Designing for PowerPoint

I've been burned by this before...so here's a little bit of unsolicited advice...

First of all, whatever background you design, try it on a projector in a room with the windows open and the lights on. Projectors aren't that bright, so you're going to lose a lot of detail.

Secondly, try it with some dummy text to make sure the text is still 100% legible. I once used a beautiful blue for accent text...and it didn't show up in the CEO's presentation. Ugh. I also had a background image that was stunningly awesome...but it was also annoyingly distracting.

As for size, I usually start with roughly 1024x768. The PNG file format tends to play very nicely with powerpoint...although JPG will work. PDF, TIFF, and EPS tend to be most uncooperative. 72dpi will work, although I personally prefer 96dpi.

Good luck. PowerPoint is a beast.

 

If you create a new document in PowerPoint 2003, for instance, the standard default template for full size backgrounds which I used to create and supply to people who needed them was:

1443 pixels wide x 1081 pixels high @ 144 pixels per inch

254.5mm x 190.7mm or 10.021 inches x 7.507

Just out of vague interest, this is a typical example of the kind of backdrops for corporate stuff I would create and give to people, click for full size and dimensions:

 

To add:

• Most use the default PowerPoint presentation setup. However, some don't. Suggest that you check with your client first to get an example of a standard presentation to be sure that you create the correct size background.
  
• Know your client. Patterns like the one BV showed may work for some clients but not for others.
  
• Make sure your background works with your clients text (font, color, size, etc.) and doesn't clash and are easily readable when displayed.
  
• Test your background on their display equipment. No matter how good your background looks to you when displayed on your laptop/desktop screen, it may look totally different using their projector.
  
• Know their projector's native resolution and set your screen to the same so that it will match pixel for pixel when you design your background. Definitely will look better when displayed.

 

You can do it at 1024x768, or double it. I have found that a lot of 'generic businessy people' (the kind of people who use powerpoint) print these out a lot. Doubling the resolution provides a crisper print but may weigh down the file size.

If there is an opportunity to bring the logo, for example, in separately from the rest of the background, you could produce that at double size for a better printout.

Placing backgrounds into PPT is odd, but once you scale it to what looks right you can right-click on it and confirm coordinates and scale.