Editing

• Edit ruthlessly. Never lose the perspective of the audience. Look at your work through their eyes. If something is unappealing, distracting or confusing, fix it or omit it.
• Spell check your content.
• Proof rigorously. Check text (tense, agreement, spelling mistakes not caught by spell check), graphics (alignment, labels) and overall layout. Don’t wait to find that mistake at the last minute in the speakers’ Ready Room or on the big screen in front of a hundred people.
• Ask someone else to proof your final version. Fresh eyes always catch something.

“Test Drive” Your Slides

• Use a data projector to view your presentation.
• If possible, test your slides in the room in which you will be speaking or a room of similar dimensions. Run the slide show and see if you can read your slides from the back row of the space in which you expect to be presenting.

Ask yourself:

• Is it easy to read the text?
• Are the graphics legible and easy to understand?
• Is the amount of information on each slide meaningful but kept to a minimum?
• Do the colors work? Is there sufficient contrast?
• Are there any distracting elements?
• Ask others for feedback. Encourage them to be candid. Ask: “If these were your slides, what would you do differently?”

Practicing Your Delivery

• Rehearse! Run through your presentation out loud, preferably more than once. If you feel self conscious doing this alone by yourself, imagine how you will feel in front of 50 people! Hearing yourself speak the words out loud will reduce your self-consciousness at the actual event.
• Time your remarks. A good rule of thumb is to allow 3 minutes per slide. Complex slides can take 5 minutes or more. Transitional comments, digressions, distractions, audience questions and just plain nervousness all add time to your presentation that must be anticipated.
• Watch your own sense of timing. A well-orchestrated PowerPoint program brings up a new slide, gives the audience a chance to read and digest it, then follows up with remarks that broaden and amplify what's on the screen. Never talk “on top of” your slides.
• Remember how much you dislike being read to by a speaker? Never, never, never read your material directly from the screen. Use the slides as prompts, outlines, or conversation points, not cue cards. Think of your slides as a prop, not a script.
• Practice using the physical space. Be aware of where you are relative to the image on the screen; avoid standing where part of the image reflects off your body.

Hint! For more ideas on delivering presentations, check out these Public Speaking Tips. For ideas on working with microphones and other AV equipment, seethe AV Equipment Primer page.

Handouts

• Distribute handouts at the end — not before or during the presentation. Unless it is imperative that people follow a handout while you're presenting, wait until you're done to distribute them. Otherwise, they will read ahead, be impatient to ask questions, and not focus on what you are saying.
• As an alternative to printing out your slides (using PowerPoint’s “handouts” option), put together a separate handout document that contains the detail you want people to takeaway and announce the availability of this material at the beginning of your talk. This approach makes it easier to have less text on each slide and encourages your audience to focus on what you are saying.