handouts
Slides ≠ Handout
August 18, 2006 Filed in: General Tips
In the previous post, I made the statement that your
slides are not the handout. All to often, we walk
into a presentation, and we are handed a packet that
is no more than a copy of the presenter's prepared
slides with lines along the side for taking notes.
(Does anyone actually use those lines?) In other
words, you get something that looks like this:
x
Boxes and lines do not an ideal handout make.
I firmly believe that handouts are important – especially when the aim of the presentation is some kind of professional development as my example is. However, this approach to handouts fails on a couple of levels.
Slide printouts are a waste of paper. Better to have no handouts than something that killed helpless trees for no reason. If you are going to have a handout with your presentation, make it meaningful and helpful. Create a document that is separate and apart from your slides to be handed out after your presentation is completed. (This way the audience can focus on you rather than sheets of paper.)
Below, we have two alternative methods to preparing our handouts – each appropriate to different situations.
x
Now we're getting somewhere.
The first example is the best solution in my opinion. It is a standalone document that covers all of the material in the presentation. A more involved example of this would be the handout for ICE2006 on my Presentations page. These documents are wholly independent of the slides and make for good reference even long after you give your talk. The downside is that these documents require additional planning and time investment. If your handout is going to be a comprehensive document, you need to budget the preparation of that document into your schedule.
The second example is an annotated slide printout. I exported my slides as images, and dropped them into my notes. After some cleanup, making sure all text lined up with the appropriate slides, we have a serviceable handout. While less ideal than a standalone document, this solution will allow you to create a thorough handout in slightly less time. Again, though, hand this out after you have finished talking.
Hopefully, next time you prepare a presentation, you will think about investing some time in preparing your handout. Pages of little boxes with tiny type are not the best solution for communicating your ideas in print. Instead, work on an independent document that clearly communicates your conversation with the audience. Failing that, at least create a set of annotated slides that communicate more of the information than a simple printout.
For more reading on handout preparation, see these posts on Presentation Zen:
x
Boxes and lines do not an ideal handout make.
I firmly believe that handouts are important – especially when the aim of the presentation is some kind of professional development as my example is. However, this approach to handouts fails on a couple of levels.
- Slides are not documents. Your
slides are not your conversation. Even if you
practice Death By PowerPoint, every important
detail will not end up on your slides. You are
cheating your audience out of the full content of
your presentation by substituting a meaningful
document with slides that do not convey the whole
story.
- Nothing is left to the imagination. You just gave away the ending ... and the beginning and the middle. You haven't given your audience a visual aid to help them pay attention. You just handed them a checklist that allows them to keep track of just how close you are to the end. Also, if you get rushed and have to skip slides (a cardinal presentation sin in and of itself), your audience will know.
Slide printouts are a waste of paper. Better to have no handouts than something that killed helpless trees for no reason. If you are going to have a handout with your presentation, make it meaningful and helpful. Create a document that is separate and apart from your slides to be handed out after your presentation is completed. (This way the audience can focus on you rather than sheets of paper.)
Below, we have two alternative methods to preparing our handouts – each appropriate to different situations.
x
Now we're getting somewhere.
The first example is the best solution in my opinion. It is a standalone document that covers all of the material in the presentation. A more involved example of this would be the handout for ICE2006 on my Presentations page. These documents are wholly independent of the slides and make for good reference even long after you give your talk. The downside is that these documents require additional planning and time investment. If your handout is going to be a comprehensive document, you need to budget the preparation of that document into your schedule.
The second example is an annotated slide printout. I exported my slides as images, and dropped them into my notes. After some cleanup, making sure all text lined up with the appropriate slides, we have a serviceable handout. While less ideal than a standalone document, this solution will allow you to create a thorough handout in slightly less time. Again, though, hand this out after you have finished talking.
Hopefully, next time you prepare a presentation, you will think about investing some time in preparing your handout. Pages of little boxes with tiny type are not the best solution for communicating your ideas in print. Instead, work on an independent document that clearly communicates your conversation with the audience. Failing that, at least create a set of annotated slides that communicate more of the information than a simple printout.
For more reading on handout preparation, see these posts on Presentation Zen: