If only there were time to rehearse every presentation. For a start you'd know how many bullets there were on each screen. If you've experienced that dangling in mid-air feeling as the screen flicks unexpectedly to the next topic, here's a simple cure.
Maybe we all rely too much on bullet points but, right or wrong, there are times when we struggle to remember how many points should appear on each screen. Rehearsal may be the answer, but there's so rarely enough time to do this properly that you'd be tempted to look on it as cheating.
What we need is a simple method of knowing when the screen's about to change.
Some people try adding a full stop or an underline to the last bullet point. This does the job, but it looks a little strange to the audience. It also works only for bullet points - if you're doing a graphic build you're on your own.
We usually add a small, unobtrusive detail that appears with the last item of the screen build. It might be an extra line in one corner, a small square that changes colour or just about anything. The important point is that you notice it and your audience doesn't.
Here's the last-but-one bullet point for one of Inkfish's slides. Look closely at the bottom right hand corner. You'll see that it has a small curve, as have the other three corners.
When we add the last bullet, the bottom right hand corner becomes squared off. The audience has never yet noticed this, but the presenter knows it's time to wrap up the topic for this screen.
The debate is unlikely ever to end. Should the text appear all at once, or should you advance one bullet at a time? One rationale for the all-at-once approach is that it speeds up the presentation. Beware of this - it suggests the presentation is driving you, not the other way around.
In fact it shouldn't really be a difficult decision. Think about how you're going to present the screen: if you're going to talk around all the points at once, by all means bring them on together. But if you want to expand each point in turn, go for the one point at a time build; if you don't, your audience is sure to become restless and read ahead.
When it comes to text animation, less is definitely more. PowerPoint offers a vast range of animations, some of which even feature sound effects. It's horribly tempting to show your technological prowess by using nearly all of them. It's about as impressive as that bloke in the lowered big-bore Citroen Saxo whose stereo you had to listen to at the traffic lights this morning (If you are the bloke in the Citroen Saxo, don't call us, we probably wouldn't get on).
Simple fades, a faded zoom or a wipe smooth your presentation without annoying your audience. Keep it simple and it'll all flow so much better.
If we're producing the presentation for you then you don't need to do anything. Just let us know that you'd like an end of slide marker and it'll be set up for you. If you go for an editable presentation then you'll find that the system's intelligent enough to add the marker automatically at the right moment.
But if you're doing it yourself in PowerPoint, here's how to do it.
We recommend working with the master template wherever possible - in fact as a general rule, the fewer changes you make to individual slides, the easier it'll be to maintain your presentation. Microsoft has made matters much easier (if somewhat more complex) in PowerPoint 2007 by allowing you to create multiple versions of the master layouts.
In PowerPoint 2007, you reach the Slide Master by clicking Views and then selecting the Slide Master icon in the top panel.
Now you need to decide what you want to use as an end of slide marker. In this case we're using a small dotted circle. This is on the Insert tab of PowerPoint 2007, under the Shapes drop-down.
Use the arrange tools to set the marker where and how you want it.
Now you set the animation so that the marker appears at the right moment. Click the Animations tab at the top of the screen and click the Custom Animations button. A panel appears at the right hand side of the screen.
If you haven't already set effects for your text, click the main text box and then select the Add Effect button in the animation panel.
You need to set your text to appear by paragraphs rather than all at once. This is the default behaviour so usually you won't need to do anything here, but if your text is appearing as a block, look in the Effect Options, which you reach from the drop-down in the animation panel.
Now simply select your marker and click the Add Effect button. Choose Appear and set the animation to occur After Previous.
All done! Now whenever you add a new bullet point screen, your end of slide marker will appear immediately after the last bullet point.