Microsoft Word’s inadequacy has turned Powerpoint into a document creation tool and a presentation tool. Chaos has ensued

PowerPoint was originally designed to share information in a ‘slide’ format, and ostensibly can still do so. Gone are the days of a professor setting up a slide projector, cycling through a carousel of images. But this is not the primary use of the software. Instead, PowerPoint has morphed into something else to make up for the fact that Microsoft Word is probably best left on the rubbish pile of history.

Word is wholly unequipped to handle the creation of modern documents which may include text, images, charts and tables. Have you ever tried to insert an image into word, only to have it absolutely mangle the formatting of the rest of the document?

To account for this, essentially all knowledge workers who have to create documents have shifted their workflows from Word to PowerPoint which is far easier to use.

Why do we care?

There are always other unintended effects to any action.  What I see almost constantly is when PowerPoint is to be used for public speaking, no one knows how to create a slide for consumption in a talk.

Exhibit A – Earlier this year, I attended a large conference for estate planning attorneys.  For 3 days, speakers shared slides of entirely text – often with hundreds of word per slide. Imagine sitting in a cavernous, windowless conference hall with 5,000 people. Projected onto two jumbo screens is functionally the legal version of the phone book.

Were we supposed to listen to the speaker or do the ‘homework’ he had shared on the screen in front of us? A disaster for the audience – Attorneys demand better!

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If you are going to speak in public, I would like to suggest a few rules

1 – One idea per slide

Each slide should have a singular, overarching idea that can be succinctly and crisply communicated in a glance. If the idea cannot be conveyed in that way, you have not thought hard enough about it yet. Brevity is the output of cognitive work – please do not outsource your own mental labor to the audience.

2 – One chart or one sentence (under 12 words) –

This core idea may be communicated with a singular chart or with a singular sentence. It should be skimmable quickly – otherwise the audience reads the slides and doesn’t listen to you!

3 – Understand why you are speaking

Are you there to educate? Update? Inspire? Purpose matters with what you share, how you do so, and the order by which you structure your remarks.

Too many speakers are not exactly sure of why they are standing at the front of the room.

4 – Scale the # of slides to the time available.

If you have 1 idea per slide and it takes about a 1-2 minutes to cover a slide (generally), in a 20 min talk, you can have a max of 15 slides – choose wisely.

The answer to a time constraint is not speaking faster, but by carefully selecting your content. Curation is a sign of understanding – it means you know well enough what is important to call out and what is not.

5 – Know thy keyboard shortcuts

Powerpoint has many keyboard shortcuts that make it more user friendly. Learn them. F5 starts the presentation, you can then use the arrows to navigate slides.

6 – Font size and color matter

Size 12 font in orange is not going to be visible in the audience. 

Make it large, make it visible

7 – Tread carefully with animations

It is not 1998 – be very careful with animations.  Often they just annoy the audience, but more often, they just do not work. 

Even build ups of slide graphics should be tested numerous times to make sure they progress correctly

8 – The pre-read deck and the presentation deck can (should!) be different

This is a personal pet peeve – If you sent out the slide document with the all the information separately – you do not need to read the slides to the audience!

You may choose to walk through something that is particularly complex, needs additional context to understand, or solicit feedback

Choose carefully what is worth voicing over – otherwise you are reinforcing the habit that pre-reads do not need to actually be pre-read

9 – Use the PDF version carefully

If you are sharing the slides via PDF rather than powerpoint – you should tread as carefully as Indiana Jones in an old graveyard. 

Adobe is a document tool – not a presentation one. It will be glitchy, freeze (especially with image heavy files). 

10 – But above all test and retest before hand

Make sure it works, make sure you have the right adaptor, turn off notifications – you can put your Windows computer in do not disturb, just like your phone). We do not want to see your new email alert, the fact you have not updated your PC in 4 years and windows is going to restart immediately if you don’t click on this box right now

Documents are documents, presentations are presentations

PowerPoint will likely remain a dual purpose piece of software. The way we respond is to be aware of which manner of communication we are using it for and adapting to best practice norms for each. Hybrid purposes sadly result in neither being executed all that well.