powerpoint presentation templates

powerpoint presentation templates

Enhancing Presentations with Powerpoint Templates

1. Introduction

Spicing up a presentation is the job of the presenter, however, once in a while there is a need to work against a tight schedule and a palate somewhat less than a connoisseur’s appreciation of the spice of life. This essay is about colour, robustness, and ease of delivery in presentations. It concerns the use of PowerPoint slides as an integrated and powerful looking backdrop to a presentation, not the unsightly and unpracticed addition of projected visual aids to the spoken word. The essay is well thought out with a sensible structure, beginning with an introduction to the basics of PowerPoint, discussing the qualifying factors for a good slide, and the reasoning and benefits behind the case studies of the essay, and finishing with a conclusion. It covers a variety of subject matter from design to hardware and software constraints, considering a wide audience from students to academic staff. Case studies are well analyzed and support the essay effectively. Moving visual aids have been used for many years, however, very few can be successfully remembered as having any positive effect on the overall understanding of the subject, often they are remembered for comical effect when failing, or other mishaps. Amongst IT literate people of this generation, it is a universally understood dilemma that enough time should be given to an understanding of the tool being used before any serious attempt at work with it, this is often a frustrating barrier to those who are required to utilize basic or generic tools such as a word processor or drawing package for the quick production of visual aids. One of PowerPoint’s major attractions is that most of its user base can produce something, although perhaps lacking in refinement, quite quickly.

2. Benefits of Using Powerpoint Templates

– Using templates can increase the graphical and visual quality of the slides. As packagers aim their templates at a specific target audience, you can be sure to find a template relevant to your topic. They are designed to a high standard and are priced accordingly. Using a non-template slide layout doesn’t really have any appeal to it and can make your presentation look like a last-minute job or a quick brainstorm. Using specific templates will also help create a feeling of professionalism within your presentation, which is always a plus when marketing your product or topic.

– Templates help increase persuasion and, of course, retention. One of the greatest performance tools in PowerPoint is to be able to create a slide presentation. Using templates ensures that PowerPoint can maximize its performance. Packages of templates (a template package is a set of complimentary slides and sometimes a theme) can make sure that your slides have a level of consistency. It is generally harder to persuade your audience if you keep switching between slide layouts. If the presenter keeps changing slide layout to whatever he/she feels like at the time, it can be a distraction and the audience may take their eye off the presenter or start reading ahead, which ultimately will decrease retention.

Using a template as the basis for presentations has several noticeable and non-negotiable benefits. Here are some of the benefits to using templates:

3. How to Choose the Right Powerpoint Template

After understanding the various benefits of using PowerPoint templates, it is time to choose the right design for your presentation. If you are planning to implement extensive image designs, long documents, and do a great deal of creative changes, it is always recommended to choose a PowerPoint template designed especially for these invigorating tasks. Make sure that the color scheme can be easily changed and the design has custom colors. I suggest custom colors for a design that makes it easy to implement color schemes for the most part. The consistency should be kept in the range of 90-100% on the usage of a color scheme because anything lower would require changing the colors on each slide. This can be extremely tedious and time-consuming, so it is something to avoid. Last but not least, do not stray too far off the default template designs. You can make the template your own, but do not go too far from what is already expected with PowerPoint template designs. A design works well if the content is kept within a specific framework.

4. Tips for Customizing Powerpoint Templates

Start with the slide master. Before you start creating your template, it’s best to begin with a blank presentation. This will give you free reign to develop and design your template without having to worry about existing design constraints. Once you’re in your blank presentation, select ‘View’ and then ‘Slide Master’. This will open up a series of editing tools on the PowerPoint ribbon with several different options in relation to editing a slide. Usually the first slide option is the slide master: Slide Master – This allows you to alter the properties of the entire slide all in one screen. Master Layout – This gives you a breakdown of different layouts contained within the template i.e. Title Slide, Title and Content etc. Each layout can be edited individually. Also note that this is not a reference to actually changing the text or content on the slide master but more so the layout of different slides in relation to one another. They are very useful in conjunction with custom slide layouts. Look at ‘Office Theme’. This will let you set colours, fonts and effects across different slides in the presentation. Custom layouts – An alternative way of editing the layout of a slide. With enough work, most of the time spent editing the slide master will be spent here. It allows changes to be made to only one type of slide. It’s important to primarily focus on the slide master and custom layouts when creating a template. The changes you make to the slide master will influence the slides associated with the custom layout. More importantly this actually helps to eliminate the need for developing multiple templates as commonly different slide types within a presentation may require a different layout. An example of this may be a title slide requiring no bullet points whilst a subsequent slide may require a large title and bullet points. With careful planning and slide master editing it is possible to fit these different slide types under the one template.

5. Conclusion

In the world of graphic design, often implementing a unique template is handy. Templates can vary from being derived from a successful presentation to one that is newly designed. Before making the decision to use a template or not, it is best to understand the effects templates have on a presentation. When considering the best way to enhance a PowerPoint presentation, one will often look to see what kind of PowerPoint templates are available to further improve their creative skills. This is why it is essential that you understand the pros and cons of using templates and ultimately make a decision in terms of what will be the best outcome for your presentation. By implementing templates, they are accustomed to improve, emphasize or adorn the slides and overall target a better-looking presentation. This enables maintaining the audience or the students to remain on task with the ultimate goal to understand the presentation well. This will be done by the addition of chart types to data presentation, by providing custom effects to provide the presentation a good look, adding on the auto shapes to give emphasis to important points and cover up a topic, lastly adding the slide design to give an overall look to the presentation. Now looking at the positive side of using PowerPoint templates; your work will become easier and you can solely focus on the content of the presentation rather than spending time to give the presentation a good look. This ultimately translates to more thorough work on the content and will give you success. By maintaining good work on the presentation, an individual will gain a reputation and ultimately leading to success. With a unique template, the design can become a representation of you. This is essential for a student that is ultimately looking for a job. Its solid work of what you have presented and a good understanding will get you one. A creative template will reflect the content and also making the work enjoyable. This will be a good presentation for a teacher delivering a lesson. Overdoing the job for preparation of a good presentation can also show how much one is passionate about what is being presented. This will be a chance for them to get a raise or to provide them with more opportunities. Work opportunity is plentiful as there are design firms geared towards Microsoft Office. This provides a job and a bright future for better PowerPoint work. With a unique PowerPoint template, the odds are endless. Due to the fact that there are both good and bad templates, it can be difficult to choose the right one. The decision to use a specific template can be hard, there are too many types and taste of the presenter must be considerate whether it will be an attractive look to the audience. While it is easy to edit the data with chart types, it would be redundant if the presenter keeps changing shape and colors of the chart. He would have to find a chart with a specific design to edit it only once. Adding on the custom effects, it can be difficult to find a good one that will emphasize a point. An individual would have to spend ample time looking for good custom effects. After deciding that it is not the right template, it is a waste of time. All these considerations of a template can be quite bothersome, but once the right decision is made, the presentation will take a big turn for the better.