1. Universidad Mariano Gálvez de Guatemala
Facultad de Humanidades
Escuela de Idiomas
Licenciatura en la Enseñanza del Idioma Inglés con
Especialización en Tecnología Educativa
Tecnología de Información y Comunicación
POWERPOINT TIPS
TERE REGINA MEDRANO FIGUEROA
April 26th, 2013

2. SERIF vs. SANS SERIF
Serif are the Font styles that have tails at
the ends of the lines. The tails help the
letters fit together into words. These types
of fonts have a personal, humanistic
character and are useful to involve readers
in the presentation. Examples are Times
New Roman or Georgia.
Sans Serif they do not have tails and are good to have a technical, impersonal
character in the text and content of your presentation. Examples are Arial and
Verdana.
COLOR
Make your font colors bold in order to contrast
with the backgrounds colors.
MATCH THE TONE OF CONTENT
Try to match the type of font of your presentation,
according the type of audience and message or
information you want to transmit.
SPECIALIZED FONTS
If your presentation will be viewed in other
computers, you should stay with basic fonts that are found on most computers
like Arial, Times New Roman, Tahoma, Verdana and Georgia.
CONSISTENCY IS A KEY
For a professional and better looking presentation limit your font selection,
from 2 or 3 fonts.
TEXT EFFECTS
Italics can be difficult to read, so leave them for emphasis in the text.
VISUAL IMPAIRMENT
Be careful with lots of colors in your slides. Try to combine the appropriate
colors and make it as simple as possible.
POWERPOINT COLOR SCHEMES
This program presents pre-installed colors schemes that
contain eight complementary colors.

3. LIMITED COLOR VISION
Take into account people with all kinds of color vision and the ones that have
the disability to interpret them. This is really important whenever you choose
color for the design of your presentation.
TEXT
Use the 7 and 7 rule for legibility, which means seven words per line, seven lines
per slide with a 25 word- per slide maximum. Remember to use text to highlight
and support your presentation not to narrate all the content.
Font colors can influence the positive or negative results of your text to the
audience.
If you cannot fill all your points of information on a slide, break them up in
different slides.
BACKGROUND COLORS
Contrasting light vs. dark and vice versa is a good technique whenever you think
in the background of your presentation. In addition, cool colors make better
backgrounds, while hot colors are not a good option for backgrounds.
It is important to search about the colors and their meanings and also to know
the reactions that they can evoke in the audience, all these in order to get better
results in the design and presentation of our work.
DESIGNING TEMPLATES
Power point provides pre-installed templates, however you have the opportunity
to explore your creativity and create your own design templates and also save it
as a design template.
HOLD THE EXTRAS
Use graphics such as borders, boxes, lines or arrows just when it is needed. Do
not overuse them and also different types of transitions in your presentation.
KEEP IT SIMPLE
The overuse of effects in your presentation can have negative results since the
audience is not focus on the content, conversely they are focus on the effects.
Think carefully before using animations, sounds, videos etc.
IMAGES
Images can be a powerful tool when they are appropriate to reinforce the
content of your presentation. They can help you to catch the attention and
clarify doubts, also to describe, explain and present sequences and
relationships. Be aware of the audience that you have and the type of image you
are going to use.

4. ANIMATING TEXT AND OBJECTS
You can apply a preset animation schemes to
items on different slides and also you can create
custom animations that gives you the
opportunity to control the appropriate moment
you want an item to appear on a slide.
You should consider:
For any animation you choose, think about if you really need it or if you
can explain without it.
Overuse of animation can be the cause of distraction.
Functional animations, such as the ones that delay texts or pictures in
order to engage the audience can contribute to get better results.
CONSIDER THE PEDAGOGICAL USE
Images can help your students remember meaningful parts of the
presentation.
Establish a relationship between concepts.
Highlight key points.
TRANSITIONS
They are special effects that are used to introduce a slide during a slide show.
Even though, PowerPoint lets you choose the transition you want, as I mention
before their overuse can evoke distraction and misunderstanding.

5. REFERENCES
PowerPoint Tips, Design keys for classroom presentations.
Be Free To Teach
Teaching Effectiveness Program
Teaching and Learning Center
University of Oregon
Adding Animation to Your PowerPoint Presentation
Be Free To Teach
Teaching Effectiveness Program
Teaching and Learning Center
University of Oregon