to the slide or blocks the screen. While there
are lots of ways to improve slide quality and enhance
PowerPoint usage, there is one little known, but powerful,
strategy that can improve any PowerPoint presentation and
put the focus more on the speaker, where it belongs.
This wonderful strategy is... the black slide.
Keep in mind, the objective of visuals is to complement what
you're saying, to help the audience understand or remember a
point. So it stands to reason that if your visuals are
purposeful, then you won't have a visual up all the time. In
fact, you don't need a visual up to relate an anecdote or
have interaction with your audience. Neither is a visual
necessary to set the stage or to wrap up or to signal the
start of Q&A.
Enter, the black slide. A black slide makes the screen go
dark. Wherever you insert one into your PowerPoint
presentation, there will be nothing on the screen. This
enables you to tell that story or give that example or make
that transition without the distraction of purposeless
visual. And you now have the focus on you (which is ideally
where it should be!).
Don't know how to create a black slide? Not surprising,
since PowerPoint has no vested interest in helping you NOT
use a slide! Here are some basic instructions (this is for
PowerPoint 2007 -- every version is a little different; the
key is to find the "Format Background" function):
-Create a new slide and right-click on it
-From the options that come up, click on: "Format
Background"
-In the box that comes up, select:
1. Solid Fill
2. Hide Background Graphics
3. Color: Click on the down arrow and select black
-Click Apply (NOT Apply All!)
Your slide will now be black and when projected in a room,
will simply look like there's nothing on the screen. A great
opportunity for the speaker to capture the focus!
There is another trick that will create a dark screen. If,
while you're in "Slide Show" mode, you hit the "B" key on
your keyboard, your screen will go dark. When you hit it (or
the mouse or the arrow or enter key) again, the visual you
had darkened will come back up. (Please note that this
feature works only in "Slide Show" mode.) Now, before you
get all excited and think, "Great! I'll just use the 'B' key
to go to blank in between some of my slides," let me offer a
word of caution.
First of all, the thing about the "B" key is that when you
hit it the second time to get out of the black slide, it
doesn't advance to your next slide. The visual you had up
before the black slide will reappear. So it's going to be
awkward to have to bring up your previous slide before you
can go to your next one. Secondly, what do you think the
likelihood is that you're going to remember to hit the "B"
key after certain visuals? It's risky to rely on your
memory. It's much simpler to just insert a black slide when
you don't want anything on the screen.
Final suggestion, always end on a black slide. This is a
nice way to end your presentation-nothing on the screen to
distract from you during your close or the Q&A session. I
recommend you create one instead of relying on PowerPoint's
version... You may have noticed it has the tiny type on it
that says, "End of slide show. Click to exit." Not a big
deal, but I have seen speakers who, moving in front of the
projector with this slide up, had that white type run across
their shirt or their face. It can be a little
distracting. Leave your black slide there and don't exit the
"Slide Show" mode until you are completely done with your
presentation. If you exit Slide Show before you're done, the
audience has to look at the "Slide Sorter View" of your
program, which is busy and distracting.
The black slide is the single most powerful slide you can
use in PowerPoint. Use it often!
