Presentations - first and last slides

Page history last edited by PBworks 17 years, 11 months ago

The first and last slides

Wherever possible use a title slide for the start – and remove any automatic advance so that it can be displayed and sit on the screen for as long as it takes for people to arrive, settle down etc. It need only contain a title – you will usually be introducing what it’s all about yourself. If you want to provide more information about the content for people viewing it without you around (eg for students who missed the session) then do so either in the Notes or on the next slide.

PowerPoint will recognise a Title slide and apply suitable changes to it when design changes are made to take account of the different position of the text areas to the other slides.

At the end of a presentation, clicking on the final slide will produce a big black area with instructions how to exit the slide show – not something you’ll really want your audience to see. A solution to this is to duplicate the last slide so that if you do click the big black mass doesn’t appear that time. You should also remove any automatic advance timing from the last slide (unless it is a continuous display that will start at the beginning again).

Exactly what you put on the last slide is up to you but the sort of things that work well are simple contact details and/or a reminder of a link or two for more information, a big question or conclusion (where you have arrived at one) that will stay in people’s minds for a while afterwards, a lead-in to an activity that you may have planned with instructions how to access papers or what you want them to do next or the big, interesting picture or joke to leave them with a strong impression or laughing or both.

One idea that seems to work well is the image to which you add speech bubbles. With the right image and text this can be effective. The image will work best if it is either placed on a blank slide (without a heading) or added as a background (if the proportions are OK) and, of course, it has to be large enough to be displayed crisply with no fuzzy bits.

To add a speech bubble use the AutoShapes button on the Drawing Toolbar. If that isn’t displayed, get it from View | Toolbars > Drawing

Click on AutoShapes.

In Callouts, there are several options – one of the top row will be best – click the one you want to use and move the mouse back to where you want to draw the speech or thought bubble. The cursor should have changed to a cross. Click on the slide and keep the left mouse button held down, dragging away to the right and down to expand the area. Let go of the mouse button and there will be an area into which you can type. The area can be stretched or reduced by dragging any of the small ‘handles’ at the edges or corners. The text font can be changed in the normal way by selecting it and using Format | Font. The background colour for the bubble will be whatever your computer has set as its default – often a ghastly green. To change that (white works best), click on the edge of the Callout to select it and click on the little arrow next to the paintpot on the Drawing toolbar.

This will offer you a selection of backgrounds for the Callout. Click on what you’d like and it will be applied. Choosing No Fill or None will make the Callout transparent which can be useful sometimes.

You may also want to get rid of the line around the Callout. Options for Line colour (you’ll want None) are accessible via the little arrow next to the paintbrush icon in the same toolbar.

The speech can be made to appear to come from particular people by selecting the Callout and dragging the yellow dot at the end of the extended part of the Callout. You may need to move the whole thing first. Do that by dragging on the fuzzy edge of the Callout when selected.