8 Golden Rules to Not Look Like a Powerpoint Idiot

Powerpoint is a much-maligned piece of software. However, like all software tools, it's only what the user makes of it.

Powerpoint presentations can be dire, or dull, or inspirational, or magnificent, depending wholly on the expertise of the person driving the slideshow. I would suggest there are few pieces of business software more capable of making somebody look like an an incompetent fool in a short space of time.

Follow these golden rules to make sure your next Powerpoint audience leaves with a buzz and a smile on their face.

Never, ever, ever, read the bloody slides out

Everybody knows this, but I've so often seen people who bill themselves as presentation experts reading out the bullet points on their slides. To do this is to entirely misunderstand the reason behind using a slideshow:

Powerpoint is not an autocue

The slides are there to give the audience a visual background to what you're talking about. If you're going to write an essay to accompany your talk, you might as well not bother doing the talking - just display the text on the screen, as your audience probably read just as well as you can.

Examples of valid uses of Powerpoint slides might include:

• An image that explains visually something difficult to comprehend verbally
• Some words that summarise succinctly what you might spend 4 minutes discussing
• Several slides forming a narrative structure to give a natural progression to what you're talking about

Less is more

Never truer than with Powerpoint. Keep adding text and arrows and images and you'll end up with a slide deck that looks like it was put together by a hyperactive 7-year-old. Have a look at this alternative take on the infamous leaked NSA Powerpoint slides to see what a professional could have done with the mess you just made.

Use the animation features sparingly, if at all

Never animate every bullet point. (Many do. It looks truly awful.) Keep animations purely for (1) reveals (when you don't want to give away the punchline before the audience has considered a discussion point), and (2) adding clarity to diagrams which lend themselves to a time-based narrative.

Your slideshow isn't there to upstage you. Don't use the weirdest, most esoteric transition you can find:  it makes you look like a cro-magnon discovering Powerpoint for the first time. Dissolve is good enough nine times out of ten.

Try to learn the most basic of design rules

Learn the basics of typography: font families, spacing. Pick colours which contrast cleanly against each other. Pastel colours work better than garish colours (depending on which version of Office you're using, you may want to junk the default colour schemes; some versions allow you to easily pick from a range of alternative palettes.) White on yellow will have your audience wanting to murder you.

Get there half an hour early and for God's sake make sure it works

If you wait until the audience is seated to find out that your presentation doesn't work properly, you'll look like a blundering fool. However, I've seen this happen so many times it's just not funny. As an audience member, if you're prepared to keep me and 399 other professionals waiting because you couldn't be bothered to test your projector in advance, I will spend my time planning how best to lynch you.

Make sure you leave at least half an hour to make sure your laptop connects to the projector, your videos work, your sound works, and you have time to sort these things out in case of problems. Always carry a memory stick to port your slideshow to another computer in case of dire problems.

If using video, check each video specifically works on your output hardware - Powerpoint's handling of video can be patchy at times.

Get a wireless presenter

If you have to hit a key to change slides, you'll be tethered to your laptop throughout the presentation. A wireless presenter tool fits inconspicuously into your hand and gives you the freedom of the whole auditorium while you present. The professionalism and credibility you'll gain is worth far more than the £20 it'll cost you.

Depressingly few non-professional auditoriums properly light the lectern area. Stand somewhere your audience can see you.

Learn the freaking keypresses already

It's painful to watch somebody accidentally skip forward a slide, and then exit their slideshow, start at slide one, and go through every. last. animated. bullet. point. to get back to where they were. Then accidentally press Next once too many times and do it all again... I've seen this happen only too often.

Learn how to navigate the software. It's as simple as: Space, Down Arrow, Right Arrow: go forward.  Left Arrow, Up Arrow: go backwards. If you have to use the right mouse button during your presentation, you're unprepared and unprofessional.