A good approach to PP is to script a presentation on a notepad, or in Word - but stay away from PP. Then, when you’ve finished cutting 75% of it out, you can break the text up into manageable chunks and use these as the notes to your PP presentation. None of the text need ever reach a slide - so what does? Images, charts, diagrams - anything that will make the presentation more lively, engaging and memorable for the audience.

Anyone who loads reams of text directly into their PP should be shot with their own bullet points (in my humbel opinion).

One more thing to remember - PP is just one source of visual aids. There are others, including the presence of the presenter. Good speakers don’t need PP, but even a red hot PP still needs a good speaker - or at least deserves one.

When I’ve given presentation courses, people often ask me: “As a rule of thumb, how many slides should I use for a 20min presentation?” This is the wrong question. The question should be: “Do I need a visual aid to support this argument? And if so, what’s the best visual aid to use here?”

If you can answer those questions, you can start bringing out the power of your visual aids, including PowerPoint.