How to Pick the Right Fonts for Your PowerPoint Presentation

A font is the way the text appears in your presentation. It represents a specific style, size and weight of typeface and is critical to displaying a message that the audience can understand and embrace. Follow these tips for picking the right one.

Choose a standard font that is available on every computer, such as “Times” or “Arial.” If you pick something unusual and run your presentation on a different computer, the fonts may be substituted by others that exist on that system. The new fonts can ruin the carefully crafted layout on the slide.

Stick with two fonts, at most, and define them in the design theme before you enter text. This ensures consistency across all the slides. If you don’t know how to mix fonts, use just one type but vary its appearance with italic and bold versions. Do not change a font randomly. Instead, use one style for headings, another for the main text, and another for bulleted text.

Pick the right size. You can follow recommendations from books and articles. However, the most effective way to choose a size is to display a slide with text in a room similar to where you are giving the presentation. Then sit in the row furthest from the screen. If you cannot read the text easily, then enlarge the text until you can.

Use colors that create a sharp contrast between the text and the background. Keep away from neon and other choices that are hard to see. Black text on a white background provides the sharpest, if not the most interesting, color contrast.

The appearance of text is just one of the many things we consider when designing a custom PowerPoint presentation. The best choice meets the needs of both you and your audience.