How do you check your slides before a presentation?

Always get another person to proof your slides if possible. Working on them so long can make you blind to obvious errors such as a typo in a heading where you've used that style across several slides.

It is also important to remember that slides are an assistive tool. They should not be content heavy nor should be cluttered with material. The audience needs to pay attention to YOU, not the content on screen. Also, you should not be reading out anything from the slides. The slides are only meant to guide the flow of the presentation.

Excellent input given in the post! My check points are: First and foremost- 1. Synchronisation- Even a single space out of place is an eyesore for me. 2. Always check data and ensure source is indicated. 3. Spellings 4. Avoid fancy stuff and keep it simple so that people dont have to struggle to understand the slide.

If you don't have someone to proofread for you, try to leave some time between working on the deck and final deliverable and don't even open the PPT for at least one full day. This forces you to step away and come back with fresh eyes, making it easier to catch any mistakes or even to rephrase things / fix content

Prior to submitting the document for proofreading, give yourself a 24-hour break from the presentation. After that, review it on your own before passing it to your content writer for a final check.

When I'm working as a designer on a slide deck, the most common mistake I see is folks have made individual changes on each slide, instead of using the software's built-in templating and theming tools to control the design. For example, rather than editing the font on the slide layout template, they've changed the font manually on each individual slide. Taking the time to instead use the software's layout features will allow you to edit color choice, fonts, and layout for the entire deck with one click. Working this way is a massive time saver, makes editing your deck on the fly a much less daunting task, and makes cross-functional collaboration much smoother.

Avoid cognitive burden from the audience by making it "easy to follow". E.g. if in slide 1 you are using red in a chart to represent "X" and blue to represent "Y", stick to red for "X" through out your ppt and the same for blue for "Y". Its really hard to follow on a presentation when your brain has to keep adjusting on each slide, causing audiences to get frustrated and lose attention. Help them to stay engaged!

If you do not have design support for your slides, go back to the black and white format. Our eyes are tuned to reading black text on white backgrounds (like in books), and find immediate comfort in any material presented in that combination. There is only one thing which makes a good design, and that is 'balance'. Use consistent fonts, don't stretch anything out of proportion and do not use more than three colors.

One of the biggest mistakes people make while presenting data to an audience is to assume that charts alone would be enough to communicate insights to the audience. It is important to always include explainers and hints in your presentation to ensure that the audience picks the necessary message that you are trying to pass across

Don't assume people will correctly interpret a pretty graph. Get rid of unclear terminology and clearly show what any x and y axis or data segments represent. Explain the data by pointing out an example and how it relates to the presentation/training overall. Ideally, link to an engaging story of progress/challenge to bring the data to life.

For animations and transitions in PowerPoint make sure if you are switching platforms (between Mac & PC) from when you develop the presentation to when you give it, you double check them with the system you are using to present.

Try to keep consistency of style to avoid transitions becoming jarring. Sure change how bullet points arrive on the page for interest if you like, but keep it subtle. Don't start with a linear list and then have data swirling in fast on another slide in the range.

When it comes to animations and special effects, less is more. Only use them where absolutely relevant to highlight a point you want to make. It will be more impactful.

Always take a second opinion if you have added moving parts to your slides. We do not want the audience to be stuck in processing the movement on screen and stop paying attention to you. Animations and transitions can only add value to some subjects. Be sure of where you are adding movement and why.

remember that you can use speaker notes in most presentation tools to help put important reminders that In addition, get confident with presenter view. That will help in seeing the next slide so you can much easier let your story flow.

To take most presentations up a level, be sure you are speaking ahead of the majority of your slides. This means you start talking about a slide BEFORE showing it. You don't need to do this for every slide, but the more often you do it the more you are the leader of your presentation rather than just an audio track for a slideshow.

The last thing you want in a high-stakes presentation is bad lag or awkward pauses from load-time while mid-presentation. Whether you're presenting from the cloud or a local file, I find it can help to hop on whatever machine you're using to control the deck and quickly run through all the slides and let any animation play out before you actually go on to present. This can help the computer parse and load all the graphics and animations ahead of time.

Calculate at least 2 minutes per slide. If you have many slides for allocated time, select the ones with key messages into main body of presentation. Place slides with supporting info to back-up for Q&A round.

If you're not sure about the machine or service that's going to be implemented for the final deck, it may be safer to ditch your cool brand fonts in favor of a web-safe alternative. Something as simple as the font being changed from Helvetica to Arial because someone's laptop died five minutes before presenting can be a real wrench, and have a major impact to how your slides display and break text.

Stick to using generic fonts (e.g. Arial) that work on every type of machine. Special fonts need to be installed on each computer and if its not your whole presentation will lose its formatting

If using images of people, remember diversity. Animation is sometimes more inclusive than photographs and can use cartoon like skin tones such as pastel purple and green which can keep the focus away from representation and on to the point of the graphic e.g. teamwork.

Too often people design slides on laptops seated 18 inches from the screen. To check for readability, slide your laptop across the table and look at it from 5 or 6 feet away. This is a pretty good estimate for the way most rooms are set up in terms of screen size and audience distance. You need to be judging fonts and graphics based on how people will realistically see them not up closer and brighter the way a laptop is showing them to you.

It depends on how you deliver, but if you deliver with a big projection screen, check how your slides look on the big screen. Can people in the back of the room read you slides? Is everything visible or have you use some colours that fade away on the big screen?

When possible, script your presentation and read it out loud at least a couple of times, but don't actually use it on presentation day. You will feel more confident by having practiced what you want to say, but dropping the notes on the actual day will remove the pressure of sticking to a script or not reading it exactly as it was scripted. Instead bullet point with key words the things you want to make sure you mention / don't forget.

It is crucial to practice your presentation before the big day in front of an audience (if you can). You can also use the 'rehearse with coach' option in Microsoft PowerPoint to take your presentation for a spin and practice timing.