These are intended to be helpful notes on some of the many aspects of preparing successful slide presentation material.

Whilst there are many computer packages to choose from, the following guidelines apply to all.

Page set-up
When preparing a new presentation, make sure before you start that the page size is set to 35mm slide. If your package does not have this option, choose custom and enter a size of 11 x 7.33. A few packages take their page size from the printer driver that is current, you don't have any control over the page size, if this is the case simply make sure that your content is well away from the edges of the page. Hopefully this means you will not lose any content off the sides of the page. Always make slides in a landscape format, never mix landscape and portrait slides in a presentation.

Slide colouring
In order to produce slides which will project well and give effective presentation of your information we use dark backgrounds - dark blue, burgundy, dark green - with light text, charts and graphics such as white, yellow, cyan and bright green. This ensures the information 'jumps off the screen' at your audience. It also means that the screen will not glare, making it hard to look at for long periods. White background and black text would be very difficult to read and hurt the readers eyes.  Try to incorporate your company colours, for instance if your company colours are navy blue and scarlet make the background navy blue and the text white with red bullets.  Many packages have a set of templates which are ready to use, to save time. Make sure you choose one that applies to the guidelines above.  Above all make your colour scheme simple, do not try to incorporate too many colours, it will not help.

Do's and Don't 's
DO play around with some different colour schemes and layouts, you may be surprised at the combinations available to you.

DON'T try to put too much information on one slide. Two or three simple slides are much better than one complicated one. There is no need to write everything that you are going to say on the slide, condense it to a few bullet points which are easy to read. That way your audience are not trying to focus their attention on two things at once, they can concentrate on you and what you are saying.

DO incorporate your logo into your presentation, but, it is not necessary to put it onto each slide. Why not just have the logo on your introductory slide and maybe a slide at the end to finish.

DON'T make your type size too small. The simpler your text is, the larger you can make it. Although you may think it looks alright on the screen, bear in mind that you may be talking to a large audience using a small screen, in bad light conditions. Large, clear BOLD text will help overcome all of these.

DO spell check your presentation very carefully, it could be costly to spot a mistake after you have sent us your file. Rehearse and run through your talk on the screen to make sure you have covered everything you wanted to and that it is in the correct order.

DON'T place any content too near the edges. Work in the centre of the screen and leave 1cm border around the edge of the page. This prevents any data going off the edge of the page when the slide is mounted.

DO make graphics simple and easy to understand. If your audience are desperately trying to understand your graphic they are not concentrating on you!

DON'T leave things until the last minute! If you know you have to make a presentation, start planning it straight away. The more organised you are the better your presentation will be. It also means you have a chance to send us a sample slide, which we will produce free of charge, so that you can see if your colours are as expected.