How To Make Better Presentations With Excel

By Ruoro Kairu

Over the weekend, I met up with Margaret, a longtime friend. Maggie is a high school teacher, a job she has had for over ten years.

However, she says she struggles with making effective presentations.

Every month, all the teachers are expected to present on what they have achieved for the month, and the plans they have for the coming month.

Since the presentation has a lot of data, she prefers presenting with Microsoft Excel.

She wanted to know if there is a way she could still use Excel, but have more effective and appealing presentations.

Maggie is not alone in the struggle.

Quick Read>>> 4 Ways Learning Advanced Excel Will Help You At Work

There are various professions that use the Excel platform on a regular basis. Some of these professions include accountants, admins, auditors, financial analysts, salespeople, and many other professionals.

How can you use Excel to create a powerful presentation?

I spoke to Ms. Lucy Kagwiri, an Advanced Excel Trainer here at Corporate Staffing Services about making effective and appealing presentations with Excel.

Here are three steps to help you create powerful excel presentations.

1. Be consistent

In any great presentation, you have to be consistent. Choose one style and stick to it.

When it comes to Excel presentations, you can be consistent in;

  • The font –choose a font that represents the tone of your presentation. For formal presentations, use professionally accepted fonts.
  • Comments –always have your comments in italics to avoid them being confused with other data or information.
  • Shade different cells with a color key. For example, you can show raw data in grey, the calculations in yellow, and the results in yellow. This will give your presentation a sense of uniformity.

2. Have a smart approach

Use the order of Worksheets and the layout of data and calculations on each Worksheet, to suggest a natural and logical flow through the spreadsheet (left to right, top to bottom).

For instance, you can achieve a Worksheets flow from inputs through to calculation and then the results.

3. Be relevant

To have a better Excel presentation, make important data and results stand out:

Always start with the most relevant information and then lead to the rest.

Visually soften the non-data elements of graphs and tables. For example, make axes and gridlines the same color but paler than the data points.

Set the ‘Print Area’ so that the important areas of a spreadsheet are printed. Make sure page boundaries are set sensibly so each page of printing makes sense in itself.

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