The Alpha and Omega of a PowerPoint Presentation
Last week we conducted an Instructor Development course, which will be the subject of a future blog article. However, during a discussion that we had about the use of multimedia aids, I pointed out that you could elect to shut off the “black screen” that comes up at the end of a PowerPoint show. In your menu bar, click on Tools, Options, View tab and simply uncheck the box next to “End with black slide.” Unfortunately, if you elect to do this and you accidentally click past your last slide, you will be returned to whatever state PowerPoint was in when you launched your presentation. Then when you close PowerPoint, you will be returned to whatever method you used to launch the program. For instance, if you launched your presentation using Windows Explorer, when you close PowerPoint, you will be returned to Explorer. This is sort of a tacky ending for your presentation so you may want to re-think whether you want to stop the use of the black slide at the end of your presentations.
Another thing that looks unprofessional is tinkering around with a PowerPoint window at the start of your show. Before your audience is seated, you should have your presentation open and displaying some type of a welcome screen. I think the easiest and most professional looking method of accomplishing this is to simply add a desktop shortcut to your PowerPoint file. Just open Windows Explorer, locate your PowerPoint file, right click on the file and select Send To, Desktop (create shortcut). To launch your presentation, simply double-click that desktop icon and PowerPoint will launch and immediately open the first slide. A side benefit of using this method is that when you finish your presentation and close down PowerPoint, you are returned to the desktop. Of course, you should try to keep your desktop neat and tidy, with as few displayed icons as possible. Now that you know how to make a good first and last impression, all you have to do is fill in the middle with high quality information and you will win the hearts and minds of your audience.
Source: www.rlsei.com