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Tips and tricks for Prezi beginners

Prezi.com is a great alternative to PowerPoint and Keynote as the online community embraces cloud computing. No expensive software and storage necessary on your part. Just go online, create your presentation and store it in the ‘cloud’.

Prezi has revolutionised the traditional slide-by-slide construction of PowerPoint presentation design. Instead, you create your presentation at a central point, and then zoom in on each point.

Some handy tips and tricks for beginners:

  • Prezi does not have a huge variety of colours schemes and fonts, so give it some thought before you commit to one. For instance, as one font’s body text size will be different to another’s, a last-minute font change will ruin your design.
  • One of the great things about Prezi is that your ‘slides’ don’t have to move in a horizontal sequence. However, don’t make your audience motion-sick by veering wildly up, down and diagonally around your presentation.
  • Prezi allows you to change scale, from HUGE to teeny tiny. This is a fab feature, and you should certainly use it at least once when designing your presentation. Don’t go OTT, though.
  • You want each ‘slide’ to look fairly uniform, but using the naked eye to try and format each section for a more consistent look and feel does not get the best results. Rather select ‘duplicate’, then edit the duplicated section with your new text.
  • Bigger is better. When designing your canvas in the early stages, make your sections bigger than you’ll need them. It’s easier to go smaller than bigger.
  • While we’re on about making a good start, lay your canvas out with the ‘big picture’ in mind, and then fill in the blanks. Don’t start with the details and build towards the big picture.

Whilst Prezi is innovative and fun, beware: we have heard reports that some people have found Prezi to be unstable when played and feel that, compared to other presentation software, it’s limited in its design features. Whilst it’s great for one-time presentations that are looking for something “different”, we don’t recommend using Prezi for all of your presos. If you’re determined to move outside of the Powerpoint/Keynote sphere, consider Sliderocket.com. Keep your eyes open for next week’s blog on the subject!

Let us know if you’ve had experience with either Prezi or Sliderocket and which one you prefer.