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The Best And Worst PowerPoint Presentation Examples

Engaging presentations are the lifeblood of effective communication in today’s information-driven world. Whether you’re in a boardroom pitching a new idea, standing in front of a classroom of curious learners, or delivering a keyote speech to an interested investor, the ability to create and deliver engaging presentations is a skill that can truly make or break your message. 

Various elements contribute to making a presentation good or bad, from compelling visuals to persuasive delivery; these factors collectively influence how your ideas are received and remembered. So, in this article, we will look at some of the good and bad presentation examples to help you transform your presentations and make them more engaging.

Main Differences Between Good V/S Bad PowerPoint Slides

Knowing the difference between the best and worst PowerPoint presentations is vital for creating engaging presentations.

What Makes A Good PowerPoint Presentation?

Have you ever wondered how you differentiate between a good design v/s bad design PPT? In this section, we’ll look at some examples of making PowerPoint presentations that inspire and engage the audience. Look at what’s behind the slides that stick in mind long after the projector is turned off:

• Less text, more impact
• Choose a color scheme that works
• Proper balance of animation and texts
• Logical flow of information
• Context-relevant graphics or illustrations

READ MORE: The Golden Rules for Impactful Presentations 

1. Less Text, More Impact

Imagine your presentation as a visual storybook. Less text on each slide means your audience can focus on your story, not squint at paragraphs. Use striking images or a single powerful phrase to grab attention. It makes your presentation look impressive and helps people remember the article’s key points. Keeping about 30 words per slide or 6-8 lines in your presentation will help maintain a proper flow of words and pictures, resulting in a fluid presentation.

2. Choose A Color Scheme That Works

You don’t need to be an artist to pick the right colors. A good presentation uses colors that work together nicely. Choosing harmonizing colors can guide the audience to focus on important information. Choose colors that look good together and don’t hurt the eyes. Microsoft Office’s color schemes can save the day if you’re short on ideas. Avoid using light colors on a dark background and vice versa.

3. Proper Balance Of Animation And Texts

Animations and transitions can be like party crashers in your presentation if not used wisely. They might steal the show from your message. A top-notch presentation keeps both animations and texts in check, ensuring they don’t overpower each other. However, don’t ditch them altogether! Use transitions and animations only to highlight key points. For example, make bullet points appear individually instead of all at once. It keeps your audience focused.

READ MORE: How to add animation in PowerPoint?  

4. Logical Flow Of Information

Think of your presentation as a road trip. Imagine if your GPS gave you all mixed up directions. Chaos, right? Similarly, your slides need a logical order and a roadmap. Maintaining the logical flow of your slides helps the audience follow the information easily. A logical flow makes your message clear and easy to remember. It’s like telling a great story with a beginning, middle, and end.

EXPLORE: Flowchart PowerPoint Templates

5. Context-Relevant Graphics Or Illustrations

A picture speaks volumes. Our brains love visuals. Using context-related graphs, photos, and illustrations that complement your slides can amp up important pointers and keep your audience engaged during the presentation. However, while presenting, make sure to explain why a graphic or a picture is there. Explaining the graphics verbally makes your message crystal clear and memorable.

EXPLORE: Want to create stunning presentations? Check out our presentation services !

A PowerPoint presentation shall excel in these aspects of making it engaging, informative, and memorable. These good PowerPoint presentation examples could help you make a better PPT in one or more areas, not leaving the audience disengaged or confused. 

While it’s important to look at good presentation examples, it’s equally important to avoid mistakes that can turn your presentation dull.

What Makes A Bad PowerPoint Presentation?

Ever been in a room with a presentation that made you want to escape through the nearest exit? We’ve all been there! In this section, we’ll highlight some common mistakes that turn a good presentation into a dull one. With many examples of good and bad PowerPoint slides on the internet, we have listed some bad examples that show the ‘DON’Ts’ and ‘AVOID AT ALL COSTS’ of PowerPoint mistakes:

• Image behind the text
• Using only bullet points and no paragraphs
• Having no symmetry in texts and pointers
• Being too minimal
• Keeping text too small

1. Image Behind The Text

Anyone who considered utilizing an image as a background most likely missed the memo. Text and images simply do not work together. One of the worst PowerPoint presentation examples is text overlaid on an image. Keeping the image in the background complicates understanding the text, and the main image should be clarified. Finding a text color that shines out in the background is nearly tough because all of those colors merely draw your attention away from the words. To avoid this calamity, avoid utilizing photos as slide backgrounds when you have text to highlight.

EXPLORE: Best PowerPoint Backgrounds Collection

2. Using Only Bullet Points And No Paragraphs

To make a presentation audience-friendly, reducing paragraphs to bullet points is a wise choice. However, it is critical to emphasize that this is more than simply putting only bullet points and leaving out all paragraphs. Using 5-8 bullet points is ideal for a slide. If the text size shrinks to 12 or 10 points, you’ve written a lot. Lengthy bullet points tend to bore the audience; some might even think of them as paragraphs.

3. Having No Symmetry In Texts And Pointers

A lack of balance or alignment between textual material and supporting visual elements, such as arrows, bullets, etc., can make your presentations appear unpleasant. When text and pointers are strewn about, it’s difficult for the audience to follow a logical flow of information; a common bad PowerPoint slide example to avoid at any cost. Your audience will be obsessed with deciphering the relationship between the text and graphics if your presentation needs more harmony.

4. Being Too Minimal

Being too minimalistic is as bad as overdoing it. Not having the required text on slides or keeping them blank makes them dull and non-engaging. You don’t need a color explosion or too many texts, but bringing some life to your slides is always a good idea. Using pre-made PowerPoint templates is a good idea to keep your content balanced; however, it is best not to leave blank spaces. A blank slide with no colors or text might give the impression of minimal effort. Strive for a balanced approach to keep your audience engaged and awake.

EXPLORE: 40,000+ PowerPoint Templates and Google Slides Themes

5. Keeping Text Too Small

Another thing to avoid is making your font size too tiny, almost like the size of a peanut. The size of the font is extremely important in any presentation. Think of it like trying to enjoy a beautiful scenic view through a tiny keyhole – not very enjoyable, is it? It’s the same with your PowerPoint. Your slides can be perfect with great colors, and graphics, but it’s a bummer if your audience can’t read them. A simple trick is to stand at the back of the room where you’ll present. If you can read the font comfortably, then you should be fine!

READ MORE: Best Presentation Fonts

A bad PowerPoint presentation will dismiss all your efforts and disengage your audience. To look more, avoid these bad PowerPoint presentation examples at any cost while making your next presentation.

We have carefully curated a visual appearance of how your PowerPoint presentations change by following the aforementioned points.

A good PowerPoint presentation is a balance – not too much, not too little. It’s about enhancing your message, not taking the spotlight away from you. However, striking that balance requires a lot of practice and trial and error.

You can always opt for presentation design services , like SlideUpLift. It gives you the advantage and access to presentation specialists. We design visually appealing presentations, with modern design elements, graphics, and illustrations; maintaining a perfect balance of every element. 

Whether you want to customize your slides completely or just tailor the color or font, we ensure that your brand or personal style always reflects in your presentation. 

Explore from our collection of 40,000+ PowerPoint templates and Google Slides themes. Utilize our presentation design services to create stunning PPTs. Give us a try with our custom-slides service , or schedule a call with us to know more!

What is the biggest difference between the best and worst PowerPoint presentations?

A good PowerPoint presentation effectively communicates its message, engages the audience, and uses visuals, layout, and content in a clear and compelling manner. In contrast, a bad PPT has cluttered slides, too much text, poor design choices, or distracting elements that hinder understanding.

How can I avoid making a bad PowerPoint presentation?

To avoid creating a bad PowerPoint presentation, focus on simplicity, use visuals wisely, keep text concise, maintain a logical flow, use appropriate fonts and colors, and avoid excessive animations or irrelevant content. Seek feedback from peers or experts to improve your overall presentation.

What role do visuals play in differentiating a good design v/s bad design PPT?

In a good presentation, visuals support and clarify key points. While in a bad one, they may be excessive, distracting, or irrelevant, overshadowing the main message.

How important is the audience's experience in determining the quality of a PowerPoint presentation?

The audience’s experience is essential in evaluating a presentation. A good PPT keeps the audience engaged and attentive compared to a bad PPT, which leads to disengagement and confusion.

How can I fix my bad PowerPoint presentation?

You can fix your PowerPoint presentation by opting SlideUpLift as your presentation buddy. With over 40,000+ PowerPoint Templates and Google Slides Themes to explore, you can choose what’s best for you. In case you have very specific presentation needs, you can opt for their presentation design services or custom slide service to create stunning PPTs. Schedule a call to know more.

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7 PowerPoint mistakes that are killing your presentation

By Paul Moss

Join 100k+ subscribers on our YouTube channel and enjoy highly engaging lessons packed full of best practices.

A few careless powerpoint mistakes can dramatically impact both the effectiveness and professionalism of your presentation..

Over the course of my career in consulting and strategy (and as a PowerPoint instructor for those industries), I’ve seen a lot of slides – great slides, terrible slides, and everything in-between. And what I’ve come to learn is that there’s a handful of common PowerPoint mistakes that many people don’t realize are hurting their presentation.

In this post I’m going to talk about the mistakes I see most often. I’ll give some basic examples of each mistake, explain why it hurts the presentation, and show you what you should be doing instead.

For the list, I’ll mostly be focusing on corporate style presentations, like what you’re likely to see day to day in the business world, but many of the lessons can be applied to other types of presentations as well.

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Table of Contents

1. Complicated Visualizations

Your job as a slide creator is to make it as easy as possible for the audience to understand your message, and unnecessarily complicated visuals don’t help you do that. Instead, they just confuse the audience. 

In this slide from Muckerlab there is a simple sales funnel on the left, with various sales channels on the right. With enough time I can figure out the message, but it’s a bit challenging for my brain to map sales channels to the various stages of the funnel.

“Ecommerce & Digital Marketing” Muckerlab, 2014

You might think that your visual is easy enough to understand, but remember that the audience hasn’t had the same amount of time to look at the slide as you have, so it’s much more difficult for them to grasp the key takeaway quickly. 

In the slide below from Edelman there are four different charts, but each one is communicating the same type of information. By mixing up the chart style like this it makes the slide overly complicated. Instead of showing four simple column charts, they’ve forced the audience to understand and interpret each type independently. This just makes it harder for the audience to grasp the key takeaways of the slide.

“Global Deck” Edelman Trust Barometer, 2012

Instead, ask yourself, what’s the key takeaway of the slide, and how does my chart or graphic help support that key takeaway. Avoid trying to make yourself look smart, and instead figure out the simplest way to communicate the idea you’re trying to communicate. 

This slide from Credit Suisse is a great example of keeping the chart simple and clear. It’s just a normal-looking stacked column chart with easy to read data labels, a clear background, and a simple takeaway. The result is an effective and professional looking slide that’s easy for the audience to understand. 

“Analyst and Investor Call” Credit Suisse, 2022

2. Simple Titles

The point of a title on a slide is to get a quick summary of the slide’s main takeaway, so the audience can better read and understand the details.

In this slide from BCG for example, the title says “Rising housing costs may be driving creatives out of the city”. So naturally, the audience is going to skim through the content looking for evidence of rising housing costs and creatives leaving the city, which makes for more effective delivery. (

“Melbourne as a Global Cultural Destination” BCG. For more BCG content be sure to check out our full BCG slide breakdown

But unfortunately, many titles aren’t this descriptive. Instead what I see are titles that tell me the topic of the slide and nothing else . I get an idea of what the slide is about, but I’m forced to come up with my own takeaway.

“Fixed Income Investor presentation” Credit Suisse, 2022

You see this especially on slides with summaries of data, like this slide from Salesforce about its finances. But even on these slides it’s usually a good idea to put a takeaway in the title.

“Finance Update Q4 FY21” Salesforce

In this example from Orsted , they’ve shown some annual financial data, but they’ve also summarized what they want the audience to take away from the slide – that they are in line with expectations. 

“Investor presentation Q4 and full-year 2020” Orsted, 2021

By including a full sentence for your title, ideally one that summarizes the main takeaway of the slide, you make it much easier for the audience to understand what it is you’re trying to tell them.  

3. Default PowerPoint Designs

The third mistake I see more often than I’d like is using default PowerPoint designs. The worst case of this is using old slide themes, like in this example. Anyone who has spent any amount of time in PowerPoint recognizes this design, and aesthetics aside, it just looks like the slide was thrown together last minute. 

“First 30 Days” Markstar, 2017

You certainly don’t want to overdesign your slide, but at the very least try to avoid the out-of-the-box designs PowerPoint provides for you. Many of these designs haven’t changed in years, and usually they’re meant for a different kind of presentation (like a school project). 

And the same goes for PowerPoint shapes, graphics, and even colors. They all come across as unprofessional and overused, so it’s in your best interest to avoid them altogether.  

But where I think this is most easy to mess up is with tables. A table like this for example looks fine enough, but with just a few tweaks it can be made to look significantly better.

In this example, all I did was bold the titles, turn the negative values red, left align the first column and right align the others, make the top line extra thick, then add other lines to separate the regions. The result is a much better looking, and much easier to read table. 

When it comes to design, even just a little bit of extra effort can help you avoid cliche, unprofessional looking slides.

4. Unrelated Content

In corporate style presentations, it’s completely okay to have lots of content, so long as each piece of content has a purpose. What I see way too often is stuff that’s just there to fill space, and doesn’t have an actual purpose. 

In this Starboard Value slide , there are a lot of unnecessary distractions. For example, the box at the bottom is really just a repeat of what’s in the subtitle. Likewise, there’s a lot of text in the bullet points that could be trimmed down or eliminated without changing the message of the slide. It would help the audience focus more on the key takeaways, without getting distracted by all the fluff. 

“Transforming Darden Restaurants” Starboard Value, 2014 See our full breakdown of this slide here .

But what bothers me the most is the picture at the bottom, which really isn’t adding to the slide in any meaningful way. Yes, it’s on topic – the slide is about breadsticks after all – but it’s not giving me any useful information. We all know what breadsticks look like, and this doesn’t help me understand the key takeaway any better. 

Pictures are typically the most common culprit when it comes to unrelated content. It can be really tempting to throw a picture on a slide to fill up the extra space – especially if that picture looks professional and seems to loosely match the topic of the slide. 

Even McKinsey is guilty of this sometimes, as in this example . The picture looks great, but it doesn’t help the audience understand the main message of the slide about digital manufacturing being a high priority for a majority of companies. Instead, it just distracts the audience. 

“Moving Laggards to Early Adopters” McKinsey & Co., 2018 Learn more about how McKinsey designs data heavy PowerPoint slides.

In this example from a different presentation, they kept the slide fairly simple, with only information that supports the main takeaway of the slide, and nothing else. The result is a clear and easy to understand slide with a well-supported takeaway. 

“Capturing the full electricity potential of the U.K.” McKinsey & Co., 2012

So when you’re adding content to your slide, whether that’s a picture, chart, or anything else, make sure it contributes to the message in some way. And if it doesn’t then just leave that part blank and adjust the other parts of the slide accordingly. 

5. Distracting Backgrounds

This is related to the last mistake about unrelated content but is important in and of itself. A bad background can completely ruin a presentation. At best it’s distracting, but at worst it looks horribly unprofessional and makes the content hard to look at. 

Once again this is where PowerPoint is to blame. Some of the default backgrounds make it almost impossible to read the text, especially if that text doesn’t provide any contrast.

But even simple backgrounds can be distracting, as in our previous example from Starboard Value . Shading the background makes it difficult for my eyes to know where to focus my attention. Not to mention it makes some of the text slightly harder to read. 

Even subtle text or images in the background can be distracting, as in this BCG example . 

“Projecting US Mail volumes to 2020” BCG, 2010

The general rule of thumb with backgrounds is if you notice it, you should change it. The idea is you want to reduce the number of distractions on your slide so that the audience can focus on the insights. In that regard, you can almost never go wrong with a plain white background. This keeps the audience focused on your content, and ultimately on your message. 

This slide from Accenture is a great example of a non-distracting background that keeps the emphasis on the content. Nothing is diverting my attention and I can focus on what they’re trying to tell me. 

“Fintech New York: Partnerships, Platforms and Open Innovation” Accenture, 2015

But of course, the background doesn’t always have to be white. Sometimes darker backgrounds work better for longer, live presentations, especially when those presentations are given on a large screen. 

In another example from later in the presentation, Accenture uses a darker blue background that’s simple, clear, and professional. And most importantly, it doesn’t take my attention away from the content on the slide. 

6. Not Guiding the Audience

Most modern business presentations are full of text and data, which can make it difficult for the audience to process the information on a slide and see the key insights . In a live presentation, it is even more difficult – the audience has to simultaneously listen to the speaker, read through the content on the slide, and think critically about the information. 

The easy way to manage this challenge is to guide the audience through your slide with visual cues – things like text, callouts, and boxes. Unfortunately, it is something that many people just don’t think to do.  What this leads to is dense, difficult to read slides , as in these two examples:

“Bridging the Gap Between CIO and CMO” Isobar, 2014

“Transforming Darden Restaurants” Starboard Value, 2014

And the same thing can happen with charts . By just putting up a chart with no real commentary or guidance, you make it hard for the audience to understand what it is you’re trying to tell them. 

“Fifth Assessment Report- Synthesis Report” IPCC, 2014

In many ways, this is the counterpoint to the last mistake. Whereas you don’t want unimportant pieces like your background to be distracting, you do want the important parts of your slide to be distracting, because it helps the audience quickly grasp the key takeaways. 

Returning to our Accenture example, notice how they’ve used bolded text to help call attention to what’s important. Likewise, they’ve also used a line to put emphasis on the title of the slide. 

Check out our full breakdown of this slide here .

This BCG slide has quite a bit of information on it, but they’ve made it easy to work through by drawing the most attention to the title with green font and large text, then the next amount of attention to the subtitles with bold black text and green lines underneath, and then the least amount of attention to the bullet points. It helps the process the information on the slide in the way they want them to – starting with the highest level idea, and working their way through the details. 

“Evaluating NYC media sector development and setting the stage for future growth” BCG, 2012

This chart from McKinsey is another good example of guiding the audience.  Instead of just keeping the chart plain, they’ve added callouts that help emphasize the message in the title. 

“Jobs lost, jobs gained: Workforce transitions in a time of automation” McKinsey, 2017

Guiding the audience can be as simple as adding an arrow or bolding important text. But even small changes like this can make a big difference in your presentation. 

7. Too Many Colors

It can be tempting to use a variety of colors on your slide, but doing so just distracts the audience and takes attention away from the important parts. And not only that, it can look really unprofessional. 

On this slide for example they’ve decided to separate each of these sections by color to make it easier to distinguish between them. But instead of making it easier to read, the slide is difficult to understand and hard to look at. The sections are already naturally separated, with lines, titles, and even icons. But by adding bright colors, in addition to the orange and green that’s already on the slide, they’ve reduced the slide’s readability considerably. 

“Harnessing the Power of Entrepreneurs to Open Innovation” Accenture, 2015

The best slides use color strategically, to help highlight key points and ideas.

In this Bain slide for example, they’ve decided to highlight the important columns in red, while keeping the less important columns in grey. It provides a nice contrasting effect that helps emphasize the message. 

“2011 China Luxury Market Study” Bain, 2011

Likewise, this Deloitte slide contains a minimal amount of color, making it easy to sift through the data and focus on only what’s important. Not to mention it keeps the visuals of the slide clean and professional. 

“Consumer privacy in retail” Deloitte, 2019

It’s a bit counterintuitive, but when it comes to color, sometimes less is more.

Final Thoughts

A few simple tweaks to your presentation can really make a difference in both its quality and overall professionalism. Above all, be sure to focus on your main message, and avoid any distractions that might take away from that message. If you can keep an eye out for cliché, unprofessional, and meaningless content, you’ll be well on your way to creating high-quality, insight-rich presentations.

P.S. – If you’re really looking to up your PowerPoint game, be sure to check out our full courses: Advanced PowerPoint for Consultants and Advanced Presentations for Consultants .

You can watch a video version of this article on YouTube .

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10 Presentation Design Mistakes to Avoid (With Examples)

One of the most important aspects of a successful presentation is designing an effective slideshow. Unfortunately, it’s also a part most professionals often neglect or don’t pay attention to.

This is why most of the bad presentation designs share a pattern. They are usually made using the default PowerPoint templates. They use the same default fonts as every other presentation. They also include terrible stock photos. And try to stuff as much information as possible into a single slide.

We noticed all these mistakes and more while exploring some of the most popular presentations on SlideShare. They were slideshows with thousands and even millions of views. But, they were riddled with mistakes and flaws.

In this guide, we show you how these mistakes can be harmful as well as give you tips on how to avoid them. Of course, we made sure to include some examples as well.

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1. Adding Too Many Slides

One of the biggest mistakes you can do when designing a presentation is adding way too many slides. This not only makes your presentation unnecessarily long but it can also affect the audience’s engagement. After a few slides, your audience will surely lose interest in your presentation.

Rand Fishkin is a well-known entrepreneur in the marketing industry. This is one of his presentations that received over 100,000 views. And it features 95 slides. We believe it could’ve generated more views if he had made the presentation shorter.

A presentation with 95 slides is a bit of an overkill, even when it’s made for an online platform like SlideShare.

Solution: Follow the 10/20/30 Rule

The 10/20/30 rule is a concept introduced by expert marketer Guy Kawasaki . The rule recommends that you limit your presentation to 10 slides, lasting only 20 minutes, and using a font size of 30 points.

Even though the rule states to limit the presentation to 10 slides, it’s perfectly fine to design a 20-slide presentation or even one with 30 slides. Just don’t drag it too far.

2. Information Overload

Statistics and research data are important for backing your claims. Even in your presentations, you can include stats and data to add more validity and authority. However, you should also remember not to over-do it.

A good example is this popular SlideShare presentation with more than 1 million views. Since this is a tech report slideshow, it includes lots of stats and data. But the designer has made the mistake of trying to include too much data into every slide in the presentation.

If this slideshow were to present to a large audience at a big hall, most of the audience won’t even be able to read it without binoculars.

Solution: Visualize Stats and Data

A great way to present data is to visualize them. Instead of adding numbers and long paragraphs of text, use charts and graphs to visualize them. Or use infographics and illustrations.

3. Choosing the Wrong Colors

How long did it take for you to read the title of this slide? Believe it or not, it looks just the same throughout the entire slideshow.

The biggest mistake of this presentation design is using images as the background. Then using colors that doesn’t highlight the text made it even worse and rendered the text completely unreadable.

Solution: Create a Color Palette

Make sure that you start your presentation design by preparing a color palette . It should include primary and secondary colors that you use throughout each slide. This will make your presentation design look more consistent.

4. Using Terrible Fonts

Fonts play a key role in improving the readability in not just presentations but in all kinds of designs. Your choice of font is enough for the audience to decide whether you’re a professional or an amateur.

In this case, the slide speaks for itself. Not only the font choice is terrible but without any spacing between the paragraphs, the entire slide and the presentation is hardly readable. How did this presentation generate over 290,000 views? We’ll never know.

Solution: Avoid the Default Fonts

As a rule of thumb, try to avoid using the default fonts installed on your computer. These fonts aren’t designed for professional work. Instead, consider using a custom font. There are thousands of free and premium fonts with great designs. Use them!

5. Adding Images from Google

You could tell by just looking at this slide that this person is using images from Google search. It looks like the designer lazily downloaded images from Google search and copy-pasted a screenshot onto the image. Without even taking the time to align the screenshot to fit the device or removing the white background of the image.

Or he probably added a white background to the images after realizing the black iPhone blends into the black background. Most of the images used throughout this slideshow are pretty terrible as well.

Solution: Use High-Quality Mockups and Images

The solution is simple. Don’t use images from Google! Instead, use high-quality images from a free stock image site or use a premium source. Also, if you want to use devices in slides, make sure to use device mockup templates .

6. Poor Content Formatting

There are many things wrong with this slideshow. It uses terrible colors with ugly fonts, the font sizes are also too big, uneven shapes, and the list goes on.

One thing to remember here is that even though apps like PowerPoint and Keynote gives you lots of options for drawing shapes and a color palette with unlimited choices, you don’t have to use them all.

Solution: Use a Minimal and Consistent Layout

Plan a content layout to be used with each and every slide of your presentation. Use a minimalist content layout and don’t be afraid to use lots of white space in your slides. Or, you can use a pre-made PowerPoint or Keynote template with a better design.

7. Writing Long Paragraphs

Adding long paragraphs of text in slides is never a good way to present your ideas to an audience. After all, that’s what the speech is for. The slides, however, need to be just a summary of what you’re trying to convince your audience.

Don’t make the mistake of writing long paragraphs that turns your slideshow into a document. And, more importantly, don’t read from the slides.

Solution: Keep It Short

As the author Stephen Keague said, “no audience ever complained about a presentation or speech being too short”. It takes skill to summarize an idea with just a few words. You should always try to use shorter sentences and lots of titles, headings, and bullet points in your slideshows.

8. Not Using Images

This entire presentation doesn’t have a single image in any of its slides, except for the company logo. Images are a great way to keep your audience fully engaged with your presentations. Some expert speakers even use images to add humor as well.

The saying “a picture is worth a thousand words” is popular for a reason. Instead of writing 200-words long paragraphs, use images to summarize messages and also to add context.

Solution: Use Icons, Illustrations, and Graphics

You don’t always have to add photos or images to make your presentations look more attractive. Instead, you can use other types of graphics and colorful icons. Or even illustrations and infographics to make each slide more entertaining.

9. Designing Repetitive Slides

This presentation about Internet Trends is one of the most popular slideshows on SlideShare with more than 4 million views. If you go through the slides you’ll notice the entire presentation is filled with nothing but charts and graphs.

Your audience will easily get bored and lose attention when your presentation has too many slides containing the same type of content.

Solution: Use a Mix of Content

Make sure to use different types of content throughout the slides. Add text, images, shapes, icons, and other elements to create each slide more engaging than the other.

10. Using Complex Infographics

Even though images and graphics are great for visualizing data, it’s important to use the right designs to showcase the data without confusing the audience.

For example, this slideshow made by HootSuite is filled with stats and data. Most of which look fine. Except for a few slides that include complicated designs filled with information all over the place.

Solution: Design Simpler Graphics

There are many great online tools you can use to design your own infographics and visuals. Use them. But, also remember to use simpler designs that are easier to understand for all audiences.

In Conclusion

There’s no such thing as the perfect presentation design. Every slideshow has its flaws. But, if you learn to avoid the common mistakes, you’ll have a much higher chance of winning over your audience and delivering a more engaging presentation.

If you don’t have any slideshow design experience, consider picking one of the bee PowerPoint templates or best Keynote templates . They feature designs made by professionals and you won’t have to worry about making any mistakes again.

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18 presentation mistakes you probably make (and how to avoid them)

July 11, 2017

Almost exactly one year ago I was in Paris with a colleague and his team of presentation coaches. We were gonna hold a presentation workshop for an international company and their senior managers. What unfolded in that workshop was eye-opening. We asked the attendees to reflect on what makes a presentation great versus awful, and the consensus was clear - bad slides can ruin even the most brilliant presenter's performance.

As we delved into the workshop, it became evident that the common pitfalls were "bad slides," "too much text on slides," and "ugly PowerPoint slides." Aha! The attendees understood the significance of clean design in business presentations. This was great news for me who was growing my presentation design agency.

Bad slides can make the greatest presenter fail

One might argue that as long as you're a captivating speaker, the slides are secondary. However, reality struck us during a 5-minute presentation exercise. One of the senior managers, let’s call him John, had great stage presence and his outgoing and fun personality caught my attention straight away. John was not talking about a super exciting topic, but his impressive way of presenting it made me actually want to listen and see if I could learn anything.

The issue was that John's slides kept pulling my attention away from him and what he was saying, and my focus was instead on reading his bullet points. And it didn't take long before I had lost him and what he was talking about. This happened over and over again with several of the other managers. It became clear that the details crammed into his slides were working against him, not for him.

Most of the senior managers were good at communicating their ideas but they didn't need all the content that they had stuffed in their slides. The details in their presentation slides worked against the speaker rather than supporting them. And this is a fact that most speakers neglect: do my slides enhance or detract from my message?

When you are preparing a presentation, try asking yourself these three questions:

Do I really need all these points on my slide? Embrace simplicity and let your speech fill in the gaps.

What can I delete from my slides and convey through my words? Less is often more when it comes to impactful presentations.

Do my slides support me, or are they stealing the spotlight? Ensure your slides complement your narrative, not compete with it.

The 18 most common presentation mistakes people do, and how to avoid them

On the second day of the workshop we worked together with the participants, did some role plays, critiqued their slides and how they gave their presentations. From these exercises we developed a big list of the most common mistakes people make when giving presentations. We also gave suggestions on how to stop making those mistakes. Here are the top 18 from that list.

1. Ignoring the Power of Design

Mistake : Underestimating the impact of presentation design.

Solution : Embrace clean, visually appealing slides that complement your message. Consider color psychology, visual hierarchy, and maintain consistency throughout. It's hard to tell stories with bullet points.

2. Overlooking the Psychology of Colors

Mistake : Neglecting the influence of colors on audience perception.

Solution : Choose colors wisely to evoke the right emotions. Warm tones for passion, cool tones for trust. Align your color palette with the mood and message of your presentation.

3. Neglecting Visual Hierarchy

Mistake : Failing to guide the audience's attention through visual hierarchy.

Solution : Use larger fonts, bold colors, and strategic layouts to highlight key points. Guide your audiences' attention with visual hierarchy.

4. Inconsistency in Design

Mistake : Not maintaining a consistent design throughout the presentation.

Solution : From fonts to color schemes, consistency breeds professionalism. Create a cohesive narrative by ensuring all design elements align with your brand.

5. Underestimating the Power of Storytelling

Mistake : Overlooking the impact of a compelling narrative.

Solution : Tailor your story to resonate with your audience. Craft a narrative arc with a captivating introduction, core content, and a memorable takeaway. Humanize your presentation with real-life anecdotes.

6. Not Knowing Your Audience

Mistake : Failing to tailor your presentation to your audience.

Solution : Understand their needs, challenges, and aspirations. Make your message more relatable by addressing their specific interests.

7. Neglecting Virtual Presentation Skills

Mistake : Ignoring the nuances of virtual presentations.

Solution : Master the art of virtual communication. Leverage tools, optimize visuals for screens, and maintain an engaging tone to keep your audience actively participating.

8. Avoiding Interaction in Presentations

Mistake : Sticking to a one-way communication approach.

Solution : Break away from monotone presentations with interactive elements. Incorporate polls, Q&A sessions, and multimedia to keep your audience engaged and participating actively.

9. Underestimating the Impact of Presentation Design Agencies

Mistake : Overlooking the expertise of presentation design agencies.

Solution : Collaborate with specialized presentation and/or PowerPoint agencies for visually stunning presentations. They understand the nuances of effective design and can transform your ideas into captivating visuals.

10. DIY Design Mistakes

Mistake : Thinking effective design requires a hefty budget.

Solution : Explore user-friendly design tools like Canva. Invest in online courses to enhance your skills and gather feedback from peers to uncover areas for improvement.

11. Ignoring Rehearsals

Mistake : Neglecting the importance of rehearsing your presentation.

Solution : Practice your delivery to enhance confidence and identify areas for improvement. Record yourself and watch it back. Seek feedback from a colleague.

12. Overloading Slides with Information

Mistake : Cramming too much information onto slides.

Solution : Embrace simplicity. Focus on key points and let your speech fill in the details. A clutter-free slide enhances audience understanding.

13. Disregarding Body Language

Mistake : Ignoring the impact of body language during presentations.

Solution : Be mindful of your gestures, posture, and facial expressions. Positive body language enhances your credibility and engages the audience.

14. Neglecting the Opening Hook

Mistake : Starting your presentation with a weak or generic opening.

Solution : Capture your audience's attention from the start. Begin with a compelling question, quote, or anecdote to hook your audience and set the tone.

15. Poor Time Management

Mistake : Overrunning or rushing through your presentation.

Solution : Practice pacing to ensure your presentation fits the allotted time. Be mindful of your audience's attention span and adjust your content accordingly.

16. Ignoring Feedback Loops

Mistake : Disregarding the importance of feedback.

Solution : Seek feedback from peers, mentors, or the audience. Constructive criticism helps refine your presentation skills and address blind spots.

17. Using Overly Complex Jargon

Mistake : Assuming your audience understands complex industry jargon.

Solution : Simplify your language to ensure universal understanding. Clear communication enhances engagement and relatability.

18. Lack of Adaptability

Mistake : Failing to adapt your presentation style to different audiences or settings.

Solution : Understand the context and preferences of your audience. Tailor your delivery to resonate with diverse groups, whether in a boardroom or a virtual setting.

Mastering the art of presentation goes beyond being a captivating speaker. It involves understanding the marriage of design and storytelling, navigating the technological landscape, and adapting to evolving presentation styles. Whether you collaborate with a presentation design agency or take the DIY route, the goal remains the same - to captivate your audience and leave a lasting impression. Embrace the power of design, craft compelling narratives, and watch as your presentations become not just informative sessions but memorable experiences.

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The 15 Most Common Presentation Mistakes You Should Avoid

Becoming a better presenter should be in your bucket list. With so many real-life benefits to improving your presentation skills, you’re seriously missing out if you think being an ‘okay’ presenter is good enough. Avoid these common presentation mistakes, and be on your way to becoming a popular and highly sought-after speaker in your industry!

Perfection Isn’t Key To A Successful Presentation

Photo by Jonathan Hoxmark on Unsplash

There is no such thing as a ‘perfect’ presentation. We’re all bound to make mistakes – rookies and expert presenters alike. And that’s alright. Why? Because we’re not robots. We’re humans. As such, we are inherently error-prone.

Think about the last time you had a ‘perfect’ presentation. Can you remember? No? Maybe that’s because it never happened. No matter how well-prepared you are, you may still occasionally stumble, mispronounce something, or forget to mention some meaningful examples you’ve rehearsed during practice.

Perfection isn’t something that you should aspire to, anyway. You’re just setting yourself up for failure that way. When you’re aiming for perfection, you’re setting the bar far too high and putting a ton of pressure on yourself. The more you make mistakes, the more frustrated you become. Even if you achieve the impossible and do a ‘perfect’ presentation, what’s next for you? What’s comes after ‘perfection,’ anyway?

Perfection is never the right approach. Instead, strive to continuously improve and become a better version of yourself. Even the most successful presenters constantly look for ways to improve themselves. They read up on presentation techniques, observe their competitors in action, and are relentless in their pursuit of knowledge.

Wouldn’t you love to be like these ‘experts’? They’re already at the pinnacle of success, and yet they continue to seek knowledge and growth. Complacency just isn’t part of their vocabulary – and it shouldn’t be in yours, too!

Stop Committing These 15 Most Common Presentation Mistakes

In the beginning, you may find yourself committing these mistakes over and over again. That’s okay. Don’t be frustrated. Take it as a challenge to continue improving. These mistakes are called ‘common’ for a reason. Presenters of all levels make these from time to time. So, don’t be too harsh on yourself if you don’t succeed right away.

1. Not defining your presentation goal

Presenters who don’t define their presentation goal are prone to making a lot of mistakes which translates to a higher risk of failure. Sure, you can try to ‘wing’ it, but what would you say your chances of success are?

Before you even plan out your content, you should know what your presentation’s goal is. Are you looking to inform, educate, persuade, activate, inspire or entertain the audience?

Now, it doesn’t have to be one or the other. One would expect an informative or educational presentation to be a bit more serious than an entertaining one would be. But, if it’s not against the rules, try to liven things up as well. You can say you want to educate and, at the same time, entertain people. Or, you can persuade and inspire your audience simultaneously.

Whatever your goals may be, always have the audience in mind. Meet people’s expectations and plan your presentation in such a way that they will not be disappointed.

2. Not preparing enough for the presentation

It’s so easy to put off preparing for a presentation when you know the topic like the back of your hand. In your mind’s eye, you can see yourself finishing the outline, the speech, and the slides – all in just a few hours.

But, of course, when it comes right down to it, you find yourself panicking because you underestimated the task at hand. So, when you get to your presentation, you’re sweating nervously. And your slides are nothing but a bunch of copied-and-pasted text from the Internet.

Procrastination has destroyed so many reputations and so many careers. Leaving stuff up to the very last minute may give you a rush of adrenaline. It makes you feel powerful when you get lucky and pull a successful presentation off. However, it also makes you think you can pull the same stunt every time you have a presentation coming up. You get complacent and don’t prepare until the very last minute.

The only excuse you can have for not preparing is when you’re not given enough time in the first place. Say you’re doing a client presentation. But your boss only assigned that task at the very last minute, leaving you with literally zero time to prepare. You certainly can’t be blamed in this situation, unless your boss is deliberately trying to get you fired.

3. Not knowing who your audience is

You’re doing your presentation to benefit your audience. So, spending a fair amount of time researching your topic is the right thing to do. But don’t stop there. Learn more about your audience, too.

How can your presentation add value to people’s lives? Why should they listen to you? And why should they care about your presentation?

Getting to know your audience can mean the difference between success and failure. If your message resonates with them, they’re going to pay attention to you. Otherwise, they’ll tune you out – they simply have no reason to listen to you.

Let’s say, for example, you’re giving a presentation on a new product your company is launching. If you know your audience, you can tell stories that they can relate to. You can cite real-life examples that are relevant to your audience.

If you’re presenting in front of a culturally diverse group of people, you don’t want to make an off-putting joke that people will hate you for. Offending your audience is the last thing you want to happen during your presentation.

Getting to know your audience isn’t really as hard as it sounds. This article will give you ideas you can follow to learn more about your listeners.

4. Not checking if the presentation file is working

In most cases, you won’t have a technical team on standby. Whether you’re doing a one-on-one presentation, or presenting in front of a group, it’s important to personally make sure you can access the presentation file.

It doesn’t matter if you’re using PowerPoint, Keynote or Google Slides, or whatever your preferred presentation app is. You may have designed a bunch of impressive-looking slides, but if you can’t access it on presentation day, then your work is all for naught.

This is especially important when the stakes are high. If you’re trying to get people to invest a considerable sum in your business, you need them to trust you. And the thing is, they’re not going to trust you if they witness you panicking because the presentation file is corrupted, or worse, missing!

How can people trust you with their money when you can’t even be bothered to check beforehand if your file is working? Think about it. So, don’t throw a tantrum if people give you negative feedback on your company website or on social media. Own up to your mistakes and do a better job next time.

5. Not scoping out the presentation venue ahead of time

Here’s another very common presentation mistake. You don’t just waltz in to your presentation venue without visiting it earlier in the week (or day), and making sure everything’s in good working condition.

Check the sound system, the projector, the podium, the stage, etc. Go to the very back of the room, and see if you can still read the text on your presentation slides. If not, well, at least you still have time to make the necessary adjustments. Ideally, however, this should have been factored in before you even started working on your slides.

Make sure your voice carries across the room, and everyone can hear you loud and clear. You’ve got an important message and you want it to be heard.

If you’re presenting in a cozy cafe or renting a small meeting room in a very busy establishment like a restaurant, then check the noise levels in the area. Can your guests hear you? Perhaps you can request to be moved to a better, quieter spot.

Scoping out your presentation venue may sound unnecessary, but really, it’s the small things that count. After all, you want your audience to be as comfortable as possible, so they’d be more receptive to your presentation.

6. Too many animations

Subjecting your audience to a presentation with nonstop animations and transitions is akin to torture. Seriously, try watching your presentation yourself and see if you can last till the end without getting dizzy, or worse, throwing up!

Animations, when used sparingly and carefully, can do a lot of good to your presentation. You can get people to re-focus their attention on you. A subtle movement every now and then can emphasize important points in your presentation. Applying animation effects to every single element on your slides is just plain overkill.

For best results, stick to simple animations. The most commonly used slide transition effect is a simple fade animation. For object animations, there are plenty of options to choose from in PowerPoint. Before you apply an animation effect, ask yourself first if it adds any value to your presentation. If the answer is ‘no,’ forget it. If ‘yes,’ then by all means, add that effect to your slide!

7. Not getting straight to the point

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

Your audience is most likely composed of busy individuals. Respect them by not wasting their time. After briefly introducing yourself, tell them what they can expect to learn from your presentation. Then, go through your points one by one.

Having an outline – and sticking to it – will help prevent you from going around in circles. With an outline, you can structure your presentation, and go from introduction to body to conclusion smoothly. In short, an outline can help you plan how you can make the most impact on your audience.

Remember, people have short attention spans. If you don’t deliver on your promises, and you keep on talking about non-relevant stuff, people will tune you out. You better give them something important to chew on before they turn their attention elsewhere.

8. Too much text or information in slides

This is personally one of my pet peeves in presentations – cramming way too much info on slides. When you lay out everything on your slides, you don’t give your audience any incentive to continue listening to you. They’re just going to read your slide and play on their phones while they wait for you to move on to the next slide. They’ll just repeat this process until the end of your presentation.

The element of surprise or the unknown is important in presentations. Keep your audience’s interest by not sharing everything on your slides. Pique their curiosity by giving hints and clues on your slides. Then deliver a verbal discussion on what those hints mean.

Another benefit of not putting way too much text or information in your slides is that you avoid doing the next mistake.

9. Reading the presentation slides

Trust me when I say you’re disrespecting your audience by reading whatever is on your slides. It’s like you’re assuming they don’t know how to read for themselves!

What’s even worse is when your slides are so crammed with text that the font size becomes reduced to near-infinitesimal levels! So, you end up inadvertently insulting your audience even more. Now they’re stuck listening to you read your slides because they can’t read what’s on there. It’s the double whammy of bad presentations!

To sum up this point, people want to learn from you and they want to listen to you. But they DON’T want to listen to you read your slides.

10. ‘Death by PowerPoint’

Don’t quote me on this, but I don’t think anyone’s literally died yet just by watching a PowerPoint presentation. ‘ Death by PowerPoint’ is a phenomenon brought about by the millions of PowerPoint presenters who bore their audiences to tears, or in this case, death.

If you’ve ever attended a presentation where the presenter showed a dizzying and confusing array of slides, or droned on and on without caring if anyone’s actually listening, then you’ve personally experienced this phenomenon. I bet you – and everyone else – were thinking you’d rather be anywhere else but there.

Here’s a video from 10 years ago that’s still relevant today:

So, yeah, ‘death by PowerPoint’ is easily one of the most common PowerPoint mistakes you should avoid at all cost!

11. Not speaking clearly

Many rookie presenters are guilty of this common presentation mistake. Who wants to listen to a presenter speak gibberish? Not me. And I’m pretty sure not you, either. You’re attending a presentation because you want to learn something. When the speaker on stage doesn’t speak clearly, frustrations can quickly build up.

So, when you practice your speech, it’s important to make sure you enunciate each word clearly. Don’t use words that your audiences aren’t familiar with. If you’re speaking to a bunch of elderly people, don’t use lingo they may not understand. If you’re with a younger group, try to learn their slang so they’ll feel more comfortable with you.

Also, when using acronyms, make sure you define it first so people don’t end up confused. You want everyone to be on the same page as you, and communication is key to achieving this particular goal.

12. Not making eye contact

Making eye contact is one of the first things you should work on as a presenter. Why? Because avoiding eye contact during presentations make you look dodgy and untrustworthy. You won’t inspire confidence. So, don’t be surprised if no one takes you seriously.

With eye contact, however, you make it easy for people to see that you actually believe in what you’re saying. If you’re trying to persuade them to buy something from you, they’ll look at you for reassurance that you yourself believe in the product you’re selling.

Eye contact helps you build connections with your audience. When you make eye contact for a few seconds, you feel like you’re talking to that person one-on-one. In that moment, you make that audience member feel important and respected. In return, they will be more receptive to the message you’re sharing with them.

If you’re a naturally shy person, you’ll need to take some baby steps in the beginning. Try practicing making eye contact with the people you interact with on a daily basis. Over time, you’ll find yourself making eye contact naturally and you’ll feel your confidence levels rising.

13. Not dressing appropriately

Photo by Heather Ford on Unsplash

How would you feel if you wore formal attire to someone’s presentation and the speaker shows up wearing street clothes? You’d probably be annoyed that you took the time to dress up. Here you are listening to someone who didn’t even bother to wear a more suitable outfit for his talk.

First impressions are everything. The right clothes can make people warm up to you. You’re selling an image of being a professional, trustworthy speaker. Your clothes can definitely speak volumes on your behalf.

When in doubt, stick to the classics – gray or black business suits look good in presentations. If you’re borrowing someone else’s suit, make sure it at least fits you. You don’t want to look like you’re swimming in your clothes. For best results, invest in your own business suits. Wearing your own clothes will help you feel more comfortable and more confident.

Don’t forget about your hair, too. You want nothing sticking out unless you’re speaking to a bunch of guys with spiky hair. But even then, you’d still want to maintain an air of professionalism.

The bottom line is, make yourself look good so you’ll feel good. Carefully pick out your clothes . Let your audience see that you’re someone they can build a professional relationship with.

14. Insufficient knowledge of presentation topic

As I’ve mentioned earlier in this article, people attend your presentation because they want to learn something new from you. So, if you show up to your presentation without doing your research or your homework, then you’re essentially wasting their time.

It’s important to be prepared for your presentation. But don’t just cover the basics and then gloss over the details. Be prepared to go as in-depth as possible and cover all possible angles. Now, I don’t mean you need to know everything about the subject, but do try to be as well-informed as possible.

Don’t tell people what they already know. Figure out how you can ‘sell’ your ideas and make your presentation engaging and exciting!

15. No clear call to action

Many rookie presenters make the mistake of not adding a call to action (CTA) to their presentations. They think that their job is done just by sharing whatever their message is and that nothing else needs to be done afterwards.

To be fair, however, in informative presentations, the need for a CTA may not be as clear-cut as, say, a sales presentation. But you should definitely still add a call to action to ALL presentations.

Why? Because CTA’s motivate and encourage your audience to take action. You’re letting them know that the ball is in their court now. You’ve laid out what they need to do, so they can apply the information they’ve learned from you.

Don’t let people treat your presentation as something they can just sweep under the rug. Make an impact during your presentation so that people will be more willing to follow your CTA.

Here’s a tip: instead of using a thank you slide, put your CTA in the final slide. This way, people will be more likely to remember – and take action on – your call to action.

Final Words

You don’t need to aim for a perfect presentation. But avoiding these common presentation mistakes will definitely help you become a better presenter. Define your presentation goal and plan out your content before you do anything else. When designing your slides, make your audience’s visual experience a positive one. Create a strong first impression and engage with your audience throughout your presentation. Help them learn from you, and they’ll help you achieve your presentation goals!

You might also find this interesting:

• Here are the best resources to improve your presentation techniques
• The seven worst presentations of all time and why they went wrong
• Bad PowerPoint Examples You Should Avoid at All Costs

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Blog > Common mistakes in PowerPoint and what makes a bad presentation

Common mistakes in PowerPoint and what makes a bad presentation

08.09.21   •  #powerpoint #tips.

Creating and giving a good presentation is actually not that difficult. If you know how to do it. Otherwise, no matter how much effort you put into it, it can quickly turn out to be a bad presentation.

Here we show you some examples of bad PowerPoint slides and common mistakes that are often made in presentations so that you won’t make them in your next presentation and avoid "Death by PowerPoint".

1. Reading aloud instead of speaking freely

One aspect in bad presentations is often that the text is simply read out. Prepare your presentation so well that you can speak freely. The goal is to build a connection with your audience and get them excited about your topic. However, this will hardly be possible if you only read from a piece of paper or your computer the whole time. Your audience should feel addressed, if you just read off, they will be bored and perceive your presentation as bad, even if your content and your PowerPoint are actually good.

2. Technical Problems

The sound of the video you inserted on a slide is not on, your laptop does not connect to the beamer, or your microphone does not work. These are just some of the problems that could occur during your presentation.

But nothing is more annoying than when technical problems suddenly occur during a presentation or even before, when everyone is waiting for it to start. It interrupts your flow of speech, only distracts the audience from the topic and breaks concentration. So before you get started with your presentation, it is important to first start your PowerPoint in the place where you will give it later, practice there and familiarize yourself with the technology.

• Don't forget the charging cable for your laptop
• Find out beforehand how you can connect your laptop to the beamer. Find out which connection the beamer has and which connection your laptop has. To be on the safe side, take an adapter with you.
• Always have backups of your presentation. Save them on a USB stick and preferably also online in a cloud.
• Take a second laptop and maybe even your own small projector for emergencies. Even if it's not the latest model and the quality is not that good: better bad quality than no presentation at all.

3. Losing the attention of your audience

One of the most common mistakes in presentations is to lose the attention of your audience. Especially in long presentations it is often difficult to keep your audience’s attention and to avoid “Death by PowerPoint”. Anyone who has had this experience knows how uncomfortable it is to give a presentation where you notice that no one is actually really listening to you. Especially if your presentation is an eternally long monologue, it is difficult to get the topic across in an exciting way and to captivate the audience.

Our tip: Include interactive polls or quizzes in your presentation to involve your audience and increase their attention. With the help of SlideLizard, you can ask questions in PowerPoint and your audience can easily vote on their own smartphone. Plus, you can even get anonymous feedback at the end, so you know right away what you can improve next time.

Here we have also summarized further tips for you on how to increase audience engagement.

4. Avoid eye contact

You want your audience to feel engaged in your presentation, but if you avoid eye contact the whole time, they certainly won't. Avoid staring at just one part of the wall, at your paper or your computer. If the participants have the feeling that you are just talking to the wall, it is a bad presentation. Speak to your audience, involve them in your presentation and make it more exciting for them.

But also make sure you don't always look at the same two or three people, but address everyone. If the audience is large, it is often difficult to include everyone, but still try to let your eyes wander a little between your listeners and look into every corner of the room.

5. Speaking incoherently

Avoid jumping from one topic to the next and back again shortly afterwards. Otherwise your audience will not be able to follow you after a while and their thoughts will wander. To prevent this, it is important that your presentation has a good structure and that you work through one topic after the other.

Nervousness can cause even the best to mumble or talk too fast in order to get the presentation over with as quickly as possible. Try to avoid this by taking short pauses to collect yourself, to breathe and to remind yourself to speak slowly.

6. Many colors mixed with each other

Make sure that your presentation is not too colorful. If you mix too many colours, bad presentation slides will result very quickly. A PowerPoint in which all kinds of colors are combined with each other does not look professional, but rather suitable for a children's birthday party.

Think about a rough color palette in advance, which you can then use in your presentation. Colors such as orange or neon green do not look so good in your PowerPoint. Use colors specifically to emphasize important information.

It is also essential to choose colors that help the text to read well. You should have as much contrast as possible between the font and the background. Black writing on a white background is always easy to read, while yellow writing on a white background is probably hard to read.

7. Too minimalistic design

Even though it is often said that "less is more", you should not be too minimalistic in the design of your presentation. A presentation where your slides are blank and only black text on a white background is likely to go down just as badly as if you use too many colors.

Empty presentations are boring and don't really help to capture the attention of your audience. It also looks like you are too lazy to care about the design of your presentation and that you have not put any effort into the preparation. Your PowerPoint doesn't have to be overflowing with colors, animations and images to make it look interesting. Make it simple, but also professional.

8. Too much text

The slides of your presentation should never be overcrowded. Write only the most important key points on your slides and never entire sentences. Your audience should not be able to read exactly the text you are speaking in your PowerPoint. This is rather annoying and leads to being bored quickly. Summarize the most important points that your audience should remember and write them down in short bullet points on your presentation.

9. Many different animations

To avoid bad presentations it is important to never use too many animations. It looks messy and confusing if every text and image is displayed with a different animation. Just leave out animations at all or if you really want to use them then use them only very rarely when you want to draw attention to something specific. Make sure that if you use animations, they are consistent. If you use transitions between the individual slides, these should also always be kept consistent and simple.

10. Too many images

Bad presentation slides often occur when their design ist unclear and unorganised. Images and graphics in presentations are always a good idea to illustrate something and to add some variety. But don't overdo it with them. Too many images can distract from your presentation and look messy. Make sure that the graphics also fit the content and, if you have used several pictures on one slide, ask yourself whether you really need all of them.

11. Too many or unreadable fonts

Never combine too many fonts so that your presentation does not look messy. Use at most two: one for headings and one for text. When choosing fonts, you should also make sure that they are still legible at long distances. Script, italic and decorative fonts are very slow to read, which is why they should be avoided in presentations.

It is not so easy to choose the right font. Therefore, we have summarized for you how to find the best font for your PowerPoint presentation.

12. Images as background

To avoid bad presentations, do not use images as slide backgrounds if there should be also text on them. The picture only distracts from the text and it is difficult to read it because there is not much contrast with the background. It is also harder to see the image because the text in the foreground is distracting. The whole thing looks messy and distracting rather than informative and clear.

13. Reading from the slides

Never just read the exact text from your slides. Your audience can read for themselves, so they will only get bored and in the worst case it will lead to "Death by PowerPoint". You may also give them the feeling that you think they are not able to read for themselves. In addition, you should avoid whole sentences on your slides anyway and only have listed key points that you go into more detail then.

14. Turn your back

Never turn around during your presentation to look at your projected PowerPoint. Not to read from your slides, but also not to make sure the next slide is already displayed. It looks unprofessional and only distracts your audience. In PowerPoint's Speaker View, you can always see which slide is currently being displayed and which one is coming next. Use this to make sure the order fits. You can even take notes in PowerPoint, which are then displayed during your presentation. You can read all about notes in PowerPoint here.

15. Forgetting the time

Always pay attention to the time given. It is annoying when your presentation takes much longer than actually planned and your audience is just waiting for you to stop talking or you are not able to finish your presentation at all. It is just as awkward if your presentation is too short. You have already told everything about your topic, but you should actually talk for at least another ten minutes.

Practice your presentation often enough at home. Talk through your text and time yourself as you go. Then adjust the length so that you can keep to the time given on the day of your presentation.

16. Complicated Structure

The structure of your presentation should not be complicated. Your audience should be able to follow you easily and remember the essential information by the end. When you have finished a part, briefly summarize and repeat the main points before moving on to the next topic. Mention important information more than once to make sure it really gets across to your audience.

However, if the whole thing gets too complicated, it can be easy for your audience to disengage after a while and not take away much new information from your presentation. So a complicated structure can lead to bad presentations and "Death by PowerPoint" pretty quickly.

17. Inappropriate clothes

On the day of your presentation, be sure to choose appropriate clothing. Your appearance should be formal, so avoid casual clothes and stick to professional dress codes. When choosing your clothes, also make sure that they are rather unobtrusive. Your audience should focus on your presentation, not on your appearance.

18. Inappropriate content

Think about who your audience is and adapt your presentation to them. Find out how much they already know about the topic, what they want to learn about it and why they are here in the first place. If you only talk about things your audience already knows, they will get bored pretty soon, but if you throw around a lot of technical terms when your audience has hardly dealt with the topic at all, they will also have a hard time following you. So to avoid "Death by PowerPoint" in this case, it is important to adapt your presentation to your audience.

You can also ask a few questions at the beginning of your presentation to learn more about your audience and then adapt your presentation. With SlideLizard , you can integrate polls directly into your PowerPoint and participants can then easily answer anonymously from their smartphone.

19. Too much or unimportant information

Keep it short and limit yourself to the essentials. The more facts and information you present to your audience, the less they will remember.

Also be sure to leave out information that does not fit the topic or is not relevant. You will only distract from the actual topic and lose the attention of your audience.

20. Monotone voice

If you speak in a monotone voice all the time, you are likely to lose the attention of your audience. Make your narration lively and exciting. Also, be careful not to speak too quietly, but not too loudly either. People should be able to understand you well throughout the whole room. Even if it is not easy for many people, try to deliver your speech with confidence. If you are not enthusiastic about the topic or do not seem enthusiastic, you will not be able to get your audience excited about it.

Examples of bad presentations to download

We have created a PowerPoint with examples of bad presentation slides and how to do it right. You can download it here for free.

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About the author.

Helena Reitinger

Helena supports the SlideLizard team in marketing and design. She loves to express her creativity in texts and graphics.

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Bad PowerPoint: 6 Poor PowerPoint Slide Practices to Avoid

• By Judhajit Sen
• August 14, 2024

Creating an effective PowerPoint presentation requires more than just good content; it involves mastering the art of slide design. Many people make common mistakes that can detract from their message and result in bad PowerPoint presentation examples. For instance, cramming lots of text onto slides can overwhelm the audience and shift their focus away from the speaker. Similarly, excessive animations or colors can overwhelm and confuse, while an overly simplistic design might fail to capture attention.

This blog will explore some of the bad examples of PowerPoint presentations and provide tips on avoiding them. By understanding these bad PowerPoint slides and applying some straightforward design principles, you can ensure your slides support and enhance your presentation rather than hinder it. Whether it’s text, animations, colors, or images, bad PowerPoint presentations can significantly affect how your message is received. Let’s dive into these bad presentation characteristics and learn how to create slides that truly support your presentation goals.

Key Takeaways

• Avoid Overloading Slides with Text: Too much text can overwhelm your audience and shift focus away from the speaker. Keep slides concise to maintain engagement.
• Limit Animations: Excessive animations can be overwhelming and unprofessional. Use animations sparingly to highlight important points and ensure a smooth presentation flow.
• Use Simple Colors: Too much color makes your slides hard to read. Stick to a few complementary colors with high contrast between text and background for clarity.
• Balance Minimalism: Overly simplistic slides can be dull. Aim for a clean design that includes some color and visuals to keep the audience interested without overwhelming them.
• Choose Readable Fonts and Manage Images: Use simple, legible fonts and ensure the text is large enough to be read from a distance. Avoid cluttering slides with too many images, as they detract from your message.
• Avoid Busy Background Images: Background images can make text hard to read and distract from your message. Use solid or lightly textured backgrounds to maintain readability and focus.

Bad PowerPoint: Poor PowerPoint Slide Practices

Too Much Text

One common mistake in bad presentations is including a lot of text on your slides. When your slides are packed with words, it can overwhelm your audience. People tend to start reading the slide instead of listening to you, which means you compete with your content for their attention.

Slides should support your speech, not repeat it. If you have entire sentences or paragraphs on your slides, it’s easy to fall into the trap of reading directly from them. This can make your delivery feel stiff and less engaging, reducing your connection with the audience.

To avoid this, keep your slides simple. Focus on the key points you want your audience to remember, and use short bullet points instead of full sentences. This approach keeps the spotlight on you and ensures your presentation remains dynamic and engaging.

Too Many Animations

Using lots of animations in your slides can be a major mistake. While PowerPoint offers over 150 different animations, it’s important to remember that just because you can use them doesn’t mean you should. Animating every element on a slide can make your ppt look amateur and outdated. It can also be exhausting for your audience, who might struggle to focus on your message.

For the presenter, excessive animations can create unnecessary stress. If each element needs a click to appear or disappear, it can disrupt your flow, leading to mistakes like revealing points too early or losing track of where you are in your presentation. This can throw off your timing and puzzle your audience, making it harder for them to follow along.

The key is to use animations sparingly and purposefully. Think of animations as a highlighter for your main points—use them to emphasize important information, not to decorate every slide. Keep your transitions and animations consistent and simple to maintain a polished and professional look. Remember, when it comes to animations, less is always more.

Too Many Colors

Too many colors in your slides can be a big mistake. It’s easy to get carried away with bright and flashy hues in your presentation, but this can make it look amateur. Avoid treating your slides like a canvas where you mix and match colors without a plan.

The key is to keep it simple. Stick to simple colors that ensure your text is easy to read. For example, black text on a white background is clear and straightforward, while yellow text on a white background can be a readability nightmare. High contrast between background and text is vital for clarity.

Also, avoid using loud colors like neon green or orange, which can be overwhelming. Instead, use colors to emphasize important points without overwhelming your audience. A well-chosen color palette can make your ppt look polished and professional, while too many colors can quickly turn it into a mess.

Too Minimalistic

While simplicity in slides is essential, taking it too far can be just as problematic as overcrowding your slides. Relying on a minimalist approach using all-white backgrounds with only black text can make your ppt dull and uninspiring. This kind of design doesn’t capture the audience’s attention and may even suggest that you didn’t put much effort into your work. 

An overly simplistic slide deck can give off the impression that you’re lazy or unprepared. Even though “less is more” is often used, leaving your slides too simplistic can backfire, making your presentation boring and disengaging. To avoid this, aim for a balance—keep your design clean but professional, adding just enough color, graphics, and text to make your slides interesting without overwhelming the audience.

Illegible Fonts and Too Many Images

When creating a PowerPoint presentation, it’s crucial to keep your slides clear and easy to read. A common mistake is using scripts that are hard to decipher or too small to be read from a distance. Fonts like Impact, with cramped letters, or overly decorative styles that mimic italics, can make your text difficult to read. To avoid this, stick to simple fonts and ensure the font size is large enough—generally no smaller than 20 points. It’s also a good idea to test your slides by standing at the back of the room to see if they’re legible.

Another pitfall is overcrowding your slides with lots of images. While images can enhance your presentation by illustrating points and reducing text, overloading a slide with them can have the opposite effect. Too many pictures can distract your audience and make your slides cluttered and outdated. Always ask yourself if all the images are necessary or if one can convey the message just as effectively. The key is balance—use images wisely to support your content without overwhelming it.

Background Images

Background images in presentation slides can create major problems, especially when there’s text on the slide. When you overlay text on an image, the text becomes hard to read because of the lack of contrast. The busy background can make it tough to find a text color that stands out, causing the words to blend into the image. 

Images in the background often pull attention away from the key message, making the slide cluttered and confusing. Instead of helping your presentation, it can make it harder for your audience to focus on what’s important. To keep your slides clear and compelling, avoid using images as backgrounds when you need to include text.

Wrap-up: Poor PowerPoint Slide Practices

Effective PowerPoint presentations hinge on avoiding common slide design pitfalls. A major error is overloading slides with text, which can distract and bore the audience, making it hard for them to focus on the speaker. Instead, slides should highlight key points succinctly to enhance engagement. Excessive use of animations or colors can also detract from the presentation, making it appear unprofessional or overwhelming. Keeping animations minimal and using a consistent color palette helps maintain a polished look.

Overly simplistic designs can make slides dull and uninteresting, while a clutter of fonts or images can hinder readability and clarity. It’s essential to balance simplicity with visual appeal to keep the audience’s attention. Background images can further complicate readability if not used thoughtfully.  By avoiding these errors, you can ensure your slides effectively support your message and keep your audience engaged throughout your presentation.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

1. Why should I avoid putting too much text on my slides?

Too much text can overwhelm your audience and distract them from your speech. It often leads to people reading the slides instead of listening to you, making your presentation less engaging. Keep slides simple with short bullet points to highlight key ideas.

2. How can excessive animations impact my presentation?

Using too many animations can make your slides look unprofessional and distract from your main message. It may also disrupt your flow and make it difficult for your audience to follow along. Use animations sparingly to emphasize important points.

3. What problems arise from using too many colors in a presentation?

A mix of too many bright or flashy colors can make your slides hard to read and look unprofessional. Stick to a simple color palette with high contrast to ensure text readability and maintain a polished appearance.

4. Can minimalistic designs be problematic?

Yes, overly minimalistic designs can make your slideshow look dull and unengaging. A balance is needed—use a clean design but include some color and graphics to make your slides interesting without overwhelming your audience.

5. What should I consider when choosing fonts and images for my slides?

Use simple, readable fonts and ensure they are large enough to be seen from a distance. Avoid overcrowding slides with too many images, as this can make your slides look cluttered and distract from your message.

6. How can background images affect the readability of my slides?

Background pictures can make text hard to read if there isn’t enough contrast. They can also distract from your main message. Avoid using busy images as backgrounds when you need to include text, and opt for clear, high-contrast designs instead.

Avoid Poor PowerPoint Slide Practices with Prezentium

Struggling with poor PowerPoint slide design? Don’t let common mistakes undermine your message. At Prezentium, we specialize in transforming your presentations with a focus on clarity and impact. Whether you’re dealing with too much text, distracting animations, or clashing colors, our Overnight Presentations service ensures you get a polished, professional deck. We expertly blend business insight, design, and data science to create slides that enhance your message rather than detract from it.

If you need a more hands-on approach, our Accelerators service turns your ideas and notes into stunning presentations with fresh designs and templates. Our team of experts helps you avoid overloading slides with text and using too many animations or colors. They ensure your slides are engaging and support your speech effectively.

Looking to refine your presentation skills further? Zenith Learning offers interactive workshops and training programs that combine problem-solving with visual storytelling. Learn how to avoid these slide design pitfalls and deliver compelling presentations every time.

Let Prezentium help you create presentations that captivate and convey your message clearly. Contact us today to get started and make your next presentation truly stand out.

Why wait? Avail a complimentary 1-on-1 session with our presentation expert. See how other enterprise leaders are creating impactful presentations with us.

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Five Presentation Mistakes Everyone Makes

• Nancy Duarte

Learn from the most common traps.

We all know what it’s like to sit through a bad presentation. We can easily spot the flaws — too long, too boring, indecipherable, what have you — when we watch others speak. The thing is, when we take the stage ourselves, many of us fall into the same traps.

• ND Nancy Duarte is a best-selling author with thirty years of CEO-ing under her belt. She’s driven her firm, Duarte, Inc., to be the global leader behind some of the most influential messages and visuals in business and culture. Duarte, Inc., is the largest design firm in Silicon Valley, as well as one of the top woman-owned businesses in the area. Nancy has written six best-selling books, four have won awards, and her new book, DataStory: Explain Data and Inspire Action Through Story , is available now. Follow Duarte on Twitter: @nancyduarte or LinkedIn .

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Inspired Slides

Examples and tips for better presentations.

• Posted on October 7, 2017

Fix Your Really Bad PowerPoint

An excellent summary of Seth Godin’s book by the same title, this quick deck has some important tips for better presentation design:

• Stop using your slide as a teleprompter. You can put all the details in the notes pages, but not on the slide!
• Leave a handout behind. This is where you can put all the words you wanted to put on the slides!
• Don’t forget to sell your idea. After all, that was the point of  making the deck in the first place, right?

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Top 12 Most Annoying PowerPoint Presentation Mistakes

PowerPoint has gotten a bad rap over the years. In fact, during graduate school, my program director actually told us at one point that we couldn’t use PowerPoint for our comprehensive exams (which is an oral presentation in front of all the faculty and students required for graduation) because PowerPoint slides were too cliche, too dull, too obnoxious, too outdated, or whatever other undesirable quality you might slap onto a digital presentation platform.

So what was the reaction? Students in my program latched onto Prezi or SlideRocket or even Wix—which is actually a web design program. And the result? Just as bad, if not worse visual presentations in many cases (trust me, Prezi doesn’t solve the world’s problems; the zoom-in, zoom-out feature has lost it’s novelty; it’s obnoxious).

The truth is, whether you use PowerPoint or Prezi or anything else, you can’t blame the software for the presentation. PowerPoint is a tool; it isn’t content. Microsoft word doesn’t tell beautiful (or awful) stories, the author does. And so it goes with PowerPoint presentations: if you fill them with bad content and design, your presentation flies right out the window. How you mesh the digital slides and design with the content you deliver makes all the difference. Take the time to design a PowerPoint well and people won’t even realize it’s PowerPoint (which, by the way, became my challenge in graduate school; I ended up using PowerPoint for my exams and felt complimented when several asked me afterwards what program I used).

If you want to know a few tricks for designing good PowerPoint presentations, check out my Five Quick Tricks to Design Your PowerPoint Presentation . But if you just want to know what to avoid when giving a PowerPoint presentation, here’s a list of my top twelve most annoying   PowerPoint presentation mistakes . If these 12 tips aren’t enough, see my infographic on 40 Ways to Screw Up a PowerPoint Slide

#2: Bad Contrast Unless your goal is to give your audience a serious headache (which, don’t get me wrong, might occasionally be your goal), don’t use dark colored text on dark backgrounds or vice versa. The more visual contrast, the more enjoyable your slides will be to look at. Light blue on white? No. Blue on purple? No. White on yellow? You’ve got to be kidding! (But I’ve seen it, sadly, done.) Truthfully, the best contrast is black on white or white on black. If you do white on black, you’ll need to increase your font size a bit. Use color elsewhere. After all, pretty every book you’ve ever read uses white paper and black ink, correct? PowerPoints should be no different. Use color for headings, titles, and images. Not for bulk text (but you really shouldn’t have very many bulk amounts of text….) And do you want to know the biggest contrast faux pas? Don’t EVER use blue text on a red background or vice versa. Research has shown that those two colors on top of each other on a digital screen actually clashes so much, to many people the colors appear to vibrate. Now that’s a serious headache in the making!

#3: Staring at the Screen Your PowerPoint slides should be used to  supplement your presentation, not serve as a crutch. Don’t assume that having all your content on the slides means you don’t have to practice. One of the most annoying, unprofessional, and overt demonstrations of presentation slacker-ness is staring at the screen, reading your content to your audience. Even if you don’t have much text, avoid the pitfall of talking to the screen (it happens more often than you would believe). If you are shy and hate being in front of people, practice standing forward and moving your eyes to different parts of the room, but all in the vicinity of where your audience is. Look at audience members’ hands, hair, shirts. This isn’t as good as eye contact, but it is a whole lot better than putting your back to them and relying on the screen to do the talking. 

#6: Using the Pre-Installed Templates and Fonts Templates and default fonts aren’t all bad—if you’re in a real hurry, if you’re lazy, if you’re uncreative, or if you have a hard time coming up with new ideas on your own. Using templates and defaults, I suppose, is better than creating a horribly ugly design, but just know that you won’t impress anybody. Just a tip: a solid white background with a really nice font (like Coolvetica, for instance) can look amazingly clean, simple, and sexy. You don’t have to be a design wizard to move away from the defaults.

#10: Using Weird Fonts Even if they’re calling your name, avoid them. PowerPoint presentations are not the place to use crazy fonts, no matter how appealing they seem. When you use text, it should be immediately legible. Century Gothic is nice. So is Coolvetica or Arial or any other simple sans serif font. But don’t be using Chiller, Curlz MT, or Rage Italic. They’re not cool; they’re weird. And they’ll make you look weird for using them.

#11: Putting Important Stuff by the Edges The funny thing about giving a presentation is that you often don’t know what the room will look like until you get there. What if you put some really important text at the bottom of each slide only to discover that there is a non-removable table in front of the scree where you are presenting and the audience can’t see it? Or, what if the screen is slightly smaller than the projector projects your image (and you can’t reach the projector)? I’ve seen both of these happen. If you want to plan ahead, keep all your important information in from the edges. Then, if something gets cut off, it’s no skin off your back.

#12: Don’t Use a Bad Color Scheme If you’re not good with colors, just use black and white. There’s no shame in that. Your presentation ought to be full of images and diagrams anyway, not a lot of text and fancy stuff, so black and white is fine. If you want to use color (it does have a nice touch sometimes), then keep your color scheme to about three or four colors and two might even be better. Keep it simple and avoid clashing colors. Oh, and don’t use holiday color schemes—green and red; orange and black; purple and yellow; red, white, and blue—unless you change their saturation and add in a third/fourth color that isn’t part of the holiday. 

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6 thoughts on “ Top 12 Most Annoying PowerPoint Presentation Mistakes ”

Pingback: Presentation Approaches 2.0 | Tyler Ed Tech 541 Fall 2013

This is very informative and stresses all the valid points of why some things aren’t meant to be a part of a presentation. Instead of using clipart, you can create your own custom images in PowerPoint with the geometric shapes provided. This can put your own creativity to work! http://presentationpanda.com/uncategorized/how-to-create-your-own-images-in-powerpoint-or-keynote/

For a ‘visual communication guy’ you certainly have made a very bland, wordy article. I got bored just scrolling down the page!

On the contrary – it delivered just what I needed. If you didn’t want an informative article then go find a Powerpoint filled with animations and written in Comic Sans.

this was too helpful thank u very much lol 🙂

i was probably going to do half of these but thx for the info

Comments are closed.

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6 presentation mistakes every professional should avoid

Mike Pacchione

“There’s this one guy at my company who … ”

So began my in-flight conversation about presentations and presentation mistakes. This happens a lot. The surprising thing about this conversation was the rest of the sentence.

“ … is way too exuberant when he presents.”

Wait, what? Nobody says that.

We talked for a while. I explained how to fix the problem. Then we talked about how rare that problem is.

See, for the past four years, I’ve flown all over the world to bring Duarte methodology to companies via our storytelling workshops .

When I started, I assumed every company would have its own set of problems. So, I began every workshop by asking attendees to jot down presentation challenges at their company. Turns out I was wrong. People across all companies repeatedly make the same presentation mistakes. It doesn’t matter what industry, the age of the company, or the caliber of employees, a bad presentation is bad for the same reasons.

Steer clear of these 6 presentation pitfalls

The following list includes all the most common presentation mistakes, which are easy to avoid by the way.

1. Your presentation covers too much information (TMI!)

I have facilitated 211 workshops in the past five years.

In every single one, I have asked: “what happens in a bad presentation?”

In literally every single workshop, someone responds “too much information.”

That’s right: 211 times out of 211. You couldn’t get that many people to agree on what day of the week it is.

It’s difficult to give instruction on exactly how much information you need in a presentation – but it’s probably less than you think. Put simply, the more facts we hear, the less any of them stick. Choose wisely.

A good, yet seldom implemented tactic is to focus on what the facts mean rather than the facts themselves.

Instead of just reciting the results or the data, give me an analysis; explain why something happened, and what the ramifications are in the future. We call that balancing information with insight.

A data presentation I love sharing is David Epstein’s TED talk . He is so good at walking you through only the essential information, then telling you why that information matters.

An excerpt:

“Take a look at the record for the 100-meter freestyle swim. The record is always trending downward [information] but it’s punctuated by these steep cliffs. The first cliff, in 1956, is the introduction of the flip turn [insight] .”

2. You distract your audience with acronyms, abbreviations, and jargon   This one is tricky. To save time, most people at most companies have a slew of acronyms they regularly use. Saving time is a good thing, right? But here’s the problem: acronyms only work when everyone’s been brainwashed to memorize them. If you haven’t memorized a term, your brain spends extra time and energy figuring out what it means. That leads to distraction. Example: I sat in on a rehearsal for a company’s big marketing presentation. They kept using acronyms like PPC, but never explained what it meant, probably because they use the term 79 times a day. I, however, don’t live, eat, and breathe marketing acronyms. It took me a few seconds to remember what that meant (pay-per-click). That might not sound like a big deal, but do the math. The average rate of speech is about 130 words per minute. Five seconds to decode an acronym means I’ve missed out on ten words, basically a whole sentence. Every time the presenter used an acronym, it was the equivalent of me putting on earmuffs for the next five seconds. Don’t do that to your audience. Pretty please. As good as it may seem, I promise, it’s a presentation mistake. 3. Presenting irrelevant information guarantees a bad presentation

A couple years back I hosted our VisualStory ® workshop for a compliance department that presents to the company’s sales team. I asked them to think about the stakes of their presentation. What is in it for the audience? Almost every single attendee said the same thing: “It will allow us to remain compliant.”

Can you see the problem here? Is a salesperson motivated by the goal of remaining compliant?

So, we stopped and thought like salespeople. Eventually, we came up with different stakes: “It will help us avoid an Enron situation.” That’s something a salesperson would listen to.

Make the audience the hero of your presentation. Everything must be catered to them because if they do not adopt the idea you propose in your presentation, your idea dies. At the very least, consider what motivates them, what they already know about your topic, and what a walk in their shoes looks like.

4. Your Call to Action (CTA) is confusing or vague

It is amazing how many presentations, even good ones, end without telling the audience what they should now go do . Or, they do give direction, but it’s vague (i.e., “I need your support,” which, depending on how you hear it, could be asking for money, a pat on the back, or an inspiring cat poster). To fix this, picture your audience loving your presentation. Now that they’re bought in, what specific action do you want them to take when they return to their desk?

The best call to action I’ve seen in person was at a productivity seminar. The presenter asked everyone to pull out their phone, she waited until everyone had done so, then she asked them to schedule a reminder one month from that date. Boom. Call to action, answered.

5. Your monotone presentation style is soporific

Most of the time, this mistake is paired with another classic: the presenter reading their slides to the audience. Just in case the audience couldn’t handle that by themselves.

Look, speaking confidently doesn’t come easily to most of us (though, shameless plug alert: We’ve got a great workshop if you’d like help with that). It can feel awkward, it can feel scary, it can feel like your audience is judging you. It’s not easy, especially if you’re not a naturally ebullient person. But here’s the deal: If you don’t seem excited by your talk, there’s no chance the audience get excited.

Ridiculous as this feels, one of the best things you can do is record yourself. Pull out your phone, open your voice memo app, and talk about your topic for a minute. Odds are the expressiveness you feel internally does not match how it sounds externally. A monotone presentation is a presentation mistake that pretty much guarantees a bad performance.

6. Your presentation lacks a clear point or purpose

In one of my first presentation workshops, I sat down with a participant to help him with his point of view.

“What do you have so far?” I asked.

“The team made a lot of mistakes,” he said.

“That’s not a point of view,” I said.

He looked confused. I explained the difference between a point of view and a fact. Let’s try again.

“The team keeps making mistakes.”

Round and round we went. Did he have an opinion as to how the team could get better? Was there a particular mistake the team needed to stop making?

Eventually, he came up with something. But, for the rest of the day I pictured him going through life making factual, opinion-less statements:

• Green is a combination of yellow and blue.
• Socks can be made of either cotton or wool.
• Not many people speak Greek anymore.

You know what still surprises me the most about this?

He is not alone. An incredible number of people have trouble expressing a point of view. They have plenty of facts. Facts are safe. But a point of view is a huge problem. You give your audience an idea to adopt, that often includes taking a chance that they’ll disagree with you. Use your data to back up the opinion, that’ll keep it dynamic, that’ll separate you from the pack.

So, after all those presentation mistakes, we need a happy ending, right? The good news is that bar for presentations in your organization is probably low. If you can avoid making even a few of the very natural presentation mistakes I described, you can easily avoid giving a bad presentation and even stand out as good presenter.

As for that exuberant guy at the beginning of this post? I made that up. Not once have I encountered that person in the corporate world. Odds are that person exists somewhere. If it’s you, consider yourself lucky. You have the opposite issue from most presenters in the world.

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Home › Blog › The 5 Biggest Mistakes You’re Making in PowerPoint

The 5 Biggest Mistakes You’re Making in PowerPoint

• August 22, 2024
• Communication Skills , Creativity & Innovation , Engagement & Retention

What if I told you that PowerPoint presentations don’t have to be dull? What if there is a world beyond blank backgrounds and boring bullet points? What if I told you there’s a whole host of easy ways to liven up your decks? Steering clear of these 5 PowerPoint presentation mistakes can be the key to unlocking your true potential as a presenter. By recognizing and rectifying these pitfalls, you’re on the path to crafting presentations that resonate, inform, and inspire. Join presentation topic expert Richard Goring on an enlightening journey of exploring the nuances of common yet underestimated presentation mistakes in this blog. Keep reading to refine your approach and elevate your presentation prowess to captivate and engage your audience effectively.

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The 5 PowerPoint Presentation Mistakes

1. overloading your slides.

A common presentation mistake is cramming as much information as possible onto a slide. Understandably, you want to make sure that your audience doesn’t miss a single bit of important information. Still, by laying everything out like a game of Tetris and in tiny font, you’re guaranteeing they’ll miss more than just a bit. Bullet points may be useful when you’re taking notes, but they have no place in a good PowerPoint deck .

This is because your audience physically can’t read and listen at the same time. The words you see and the words you hear are processed in the same area of the brain, meaning your audience has to make a choice: listening to you (the presenter) or reading what you have on the screen. Unfortunately, you’re always going to lose out on your slides in that battle.

If you have to keep all the text (and it’s a big if), then hierarchy can help a lot, putting a few words to summarize the ideas in a larger font with the rest of the content tucked away for reference later. Column-based structures help with this, as does the use of iconography as a visual anchor.

Solution: Ideally, reduce the amount of text on your slide and only use words (even better, visuals) that support your main message so you can talk around what appears on the screen rather than merely reading out what you see. Remember, you can add anything you cut from your slides straight into the speaker notes, so nothing is wasted. Then, setting yourself up for greatness by using simple build animations to control the flow of information is a great way to keep your audience’s attention focused on you.

2. Lack of Visuals

Once you’ve reduced the words on your slide, what do you replace them with? This is when you need to start thinking about what kind of visual aids you can use to support your audience’s understanding.

Graphs and charts are an incredibly useful method for visualizing data, and PowerPoint has a range of tools to allow you to create them in just a few clicks easily. Going further than that, you can also use icons to help emphasize your points, e.g., a lightbulb to represent an idea, a target to represent reaching a goal, or a rocket ship to represent a launch. The right visuals can simplify complex information, boost your audience’s retention and understanding, and, ultimately, make your presentation more memorable.

If you’re not sure where to start, BrightCarbon has a handy guide on how to create visual presentations .

3. Ignoring the Power of Storytelling

One of the most powerful tools you have to ensure you’re holding your audience’s attention is telling a good story. Too many presentations fail to use this key tool, meaning that audience members get lost or bored mid-way through a deck, and they start to concentrate more on what they’re planning to cook for dinner rather than what the presenter has to say.

Creating a strong narrative for your presentation may feel like a daunting task, but it doesn’t have to be. By keeping your audience in mind and using a Problem, Solution, and Impact structure, you’ll create a captivating plot that you can weave throughout your deck.

Storytelling structure:

• The problem sets up the context and shows why this is something people need to know and pay attention to. It helps to frame the rest of the story.
• The solution is the details of what happens or how something works.
• The impact is the end result – that will often lead to the outcome that your audience will achieve.

4. Not Adapting to Your Audience

Many people start out creating a presentation thinking what do I want to say? What information do I want to convey about my product/service? How should I structure the presentation to suit me? This is why many people fall at the first hurdle and create this presentation mistake. The most important person in a presentation is not the presenter but the audience. Everything you do when creating your deck needs to be done with the audience in mind. Sometimes, your audience’s audience so that the people you are presenting to can communicate effectively with the people that they speak to afterward.

PowerPoint has a handy built in function called Zoom , which allows you to travel around your deck in a non-linear way. This can be extremely helpful in adapting the flow of information to suit the audience that you’re presenting to, as you can hop to different sections of content in response to questions. This interactivity is a great way of keeping everyone in your audience engaged.

5. Not Utilizing PowerPoint Tools

You might not know it yet, but PowerPoint is packed with features and tools that can turn presentation creation into a simple (maybe even enjoyable!) task.

We’ve already mentioned Zoom and how useful that can be. Still, even simple features like crop-to-shape, distribution tools, and animations can help you create visually stunning slides that look like they’ve come straight out of a design studio. The little-known transition Morph is also a secret weapon in your PowerPoint arsenal, as it creates seamless, cinematic transitions at the click of a button! Plus, you can supercharge PowerPoint with add-ins like BrightSlide. It is free and ramps up your PowerPoint productivity even more, making it incredibly simple to create striking, cohesive, and memorable decks.

By addressing these common presentation mistakes and embracing the full potential of PowerPoint, you can transform your presentations from ordinary to extraordinary. Remember, a well-delivered presentation has the power to inform, inspire, and influence. So, it’s time to step up your PowerPoint game and make your presentations stand out.

Richard Goring  is a Director at BrightCarbon, a presentation and eLearning agency. He enjoys helping people create engaging content and communicate effectively using visuals, diagrams, and animated sequences that explain and reinforce the key points, which is supported by plenty of resources and tips.

Connect with Richard on LinkedIn and learn more at BrightCarbon .

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how to give the perfect presentation

10 most common presentation mistakes, avoid these basic presentation errors, 1. lack of preparation.

Too often a good presentation is ruined because the speaker has not taken the time to prepare. Preparation involves attention to both the personal and professional aspects of the presentation. Personal elements include body language, voice, and appearance. Professional aspects include researching the subject, organizing the content, and preparing the visuals. So, whether your presentation lasts for five minutes, five hours, or five days, you owe it to yourself and your audience to prepare thoroughly.

2. Poor Use of Visuals

Visuals should enhance your presentation, not detract from it. Most business people around the world today have learned how to use PowerPoint technically, but not professionally. Slides are overcrowded, unattractive, and inconsistent. They are loaded with lengthy, unnecessary words, written in sentences, instead of bullets. They include detailed information that should be provided to participants in the form of handouts. They underutilize the power of images. By taking the time to learn how to create powerful visuals, you will have a creative edge over the competition.

3. Inappropriate Humor

Off-color jokes could doom your presentation, because you are taking the risk of offending someone in the audience. Humor is culture-sensitive. What is considered funny in one part of the world may be considered private and taboo in another. So, avoid using humor in professional presentations, and consider other ways of breaking the ice and establishing rapport with your audience members.

4. Inappropriate Dress

The best advice is to dress conservatively so that the audience can pay attention to what you are saying, not what you are wearing. In your private life, feel free to express your individuality. In professional arenas, it can be disastrous to show your true colors. Like it or not, professionals around the world expect to see you dressed a certain way. It is best not to surprise them; otherwise they will be concentrating on your unusual appearance instead of your worthwhile message. Women in particular should be extra careful to present a professional appearance, and stay away from low necklines, short skirts, jangly jewelry, wacky hairstyles, and flashy colors.

5. Not Knowing the Audience

Custom-design your presentation to fit the needs of your audience. Find out the size and demographics of your audience beforehand. What are the ranks and positions of the people who will be attending? Who are the decision-makers? How much knowledge do they have of the subject you will be presenting? What is their native language? What other cultural expectations or protocol should you be aware of? By considering such factors beforehand, you increase the effectiveness of your presentation dramatically.

6. Non-Functioning Equipment

Since so much of our business world is dependent on technology, always check your equipment beforehand. There is nothing more frustrating than malfunctioning equipment, which can cause unnecessary delays and frustration. One solution is to have a printout of your visuals for yourself. That way, you will have the necessary information you need to deliver a presentation, even if you do not have the necessary equipment. If you solve the problem in this way, you will also gain the empathy and appreciation of the audience, who may have been in your shoes at some point in their own professional careers.

7. Starting or Ending a Presentation Late

Like you, the members of the audience have time restrictions. Respect them. In the United States and Canada, the mark of a professional is one who starts and finishes the presentation on time. However, time is viewed differently in eastern and western cultures. When traveling or presenting in an international context, consult a local partner or colleague to find out what is considered “normal”, even if it seems strange or differs from your own practices back home.

8. Using a Monotone Voice

Your voice is the primary means of communicating with your audience. No matter how interesting your material, if you speak in a monotone voice, you will lose your audience. An effective voice should be vital, audible, and clear. Of course, voice will be affected by age, gender, physiology, health, motivation, and past experience. Nevertheless, people of all kinds can learn how to make their voices more effective by learning about voice production, breathing techniques, vocal exercises and voice care. If necessary, work with a voice coach to learn how to improve your voice.

9. Too Much Material in Too Short a Time

If you have too much material, cut back or cut out. It is annoying and pointless for a speaker to try to rush through a presentation. If you have strict time restraints, be selective about what information to include. Pass on extra information in the handouts. Remove a number of detailed slides and keep only the most basic ones. Allow for the fact that you may have less time available to make your presentation due to interruptions, malfunctions, delays or other circumstances. By restricting the information flow, you will have a greater impact on your audience. They will remember more and be in a better position to speak to their superiors or take action on your recommendations.

10. Not Clarifying the Topic

Make sure you know clearly what you are expected to speak about. Second, don’t assume the audience knows what you are going to speak about. To avoid confusion, always include information about the topic of your presentation in your introduction. Get into the habit of saying, “Today, I’ll be explaining…” or ”My presentation today will show…” Do this without exception. Some members of your audience may also be global learners, who need to know the destination before they can follow along the detailed path of your presentation.

how can I custom design my presentation to an audience from another country?

By reading! There are several excellent books available that provide information about the cultural norms, habits, values and expectations of various countries. One especially useful book is When Cultures Collide by Richard Lewis, an experienced cross-cultural expert. There are also many websites that provide cross-cultural insight. You could also look for information produced by the foreign ministries of various countries, or visit a consulate / embassy and request further information. Today, depending on where you are, it may also be possible to simply talk to someone from the host culture.

I have a lot of information I need to provide in an upcoming presentation. I know I will run short on time. Is there anything I can do?

Looks like you have no choice but to reduce the amount of material. There is nothing to be gained by overloading your audience with information. Include only the most critical information on your slides and put the rest into a handout which you distribute after your presentation is over. If you hand it out beforehand, you will lose the attention of the audience as some of them will be leafing through the handout instead of paying attention to your presentation.

i am good in grammar but when i start a presentation then my voice quality is not good.means i am not a good speaker.so please tell me the best way to improve it.

About Presentation Prep

Being able to speak in public can change your life! Presentation Prep is your complete, free guide to delivering speeches, lectures, and presentations more successfully and confidently. Whether you're a native English-speaker who suffers from public speaking anxiety, or a non-native speaker who needs guidelines for presenting to international audiences, this site will give you everything you need. Presentation Prep is written by Rebecca Ezekiel, an experienced corporate trainer who specializes in the areas of communications, presentations, and cross-cultural skills. Her online English language training videos are watched by millions of students worldwide.

Bad Presentations: How To Avoid Common Presentation Pitfalls In 2023

Table of contents.

It’s easy to make a presentation, but it’s difficult to make a good presentation.

There are simple mistakes that are made when it comes to the fine art of designing and performing a presentation if you haven’t been doing it for the past 15 years, over and over, like we have!

In this article we explore the common pitfalls most presentation designers/presenters make , and how you can avoid them.

What Impact Can A Bad Presentation Have?

Bad presentations and good presentations have something in common, they’re memorable. Whether it’s a speech at a wedding, or pitching to investors, if it’s bad, it stands out.

The impact a bad presentation can have on your, your business or your brand is profound. It’s more than just the performance on the day. In today’s world, everyone is connected and people talk. It’s difficult to shift your image if you make the wrong impression.

Below are just a few hurdles you can expect to face if your presentation bombs.

Loss Of Confidence In You Or Your Company

When you have or give a bad presentation, it’s easy for your audience to lose confidence in you. After all, at that moment in time, you’re the face of the company and a direct representation of who you represent.

If you drop the ball, that’s what your audience is going to expect you to do if they decide to partner with you. How can they do business or trust in you if they don’t have confidence in you.

Fortunately, we understand how much hard work, time, and dedication it takes just to get the opportunity to deliver a presentation to your audience, your clients, your investors, or your own company. Which is why our presentation design services will help take care of the visual and organizational side of your slides.

We Can Make You Look Goood!

You Can Develop A Negative Reputation

Ineffective presentations are a waste of time, and as we all know, time is valuable. Simple things like unpreparedness, lack of audience engagement, talking too much, a poorly structured or visual presentation design.

These things DO NOT go unnoticed and you will develop a reputation that will most certainly work against you professionally. It takes a lot more work to repair damage that it does to put your best foot forward in the first place.

Slower Business Growth

If your presentation misses out on the key points and the words you’ve chosen for your slides are poor, you will experience slower business growth as there is less information for your audience about your brand. If they are missing out on the key idea because your slides are too simple, they won’t want to buy into your brand.

Here Are The Most Common Mistakes You Can Make With Your Presentation

There’s common mistakes that are both easy to make and easy to avoid if you know what you are looking for. There are common mistakes presenters make because most presentations have too much information, pictures and the information that you as the presenter are trying to communicate gets lost in the jumble of the presentation.

Talking Too Much About Yourself

Presenters who spend too much time speaking about themselves while they present is one example of a common mistake. The audience members want the informative information about your brand, not the informative information about you as the speaker.

Focusing Too Much On Facts And Not Storytelling

You want to engage your audience by using both facts and storytelling to sell them on your brand. If you focus too much on facts, it’s the worst thing you can do for your presentation because you’ll quickly lose your audience’s attention.

Poorly Designed Visual Aids

Visual aids are important to making a great presentation, but not if they are poorly designed. It’s important to have engaging visual aids, dark text on white background is a great way to focus the audience’s attention. Make your presentation your own by choosing well designed visual aids that add to your presentation as a whole.

Disorganized Information (No Logic Or Order)

Are your slides all over the place? Your examples don’t make sense to your brand? The worst presentations are hard to follow, confusing and distracting from the main points. An audience wants to sit through an engaging presentation, and by having order and logic to your slides with words that point back to your idea, you will capture their attention and keep them captivated.

Too Much Information

If you have too many points on your slides, or paragraphs that you’ll be reading off during your presentation, you have too much information. Have less on the slides, keep to the point and spend more time talking directly to your audience rather than reading to them.

No Engagement Or Interaction

A common pitfall that is easy to fall into, is not interacting with the audience members, by making eye contact, allowing time for questions or asking questions to the audience. They are sitting right in front of you (Physically or Virtually) so interact with them right from the beginning so they expect it throughout the presentation. If you need some tips on how to make a presentation interactive , we’ve got you covered.

If you’re looking for a few tips on, this article on being a better presenter can help.

Reading Directly From Your PowerPoint Presentation

When you read directly from the PowerPoint Presentation, your body language is not open to the audience, and it means that you aren’t engaging with either the material or your listeners. If you spend time in preparation and writing out what you will be saying, you can speak directly to the audience and portray confidence in your brand. By purposefully making eye contact, you are connecting with those who are listening to you.

Ending The Presentation Abruptly

When you finish your talk and forget to allow time for questions, you are sending a message that you don’t care about the audience’s understanding of the material you have presented. All it takes is one slide to finish a presentation well and leave space for the audience to ask questions.

Animation Overload

When you overload on animation, you make your presentation look cheap and distracting from your important points. It’s an easy way to make ineffective presentations, as it’s distracting to the main goal of your presentation. Keep animations to a minimum and bullet points on your slides instead to create engaging presentations.

So Is A Bad Presentation Worth The Risk?

Don’t talk too much about yourself, but tell stories about your brand so the audience can connect with you as the presenter and your company. You want to engage with the audience through well chosen visual aids, and keep order to your information both in your slides and your speech. Don’t overload in cheap looking animations and always leave room for your audience to ask questions at the end.

It’s best to be prepared, put our best foot forward and invest the time/money in making sure you’re well rehearsed and have some kick ass slides to back you up. Effort and intent are noticed, as long as they’ve been put it.

Are You In Need Of A Good Presentation To Give The Right Impression?

Your slides are more than just beautiful graphics, they’re opportunities for you to share your stories/ideas. Leave the PowerPoint, Prezi, Google Slides to us and focus on nailing the public speaking part!

Just click the button below and get the conversation started today! We’re here to support you, so connect with a Presentation Geek and take the first step towards a presentation that blows your competition out of the water.

Author:  Content Team

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Shares of global asset manager Perpetual Ltd ( ASX: PPT ) have taken a hit on Monday and are currently trading 2.68% lower, fetching $20.33 per share.

The decline comes as Perpetual advised it would recognise a significant non-cash impairment charge concerning its stake in two investment managers it employs to run some of its strategies.

As a reminder, Perpetual is booked to report FY24 earnings this Thursday, 29 August.

This looks to have spooked investors today, extending the downtrend in Perpetual shares to nearly 8% over the past month.

Let's see what happened.

Perpetual shares extend slide on big impairment charge

Perpetual revealed on Monday that it expects to recognise an impairment charge of approximately $547 million pre-tax in its full-year results for FY24.

The charge is directly tied to net outflows experienced by the company in FY24. These were concentrated in investment strategies managed by its subsidiaries, J O Hambro and TSW, and announced earlier in the year.

While it is a non-cash impairment – that is, the company won't have to physically pay cash for it – the outflows for these two entities were $8 billion for J O Hambro and $4 billion for TSW.

After testing, these results led to a $417 million write-down in Perpetual's stake in J O Hambro and $130 million for TSW, respectively.

The charge will be applied against Perpetual's reported earnings, likely lowering them by a similar amount.

As previously announced in its quarterly updates throughout FY24, and in the second half of FY24 in particular, some key strategies experienced greater than expected net outflows, with net outflows of A$8 billion for J O Hambro and A$4 billion for TSW. Based on the projected earnings impact of these outflows and a resulting moderation of expectations for future flows, compared to the assumptions made at the time of the Pendal Group acquisition, a non-cash impairment charge of $417 million will be recognised against the carrying value of goodwill for J O Hambro, and $130 million for TSW. This will impact the statutory results of the Group for the FY24 financial year.

Despite the challenges in the company's Q4 FY24 business update, CEO Rob Adams highlighted that 66% of the company's strategies had outperformed over a three-year basis.

Still, investors have responded negatively to the news today, pushing Perpetual shares into the red.

The market has also been tough on Perpetual in recent months. Shares are down 20% this year to date, while the broader market has been soaring.

Is there a silver lining?

Despite the recent challenges, some analysts remain optimistic about Perpetual's future.

Bell Potter recently put a buy rating on the stock, with a price target of $27.60 per share. This implies a potential upside of 36% from the current share price.

The broker believes the market is undervaluing Perpetual's remaining business, particularly following the sale of its Corporate Trust and Wealth Management divisions.

Meanwhile, consensus also rates the stock a buy, according to CommSec. Although the view is balanced – it is made up five buy and five hold ratings, respectively.

Perpetual shares snapshot

Perpetual shares have been under the pump in 2024 and are down more than 20% year to date, bringing the last 12 month's losses to 8%.

Owning Perpetual shares over that time has provided a more than 38% disadvantage to the S&P/ASX 200 index (ASX: XJO).

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6 Ways to Fix the “PowerPoint Found a Problem With the Content” Error

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• Review Security Settings
• Repair the Presentation
• Restore an Older Version
• Download or Move the File Location
• Open and Export From Another Program
• Update Microsoft 365

Key Takeaways

• When facing a PowerPoint content error, adjust your security settings to ensure the program's file access.
• Content errors can also be caused by corrupt files, which can be repaired on Windows and Mac.
• Restoring previous versions or changing the file's location may be other solutions if the error persists.

Have you encountered the “PowerPoint found a problem with the content” error when opening a .ppt or .pptx file? If restarting your device didn't work, try these tips to help you get back to work in no time.

1 Review Security Settings

If you're using Windows, a feature known as Protected Views may have mischaracterized your content as a potential security threat, prompting the content error. If you are uncertain about the file's risk level, first scan the file with Microsoft Defender . If there’s nothing wrong with the file, you can temporarily turn off protected views.

• Open PowerPoint.
• On the application's home screen, select Options from the left-hand panel.
• Select Trust Center > Trust Center Settings .
• Click on Protected View .
• Uncheck the Enable Protected View for files originating from the Internet and Enable Protected View for files located in potentially unsafe locations options.
• Click OK to save the new changes and try to open the .ppt file.

There is always some degree of risk when disabling features like Protected View. Once you've fixed your issue, always re-enable those security settings.

Alternatively, Windows users can add the .ppt file to PowerPoint’s Trusted Locations. Again, this method should be reserved for .ppt files coming from a reliable source. From Trust Center Settings :

• Click on Trusted Locations in the left pane.
• Click Add new location > Browse and select the .ppt file’s location.
• Click Add > Save .

If you are on a Mac operating system, you won't find PowerPoint features like Trusted Locations or Protected View. Instead, you can manage PowerPoint's file access in your Mac's Privacy & Security settings:

• Open Settings > Privacy & Security > Full Disk Access .
• Select the + icon . Because this is a security setting, you may be prompted to enter your password.
• Select Microsoft PowerPoint from your applications and click Open .
• A dialogue will prompt you to Quit & Reopen the application in order to give it full disk access.

Lastly, make sure the PowerPoint file isn't locked. Right-click on the file in Finder and select Get Info . Under General, review the Locked checkbox.

2 Repair the Presentation

You can also assess whether a corrupt file is causing the content error by trying to open the PowerPoint presentation from another device. If you still face the same issue, you can attempt to repair the file.

Windows users can do this using PowerPoint's built-in tools. Just launch PowerPoint and click Open . There, browse to the presentation location, extend the Open menu, and select Open and repair .

If you're on a Mac, you can potentially repair a corrupt file if you know how to use Disk Utility . Find this tool in your Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility, and run the First Aid function on the disk where your file is located. The utility will flag if any disk errors might have caused your file to become corrupt, and offer solutions to repair the file system.

When running disk repair functions, we recommend backing up your disk first.

3 Restore an Older Version

If PowerPoint or Disk Utility tools weren’t able to fix the corrupted file, you can look for a previous version of the presentation. Even if you didn't explicitly save an older version, Windows and Mac devices might have an automatic backup on file for you.

Windows' backup tool is fittingly called File History. There are many ways to access the File History feature on Windows 11 . From File History , simply locate your file and restore a previous version.

To use File History, you need to have it enabled beforehand. Otherwise, you won't be able to restore an older version of the PowerPoint file. However, now's a good time to enable File History to prevent future mishaps.

Alternatively, locate the troublesome presentation directly from your File Explorer window. Right-click the file and select Show more options > Restore previous versions . If there is an older version listed, go ahead and restore it.

The Time Machine feature can be your best friend if you're using a Mac. Apple's support page recommends first opening the folder containing the file you'd like to restore in Finder. Then you can use Launchpad to open Time Machine and select the presentation. If there is a backup, there will be an option to Restore it.

4 Download or Move the File Location

A PowerPoint presentation stored in a synchronized, cloud-based folder or a temporary file system could also cause content errors. If you received the presentation by email, for instance, try to download the file again. Ensure it's in your local Downloads folder, on your Desktop, or in a specified folder related to your project.

If you work with a synchronized folder system like Google's Drive for Desktop , you can try copying the .ppt or .pptx file from that cloud folder to your local drive. Then, try opening the presentation again.

5 Open and Export From Another Program

Sometimes, if a .ppt or .pptx file does not open in PowerPoint, it will open in another similar program. Because apps like Keynote and Google Slides are equipped to import PowerPoint files, try to open your finicky presentation in one of those programs.

Here is how to open a PowerPoint file in Google Slides , a browser platform available on any operating system:

• Log in to Google Drive and select New > Google Slides .
• Select File > Open and navigate to the Upload tab.
• Browse to or drag in your PowerPoint file, and Google will convert and open it as a Google Slides presentation.
• From here, feel free to continue your work in Google Slides. Otherwise, re-export it for use in PowerPoint by selecting File > Download > Microsoft PowerPoint (.pptx) .

If you use a Mac, you can also use the Keynote app to open a PowerPoint file, and the steps are very similar.

6 Update Microsoft 365

Lastly, Microsoft 365 apps don’t always work properly if you haven’t updated them in a while. In this case, you should update Microsoft 365 to the latest version available. Depending on your operating system, there are a couple of different ways to do this.

On Windows, launch any Microsoft 365 app and select Account from the left-side panel. There, click on Microsoft 365 and Office Updates menu and select Update now .

If something goes wrong during the update process, see how to fix Microsoft 365 error code 30015-26 .

On Mac, it's just as easy. Again, open a Microsoft 365 app and click on Help > Check for Updates . This will launch an update if there is one available. To save time later, you may also choose to check the box to Automatically keep Microsoft apps up to date .

Hopefully, the solutions above helped you fix the “PowerPoint found a problem with the content” error. Most of the time, you have to move the file out of a synchronized folder or fix a corrupted file. Now, the hard work begins in making an engaging PowerPoint presentation for your peers!

• Productivity
• Microsoft PowerPoint
• Troubleshooting

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• Presentations
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18+ Best PowerPoint SlideShare Presentation Examples (For 2024)

SlideShare is a great tool to promote your business. Also, you can reach your target market with your amazing PowerPoint presentations. Plus, your audience can review your information at their own leisure through the SlideShare platform.

In this article, you'll learn all about SlideShare: 

• We'll explain what SlideShare is and describe what makes a good SlideShare presentation. 
• We'll also provide you with some top SlideShare presentation examples for inspiration. 
• Next, we'll briefly touch on how to make SlideShare presentations. 
• Finally, we'll discuss the importance of using templates to create powerful PowerPoint presentations.

If you're creating a presentation for SlideShare. Then consider using a PowerPoint template from Envato Elements or GraphicRiver .

Guide to Making Great Presentations (Free eBook Download)

Before you read on, grab our free eBook: The Complete Guide to Making Great Presentations . It'll help you master the presentation process, from: initial idea, through to writing, design, and delivering with impact.

Now let's learn more about what SlideShare is, and dive into some great presentation examples with helpful tips:

What Is SlideShare?

If you're not familiar with SlideShare, you may wonder what it is and how it can help your business.

SlideShare is a platform that lets users share slide presentations online. Presentations can be shared publicly, or the share can be limited to a private group. Since SlideShare presentations are viewed online, they can be considered a form of online content. As such, they've got some things in common with other types of online content.

SlideShare was founded in 2006. According to SlideShare's own About page , the website ranks within the top 100 most-visited sites and has over 80 million users. The popularity of SlideShare gives you a chance to reach a lot of potential clients when you use it to share your presentations.

What Makes a Great SlideShare Presentation?

As discussed earlier, SlideShare presentations can be considered a form of online content. As such, they've got much in common with other forms of online content. Perhaps the most notable common factor is that you've got seconds to attract a viewer's attention before they move on to other online content.

So, you may be wondering, what makes a SlideShare presentation great? Why do some SlideShare presentations attract thousands of views while others are skipped over and fail to become popular?

Let's look at some of the most popular SlideShare presentations of all time and see if you notice any patterns or similarities between them?

Of course, there's more than one factor that contributes to a good SlideShare presentation. But here are six of the most important factors that many great SlideShare presentations share:

• Great cover image . This may be one of the most important factors on the list. If your cover slide doesn't draw your audience in, there's little chance that they'll stick around to view the entire slideshow. A compelling cover image is an important part of a compelling cover slide.
• Covers an interesting topic . It may not seem fair, but the topic of a slideshow plays a large part in whether it reaches an audience. The more interesting the topic, the more likely it is to reach its audience. If your SlideShare topic seems dull, figure out a way to make it more interesting.
• Tells a compelling story. It's no secret that we humans love a good story. If your SlideShare is interesting enough, you've increased the odds that readers will stick around long enough to find out how it ends. Don't be afraid to share your company's story.
• Uses clear slide designs. There's good design and there's bad design. Good slide design enhances a slideshow without calling attention to itself. Bad slide design distracts from your message. Bad design is obvious—even to viewers without any design training at all. Good design is often less obvious.
• Reaches a target audience. Not everyone is your potential client. A good SlideShare developer knows exactly who they're addressing. They'll customize your presentation through effective use of design, language, and other means. So that it's optimized for the target audience you're aiming at.
• Hits a marketing goal . A great SlideShare presentation is also an effective SlideShare presentation. That's why nearly every presentation that hits a marketing goal includes one or more of the factors listed above.

For a more in-depth discussion of what makes a great SlideShare presentation, review Eugene Cheng's helpful slideshow, SlideShare Experts Presentation Design Secrets From 7 Experts .

Note: Cheng's slideshow is also a good example of an effective SlideShare.

The Best PowerPoint SlideShare Presentation Examples (+Killer Tips)

There's nothing like a good example to illustrate a point. Here are 14 recent examples of some of the best PowerPoint SlideShare presentations we've seen with this article. I'll include an image and a link to each SlideShare. After each presentation example, I'll briefly explain a few of the factors that make that SlideShare so effective.

In no particular order, let's look at some of the best SlideShare presentations out there, with easy to follow tips included:

1. Use an Engaging Cover Design

If a cover slide catches your attention, chances are good that you're going to explore the rest of the SlideShare. That's exactly what happens with this slideshow from Patrick Stahler of FluidMinds.

Look at the rocket on this presentation's cover slide. Not only does the rocket ship catch your eye, but there's a symbolic meaning there as well. The rocket could mean many things ranging from exploration to soaring success.

Notice also that the cover slide heading is both scannable and concise. The use of highly readable headings and text are consistent throughout the entire presentation.

2. Tell a Compelling Story

When you see the caped figure on the cover slide of this SlideShare presentation  from High Spark | Visual Storytelling Agency , your first reaction might be how does this superhero relate to storytelling? You'll want to click through to find the answer.

The SlideShare doesn't disappoint. It takes you through some popular superhero characters and explains why we find them so interesting. Here's an example of some of the storytelling in this presentation:

The picture here tells the story of two humans having a friendly discussion. They're definitely NOT robots.

Note: The characters in the above presentation belong to DC Comics.

3. Use Questions to Draw People In

You may think that a cover slide has to have an image to be compelling. Think again.

This top SlideShare presentation  from Tim O'Reilly of O'Reilly Media starts with the three-letter question, WTF? Those three letters against a stark black background are enough to engage the reader. Inquiring minds want to know ... WTF?

The presentation goes on to answer the question of the title slide with a series of predictions about the future. The mood of the presentation is set by the title slide's dark background and is carried throughout the entire slideshow.

4. Good Design Makes a Difference

A good design should enhance a presentation, not distract from it. That's exactly how design is used in this SlideShare presentation  from DesignMantic . While the design is attractive, it's not busy. Nor does it compete with the message.

One of my favorite slides in this presentation is this one, where the dots in the slide design are echoed by the round frame around the photo image:

The elegant design worked well. Of all the SlideShare presentations featured in this list, this one had the most views.

5. Add the Human Factor

It's been shown that people are drawn to photos of other people. Wrike makes good use of this principle with this great SlideShare . Nearly every slide in this presentation features a photo of one or more people, usually interacting in a work environment.

For example, who wouldn't want to be part of this fun workgroup?

This looks more like a group of friends at a coffee shop than a business team hard at work. But that's exactly the point.

6. Cover an Interesting Topic

Nearly everyone wants to become more productive. No doubt the authors of this SlideShare on Productivity Secrets  from Officevibe knew this when they created this presentation about productivity secrets.

It's full of solutions to common productivity problems such as problems like email overload and time management . Since these are popular obstacles that many people must overcome, most people will click through to find the answers .

7. Icons Can Be Effective

Incorporating icons into your slideshow design can add interest. In this presentation from Yuan Wang of Studio Ninja, colored icons are used  to add interest and not overpower the design or the presentation.

This slide is just one example of the effective use of icons throughout this top SlideShare presentation:

8. Reverse Psychology Works

The cover of this interesting  SlideShare presentation  from Stinson is compelling because it uses reverse psychology. Instead of talking about 10 things you need to do to create an effective presentation, it talks about "10 Things Your Audience Hates..."

Immediately, the reader is hooked. They wonder, "Am I doing any of these things?" If they're part of the target audience for this slideshow, they'll click through to find out.

9. Talk About a Common Problem

Who hasn't faced a difficult conversation in a work environment? The answer is ... probably no one.

Sooner or later most of us will find ourselves in a difficult conversation. But that's what makes this SlideShare topic on Mastering Difficult Conversations so interesting to a broad group of people.

The common problem addressed by Piktochart on  this interesting topic with this SlideShare.

10. Share Statistics Effectively

This  SlideShare presentation  from Rand Fishkin of MOZ is about Google. There are an awful lot of people interested in what Google does. That interest in Google alone is enough to attract a lot of viewers to this SlideShare.

But this SlideShare is also about statistics. Statistics can be hard to share effectively. Fortunately, the SlideShare author makes effective use of charts to illustrate the data visually. Look at the sample slide below:

The slideshow could have buried these statistics in text paragraphs. But instead, we've got this attractive and very scannable chart.

11. Keep It Simple

Often the best slides in a presentation convey a single thought. That's certainly the case with this effective SlideShare from Loic Le Meur . 

Nearly every slide in this presentation represents a single idea—sometimes with a phrase and sometimes with a photo. 

But those ideas really pack a punch. A reader can see at glance the message that the author is trying to convey.

12. Don't Be Afraid of Color

It's risky, but the use of bright colors can make your presentation stand out from the rest. That's certainly the case with this colorful SlideShare presentation from Weekdone.com .

Look at the pink and purple in this slide about motivation:

It's colorful, but it works.

As a bonus, the entire SlideShare is only 14 slides long. The brevity means the audience is more likely to view the entire presentation.

13. Embrace Minimal Design

This SlideShare presentation  from Bonusly proves that less is more with its minimalist design. Each slide focuses on a single concept. It uses short sentences and paragraphs, often without an image. Yet, it works.

The next time you're tempted to overstuff a slideshow with graphics, photos, and text remember this simple presentation and don't do it.

14. Design Consistency Counts

This  SlideShare presentation by Barry Feldman starts with an elegant design that makes good use of graphic elements to add visual interest. The design shapes are echoed throughout the entire presentation in various colors.

In fact, the design element is so strong that no photos are needed. And, except for the cover slide, Barry doesn't use any.

This slide illustrates how effective a simple design can be:

15. Always Add a CTA

Make the most out of your SlideShare by including a call to action on the last slide. Let the audience know what you want them to do, whether that’s visiting a related article on your blog, downloading a free report, or booking a call. Be sure that the call to action is directly related to the topic of the SlideShare itself to make it even more effective.

Consider how HubSpot incorporates a call to action on the last slide of their SlideShare about calls-to-action . If you’re currently trying to improve your call to actions and are viewing this SlideShare, chances are you'll be more than interested in downloading their book to learn more about effective CTAs.

16. Make It Clear

A lot of SlideShare presentations are uploaded as an afterthought once the webinar or oral presentation is done and in the past. But, by doing so, you leave out a lot of the context and wind up with a SlideShare that makes very little sense.

If you want your SlideShare to be as effective as possible, you need to make it clear. You want even people who haven't attended your presentation to still understand the topic and the context. Look at how Rand Fishkin makes it easy to understand the SlideShare about content marketing by making the entire presentation look like a comic book.

17. Tease the Content

Keep the users engaged with your SlideShare by teasing the content. This also encourages them to click through to the next slide and the next slide… all the way to the end.

Mark Schaefer , in his SlideShare about social media engagement , does an excellent job of giving you just enough content to pique your interest. Schaefer also teases what’s to come, which just begs you to keep on clicking through the slides.

18. Don’t Underestimate the Power of Images

Aside from icons, you can make your SlideShare more interesting and visually appealing by using quality images and photos. It’s a well-known fact that images help us tell a story, not to mention we absorb information better when it’s visual so use that to your advantage.

Donna Moritz uses eye-catching images to add extra visual appeal to her SlideShare about different ways to stand out on the platform .

19. Learn From SlideShare Itself

An example of what they've got to offer is the SlideShare about different ideas for what to upload on SlideShare  to get views on your presentation.

How to Quickly Make Your SlideShare Presentation

Feeling inspired by all those great SlideShare presentations?

Use SlideShare to share your own presentations to a wider audience. Here's what you'll need:

• Internet connection . SlideShare operates through the Internet.
• LinkedIn account. SlideShare is owned by LinkedIn. You'll need to log in to LinkedIn before you can share.
• A great presentation. SlideShare supports PowerPoint, PDF, and document formats. Learn more at SlideShare Help .

Once you're online, logged in, and have selected your presentation, you're ready to download it. To start, click the orange Upload button in the upper right corner of SlideShare:

The Upload File screen displays:

Upload your presentation, and you've done it! You've just created your first SlideShare.

Learn How to Make Your SlideShare PPT Presentation Design in PowerPoint

Do you need more help creating a SlideShare-worthy presentation in PowerPoint? No worries. We've got you covered with a comprehensive series of tutorials on the subject.

Jump into these helpful PowerPoint and SlideShare tutorials to get stared: 

You can also find more information about creating a presentation in our new eBook on making great presentations . Grab this PDF Download now for FREE with your subscription to the Tuts+ Business Newsletter:

Or, look at this SlideShare case study from Board of Innovation , which is on “ How I got 2.5 Million views on SlideShare .” This SlideShare presentation has been viewed over 2.5 million times and author Nick Demey is telling how he did it.

Note : This SlideShare is also another example of an effective presentation.

There's one more step you can take to make your presentation great. Let's take a closer look at PowerPoint presentation template design.

Make Great SlideShares Quickly With PPT Presentation Templates

PPT presentation templates are an effective way to ensure that your SlideShare is well-designed. And, as we've discussed above, good design is one of the hallmarks of a great SlideShare PPT presentation.

Using a template gives you a proven design from a professional designer for making your slideshow project. Plus, it can save you from the headache of having to create your own presentation design from scratch if you're not a designer. 

Take a look at some of this year's best PowerPoint designs from Envato Elements:

You'll find even more great presentation template designs at  GraphicRiver or Envato Elements . Learn how to customize PPT templates quickly to fit your presentation design needs. Get started with using PowerPoint's toolset: 

The Best Source for PowerPoint SlideShare Presentation Templates (With Unlimited Use)

You've just learned how to make a good PowerPoint presentation SlideShare. Here's another tool you can use to make your SlideShare PowerPoints great.

Envato Elements is a subscription service where you get access to unlimited digital elements. All you need to do is pay a low monthly fee to become a member.

Envato Elements has hundreds of PowerPoint template that professionals make to look stylish. This subscription service has more than PowerPoint templates. It includes:

• stock images

Explore Envato Elements Now

Envato Elements is a great deal if you work with digital elements or need to make SlideShare presentations often. Since you've got unlimited downloads, you can download a template. And if it doesn’t suit your current project, you can download a new template. It’s that easy!

Free templates aren’t as stylish and are often less attractive than premium templates. Premium templates still allow you to be creative while starting with an attractive template.

5 Top PowerPoint SlideShare from Envato Elements in 2024

Here are some of the top PowerPoint SlideShare templates from Envato Elements:

1. Business Plan PowerPoint Template

The business Plan PowerPoint template can be used as a SlideShare presentation and is fully editable. This template comes with ten color scheme options and 700 slides. The Business Plan PowerPoint template comes with a picture placeholder, making it easier to add an image of your choice.

2. Oriola: Business PowerPoint Template

This SlideShare PPT comes with 100 unique and editable slides. Here are some key features of this template:

• two theme variations
• picture placeholders

This template is an excellent option if you’re looking for a clean business PowerPoint template with a simple design.

3. Business Consulting PowerPoint Template

The Business Consulting PowerPoint Template can be used as a SlideShare presentation. This template has 1,200 total slides with 30 unique slides. Also, you can choose from five different color schemes. If you're looking for a business-themed template with infographics, this is a great choice.  

4. PowerPoint Business Presentation Template

PowerPoint Business Presentation Template is a multi-purpose SlideShare PowerPoint template. Here are some highlights of this template:

• total of 38 slides
• all graphics are resizable
• comes with picture placeholders
• includes infographics and graphs

This template is great if you’re looking for a professional business template with a pop of color.

5. Narrow PowerPoint Business Presentation

Narrow PowerPoint Business Presentation is a modern and clean premium template. This SlideShare PowerPoint template comes with over 50 unique slides. Also included in the Narrow PowerPoint Business Presentation is over 100 icons. Easily drag and drop an image of your choice into the picture placeholders.

Use PowerPoint + SlideShare & the Power of the Internet

Use SlideShare and the power of the Internet to reach a much larger audience for your presentation than you normally would. It's not difficult to learn to use SlideShare to showcase your best PowerPoint presentation and reach a wider audience if you know what to do.

The SlideShare presentation examples in this article may seem intimidating at first. But if you take a closer look at what each SlideShare author has done to make their slideshow effective, you'll see that an effective SlideShare isn't beyond your reach.

Turn to this article for inspiration in creating your own PowerPoint presentation for SlideShare. And don't forget to use a template when creating your presentation to save time and for a better design . 

Are you ready? Get started on your own SlideShare today.

Editorial Note: This post was originally published in August of 2017. It's been comprehensively revised to make current, accurate, and up to date—with special help from Brenda Barron and Sarah Joy . Brenda and Sarah are freelance instructors with Envato Tuts+.