Whether your speaking to small, intimate groups or large audiences in a conference setting,  PowerPoint presentations are an excellent aid for sharing your message. But they should be just that, an aid. Your audience is interested in you…your ideas…your message, so let’s make sure it doesn’t get lost.

Before putting any words on your slides, take the time to draft an outline. Is it succinct while still providing room to hit each of your main message points? Does it have a clear progression through the information that supports your story? Did you edit it down, once…twice…three times? If you answered yes, then your ready to start writing.

Now the next step is very important. As you write your content keep in mind that you are the main focus of the presentation, not your PowerPoint slides. Your slides should support you without taking attention away from you. Here are some simple tips to keep in mind as you write:

1. Keep your words to a minimum by punctuating your points, not writing them as full sentences
2. When showing charts and graphs of numerical data, be clean and keep graphical effects to a minimum
3. Make sure your audience can see your content by choosing a large enough point size for your text
4. Create more impact with an image instead of defaulting to using a slide of bullets

These quick PowerPoint tips are simple for a reason. There is an overwhelming amount of guidelines online, many of which are excellent. But when your under the gun to create a presentation fast, you can easily get lost researching and lose track of “creating”. So think about your next presentation, is there a lot riding on it? If you applied the basics outlined here but feel you need more design experience to engage your audience, you may want to consult the help of a professional team.