Here is five helpful tips for Microsoft Powerpoint or a free open source piece of similiar software called Open Office Impress.
1. Never delete your presentation, I guarantee that slides from previous months, weeks or years will come in handy down the road. I can’t count how many times I simply copy and paste slides from other presentations that fit perfectly in the current one.
2. Label properly. There is nothing worse than trying to find that slide with the quote from Leslie Newbigin on Stories only to go back to your library and see your files named by dates for the last few years.
3. If you do a lot of worship songs, save each song as a separate file with no background behind the text. Then all you need to do is add the whole presentation to your current one and change the background. Much easier than searching through past presentations or typing it all out again.
4. Get a second monitor, for a desktop its a 10 dollar video card and a cheap monitor (or that video card sends to the projector. You can edit while your presenting. People catch typos, but when the slide comes up and the typo is gone, you know that the Powerpoint guy knows what he is doing.
5. Stop using WordArt. There is this annoying function in Powerpoint called Wordart that gives your words a cheesy and embarrassing amateur look to your text. If your going to use it, edit it well so you can’t tell its the typical look, or just use your basic text. You’d be surprised how much better white Arial on a black background can look compared to those horrible Wordart text options.
good tips, nate.
and if i can throw in my two cents (or perhaps more of a pet peeve of mine)… if you’re doing simple text, always opt for the white text on a black background, over the black text on white background. it looks much better and more professional if you’re doing simple slides without graphics.