A. Using it

When you are making a PowerPoint file available to students, consider whether PowerPoint is the best way to present the information you wish to share. PowerPoint is designed for face-to-face presentation of material, and is not necessarily effective on paper or on the web.

 

B. Providing an alternative way?

Rather than printing handouts, or transferring your PowerPoint slides straight to Moodle or another website, maybe you could provide the same information in another way. For example you could use the Outline view to copy and paste text to a webpage.

 

C. Providing handout view or outline instead of the slides?

PowerPoint provides options for printing handouts. However, once there are more than two slides per sheet, the text can become very unclear to the reader. It is possible to print the same information, without using additional paper, by using some of the other options available in PowerPoint. You can export the text of your slides to a Word document if you need to. Under the File menu, scroll down to Send To... and then choose Microsoft Word from the menu. You should see a set of options like the one shown in image C on this page. These allow you to export the information on the slides to Word in a range of formats, including Outline only, which will export only the text from your slides.

Your Word version of the slides, however you choose to present them, can be saved or perhaps cut and pasted to a webpage in Moodle. Both of these options will make it easier for students to download and view the material presented on your slides.

 

D. Images

Images, diagrams and photographs in PowerPoint can be a very powerful way of illustrating your subject matter. However, all of those images and colour increase the size of your PowerPoint file. This means that it can take longer for someone to download and view the file. The section on Images in this site provides some advice on managing images effectively.

 

E. Making a presentation print-friendly

If you are designing information in PowerPoint to be print-friendly, think about whether you can remove templates and colour schemes that might affect print quality.

Try experimenting with the colours you have used. Under the Format menu, you can choose Slide Design, and then look at a range of colour schemes for your slides. By choosing a black and white scheme (shown in image E on this page) and applying it to your slides, you can remove other colours quickly and easily.

 

F. Appropriate Colour schemes

Remember that different colour combinations can enhance or detract from your PowerPoint slides. Using combinations of red and green will make it very difficult for someone who is colour-blind to read your slides. An off-white background will aid readability, and sans-serif fonts (such as Arial or Verdana) will be easier for everyone to read.