The document provides tips for creating effective PowerPoint presentations with 3 main points: 1) Keep slides simple with one main idea per slide, large fonts, and minimal unnecessary content. 2) Ensure visual balance by aligning and spacing elements consistently on slides. 3) Avoid overusing charts, images, colors or text as these can distract from the main message.

1. PowerPoint Basics
For Those Who Give A Damn
By Ian Tan
iantan76.wordpress.com
v4.0, June 2019

2. Opening Spiel
Many misuse or misunderstand PowerPoint.
Their slides excite themselves but bore others.
They break aesthetic rules but embarrass themselves.
Too much time is spent on achieving little.
A well-made PowerPoint deck has the power to persuade
and change the world.
Just follow a few simple rules of design and content
creation.

3. First, ask what the deck’s purpose is.
A presentation to an audience?
Spend your time talking instead of showing many slides.
A weekly report for your company?
Make it readable, even to people who don’t care.
An ideas board?
Well, do anything you want.

4. What do you mean “readable”?
I mean, it should take anyone, including a young child, no more
than 5 seconds to read each slide and understand what it means.
Deliver just one key idea per slide.
Use fonts large and sparingly.
Remove all unnecessary content.
Just make it neat and composed.

5. Content must flow in a logical manner
Have one focus message or key idea per slide
Support with body text sparingly.
The same idea must be easily followed by the eye.
Every slide risks losing the audience’s interest if
you overwhelm the eye.
By the time the eye reaches this footer text box, the user must have received
the majority of your message and intent.

6. Nobody is going to read more than a few
lines on each slide. Cut the text!
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet,
consectetur adipiscing elit. Mauris
malesuada congue sapien eu
efficitur. Cras eu augue a felis
convallis condimentum et et erat.
Mauris ut blandit lacus. Aliquam
eu vulputate nulla. Suspendisse
non semper nisl. Praesent quis
nulla ornare, mollis enim non,
ornare ex. Vestibulum tempor sem
ac pretium tincidunt. Morbi sapien
enim, bibendum id elementum at,
pretium in erat. In eleifend feugiat
mi, lacinia congue urna convallis
eget.
Nulla ac blandit nunc, malesuada
suscipit sem. Mauris a
consectetur purus. Orci varius
natoque penatibus et magnis dis
parturient montes, nascetur
ridiculus mus. Nullam vestibulum
vehicula ex, vel pellentesque
lectus feugiat id. Nunc et massa
sagittis, convallis neque et,
bibendum tortor. Pellentesque sed
libero augue. Nullam vitae nisi sit
amet lacus scelerisque vulputate.
Cras hendrerit dui sed fringilla
laoreet. In convallis accumsan
odio vitae maximus. Aenean a
posuere elit. Aliquam quam nunc,
mattis eu iaculis et, efficitur vel
turpis. Nunc egestas eros in
suscipit imperdiet. Nunc aliquam
laoreet quam ac viverra.
Pellentesque eros diam, mattis id
purus in, suscipit scelerisque nibh.
Phasellus mollis risus commodo
enim ullamcorper, nec consectetur
velit auctor. Sed a orci sit amet
odio cursus dictum eget non
lacus.
Etiam vulputate vestibulum
maximus. Curabitur eu nisl
feugiat, porta nisi eget, sagittis
elit. Curabitur posuere risus non
ex pellentesque, non volutpat felis
finibus. Proin mauris justo,
sodales in sapien eu, venenatis
semper erat. Donec ut quam eu
odio vestibulum luctus. Quisque in
sagittis lorem. Aenean blandit
sodales eros a elementum. Sed in
sem non enim gravida vestibulum.
Mauris ullamcorper rhoncus
maximus. Praesent volutpat, felis
nec posuere fringilla, magna eros
posuere lacus, et malesuada nunc
libero vel eros. Class aptent taciti
sociosqu ad litora torquent per
conubia nostra, per inceptos
himenaeos.

7. Fonts : Don’t play or pay
Don’t get crazy with fancy fonts because conventional fonts are
often the easiest to read. And no Comic Sans please.
Don’t pay for new fonts. Just download Google’s free fonts :
This is Open Sans
This is Roboto
This is Oswald

8. Fonts : Stick to one font family first
Headline with Roboto font (Bold)
Body text with Roboto font (Normal). And sometimes, you need to just
italicize things to make a point within the body text. You can’t go wrong even
if Arial is the most boring sans serif font on earth. And try not to use more
than 2 or 3 font sizes on the same page.
A common negative example is when people mix up fonts within or between
sentences. Like this sudden use of Open Sans between Roboto fonts. It’s
subtle but intelligent people will notice. This demonstrates you lack attention
to detail and probably aren’t that worth listening to.

9. Fonts: Do not use Autofit
By default,
PowerPoint
creates text
boxes for you
where fonts
get resized
automatically.
But as you can
see, this leads
to multiple
font sizes and
inconsistent
line spacing.
You need
to switch
it off!
How?
1. Right-click on text box
2. “Format Shape”
3. “Text Options”
4. “Text Box”
5. “Do Not Autofit”
Or just highlight text and
select your font size
manually.

10. Don’t overload slides with colors.
Choose a simple background color. White
may just be the best option.
Gradients require much care and skill. Or
just avoid them.
Always think - can someone read this from
the far end of the room, or a very small
mobile phone screen?

11. Two-tone
slides are
quite the
fad now
Use simple shapes to
block areas with color
and justify text correctly.

12. Websites like to
impress with big
images.
Learn the Crop Tool well.

13. Know your image formats
GIF
(Pronounced as “JIF”)
If you insist on having low-
quality looping animations
Graphics Interchange Format
JPG
(“Jay-Peg”)
Universal photo standard,
avoid high compression
Joint Photographic Experts Group
PNG
(“Pee N Gee”)
JPG alternative which allows
for transparent backgrounds
(great for logos and icons)
Portable Network Graphics

14. Focus the
reader on one
area first.
Direct his attention
with font size and
strong images.
I hope you
read this
last.

15. Arrange images neatly
Just
Stack
Neatly
Use the Align &
Distribute tools
frequently
Either balance
image sizes
or have one
dominant image to
anchor the slide

16. Composition is all about balancing
elements
There is way too much text on this
area with no other image or text
elements to counter the weight of this
slowly rambling text. A poorly
composed slide with unbalanced
elements causes distress, even if the
audiences doesn’t tell you.
Having empty
space is good, but
too much creates
a void of despair.

17. This page is obviously not balanced. Why?
Text
Text
Image
Image
Image

18. Let’s balance it without resizing anything
Text
Text
Image
Image
Image
Align elements to the top or bottom
Stack them neatly
Have one dominant image to anchor the page
Shift all elements to allow equal margins on all sides

19. Every object needs space to breathe
Whether text or image, all
objects need to have
proportional margins around
them to “breathe”.
I added a line spacing between
these two paragraphs to allow
“breathing” at a good pace.
There is no science to this. Just keep arranging until your eye tells you it’s right.

20. Consistency is key to spacing

21. Even Excel tables should be balanced.
The Trick Is Center-Justifying Text In Columns
And Also Using
“Align Text” In The Home Menu
To Make Text or Numbers
Float In The Middle.
Give tables room
to breathe.

22. Balance the text
and image(s)
"Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet,
consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do
eiusmod tempor incididunt ut
labore et dolore magna aliqua.
Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis
nostrud exercitation ullamco
laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea
commodo consequat.
(Lorem Ipsum is the famous
random text we use to look cool
for mockups)

23. Balance the text and
image(s) - Alternative
"Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur
adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor
incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua.
Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud
exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip
ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure
dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit
esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur.
(I cheated using the PowerPoint 2016
“Design Ideas” tool here for a quick layout)

24. Sometimes,
just focus on
the text and
gray out the
image.
"Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet,
consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do
eiusmod tempor incididunt ut
labore et dolore magna aliqua.
Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis
nostrud exercitation ullamco
laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea
commodo consequat.
(I cheated using the PowerPoint
2016 “Design Ideas” tool here for a
quick layout)

25. When using photo backgrounds…
Always use an uncluttered image, and ensure
good contrast between text and image colors.
…don’t put white text
here because contrast is
poor.Hmmm. Black text doesn’t
look great here either.

26. Textured backgrounds and
generic templates are for
amateurs
Also, the Office templates look
rather dated, circa late 1990s.

27. But SmartArt does help plenty.
Winter
• SmartArt often
provides the
best way to
showcase
information
Summer
• Learn how to
compose
slides by
mimicking
SmartArt
layouts.
Fall
• Learn color
coordination
from tweaking
SmartArt
design
options.
This is a “Horizontal Bullet List” in SmartArt with some font tweaks

28. Chart Abuse
Supermarket Grocers Online Store Farmer's Co-op
Apples 4.3 2.5 3.5 4.5
Pears 2.4 4.4 1.8 2.8
Bananas 2 2 3 5
4.3
2.5
3.5
4.5
2.4
4.4
1.8
2.8
2 2
3
5
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
Salesunits
WHERE FRUITS THRIVE
These charts are hard to read and need too much explaining
12%
4%
2%2%
8%
29%3%1%
19%
3%
6%
11%
Sales
Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul
Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec

29. Charts must be super simple
4.3
2.5
3.5
4.5
2.4
4.4
1.8
2.8
2 2
3
5
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
Supermarket Grocers Online Store Farmer's Co-op
AverageSales
Where Fruits Thrive
Apples Pears Bananas
Enlarge fonts, label data cleanly, and show trends clearly

30. Don’t waste your time
For business
discussions, most of
the time will be spent
reviewing just 2 to 3
slides.
Focus on outcomes.
More slides do not
mean more
comprehension.
Minimize images and
text. The audience is
interested in your
message, not the
massage.

31. Ok, that’s all for now!
Deliver just one key idea per slide.
Use fonts large and sparingly.
Remove all unnecessary content.
Just make it neat and composed.
Visit me on Facebook and check for latest updates on my site.

32. About the author
Ian Tan is the Associate Vice President, Global Marketing at
Razer Inc, the world’s leading lifestyle brand for gamers.
His 21-year career spans journalism, advertising, public
relations, retail and digital marketing, partnerships and running
businesses in Singapore Press Holdings and Microsoft’s
consumer division.
Today he leads over 120 marketers in Razer to push the
boundaries in the gaming industry. He is also a weight-loss
author and motorcycle blogger.