Tips for Creating Readable Slides

This article gives you a few random tips and pointers that help you produce readable slides.

Try Reading the Slide front the Back of the Room
The number-one rule of creating readable slides is that everyone in the room should be able to read them. If you're not sure, there's one sure way to find out: try it. Put the slide in the projector, walk to the back of the room, and see whether you can read it. If you can't, you have to make an adjustment.

Five Bullets, Tops
Ever notice that David Letterman uses two slides to display each of his Top Ten lists? Dave's producers know that ten items is too many for one slide. Five is just right. Take a cue from Dave's show and limit yourself to no more than five bullet points per slide.

Avoid Small Text
If you can't read a slide from the back of the room, it's probably because the text is too small. The rule of thumb is that 24 points is the smallest you should go for slides, and 18 points for overheads. Twelve-point type may be perfectly readable in a word processing document, but it just doesn't cut it on an over­head or slide.

Avoid Excessive Verbiage Lending to Excessively Lengthy Text That Is Not Only Redundant but Also Repetitive and Reiterative
This heading could have been “Be Brief.” Get the point?

Use Consistent Wording
Whenever possible, be consistent in the way you word your bulleted lists. Consider this list:

  • Profits will be improved
  • Expanding markets
  • We must reduce the amount of overseas competition
  • Production increase

Each sentence uses a different grammatical construction. The same points made with consistent wording have a more natural flow:

  • Improved profits
  • Expanded markets
  • Reduced overseas competition
  • Increased production

See what I mean?

Stick to the Color Scheme
With all the professionally designed color schemes, there's no reason to try to create your own. The color schemes combine colors that work well together. Why spoil the party?

Stick to the Auto Layouts When You Can
You can't, at least not always. But try to if you can. The AutoLayouts include various placeholder objects that are already lined up for best readability.

Keep the Background Simple
Don't splash a bunch of distracting clip art on the background unless it is essential. The purpose of the background is to provide a well-defined visual space for the slide's content. Avoid templates that have beach scenes in the background. For overheads, it's best to use light-colored backgrounds. Dark backgrounds work well with slides.

Use Only Two Levels of Bullets
Sure, it's tempting to develop your subpoints into sub-subpoints and sub-sub-subpoints, but no one can follow you. Don't make your slides more confusing than they need to be. If you need to make sub-sub-subpoints, you probably need a few more slides.

Keep Graphs Simple
Microsoft Graph can create elaborate graphs that even the best statisticians will marvel at. But the most effective graphs are pie charts with three or four slices and column charts with three or four columns.

If you remember only one rule when creating your presentation, remember this one: Keep it simple, clean, and concise.