How many times have you sat through a 20-minute PowerPoint presentation that has felt more like 2 hours long? How often have you emerged from those darkened rooms with no memory of anything that was said beyond the first and last slides? There are several ways to improve the quality and impact of PowerPoint presentations, so that your target audience do remember your name and the message you were trying to give them.

Is there a specific reason for using PowerPoint in your presentation? Many people automatically reach for the Microsoft software package out of habit, or because they have seen other people do the same thing on previous occasions. Sometimes, you can get your point across very simply without resorting to eye-straining your audience. Consider the use of a whiteboard instead if your handwriting is neat and legible at a distance, or perhaps flip charts that you can assemble in advance. Would it be better for your audience to receive a handout with all your relevant points, and for you to give a short talk without visual aids instead? All of these techniques can result in effective presentations, particularly if you are at all nervous of using technology.

If you do decide that using PowerPoint is crucial to your presentation, give the content some real thought. If you are talking through your presentation, do you want your slides to be full of words too, or will images suffice? If you decide to use images on the screen, try to find some cohesive pattern to them, instead of flashing up random pictures or logos. If the words are going to be mostly on screen, remember that the clue to all this is in the name of the product: it is called PowerPoint for a reason. The idea is not to put text on the slides and then recite every single word to your audience. Make your slides short and snappy with single phrases on each for a portion of your show, and expand on the ideas verbally.

Consider your presentation from your audiences' point of view as well as your own. No one is going to remember the content of twenty slides full of text, so don't make them try. Alternate simple slides with text-rich slides, perhaps with an image or logo every 3 or 4 to break things up a bit. Use the last three or four slides to recap the main points again, with the final slide inviting questions from the floor. Always have two or three dry runs before you present your slideshow, to gauge how long you will be talking for. Show it to a colleague and get their feedback; you may be surprised that they immediately spot a spelling mistake or incorrect figures that you had previously missed. Take your time and try not to rush your monologue; remember to breathe between each sentence, and don't be ashamed to read from a script if there is important information that you simply must not forget to include.

Finally, make sure that your slides are simple to read and digest. Just because PowerPoint gives you the option to fade in every single letter of every heading, does not mean you have to take advantage of it. Keep the font style and size consistent throughout, and stick to just 2 or 3 colours at most. You can make use of some of the custom animations of course, but remember that you are trying to tell your audience an important message and not to stun them with your creativity so that the message is lost in the technology. Aim for consistency and your presentation will be easily remembered for the right reasons.

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