Practical Tips for Creating and Delivering Presentations

As you know, creating a PowerPoint presentation can feel overwhelming, especially for those who are new to the software. Balancing content creation, selecting slide types, navigating between placeholders, editing text, and dealing with accessibility challenges such as JAWS spellcheck can be difficult to manage all at once. For this reason, it can be helpful to prepare your presentation content first in Word. Editing and spellchecking in Word allows you to focus entirely on the text in a familiar environment before transferring it into PowerPoint. When you copy and paste the text from Word into PowerPoint placeholders, the bullet points are automatically applied, so it is not necessary to bullet text in Word. To make navigation and organization easier, consider marking each slide title with headings in Word. The final slide order is flexible and can be easily adjusted later in PowerPoint using the Slide thumbnails pane.

When creating slides, it is best to limit each one to a few bullet points. Avoid writing full sentences, as they may tempt you to read them aloud verbatim during your presentation. Excessive text is the most common sign of a weak presentation, suggesting that the speaker lacks confidence or strong presentation skills. Large amounts of text also force PowerPoint to shrink the font automatically, potentially making it difficult for a sighted audience to read from the back of the room. All slide titles should be written in title case, and the first letter of each bullet point should be capitalized, leaving other words lowercase unless they are proper nouns or acronyms. One of the most basic yet essential tips is to ensure that all text is spelled correctly. Spelling errors in a presentation broadcast to a large audience undermine the speaker’s credibility and attention to detail.

While most steps for preparing PowerPoint are accessible via screen readers, it is important to have a sighted colleague review the visual appearance of your slides. This ensures that text and images are large enough to be seen from the back of a room, that color contrast between foreground text and background is clear, that font style, color, and size are consistent, and that placeholders do not overlap. It also helps confirm that imported graphics, such as photos, are properly sized, oriented, and crisp, since images with insufficient pixel resolution can appear fuzzy on large screens. Visual slide transitions should be checked to ensure they are not distracting.

Practicing your presentation multiple times in private is crucial, and doing a dry run in front of trusted colleagues is even better. Feedback from others helps ensure that you respect time limits, avoid repetition, and maintain a smooth flow throughout your talk. When it is time to deliver the presentation in person, arrive early to test all technology. If using your own laptop, coordinate with meeting organizers to connect to the projection system, verify connector compatibility, and test microphones and speakers to ensure audio works correctly. Allow ample time for these preparations, as technical difficulties can disrupt your composure if not addressed beforehand.

For remote presentations, such as those conducted via Zoom, join the meeting early and verify with the host that screen sharing functions properly. Generally, you should share only the visual screen and not the audio, as this prevents your screen reader from announcing all slide text to the audience. Using headphones allows you to hear your screen reader while the audience only sees the visual content. If any audience members are blind or visually impaired, take the time to explain the content and describe graphics, either during the meeting or by emailing the presentation beforehand or afterward.

When including audio clips in a remote presentation, JAWS offers a Sound Splitting feature to manage what you hear versus what your audience hears. With your PowerPoint window open and headphones on, open the screen share dialog and select the presentation without checking the “Share sound” option. Start sharing the screen, then use JAWS layered commands to route your screen reader speech to one side of your headphones and presentation audio to the other side. Adjust the balance during the presentation and restore it afterward. For in-person presentations, adjust your laptop volume so that you can hear the audio without disturbing the audience. Using a single earphone or a small Bluetooth earpiece allows you to follow your slides while remaining aware of audience reactions. For those fluent in Braille, printing the presentation text or using an electronic Braille notetaker provides an additional reference while speaking.

Following these strategies helps ensure that your presentation is clear, professional, and accessible. Focusing on concise text, proper organization, high contrast, and careful preparation, combined with practice and technical readiness, allows both blind and sighted presenters to deliver effective and engaging presentations to any audience.