I am looking for some tricks,tips and advice for 'Microsoft Powerpoint 2003' I am doing a presentation for my ICT GCSE and it needs to have a professional look whilst still looking good (I don't think that really made sense)
So any tips, tricks and advice people have please list below.

People are probably wondering what the presentation is about, it's about: The impact of ICT Development

2007 and one of the new designs usually go down well.

All powerpoint presentations look naff - if they dont then you need more graphs to make it look crap

Make sure you get your point across. Hard hitting and impact are just as important as interesting and factual. Also, see if you can find some music to go with it, as this keeps it entertaining ( royalty free of course ) unless its not for Public distribution, then you can use anything you like.

I had to do one, and it was to introduce our IT Department to the new council Members. I had it on a large screen, with wizzy things flashing in and out, various gfx all with a different animation to them.

The cheif Exec loved it, and actually turned up the volume

Use Keynote, at least it doesn't look exactly the same as everything else.

GCSE presentations don't need to be amazing tbh I've included stuff that one might find useful when giving a presentation too. If you just need to create a slideshow instead of actually presenting it, feel free to ignore. If it's just design it, make sure you include proper readers' notes.

My guidelines would be
- Choose a background that doesn't interfere with the text
- Use a readable font
- Use a suitable font size, not size 12, not size 54
- Use bullet points only
- 6 words per line
- Use pictures if they add something meaningful (some things are easier to visualise as graphics)
- Don't add tables or appenices of info and expect them to be read. If you do put in a table, only use it to highlight important facts
- There's no need to change the transition every time. See next point.
- K.I.S.S.: Keep it simple, stupid. Presentations aren't really about flashy slides. Most of the presentation is you speaking about the main points that are listed in your slides. Should you need to use a cheat-sheet, under no circumstances whatsoever, read from it like reading an essay. Have the info on it so that you only need to glance at it for a brief second to remind yourself what you're speaking about or are about to speak about.

Also, unless you're naturally funny, avoid humour. Focus at points just behind the people you're talking to, or at random people if you're comfortable being stared at

Depending on how things work at the GCSE level these days, you might need to include references to all borrowed work. In uni proper referencing was a must. If you do add them, have a look at the Harvard referencing method.

If you want something professional, I'd suggest you stay away from Microsoft Office altogether. Well, design it in Photoshop (Will look really nice) and simply copy/paste to the powerpoint slide.

Quote from S14 DRIFT :

If you want something professional, I'd suggest you stay away from Microsoft Office altogether. Well, design it in Photoshop (Will look really nice) and simply copy/paste to the powerpoint slide.

I was thinking about doing that but I thought about screen size etc... because if I made the image with say the size of 1024x768 it will not always be full screen on a monitor that has a bigger resolution then 1024x768 would it? Hope this makes sense, don't know how to really put it

The presentation will be just slides and some bullet points and then we will make notes about each slide.

Powerpoint rule #1:
Use a light background with high contrast letters

Powerpoint rule #2:
Don't even think about using sounds

Powerpoint rule #3:
Don't even think about using Comic Sans MS

Powerpoint rule #4:
Don't even think about slide transitions

Powerpoint rule #5:
Don't even think about letter effects (i.e. typewriter)

Every rule is equally important.

Everytime you break one of these rules, you'll grant the audience permission to smack you in the face for every violated rule, for every slide in your presentation.
So if you break one rule on four slides, you'll receive 4 smacks in the face.

Quote from Jakg :

2007 and one of the new designs usually go down well.

I know 2007 has great designs etc... I use 2007 at home but we still have 2003 in school and it doesn't let you change designs from 2007 in 2003, not change, but when I chosen a design style/template in 2007 this morning I put in wording etc... but when I got into school and was using office 2003 I needed to change effected to affected but it didn't allow me to because it didn't have that design, so I have to stick to one that is on both

Also guys when you say transitions do you mean when you set slides, wording and images etc... to come up automatically without pressing the mouse or space bar? I have never paid attention to what it is called just know how to do it lol. If it is this why not use them? As we will not present it to anyone we will just make the presentation and the teacher will mark it so what will be the problem in using transitions.

Quote from sam93 :

I was thinking about doing that but I thought about screen size etc... because if I made the image with say the size of 1024x768 it will not always be full screen on a monitor that has a bigger resolution then 1024x768 would it? Hope this makes sense, don't know how to really put it

The presentation will be just slides and some bullet points and then we will make notes about each slide.

The image (and whole slide) will be automatically rescaled, but you will loose quality on text when it is rescaled. This is just some school project, don't put too much effort into it, the whole point is to demonstrate you can use powerpoint nobody will care what the end result looks like.

Quote from ajp71 :

The image (and whole slide) will be automatically rescaled, but you will loose quality on text when it is rescaled. This is just some school project, don't put too much effort into it, the whole point is to demonstrate you can use powerpoint nobody will care what the end result looks like.

Maybe so, but I need to boost my grades right up as last year I messed around a lot and didn't really get on track until a couple of weeks till the end of year 10. If I save the images in high quality will they still pixelate as much or not? If someone could tell me how I could stop this it would be a great help.

Quote from sam93 :

I was thinking about doing that but I thought about screen size etc... because if I made the image with say the size of 1024x768 it will not always be full screen on a monitor that has a bigger resolution then 1024x768 would it? Hope this makes sense, don't know how to really put it

The presentation will be just slides and some bullet points and then we will make notes about each slide.

Nope. If you save your slide design in photoshop as a .BMP/.JPG/JPEG and then go (In Powerpoint) Insert>Picture, as long as the scale is pretty much correct, you'll basically just 'shrink' the picture.

Basically, on a 1280x1024 layout, make your slide, then import it into powerpoint and resize in powerpoint/photoshop as needed.. if you get what I mean....

Quote from kingfag :

Powerpoint rule #1:
Use a light background with high contrast letters

Powerpoint rule #2:
Don't even think about using sounds

Powerpoint rule #3:
Don't even think about using Comic Sans MS

Powerpoint rule #4:
Don't even think about slide transitions

Powerpoint rule #5:
Don't even think about letter effects (i.e. typewriter)

Every rule is equally important.

Everytime you break one of these rules, you'll grant the audience permission to smack you in the face for every violated rule, for every slide in your presentation.
So if you break one rule on four slides, you'll receive 4 smacks in the face.

Highly recommended +1

Quote from S14 DRIFT :

Nope. If you save your slide design in photoshop as a .BMP/.JPG/JPEG and then go (In Powerpoint) Insert>Picture, as long as the scale is pretty much correct, you'll basically just 'shrink' the picture.

Basically, on a 1280x1024 layout, make your slide, then import it into powerpoint and resize in powerpoint/photoshop as needed.. if you get what I mean....

Okay thanks

Few months ago i had to make a presentation too. I wasn't happy with any of the default Powerpoint 2003 styles, so i made my own. They're in the attachment if you want to try them.

The first one has a bright background, which may not be well visible if the projectors image quality isn't good enough (as in my case) - background on projector screen was too bright, almost completely white. That's why i made another one with dark blue background. That one worked well for me. In the first presentation i used Calibri font, which IMO looks great, but it unfortunately only comes with Office 2007 and Vista, so computers with older office won't display it. In the second presentation i used Tw Cent font, which is not that nice, but still looks better than majority and is completely Windows-compatible.

Oh and nevermind the text in the slides. I just shortened my original presentation which was in Slovene language.

Don't put a lot of text on any slides. Doing so, will tend to cause the audience to spend a lot of time reading the slide, rather than paying attention to what you're saying. The PowerPoint is just an aid; it should provide useful info, such as pictures, to make your presentation more understandable, but it need not be impressive, in itself. As already stated, make sure that what you do show, is easily legible (no weird color combinations, use a large enough font, etc.). Also, practice your presentation, with the PowerPoint, so that the presentation works smoothly when you're in front of the audience.

If you haven't got anything to say, say it with Powerpoint.

Better yet, read aloud every slide through.