Introduction

Welcome to the Alternatives to Bullet point text course. You will soon be creating attractive text slides that are easier for your audience to understand. Before you get started with the lessons, I wanted to review a few things and let you know what is in each lesson.

Each of the lessons consists of two or three elements. The first is the video tutorial that shows you exactly how to create each of the visual text slides. It is like sitting beside me at my computer because you see my screen, hear me narrate what I am doing, and see the exact steps to create the slide. I demonstrate the steps in PowerPoint 2013, but the steps work pretty much exactly the same in PowerPoint 2007 and later. You can pause the video at any time and try the techniques on your own slides in PowerPoint. Click on the Full Screen icon in the lower right corner of the video to make it larger.

The second element in each lesson is the reminders after the video. This text gives you the quick reminders you will want to keep in mind as you apply those techniques to your own slide. Think of these reminders as a cheat sheet for the steps in each lesson. If there is anything that is different for a particular version of PowerPoint, I'll add some additional notes in this section.

The third element of the lesson is additional examples. For most of the lessons I've added some additional images of slides that demonstrate how the techniques in the video can be applied in different situations. These examples give you more ideas of where you can apply the techniques to convert bullet point text into a more appealing visual slide.

Lesson outline

Lessons 1-7 start with this typical bullet point slide.

Lesson 1 shows you how to remove the bullet points and use line spacing and indents to create this slide:

Lesson 2 shows you how to organize the text into columns that visually separate the groups of points and create slides like this:

Lesson 3 puts the text for each group into a shape, usually a rectangle, to separate the groups and make the slide look like this:

Lesson 4 takes it the next step and shows how using vertically oriented rectangles with different fill colors can make the slide more appealing, like this:

Lesson 5 changes the orientation of the rectangles to horizontal to create a slide like this:

Lesson 6 adds more design to the rectangles by using rounded rectangles in a vertical orientation like this:

Lesson 7 uses the rounded rectangles in a horizontal orientation like this:

Lesson 8 addresses another typical use of bullet point text, using bullet points for quotations. You will see how bullet point quotes can be transformed into more visual slides like this:

Lesson 9 tackles the use of bullet points beside an image. This is common in presentations and you will see how to convert those bullet points into callouts that are easier for the audience to understand and create slides like this:

You don't have to stick with the standard bullet point text on your slides. These nine lessons will give you the tools and techniques to create more visually appealing slides that take your presentations to the next level. After you watch each video (or even during the video), take a few minutes to try the techniques on your own slides so you can see what a dramatic difference it can make in your own presentations.