When you walked into the meeting room, the light is dimmed, the audience is silent, the only sound you could hear is your speaking and mouse clicks, have you expected what would happen next? The audiences start nodding, meditating and praying? No, they fall asleep! Do you want to see this happen? Then you need to be informed of these 10 common PowerPoint mistakes in order to make a great PowerPoint presentation.

PowerPoint mistake 1: Poor knowledge on your topic

It would be embarrassed when one audience asked you a question but you don’t know the answer. So make sure you are truly prepared before you go. To what extent should you call yourself prepared? When you feel that you have memorized everything in your mind and don’t need PowerPoint enhancement. For sure, you could use cue cards and notes when presenting. Use key words and phrases and include only essential information to keep the audience focused and interested.

PowerPoint mistake 2: Poor fonts choices

You should always bear in mind the “easy to read” rule. Use easy reading fonts like Arial and New Times Roman for the slides, no more than two fonts one for the title and one for the content. Also the font size should be big enough for a large audience to see clearly, so it should be no less than 24.

PowerPoint mistake 3: Using the wrong background

A good PowerPoint background would make your PowerPoint looks more beautiful and comfortable. But a background with too many colors would distract the audience’s attention. So it is wise to limit the colors and be aware of the contrast of text on the background.

PowerPoint mistake 4: The slides are not your presentation

You should not write all of the information on the PowerPoint slides and just read word by word. It would be boring. Besides, the audience would pay more attention to read the screen themselves than listening to you. On the other hand, don’t give the handout at the beginning for the same reason. You should only write the bullets for the key ideas on the slides and explain it in detail during presentation.

PowerPoint mistake 5: Too much information

Sometimes you may feel it’s hard to explain one thing clearly, so you may jump here and there to talk about everything you know about it. But the audience may get confused. The right thing should be using no more than 4 points to explain one topic so that the audience could follow up.

PowerPoint mistake 6: Annoying animations and sound effect

A PowerPoint with no animation or sound effect would be boring, but on the contrary, too many would distract the audience’s attention. So you don’t need to use different animations and sound on each slide. Instead, design your presentation with the "less is more” philosophy. Don't let your audience suffer from animation overload.

PowerPoint mistake 7: Too many slides

Usually it would be better if you give information as detailed as possible. But for a PowerPoint presentation, time is limited so you need to be concise on the topic. A PowerPoint presentation with 10 – 12 slides would be the best.

PowerPoint mistake 8: Spelling and grammar check

Do not make this “simple” mistake. You should check the spelling and grammar while you are making the PowerPoint documents. Pay attention to the name and professional nouns for they may have unusual spellings.

PowerPoint mistake 9: Hardware malfunctions

The audience is settled but you find out the PowerPoint cannot be played! I don’t think you want to see this happen. So check all the equipments and rehearse your PowerPoint in advance. Due to the different PowerPoint versions, the PowerPoint you made may not work in the meeting room or some effects may be lost. A better way is to prepare a video version as backup. Use Moyea PPT to Video Converter to save your PowerPoint presentation as video while preserving all the original elements.

PowerPoint mistake 10: Where is the audience?

You should always remember your audience during presentation. Take full control of your audience so that they should concentrate their attention on YOU not the PowerPoint. So control your voice, say clearly, loudly and not too fast. The most important is that speak to your audience, not the screen!