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Presentations

A presentation contains several screens shown to an audience in sequence one after another. 

The purpose of a presentation is to give information and opinions to an audience. 

Presentations are used by a wide range of people. 
Here are some examples:

  • A teacher could use a presentation to teach her class about different chemical elements.
  • A salesman could use a presentation to tell his colleagues about the latest products.
  • A museum guide could use a presentation to inform visitors to the museum about one of the exhibits.

A presentation is created using presentation software – such as Microsoft Powerpoint.  A presentation is made up with slides – one slide contains one screenful of information.  A slide could include text, graphics, video or sound clips.

Slide Layouts

Slide layouts are used to arrange where items are placed on the screen.

title
text
graphic
This layout shows a main title and a sub heading This layout shows the heading at the top of the slide and a bullet list

This layout shows the text on the left and the graphic on the right.

Slide layouts save you having to work out the layout – you can just add the text and pictures! 

Slide Transitions

When the slides are shown to the audience one after another, it is called a slide show. 

It is good to include a transition between the slides – the transition is the effect used when one screen disappears and the next one appears. 

Here are some examples of different transition effects:

wipedown
checker
fade
disolve
circle
wipe down
chequerboard
fade
dissolve
circle

 

Slide Design

The slide design is a template file that contains the styles for a presentation.  You can choose from a range of ready made designs. 

The slide design contains selections for the font, size and colour of text as well as bullet point styles and background slide colours.

When choosing the slide design, always think about the presentation you are making and who will be watching it.  The design should be appropriate for the content of the presentation and suitable for the audience.

Fireworks Design
Curtain Design
fireworks
curtian
Suitable for slide show about Guy Fawkes or Festival Celebration Suitbale forslide show about a playwright or a theatre production

 
Viewing Slides

Presentation software applications offer a range of options to look at the slides.  Powerpoint uses two viewing options – outline view and slide sorter view.

Outline View
Slide Sorter View
outline

slidesorter
This is good to show you the content of each slide

This is useful to see the layout of each slide.

It is easy to use this view to rearrange the order of slides by dragging them around.

 
Multimedia

Most presentations include multimedia elements such as text, graphics, sound, animation or video clips.

Graphics could be drawings, diagrams, cartoons or photographs.  It is good to include graphics to brighten up the slide show, but make sure you use appropriate images. Graphics should be relevant and relate to the content of the slide, could be used to explain or demonstrate something mentioned in the presentation or could be examples of an item referred to on the slide.

Sound can be used as background music or for sound effects such as moving to the next slide.

Animation can be included to show moving images or to make images move across the screen.

Make sure you do not use other people’s work without permission – you could be breaking the Copyright law.  Always check you are allowed to use someone else’s graphics, sound clips, video clips or animations in your presentation.