If you really want to succeed with your presentation , the appropriate placement of elements on a slide is an important factor to comprehensibility. Put individual pieces of content in the right relationship to each other by consciously choosing their respective positions on the slides. To enable you to convey your message optimally to , your presentation should be structured as clearly as possible. Each slide should emphasize what you want to communicate. That’s why you shouldn’t leave anything to chance when it comes to content placement.
The viewer can tell relatively easily whether the presenter is telling him a compelling story by means of the slides, or whether the speaker simply squeezed all the information he had onto his slides somehow. The uniform alignment of text passages and objects such as images also immediately shows the viewer whether a professional was at work here or the arrangement was left to chance. In the latter case, the structure usually looks restless, chaotic and confusing for the viewer. On a well-designed slide, the audience can see at a glance the relationship between the elements depicted and the story they tell. I’ll give you a few simple tips to help you make your presentation better.
Tip 1: Establish relationship for successful placement
Establish a recognizable relationship between the individual elements of a slide. For example, if you want to use a graphic with an explanatory text, arrange the two objects to create a visual unit. Placing a graphic on the top left and a text passage on the bottom right, makes no sense. If you want to quote a person and add a portrait photo for illustration, then the quote and photo should form a unit.
Tip 2: A successful placement lives through repetition
If you use recurring elements in your presentation, such as graphics, they should also be placed in recurring positions. If you have inserted a graphic on the first slide in the upper right area of the slide, it makes sense to position further graphics on the following slides in the same place. This makes your presentation look more consistent, and it is easier for the reader to grasp the content quickly.
Empty areas should not be filled senselessly with elements. Think carefully about which objects on a slide convey the crucial information. Consistently leave out everything else! I may be repeating myself, but I like to say it again in this article: less is often more.
Tip 3: Your presentation program will help you with the correct placement.
To facilitate the correct placement and alignment of your slide elements, presentation programs have appropriate tools ready. Here are a few examples from PowerPoint:
Aligning an object with other objects
Hold down the SHIFT key, click the objects you want to align, and then click the Format tab.
On the Arrange function, go to the Align command. The objects can then be optimized with Align selected objects.
Aligning an object on the slide
Hold down the SHIFT key, click the objects you want to align, and then click the Format tab.
Under the Arrange function, go to Align, and then select Align to slide.
After that, under Arrange, go to Align, and click the alignment you want.
Enable aligning to a grid
Another help in aligning objects is the use of grid lines. This allows objects to be positioned precisely.
– In the View function, go to Guides, and then click Align to Grid.
Aligning objects by using static guide lines
Static guides can be used to facilitate the alignment of text fields and other objects.
In the View function, go to the Leader Lines area and click Static Leader Lines.
2. additional guidance lines can be added as required. While doing so, keep OPTION pressed. Then more guidance lines can be inserted.
You can see from these small examples that with very simple means, a significant improvement in the quality and your presentation can thus be achieved in your own persuasiveness. Buy a good manual and spend a few days learning the ropes. It’s time well spent that will benefit the quality of your slides. Your audience will notice the difference.
Dipl.-Wirtsch.-Informatiker Matthias Garten as the expert for multimedia presentations and professional PowerPoint presentations knows about the art of professional slide design. He is an entrepreneur, speaker (TOP 100 Speaker), trainer (TOP 100 Excellence Trainer), multiple book author, presentation coach (presentation training), member of the GSA and Club 55, organizer of the Presentation Conference, Presentation Bootcamp and Presentation Rocket Days. In addition to PowerPoint and presentation training, he inspires and advises companies to present themselves even more effectively and thus stand out from competitors. He is the business owner of the presentation and PowerPoint agency smavicon Best Business Presentations and with his team has created over 15,000 professional PowerPoint presentations for over 150 industries since 1993.
