Planning Your Presentation
Far too many presentations crash in flames because the presenter fails to anticipate what could reasonably go wrong, or doesn't prepare for questions that can be answered with a few facts, figures, or slides.
On the other hand, some less-than-flashy presenters with solid but uninspired slides regularly draw raves from appreciative audiences. Why? Because they step through points logically and in sequence, and when questions arise, they have solid answers, ready and waiting—and right at hand in their speaker notes.
The Importance of Preparation
It's no secret, and no coincidence, that the best presenters rehearse their presentations over and over, in front of different groups that closely parallel the target audience. Before they stand up on stage, they take apart their presentation, slide by slide, and then edit, reorganize, put it back together, and test it again.
You might be tempted to practice in front of a mirror, and if your primary concern is the mechanics of the presentation, that's a reasonable approach. But if you want to get a point across, nothing beats jumping into the lion's den. Practice delivering the presentation to people who are willing to stop you when they don't understand, and make suggestions when your points miss their mark.
PowerPoint includes a number of tools that will help you prepare, refine, and ultimately deliver the presentation. But in the final analysis, they won't help a bit unless you have the content down pat. The best presentations practically deliver themselves.
Organizing Your Remarks with Speaker Notes
Some people are capable of delivering a perfect presentation without notes. But what if you don't have a photographic memory or weeks to rehearse? For those of us who are chronically short on spare time and brain cells, there's no substitute for PowerPoint's speaker notes.
→ For an overview of notes, see "Adding Notes".
The easiest way to construct and maintain notes is in PowerPoint's Normal view, where the Notes pane appears below the slide. Normally, this window displays only a few lines; to look at all the notes for a given slide, go to Notes view by choosing View, Notes Page.
You can do little to change the appearance of the Notes page, except for adjusting tab stops. Because default tab stops start at one inch, you might find yourself running out of room if you indent text on a note page that contains lots of text; follow these steps to adjust the tabs and give the indented text a little extra room:
In Normal or Slide Sorter view, select the slide with the notes that you want to change.
Choose View, Notes Page. Then bring up the ruler by choosing View, Ruler.
Click once to position the insertion point in the notes placeholder below the slide. Then click and drag on the bottom of the ruler to adjust the tab stops.
To change the tab spacing on all your Notes pages, bring up the Notes Master (choose View, Master, Notes Master), adjust the tab stops on the ruler, and save your changes to the master.
Tip from 
If you can anticipate any questions your audience might ask when a particular slide is on the screen, consider typing the question (and a possible answer, of course) at the bottom of the Notes page for that slide. To make it easier to identify the questions while you're flipping through your notes, set them off in bold or italic.
Using PowerPoint's Timer to Rehearse a Presentation
When you practice a presentation, PowerPoint can start a timer to keep track of the amount of time you spend on each slide and on the presentation as a whole. These timings can be useful in several situations:
Timing your presentation helps you identify slides that are too complex or contain too much detail. If you find yourself spending five minutes explaining a single slide, consider simplifying the slide or splitting it into two or more. Likewise, if you discover you're racing through one part of your presentation, taking only a few seconds on each slide, that might be a clue that those slides are too elementary.
PowerPoint timers help you set up the presentation so that slides advance automatically. This capability might be useful if, for example, you need to have both hands free to demonstrate a product. In this case, you can use the timings from your rehearsals to specify how long PowerPoint should display each slide before advancing.
With the help of a special timer on the Rehearsal dialog box, you can plan your presentation so you don't overrun a tight time slot. The Rehearsal's timer appears onscreen to tell you how long you've spent on each slide. Although few people use the Rehearsal timer during a final presentation, it can help you keep on top of timing during rehearsals.
To rehearse a presentation using the timer, follow these steps:
Gather all the notes you'll need to step through the slides, and open the presentation in PowerPoint, preferably using the same PC you'll use when you actually deliver the presentation.
Choose Slide Show, Rehearse Timings. As your presentation begins, the Rehearsal dialog box appears onscreen (see Figure 32.1).
Figure 32.1. Keep track of the time spent on each slide by using the Slide Meter.
Watch the Slide Time box to see how much time you've spent on the current slide. If you bump into an unexpected snag—you lose your place in your notes, for example—click the Pause button to stop the clock. Click Next to proceed.
If you get flustered, click Repeat to "turn back the clock"—that is, reset the time on the current slide to zero, and subtract the appropriate amount of time from the Presentation Time counter. Resume your presentation at that slide.
Note
Clicking the Repeat button causes animations to repeat, starting with the first animation on the slide, but you must click once on the screen before the first repeat animation appears.
When you finish the presentation, PowerPoint tells you how long the entire presentation took, and asks whether you want to update the times associated with each slide to reflect the latest numbers. If you click Yes, the timing numbers appear in Slide Sorter view, to the lower left of each slide (see Figure 32.2).
Figure 32.2. The results of the last (accepted) timing run appear to the lower left of each slide.
Unfortunately, there is no way to keep a history of timing runs, or to selectively adjust timings on a slide-by-slide basis. You must either accept all the new times, or reject them all.
Note
If you show the same slide more than once (such as if you back up or use it in a custom show), the timer keeps statistics only for the final time it appears.
To set an individual slide so that it advances automatically after a specific amount of time, you must use the Slide Transition dialog box.
→ For details on timing, see "Using Transitions to Control Pacing".