How To Survive PowerPoint

Powerpoint sets you up for failure. Everything about it tempts you to make bad decisions. Its too easy to just type away and fill your slide with block paragraphs of text. Not to mention that 'add slide' button. It's easy to get carried away with the slides. Before your know it you have fifty slides. And why bother making your slides colored when they automatically show up in white? When you're in a hurry or you can't think of a good way to put together your presentation, your presentation can turn into the most boring event of the day. Here is a list of the top ten things you should avoid doing with powerpoint to ensure your presentation isn't awful.

1. Paragraphs: when you write a short novel on each slide, nobody bothers to read anymore. 
2. White slides: nothing makes your audience go crazy faster than plain white slides. Dress them up.
3. Ridiculous graphs: if the graphs are overly complicated, nobody will know what you're talking about. 
4. Tiny text: use large fonts and graphics so everyone in the room can see. 
5. Animation frenzy: if every slide has three of four animations that eat up time, you look unprofessional and you waste time. 
6. Neon colors: use color, but don't give your audience a headache. Use easy-to-read colors. 
7. Too many slides: you should talk more than you switch slides. The maximum is usually 1 slide for every 5 minutes of talking, at least. 
8. No pictures: just a small clipart in the slide that relates to your topic will dress up the slide and reinforce your message. 
9. Nothing but YouTube: once you learn how to embed videos, it's tempting to go video crazy. Don't.
10. Be professional: don't try to be funny when you shouldn't, keep everything on topic, and don't throw in personal tidbits unrelated to your presentation.