that has overlapping portions of the two previous shapes cut out.
• Union makes one completely merged shape.
• Intersect builds a shape of only the overlapping sections of the two previous shapes.
• Subtract cuts out the overlapping portion of one shape from the other.
• By using these tools rather than trying to edit points precisely, you can create accurately measured custom shapes.

Step 8: Crop images into custom shapes.

Besides creating custom shapes in your presentation, you can also use PowerPoint to crop existing images into new shapes. Here's how you do that:

1. Click on the image and select "Format" in the options bar.
2. Choose "Crop," then "Mask to Shape," and then choose your desired shape. Ta-da! Custom-shaped photos. 

Step 9: Present websites within PowerPoint.

Tradition says that if you want to show a website in a PowerPoint, you should just create link to the page and prompt a browser to open. For PC users, there’s a better option.

Third party software that integrates fully into PowerPoint’s developer tab can be used to embed a website directly into your PowerPoint using a normal HTML iframe. One of the best tools is LiveWeb, a third-party software developed independently.

By using LiveWeb, you don’t have to interrupt your PowerPoint, and your presentation will remain fluid and natural. Whether you embed a whole webpage or just a YouTube video, this can be a high-quality third party improvement.

Unfortunately, Mac users don’t have a similar option. A good second choice is to take screen shots of the website, link in through a browser, or embed media (such as a YouTube video) by downloading it directly to your computer.