10 tips for readable slides

Increase impact with text size, smart cropping, animations, and better slide structure.

Tip

Visual examples in Appendix 5: Examples of slide formatting. Also see Appendix 1: PowerPoint and Word Templates.

Text size

Minimum 28pt for Arial

Other fonts may need bigger point sizes. Everything else will follow.

Text can be slightly smaller when presenting online. But if you’re presenting text under 18pt, don’t expect the audience to read it.

• Larger text means you can:
• Break text over multiple slides
• Use fewer bullet points
• Create a summary slide

Short lines

Do not have lines of text run across the whole slide. Keep to under 30 characters per line.

You can get shorter lines by:

1. Increasing the font size
2. Using two columns
3. Using SmartArt

Bolding of key phrases

DO

Bold key phrases in any block of text such as quotation. You should even bold key phrases or key words in longer lists.

AVOID

Avoid bolding complete sentences or whole paragraphs. Too much bold text is more difficult to process visually.

No text over images

Always add a solid background to text if the slide has an image in the background.

• Do not place text over an image.
• You can make the text background slightly transparent (max 25%).
• You can also increase the transparency of an image to make it less distracting.

Remove logos from every slide

You do not need a logo on every slide. Keep any branding to only the title and final slide. Logos on every slide introduce another element of potential distraction.

Convert bullets to SmartArt

Use SmartArt instead of bullets. Right-click on any list and choose: Convert to SmartArt.

Benefits

• Provides visual division
• Makes it easier to indicate relationships
• Forces shorter text
• Transforms logical structure to visuals

Avoid

• Small text
• Too much text
• Very busy and complicated lists

SmartArt tips

• Use Design Ideas to convert lists
• Edit text in the outline, not graphics
• Convert to shapes for further editing

Add icons and or colours to lists

Adding icons or colours to lists makes them easier to process and remember. Icons also provide visual division.

• Easier to process
• Easier to remember
• Easier visual navigation

Important!

Never use colour as the only way to get important information (e.g., 'items marked in red are compulsory').

Alternatives: Bolding, Shapes/Outline, Asterisk, Position, Graphics

Use animations to draw attention

Animations can be very distracting. Use them minimally. But they can be very useful to draw interest to particular elements.

Examples that support processing:

1. Arrow Wipe or Fly in to point to an element of an image
2. Circle Wipe to highlight text
3. Colour change of a slide element

Tip

You can add more than one animation to the same element.

"Your aim is to draw the viewers' attention to what you are talking about at the moment."

Make images full screen

You can make images more impactful if you stretch them across the whole screen.

• Zoom in on what is important
• Force you to use less text
• Make the slide look more modern

Many people are afraid to crop. But cropping is an essential technique for amplifying the message.

Transparency to reduce overload

Images covering the full slide can be overwhelming. You should set their transparency to between 30 and 50%. This is particularly important when you place text over the image.

• Image with 50% transparency
• Image with 30% transparency
• Image without transparency

One bullet, one slide

Think of the purpose of the PowerPoint slide: It is to help your audience process what you are saying while you speak. Only show things relevant to the moment.

If you have a slide with 5 bullets and will spend 1 minute on each:

1. A title slide introducing the topic
2. Individual slide for each bullet
3. Overview slide showing the summary of all points