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Make the Most of Slide Software

Presentation software is widely reviled. The press has called PowerPoint evil, and corporations have cried for its banishment. The software isn’t at fault. It’s an empty shell, a container for our ideas. It’s not a bad communication tool unless it’s in the hands of a bad communicator.

So how do you use it without abusing it—and your audience? Know exactly what you’re trying to accomplish and rely on the software to achieve that—and nothing more.

You can use presentation software to create documents, compose teleprompter notes, and visualize ideas. But keep those tasks separate to avoid the most common PowerPoint pitfalls. The trick is to show audience members only what they want to see, when they want to see it. ...