Tips for Creating Handouts for PowerPoint Presentations
Including your creative PPT presentation design ideas to prepare innovative presentations along with using good handouts can help to reinforce the message by providing the audience with useful information. After the presentation, you may easily create handouts to distribute with the audience using PowerPoint. You may also export your presentation, including slides and notes, to Word for further formatting and editing. Preparing handouts for a corporate presentation has numerous advantages. Discover the advantages of handouts and get expert advice on how to use them in a presentation.
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Advantages of creating Handouts
A handout is usually provided at the end of a presentation for audience members to refer to later. Using handouts for a corporate presentation has several advantages.
1. Stay away from information overload
Presenters should avoid overloading their audiences with information. The audience will be overwhelmed with the information overload. The goal of a presentation is for the audience to understand, appreciate, and remember what they’ve seen.
Many of the presentations I’ve seen have been nothing more than a massive information dump. The slide show in one case had 234 slides, each of which was jam-packed with information. Everyone in the room quickly lost interest in the talk and began making plans to flee. Handouts are an excellent way to deliver additional information to your audience without enslaving them for 10 hours.
2. Maintain the flow of the presentation
The presenter might also benefit from handouts because they provide a roadmap for the presentation. Many presenters use their handouts as a guide to keep on track and avoid veering off-topic. Outlines also give the audience a sense of how long a presentation will last.
3. Remind the audience of the message's importance
An hour after a presentation, most audience members have forgotten the majority of what the presenter stated. Handouts are an excellent source of information follow-up and serve as fast reminders. During many of the seminars I attended, the presenter spoke too rapidly or too softly, and I missed crucial information. Having the handouts to refer to later in the day was encouraging.
4. Facilitates follow-up
If the presenter’s contact information is included on the handout, audience members can contact him or her afterward with any queries. You can rest assured that their queries will be answered if you provide a phone number or an email address.
5. Retains the audience's attention
If handouts are supplied, audience members can concentrate on the presentation material instead of taking notes. There is usually one person in the crowd who feels compelled to jot down everything the lecturer says during the lecture. They are incapable of comprehending any of the information. By providing handouts, audience members may relax, concentrate, and enjoy the presentation, knowing that they will have notes to refer to afterward.
Tips for creating handouts
1. Plan ahead of time to prepare your handouts
Don’t put off making your handout till the last minute. We’re most concerned with giving a good presentation and not embarrassing ourselves on stage, so we work on what you’re going to say and the slides, and then realise you need a handout 30 minutes before your presentation and scramble to throw something together. Handouts are far too critical to be left to the last minute.
2. Printing your slides isn't enough.
This is inefficient and ineffective. If you use bullet points (which is not encouraged), your slides will often be cut-down sentences that the viewer will no longer understand a week later. And, if they’re visual slides (which are highly encouraged), they’re unlikely to make sense without additional text. One of the simplest ways to create a handout when presenting with visual PowerPoint slides is to type the text of the handout in the “Notes” pane of the PowerPoint edit screen. Then, as “Notes,” print your slides. You’ll have a useful handout on your hands.
3. Make sure your handout corresponds to your presentation
A member of the audience should be able to link the handout to the presentation they just saw. This will happen organically if you use the Notes pane of PowerPoint as I indicated above because you’ll be guided by the graphics you’re utilising in the presentation. The title of your handout should be the same as the title of your presentation, and the structure should be the same so that audience members can readily access the information they need.
4. Make your handout standout
The handout could be distributed to folks who weren’t able to attend your presentation. Alternatively, an audience member may revisit it a year from now, when they’ve forgotten much of what you said. Check to see if it will make sense to them. Include brief credibility-establishing information about you for those who weren’t present.
5. References should be included
Include the sources in the handout if you’re mentioning research. Avoid cramming your presentation or slides with references in most cases (scientific presentations to a scientific audience being an exception). However, you should be able to add something like, “The reference for this research is in your handout.” Tell your audience where they may learn more: books, websites, blogs, and so on.
6. Make sure there is enough white space
Some people enjoy taking notes while listening to a presentation. Allow lots of white space (or even some blank pages at the back) for them to take notes on the handout and preserve all of the information connected to your presentation in one location.
7. Make your handout professional-looking.
The handout serves as a tangible remembrance of your talk. It’s also possible that it’ll be passed on to others who weren’t able to attend your presentation. As a result, it should improve people’s perceptions of you:
(i)Have it proofread by someone else.
(ii) Maintain a consistent appearance and feel with your brand (this may include a logo and colors).
Final Words
However, most of us concentrate on what will happen during the presentation rather than what will happen following. Your presentation handout is a tangible representation of your presentation that will stay a long time. If you need some assistance in creating more appealing and attractive presentations with creative PPT presentation design ideas or want to add more personalization to your presentations, such as a customised cover, full-page charts, or customised infographics, don’t hesitate to contact Visual Spiders about our Powerpoint Presentation services.
