PowerPoint can be a bit of a time suck, can’t it? Its best functions are hidden behind menus, it’s slow to operate, and even if you’re experienced with the program, working quickly and efficiently is never easy. Fortunately, even those who aren’t particularly tech-savvy can follow these easy tips to create beautiful and engaging PowerPoint presentations in less time.
1. Outline Your Story
Before you start making your presentation, decide what exactly you want to say to your audience. Even business presentations have a “story” to them – that is, a beginning, a middle and an end. You’ll save a lot of energy working on your PowerPoint by outlining this ahead of time.
2. Always Remember that Less is More
While making your presentation, never forget the golden rule that “less is more.” Your audience will be quickly bored by slides full of text, so be sure to keep things concise. Use visual cues whenever possible to help break up the text and keep your audience engaged. Naturally, this will also save you time on writing.
If you’re going to use Photoshop, you can seamlessly integrate it into PowerPoint with pptXTREME’s Photoshop Import module. It brings the two programs together, allowing for quick and easy interoperability including automatically sized and cropped shapes and layers between platforms.
4. Learn Keyboard Shortcuts
This will take some practice and may be more useful to you once you’ve gotten a few presentations under your belt, but learning keyboard shortcuts will help you shave off a lot of time once you’ve got them down. Here are some useful shortcuts to get you started:
- CTRL+arrow keys can be used to switch the order of bulleted lines inside text boxes, as well as adjust the indent.
- CTRL+enter will select the slide title of the page of your choice, and if you press it twice it will then insert a new page.
- CTRL+shift+’=’ can be used to quickly add footnotes, as it turns selected text lines into superscript.
- F2 can be used as an alternative to edit the words inside text boxes (as opposed to moving the mouse to click on and highlight the text).
- CTRL/SHIFT+click can be used to quickly copy and move selected objects.
pptXTREME offers even more functionality to PowerPoint, letting you take control of presentations in a way you never imagined. With new shortcuts, new options, and quick-access toolbars, everything you need is right at your fingertips. Now you can do more in less time – and with fewer clicks and navigation.
Get started using pptXTREME to enhance your PowerPoint presentation and creation skills today!