A young engineer wrote a great report for the board about a great new technology product. The board wanted their sales staff to be as sold on the product as they were so they decided to have the engineer make a presentation to some 400 sales reps at the next sales meeting. The engineer was not an experienced public speaker but decided to use PowerPoint. He then proceeded to copy/paste the entire 20 page text of his report onto PowerPoint slides—in the original 12 point type used in the report. Then he read the report to the assembled sales reps in a darkened theatre.
The above scenario actually happened. Unfortunately anyone who has attended more than five or six PowerPoint presentations has probably witnessed this type of slide show.
Font and Text Mistakes in PowerPoint
The biggest mistakes made in PowerPoint occur when the presenter forgets the media difference between a hard copy report and an oral presentation with slides. A printed report can be read, reread, marked up, scanned for important details, etc. While a verbal presentation may be recorded (audio or video), it is not as easy to go back and review the information presented without special audio/visual equipment. Incorrect use of fonts create problems for the audience in properly absorbing the information presented.
- Too many bullet points or words on a slide (See Bullet Point Errors in PowerPoint)
- Inappropriate fonts for body copy
- Incorrect font size
- Extreme color combinations
- Misspellings
Use of Fonts
While display fonts such as Olde English or Mistral might be used for a slide title, their use in bullet points or body copy is a blatant mistake. Most people in an audience are most comfortable reading a simple serif font, like Times New Roman, or sans serif, Arial.
A display or scripted font like Brush Script or Lucida Handwriting will not be as easily read by the audience. Since the audience has no idea how long the slide will be available for viewing, they will become tense and uncomfortable trying to recognize, read, and comprehend the unfamiliar character set and listen to the presenter. Here are some fonts to consider for use in presentation.
- Sans serif: Arial, Calibri, Gill sans, Lucida Bright
- Serif: Century Schoolbook, Goudy Old Style, Times New Roman
Font Size
A PowerPoint slide is not a word processing document. The audience members will not be reading the text in hard copy. They will be viewing text on a projection screen. Therefore the text must be large enough to be read by the audience member sitting furthest away from the screen. Assuming adequate screen size for the venue, font size should probably remain at 30 point or higher in most cases. Unless the font is large-bodied (wide) by nature smaller font size may be difficult for some audience members to read.
Background vs. Text
Black text on white background is considered standard for hard copy documents. The trend in presentation slides is to have color backgrounds with contrasting, but not jarring, text color. Here are two combinations that tend to work well.
- Dark blue background with text in white and yellow.
- Yellow background with black or dark blue text also works well.
One background/text problem is not always apparent as the presenter develops her slides. A black background with red text may show up well on the computer screen during preparation. Unfortunately some overhead projectors may not handle this color combination well. This may happen with a thin-lined sans serif font. Here are some other color combinations that are not always successful.
- Yellow background with green text
- Red background with green text
- Blue background with red text
Whenever possible a presenter should run through the slides on the overhead she will be using for the presentation. This allows her to see what the audience will see and make adjustments before the program starts.
Spelling Errors
PowerPoint comes with an excellent spell checking tool. Use it. Whether presenting to an audience of 5 or 5,000, spelling errors will be noticed, and all too frequently pointed out during the presentation. When the spelling checker tags a word that is unique, such as an industry term, company name, or person, before telling the spell checker to ignore it be absolutely certain the spelling is correct.
Text slides will make up the vast majority of slides in any presentation. It is every presenter’s goal to make that text convey valuable information to the audience. To do this, the audience must be able to properly view all the text that appears on each slide.
Related Article:
Less is More with PowerPoint
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