If you look in the soft skills handbooks, not very nicely translated as soft skills, you will quickly see that the topic of presentation skills and that presentation creation is one of the most discussed and contemporary topics. After all, almost everyone has to present - from a door-to-door salesman to a university professor - and most people have never been taught to do so.

When people commonly talk about making presentations, they mean something that accompanies the speaker's verbal and nonverbal speech, which helps the audience understand what the speaker wants to say and gets the audience on their side. In this case, advice is formulated that takes this context into account:

• Use little text in presentations. The listener will read and not listen to you. Sometimes, the 5x5 rule works - a maximum of five bullet points per slide of five words each. A bold font can be used for emphasis. Conversely, it is usually advisable to avoid italics, which are harder to read. So use a large font (typically min 18-22 px, depending on the font) that is easy to read. The listener should focus not on the characters but the content and you.
• Use images, ideally with an emotional charge. The listener will develop an emotional connection to the information you present. Sometimes, you will see presentations based on images only - either with or without a caption. Either way, There is some general scepticism about photo banks; do not be afraid to use them judiciously and in appropriate situations.
• Switch slides at a regular pace that matches the speed of the lecture, for example, one drop per minute. At the same time, however, we recommend not using automatic slide switching after the selected time. More information can be divided into multiple slides. The time per slide is usually calculated between 1-10 minutes.
• Avoid unnecessary animations that distract you from yourself. Similarly, background music, longer videos or sounds are not recommended. We're eliminating anything that can distract the listener.

These tips are efficient and functional if you want to have a presentation to accompany your particular speech. Sometimes, the speaker makes a mistake (especially in a school setting; this is common) to put all the educational content on the slides they are talking about. The result is a projected monograph rather than an actual presentation.

As in other cases, it is always a good idea to ask yourself the following questions before creating the work itself:

• What do you want to say?
• Who do you want to tell?
• In what way?
• How is your approach different from others?
• What technology will you use for the presentation?

Once you are clear on this, you can start creating. No precise rule says how long or how many slides a presentation should have. In general, it's a good idea to avoid overly long presentations that are difficult for the reader or listener to find what they need, are data-intensive, and unnecessarily slow. For example, if you plan a tutorial, you can work with a model where each topic/week/block has its presentation.

Videos, images or animations can be embedded in presentations, and text or voice comments can also be helpful. In this case, it is beneficial to consider where and how you will work with the presentation. For example, whether the room has a suitable sound system, whether the online presentation recording and sharing service supports this functionality, etc.

For creating presentations, you can use:

• Haiku Deck is a paid tool based on the idea that you can use software to turn a simple presentation into a graphically beautiful project, which is true.
• Google Slides are very similar to PowerPoint, but their significant advantage is the ability of multiple people to collaborate in real-time on one presentation and easy sharing, as well as support for embeds without having to upload presentations.
• PowerPoint is a classic tool that many people have a particular aversion to. On the other hand, it must be said that in recent versions it has made great strides and, for example, using the presentation designer you can make lovely picture presentations quickly and easily. In this respect, the alternative tools from LibreOffice, for example, are very "office". Mac OS X users can then reach for Keynote.
• Prezi allows you to create presentations without a linear structure. You place text, images or videos in a free space, then you can define your path in them, but you can deviate from it during the presentation. Although Prezi is already a reasonably well-known tool, it can still bring regular content to life more than PowerPoint.

Presentations can also be uploaded to online services:

• Slideshare is not primarily for creating presentations but only for displaying them. The significant advantage is the simple operation, detailed statistics and quite a perfect number of presentation visitors. So, if you are looking for impact, Slideshare is an interesting tool where you can also place infographics or documents.
• authorSTREAM is a direct competitor to SlideShare. Today, it offers almost nothing extra but may suit those who don't want to have such a high traffic of presentations or are looking for another embedding tool.
• Scribd is primarily for publishing books and similar documents but can also be used for presentations. It serves as a large publishing or publishing platform.
• Issuu is an exciting publishing tool - it supports documents and presentations, offers attractive embedding, basic readership analytics and an excellent publishing environment. Interestingly, you can insert links directly into the finished paper.

If you want images, you can use a photo bank (here is an inspiration of some unpaid photo banks; generally, it is advisable to look for one that offers images under a CC0 license):

• Stocksnap.o
• Pexels
• Freeimages