When you heard that you will be in charged in next week's corporate meeting, you immediately jumped right into your PC and opened up Microsoft's Powerpoint. For you, that's the most logical thing to do, since the program has been dependable in coming up with excellent reports and presentations. Unfortunately, you heard the bad news right after the meeting. Not a lot of people liked it-and you don't why.

Perhaps it's high time that you assess the Powerpoint presentation that you have been making. There are actually too many people-perhaps including you-who are not aware of the common mistakes in Powerpoint presentations. You could be doing the following, which, in turn, means that your work is not as impressive or worse a downright failure.

Top Mistakes in Powerpoint Presentations

1. You have chosen the wrong Powerpoint templates. You may think that content is still king when it comes to Powerpoint presentations. Though you're right, you also need to pay attention to the nitty-gritty details, including the Powerpoint templates that you're going to use. After all, you can make use of them to emphasize the message that you want to convey. Thus, if you're asked to present in a construction convention, you may want to stay away from Powerpoint templates with religious or fantasy themes. On the other hand, if your Powerpoint presentation will be for general use such as a corporate meeting, stick with plain-colored ones.

2. They can't read anything. Just because the audience are not saying anything, it doesn't mean that there's nothing wrong with your Powerpoint presentation. Who knows, a lot of them may just be figuring out what you've written, simply because they can't read a single thing. There are a lot of reasons for this. First, your font size may just be too small or the font may be too complicated that they can't figure out what you've written. It could also be that the font that you have utilized is not actually found in their own PCs, and thus, they turned out to be unintelligible characters. Lastly, the Powerpoint templates may be of the same color as your text.

3. You have too many paragraphs. Your Powerpoint presentation is supposed to highlight important or key points of your entire discussion. It should not contain everything that you're going to say; otherwise, you ought to just give them to your listeners and let them read what you have in your Powerpoint templates. Follow the 6-line rule, where there should only be 6 lines or even less per slide, to avoid overcrowding it. Essential points are advised to be presented in a bullet or list form, so they are a lot easier to read and remember. All other information may just be written in your handouts, which, by the way, should be distributed right after your discussion so that they won't be ahead.

4. Skip being too artsy. You can be artistic with your Powerpoint presentation, but there should be a limit. The rule is to not go overboard in everything. Thus, avoid using too much pictures, sounds, or even videos. As long as you can get your message across and you can hit the spot with what you have, your Powerpoint presentation is already good to go.