As event managers we’re forever hyper linking presentations and have sat through literally hundreds over the past two years. We’ve also seen a fair few crimes against PowerPoint in our time and this got us thinking that some basic do’s and don’ts might be quite useful as a speaker aide.

To this end we’ve put together a guide to creating and delivering PowerPoint presentations which is freely downloadable from this blog as a PDF. In a way it’s a companion piece to a great post on presenting by PR Blogger Stephen Davies which focuses on preparation, content and delivery and is well worth a read.

Microsoft Office PowerPoint is the accepted industry standard when it comes to slide show presentation software although it’s only fair to say there are a number of other packages which perform the same function.

The vast majority of speakers we’ve worked with are using PowerPoint 2003 although a new updated version has been released this year. It certainly has more whistles and bells and does a decent job of making slicker looking presentations easier to produce but interestingly we’ve only had one speaker using the 2007 format so far.

It’s worth noting that 2003 presentations will play on the new version but not vice versa unless you choose to save your 2007 presentation in the 2003 compatible format.

I’ve tried not to focus too much on the technicalities of Microsoft’s software as I’m hoping much of the advice will be of use to anyone preparing a presentation regardless of the programme you may be using. Hopefully you’ll find the tips helpful and the document will provide an easy to follow insight into creating and using slide show presentations to your best possible advantage.

Follow this link to download or view The Don’t Panic Guide to PowerPoint Presentations and feel free to forward it on and share the document with colleagues. Please do let us know if we’ve missed anything out or not covered any areas adequately as we’re happy to add to and revise the document if necessary.

REVISION 2.11.07 The section on fonts has been tweaked to clarify the differences in legibility between serif and sans serif typefaces. Thanks to Peter Cooke at Chichester County Council's design unit for the advice.

Sadly there's no YouTube link to the video for this post's title track which is by Win, one of my all time favourite 80's groups. Instead here's the Freaky Trigger MySpace site with a selection of audio and Trash Icons a great fan website.