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Jump to table of contentsThis chapter discusses the standards for presentations. The typical software for presentations given by Collective Technologies members -- marketing, recruiting, sales, and technical alike -- is Microsoft PowerPoint. However, it is occasionally necessary to use other tools, including FrameMaker or even troff.
At Collective Technologies, there are seven (7) PowerPoint presentation templates to choose from:
The background of a presentation should never distract from the import of the content.
For presentations being displayed via direct computer display, the background should be a dark color, such as navy blue or black, with light-colored text, such as yellow or white.
For presentations being displayed via overhead projection of transparencies, the background should be transparent, or clear, with dark text, such as black or navy blue.
For presentations being presented from hardcopy, the background should be white and the text should be dark, such as black or navy blue.
Handouts of presentations should similarly be dark text on a solid white background.
The page title should be short and concise. Throughout the presentation, titles should be constructed similarly. For example, if you have slides called "Installing the software" and "Configuring the software," another slide should not be called "Use of the software." Use parallel construction of the titles; in this case, Installing and Configuring and Using.
Each slide should have a unique title. Where necessary, however, you may reuse a title and append "(continued)" to it.
The page (slide) title should appear in no smaller than a 28-point font. A 36-point font size is better. The title can be in either a serif font face, such as Times, or a sans serif font face, such as Arial Black. Be consistent throughout the entire presentation in the typeface and size of the titles.
Unlike text in documentation, text in presentations should be short and concise and not necessarily in complete sentences. Often a slide contains a short bullet list of terms or concepts or other items which the speaker intends to elaborate. You should therefore only use bullet lists, not sentences (and especially not paragraphs), in your presentations.
For first-level bullets, use an initial capital letter. Even though the bullet item may not be a complete sentence (and frequently is no more than one or two words), provide a leading capital letter to help differentiate the item from the bullet.
For the bullets on a single page use parallel constructions. If one bullet starts with a verb ("Using"), all bullets should start with verbs. If some bullet items are complex, such as consisting of a term and an em dash and then the definition, all bullet items should be complex. The visual layout should be similar.
The text for a first-level bullet should be no smaller than a 24-point font. The text should be in a serif font, such as Times New Roman, to improve chances of legibility over the longer distances between the screen and the reader.
The bullet itself should be a solid or filled round disc. Do not try to be cute and use different bullet items unless there is a compelling reason for doing so.
For second-level bullets, do not use initial capital letters. Since first-level bullets do use leading capitalization, providing visual contrast by omitting capital letters on the second-level bullets helps the reader.
Just as with first-level bullets use parallel constructions in second-level bullets.
Second-level bullets should never be complex. They should contain short phrases, terms, or acronyms only.
The text for a second-level bullet should be no smaller than an 18-point font. The text should be in a serif font, such as Times New Roman, to improve chances of legibility over the longer distances between the screen and the reader. The font face should be the same as with the first-level bullet.
The bullet itself should be either an en dash or a hollow round disc to look markedly different from a first-level bullet and yet still obviously be a bullet. Do not try to be cute and use different bullet items unless there is a compelling reason for doing so.
Avoid using third-level bullets in presentations. While three levels are appropriate for technical documentation, using them in presentations is inappropriate.
Although black and white is most legible, colors can improve meaning and functionality, provided that you don't use more than 3 or 4 distinct colors. Additional colors will impede reading speed. Make sure the colors work with your display. Also, remember that colors may appear in grayscale or not print on all black and white printers.
Consider the following:
Do not rely on a color only to convey a particular distinction; color associations may vary culturally. Refer to Table 5 for common psychological associations with color.
Table 5
Psychological associations with color
Color Psychological associations Red Stop, danger, fire, anger, warmth, passion, excitement, negative cash balance Blue Police, navy, water, coolness, sky, serenity, fidelity Green Go, growth, trees, country spring, restfulness, youth, freshness, money Yellow Caution, sunlight, cheerfulness, heat, life, light White Hospitals, sterile, purity, innocence, peace, calm Gray Somberness, dignity, quietness, age, wisdom, gravity
There are currently two interrelated color palettes in use for Collective Technologies' marketing documentation, referred to here as the major color palette and the minor color palette.
The major color palette is the color scheme of the SPECTRA services poster. The primary colors are green and orange, with spikes of other colors by service type as shown in Table 6.
Table 6
SPECTRA service color codes
Service offering Color Pantone Code Strategy Red Red Planning Orange Orange Evaluation and selection Yellow Yellow Classification and organization Green Green Transition and implementation Cyan Cyan Recurring operations Blue Blue Audit Violet Purple
The minor color palette is based on the colors used in the Collective Technologies logo: Navy blue (Pantone code 288 CVC) and yellow (Pantone code 124 CVC).
The use of graphics within a presentation depends strongly on the intended audience. Presentations that reference specific hardware may require pictures to illustrate given points, and some presentations may require figures or graphs. However, some material does not require graphics to illustrate a point or to draw attention to some piece of information.
If your presentation requires graphics, please follow these general guidelines:
Microsoft PowerPoint provides the ability to animate slides, gradually displaying the content within a single slide, by transitioning from one slide to another, or both. Both techniques can be used in Collective Technologies presentations, but do not overuse them.
Animation within a slide is useful for emphasizing certain points graphically. Good examples of this technique are evident in the Hiring Event presentations, such as the page where client logos appear every few seconds and the page where we see the growth of the market for systems and network administrators. However, do not animate your presentation simply for the "coolness" factor. Only animate presentations where that animation is essential for the point being made.
Animated transitions help break up the boredom of longer presentations and should only be used within a presentation where the subject is changing. For example, in a presentation that discusses compensation, benefits, and profit sharing, the transitions between the three major sections may be animated. Transitions between slides within a single section should not be animated.
Animations are optional and used at the discretion of the writer and presenter. Animations may be safely omitted from presentations.
Presentations generally are in landscape format (wider than it is tall). However, some material may be presented best in portrait format (taller than it is wide). Adapt the page layout rules discussed here as appropriate for your presentation.
The cover page should simply contain three elements:
It should be in the same orientation-either landscape (the default) or portrait-as the body pages in the presentation. If the presentation uses mixed-format layouts, the cover page should be in the same orientation as the majority of the body pages.
The body page of a presentation slide can be formatted in either one or two columns. The specific formatting information is in the subsequent sections.
The following guidelines are for single-column body pages:
In addition to the general guidelines for single-column body pages, discussed above, double-column body pages have the following formatting guidelines:
In general you should use only one orientation for your entire presentation. However, it is occasionally necessary to provide information that does not fit on a single slide without rotating the page. In that event you may rotate the page 90 degrees counterclockwise, changing its orientation from landscape to portrait (or vice versa).
When possible, such as with handouts, the page headers and footers should not be rotated but should remain in their normal positions. For example, in an otherwise landscape presentation, the one portrait data page would have landscape-based header and footer but the text would be oriented in a portrait block. Or perhaps another way to think of it is that the header and footer would be on the left and right instead of on the top and bottom.
It may be necessary to save a PowerPoint presentation to html or XML so it can be accessed as a web-based document. Microsoft provides a built-in PowerPoint-to-html converter that steps you through a few windows and generates the html pages with one big image per slide, navigation buttons, and a table of contents.
The settings you should use to save a PowerPoint presentation to html are:
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