Do you remember last time you attended a professional gathering or a meeting which didn’t include a PowerPoint presentation? The importance of a good presentation is well known to all of us. PowerPoint is a presentation program which provides flexibility to create and deliver professional presentations.
Today, presentations mean “PowerPoint”. PowerPoint is widely used by business professionals, students, and professors. The prime benefit of using PowerPoint is engaging the crowd not just through words, but also through sound and visuals. Thanks to Microsoft.
Importance of PowerPoint
Some people understand better by hearing, but then some might learn better by seeing. PowerPoint presentations act as a perfect way to amalgamate verbal communication with visual aids. Most of us have access to this great tool for giving effective presentations. Doesn’t matter if you are a student or a teacher or a business professional, you would need to use PowerPoint at some point of time. This is the reason you might want to learn Microsoft PowerPoint sometime.
Uses of PowerPoint
PowerPoint is mainly used in making presentations, tutorials, animations, quiz games and posters. Other than providing a clear understanding of the subject, PowerPoint makes learning a lot more colourful and entertaining. It has taken away the boredom of boards and chalk.
Another good feature is that you could also add audio and video clippings to make your presentation more interesting and target oriented. As already mentioned, PowerPoint is actively used by students, teachers and business professionals.
Students
Students are generally taught about PowerPoint right from schools. They use PowerPoint for creating impressive presentations and project reports. Most of the teachers expect students to know how to use PowerPoint.
For Phd students, no thesis is marked as complete until the final presentation is given to the faculty.
Professors
PowerPoint is a perfect substitute to blackboard/whiteboard, and flip charts. Using PowerPoint increases the “teaching time” for a teacher. It also improves the overall quality of teaching by providing visuals and sound. This keeps the students attentive and engaged.
Professionals
PowerPoint is used in almost every business domain. Whether it is hiring and training sessions or important meetings, PowerPoint presentations are used commonly. Some companies even pay their employees for marketing their business and improving customer relationship by learning and using PowerPoint.
Features to explore in the new PowerPoint 2013
The 15th version of PowerPoint was released this year on 29th January. Two attractive features which have been added in this version are:
Enhanced Presenter View
Many of us want to make notes to help us give the best presentation. Suppose you have connected your laptop to the projector. The presenter view lets you make notes for your presentation, which are visible to you but won’t be visible to the audience.
It splits the screen such that the right portion displays your personal notes and next slide while the left part shows what is visible to the audience.
source:betterpresenting.com
This option has been enabled by default in the PowerPoint 2013. It was present in the earlier versions of PowerPoint but a lot of users were not aware of this.
The Eyedropper Tool
Suppose you have a picture of a beautiful sunrise in your presentation and you want the text on the slide to match this wallpaper. To do this, you can use the new eyedropper tool.
The Eyedropper tool is found in the Shape Fill drop menu located from both the Home tab and the Drawing Tools Format tab.
Guidelines for an effective presentation session:
Here are some quick guidelines which might help you deliver an efficient presentation using PowerPoint:
- Make sure your presentation focuses on the core subject which you want to present.
- Try to include lesser text and maximum possible graphics in your presentation.
- Try using high-contrast color schemes to improve the readability of the content in your presentations.
- Keep it precise and as brief as possible so that you don’t make people bored with a prolong presentation.
- Ensure a uniformity of colors and fonts throughout the presentation.
- Rehearse twice before you deliver your PowerPoint presentation
Thus, the role of PowerPoint in our professional lives is quite profound. If you’re a student, teacher or a business professional who is looking forward to learn Microsoft PowerPoint, you can post your PowerPoint requirement here.
Please leave your questions and feedback in the comments below.
