6 minute presentation how many slides

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How to Choose the Right Number of Slides for a Powerpoint Presentation

Last Updated: July 12, 2023 References

Choosing the Right Number of Slides Based on Design Choices

Using time to determine the right number of slides, moving beyond formulaic answers to finding the right number of slides.

This article was co-authored by wikiHow Staff . Our trained team of editors and researchers validate articles for accuracy and comprehensiveness. wikiHow's Content Management Team carefully monitors the work from our editorial staff to ensure that each article is backed by trusted research and meets our high quality standards. There are 10 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been viewed 221,499 times. Learn more...

• Keep the presentation about you, not the slideshow. [2] X Research source The slides are there to support what you have to say. They should be just one part of your presentation, not the whole thing.

• Go through your entire presentation and ask yourself if you really need a given slide. If the answer is no, or if you find you can deliver the info verbally instead, eliminate it.

• If your presentation ended well before the time limit you’ve been given, try to extend the amount of time you spend on each slide, or add extra slides to expand on the info introduced in the presentation.
• Solicit advice from family and friends during your practice presentation. If they feel there are too many or too few slides, or if they feel certain sections of the presentation felt rushed or slow, adjust your presentation to correct these deficiencies.

• One well-known formulation for PowerPoint presentations is the 10/20/30 rule. This rule dictates that you should use about ten slides for a twenty minute presentation, and each slide should utilize thirty point font. In other words, each slide should be about two minutes in length. [8] X Research source Perhaps the 10/20/30 rule works for you. If it does not, don’t feel as if you’re using the wrong number of slides.
• Others argue that an average slide should be onscreen for no more than two minutes, and can be onscreen for as little as 15 seconds. [9] X Research source

• If, on the other hand, you’re in a more intimate environment and can control the lighting, you might be inclined to utilize a greater number of slides. As always, however, don’t feel obligated to use many slides just because you can.

Community Q&A

• If your slide has embedded video, or you aren’t using one slide for each point of your presentation, you can spend longer on each slide. [11] X Research source Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0
• Treat each slide on its own merits. If one slide needs to be onscreen for two minutes, so be it. If it needs to be onscreen for ten seconds, that’s fine too. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0
• If you have a slide with no pictures but several bullet points, each of which you intend to talk about for fifteen to twenty seconds, you might spend well over a minute on that slide. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0

• When you take all of these factors (detail, technicality, audience size and awareness, etc.) into consideration, you can see that the only short answer to "how many slides should I use" is: "it depends." Thanks Helpful 3 Not Helpful 0

You Might Also Like

• ↑ http://www.virtualsalt.com/powerpoint.htm
• ↑ http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2006-06-01/how-to-powerpoint-like-a-pro
• ↑ http://www.shutterstock.com/blog/7-design-tips-for-effective-beautiful-powerpoint-presentations
• ↑ http://www.mrmediatraining.com/2011/03/10/the-five-most-common-powerpoint-mistakes/
• ↑ http://www.free-power-point-templates.com/articles/how-many-slides-for-a-30-minute-presentation/
• ↑ https://owl.english.purdue.edu/media/ppt/20071016041310_686.ppt

About This Article

1. Break complex slides into several simple slides. 2. Include audio and video support only as needed. 3. Time your presentation. 4. Match the number of slides to the subject matter. 5. Tailor to your audience. Did this summary help you? Yes No

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How Many Slides Do You Need For A Whatever-Minute Presentation?

Yousef "yoyo" abu ghaidah.

• May 9, 2018
• One Comment

“How many slides do I need for a 10 minutes presentation?”

“I have 30 minutes. Do I need 30 slides?”

“I have a 60-minute presentation coming up and I don’t want to bore my audience to death with slide-overload. What do I do?”

If I had a dollar for every time I get a question like these, I’d be a millionaire.

It’s time to put the age-old PowerPoint question to rest. How many slides do you  really need for your next presentation, regardless of the time set?

Here’s your answer: As many as you need, but within reason .

I know, I know. You’re looking for a quick and simple solution that you can use right now. But trust me, you’ll get what I mean after reading this post.

Rules Don’t Apply … Sort Of

There are so many rules out there that you’ve probably heard of.

“Only use five slides.”

“Keep it to one slide for every three minutes.”

Even presentation pros like Guy Kawasaki will advocate for the 10/20/30 rule (10 slides, 20 minutes, 30 point font).

These rules aren’t necessarily wrong, but I do feel they overlook one of the most important factors in your presentation: Your message.

When you apply a general rule-of-thumb to the content you want to present, you’re going to end up limiting yourself. That sort of practice can be bad for you, and even worse for your audience.

Look at it this way: Do you think J. K. Rowling was thinking about how many pages she would need to get Harry Potter out to the world?

Of course not. Her priorities were centered down to the plot, how the characters express themselves, the intricacies between the hero and the villain, and so on.

Rowling’s only true goal was to write a fictional novel so epic that it would appeal to the masses.

Do I need to tell you how hugely successful she was a result of that approach?

Take the same principle and develop as many slides as you need to capture every meaningful component of your message.

Remember, slides are empty canvases for your information. You can put a single word and a picture to demonstrate your point or 500 words and a chart to do the exact same thing.

But practice this approach with caution. Don’t just cram in slides for the sake of doing so.

Only bring the slides that express the value of your content. Nothing more, nothing less.

Time Allocation is Crucial

Time is the most precious thing we have in this world , and it is certainly the one thing you  NEED  to respect when it comes to your audience.

That said, there is a misconception about time limits in presentations that you need to be aware of.

Avoid going for the minute(s)-per-slide approach. Many presenters feel that sustaining this number is crucial for delivery. For example, if someone was preparing 10 slides for a 10-minute presentation, then that same person may feel dedicating 1 minute per slide is the way to go.

Don’t do this, because  how you allocate your time should be completely up to you.

I’ve witnessed presenters spend 10 seconds on one slide only to spend five minutes on another, and they were extremely effective in their delivery.

The slide that took five minutes to present was also the slide that needed five minutes of my time to understand. This highlighted that the slide in question was meaningful, insightful, and followed a pace that I was comfortable with.

That’s the key take away. Dedicate more of the time given to you to the content that matters most.  This approach should allow you to gauge just how many slides you need to bring in.

So, How Many Slides Do You Really Need?

All you have to do is answer two simple questions:

• “How many slides do I need to get my message across?”
• “What pace would my audience feel comfortable with?”

With the ‘right’ answers, you’re almost certain to get the perfect number of slides for your presentation, every single time.

You’re The Special Ingredient

Whatever number you go for, remember that your slides should only be seen as the tools you need to get your message across.

Sure, designing beautiful slides will help, but they won’t do the work for you.

Rely on yourself to get your message out there. Your tone, body-language, and passion are what truly can make or break your presentation.

Dang…I needed this LOL. Thank you for decreasing my stress.

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May 7, 2024

How many slides do I need for my presentation?

How many slides for a 10 minute presentation and the 3-2-1 rule for presentations

The 3-2-1 rule for presentations

Co-founder, CEO

Preparing for a presentation can be a daunting task for anyone. If you are presenting to an important client, a large audience, or a group of classmates, it can feel like it's impossible to figure out where to start.

However, with some planning and preparation (and help from wonderful blog posts like this one!), you can go into your presentation with confidence and deliver your message effectively. So don't worry, we've got you covered!

Here are some tips to help you determine how many slides you need for your presentation, based on the length of time you have to speak.

How many minutes per slide for a presentation?

A general guideline is to allocate approximately 2 minutes per slide. This means that for a 10-minute presentation, you should aim for around 5 slides, plus or minus 1 to 2 slides. Try the calculator below or read the 3-2-1 Rule for presentations for a more in-depth guide on how to budget the number of slides for your next presentation.

How many slides for a presentation? (Calculator)

Here is a calculator that can help you budget how many slides you will need for your presentation depending on the time you need to present for. Just type in how long your presentation needs to be in minutes, and it will give you a suggestion for the number of slides.

While this is a simple calculation, the number of slides in your presentation can vary widely depending on the complexity of the content, the type of presentation, and the goal of the presentation.

For example, a slide deck for an 18 minute TED talk might only have a few slides with very little text, while the slide deck for a ~18 minute research presentation might have 30 slides (although many of them could be backup slides in an appendix).

Here are some additional rules for thinking about the number of slides in a presentation: 

• When using this calculator, enter the amount of "presentation" that you will be actively presenting. Don't worry about time that will be spent in discussion or Q&A
• If you are presenting data, try to reduce the complexity of the presentation itself and put most of the charts and data in an appendix.
• If you are creating a presentation as a 'leave-behind' that can stand by itself, you should aim for the higher end of these recommended ranges. If you are creating a presentation that is a visual aid for you to tell a story, you should aim for the lower end of these ranges.

Follow the "3-2-1 Rule" for presentations

While every presentation is different, and everyone's presentation style is different, the 3-2-1 rule is a good rule of thumb to plan the overall structure of a presentation. This applies whether you are a management consultant advising Fortune 500 CEOs or if you're a student making a high school presentation.

Here are the three components of the 3-2-1 Rule:

• THREE takeaways for your audience
• TWO minutes to present a slide
• ONE idea per slide

As you create the outline for a new presentation or revise an existing presentation, you should ask yourself:

• What are the 3 things that I want my audience to remember from my presentation when I am done talking (or they are done reading)?
• How many slides will I have to make these points? Divide the time of your presentation by 2 to get a general idea for how many slides you will need in your presentation
• What is the main idea for each slide? A common refrain among professional consultants is that you should be able to understand the story of a slide deck just by reading the slide titles

Regardless of the length of the presentation, you should always start the planning or revision process by thinking about the key points that you want your audience to take away (that's the whole point of a presentation, really!).

Then, if you are making a 10 minute presentation, you probably need 5 slides plus or minus 1 to 2 slides depending on the style of presentation or depth of content. If these are slides to start a conversation, you probably need fewer. If these are slides to present your takeaways from a research project, you may need more (and maybe some backup slides in an appendix, too).

From there, write out the key idea for each slide. One great way to do this is to make the key idea of the slide the slide title itself. Then, you should be able to read all of the slide titles one after another and make sure that they deliver a cohesive story.

If you need a quick way to get started, try using an AI presentation maker to generate the first draft of your presentation.

How many slides do I need for a 5 minute presentation?

If you are making a 5 minute presentation, your goal should be for your audience to only remember one or two key ideas, so you should have 2 or 3 slides max.

• For work: Try to create 1 slide with your main idea, along with 1 or 2 backup slides that can present supporting data like a data visualization, customer quotes, or an execution plan.
• For sales: Try to create 1 slide to focus your discussion, along with 1 or 2 backup slides that can help answer customer questions.
• For school: Try to create 1 slide for each key point in a story or research idea and make sure the key points can tie themselves together in a conclusion.
• For storytelling: Try to create one slide with a poignant story, quote, or data point to help your audience remember the key message from your presentation. Then, you may also want to have 1 or 2 slides to build up to the idea or present conclusions from that idea.

How many slides do I need for a 10 minute presentation?

In a 10 minute presentation, you should aim for 5 slides, plus or minus 1 to 2 slides. Here are some suggestions based on the type of presentation:

• For work: Create 2 or 3 primary slides to present your key points (e.g., a framework slide, a key data visualization, or a plan of action), and 2 to 3 additional slides with supporting data or examples.
• For sales: Create 3 main slides that highlight the benefits of your product or service (e.g., problem statement, customer story, value proposition), and 2 additional slides for testimonials or data to help support the conversation if your customer wants to dive deeper on a specific topic.
• For school: Create 2 or 3 main slides for your key arguments or findings, and 2 to 4 additional slides for evidence or further explanation. A book report, for example, could have a slide with a plot summary and another slide with the key themes in the story.
• For storytelling: Create 3 main slides that build a narrative arc (introduction, rising action, conclusion), and 2 additional slides for impactful quotes or visuals. The key slides for a TED talk might be an image to tell a captivating story, a slide to present a shocking statistic, and end with a story about a hopeful new project to solve a key problem.

How many slides do I need for a 15 minute presentation?

For a 15 minute presentation, aim for 7 slides, plus or minus 1 to 2 slides. Here are some suggestions based on the type of presentation:

• For work: Create 3 primary slides to present your key points (e.g., a framework slide, a key data visualization, or a plan of action), and 4 to 5 additional slides with supporting data or examples.
• For sales: Create 3 main slides that highlight the benefits of your product or service (e.g., problem statement, customer story, value proposition), and 3 to 4 additional slides for testimonials or data to help support the conversation if your customer wants to dive deeper on a specific topic.
• For school: Create 3 main slides for your key arguments or findings, and 3 to 4 additional slides for evidence or further explanation. A book report, for example, could have a slide with a plot summary, a slide with the key themes in the story, and a final slide with how those themes apply to your life.
• For storytelling: Create 4 main slides that build a narrative arc (introduction, rising action, climax, conclusion), and 3 to 4 additional slides for impactful quotes or visuals. The key slides for a TED talk might be an image to introduce a captivating story, a slide to present a memorable statistic, a slide to with a story about a hopeful new project, and a slide with the results to-date.

How many slides do I need for a 20 minute presentation?

For a 20 minute presentation, aim for 10 slides, plus or minus 1 to 2 slides. Here are some suggestions based on the type of presentation:

• For work: Create 3 primary slides to present your key points (e.g., a framework slide, a key data visualization, or a plan of action), and 6 to 7 additional slides with supporting data or examples.
• For sales: Create 4 main slides that highlight the benefits of your product or service (e.g., problem statement, customer story, value proposition, evidence), and 5 to 6 additional slides for testimonials or data to help support the conversation if your customer wants to dive deeper on a specific topic.
• For school: Create 4 main slides for your key arguments or findings, and 5 to 6 additional slides for evidence or further explanation. A book report, for example, could have a slide with a plot summary, a slide about a key moment/decision in the story, a slide with the key themes in the story, and a final slide with how those themes apply to your life.
• For storytelling: Create 4 main slides that build a narrative arc (introduction, rising action, climax, conclusion), and 4 to 5 additional slides for impactful quotes or visuals. The key slides for a TED talk might be an image to introduce a captivating story, a slide to present a memorable statistic, a slide to with a story about a hopeful new project, and a slide with the results to-date. One thing to note here is that the length of a storytelling slide deck does not need to get much longer for 15, 20, or 30 minute presentations.

How many slides do I need for a 30 minute presentation?

At 30 minutes and above, it becomes increasingly likely that you won't be expected to present for 30 minutes straight, and the "presentation" itself becomes more of a conversation aid that can support a back-and-forth discussion about a topic.

For these types of presentations, you should calculate how much time is going to be used in a "single-sided" presentation and how much time will be used in discussion. If you expect 10 minutes of your 30 minute presentation (or more) to be a discussion, you should refer to the section on "How many slides do I need for a 20 minute presentation?"

If you think you will need to present for a full 30 minutes, here is our recommendation for the number of slides you need, based on the type of presentation.

For a general 30-minute presentation, aim for 15 slides, plus or minus 2 to 3 slides.

How many slides do I need for a 45 minute presentation?

45 minutes is a long time for a one-sided presentation, so it's more likely your presentation will be used to facilitate a back and forth conversation (which may use slides as support to make a strategic decision), or present an in-depth look at research data and conclusion (which may use slides with in-depth data analysis).

For these types of presentations, you should calculate how much time is going to be used in a "single-sided" presentation and how much time will be used in discussion. If you expect half of the time to be a discussion, you should refer to the section on "How many slides do I need for a 20 minute presentation?"

If you think you will need to present for 45 minutes, here is our recommendation for the number of slides you need, based on the type of presentation.

For a general 45-minute presentation, aim for 20 slides, plus or minus 3 to 5 slides.

How many slides do I need for a 60 minute presentation?

60 minutes - one hour - is a very long time for a one-sided presentation. For these types of presentations, you should calculate how much time you expect to give a "single-sided" presentation and how much time will be used in discussion or Q&A. 

If you expect half of the time to be a discussion, you should refer to the section on "How many slides do I need for a 30 minute presentation?"

If you think you will need to present for 60 minutes, here is our recommendation for the number of slides you need, based on the type of presentation.

For a 60-minute presentation, aim for 25 slides, plus or minus 3 to 8 slides.

How should I create slides for my presentation?

Staring at a blank page when you need to create a dozen slides for your presentation can be a nerve-wracking experience. One of the best ways to get a quick start on your next slide deck is to use AI to speed up your workflow.

To get started, install the Plus AI add-on. Enter a prompt or an existing text block (e.g., an article, a blog post, a document), and then ask Plus AI to generate a first draft of your presentation.

From there, you can use Plus AI's editing, rewriting, remixing, and design features to apply the perfect finishing touches on your deck to make it yours!

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How Many Slides to Use in a Presentation? 5 Tips

There’s nothing worse than a presentation that goes over time or poorly-designed slides that cram too much information onto the screen at once.

While there are a lot of things that can dictate how many slides to use in a presentation, key factors include how long you have to speak, what content you are presenting, and the visual nature of the content. (Some speakers don’t need slides at all to keep audiences engaged!)

Here, we’re breaking down common presentation times with a guide for how not to overload slides, and use them well—no matter what type of talk you are giving.

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How Many Slides for a 5 Minute Presentation?

When it comes to short presentations, you probably want to keep the number of slides to a minimum. Think about the venue here in particular. How many people are you presenting for?

Often short presentations might be for a small group or on a small screen. That’s a major consideration when it comes to how many slides you need for a 5-minute presentation.

For most speakers that comes down to 5 to 10 slides, up to 2 per minute of speaking time .

• Design for screen size. If you’ll be presenting on a desktop or laptop screen, ensure that text is large enough to read for people standing or sitting a few feet away.
• Practice your timing. Five minutes might seem like a long time until you start talking.
• Put one point on each slide. (That’s probably all you’ll have time for.)
• Include a call to action at the end for the audience. This might include anything from an email address to answer a question or provide feedback to taking a survey or visiting a website.
• Don’t include a questions slide unless you will actually have time to take questions at the end of a short presentation.

How Many Slides for a 10 Minute Presentation?

With a 10-minute you have a little more flexibility in terms of slide count.

With more time, you can vary pacing and might have time to take questions at the end of the talk. (Your slide count will be less if you cut time from your presentation to answer questions.)

For a 10-minute presentation, you’ll probably end up creating 10 to 20 slides, but don’t feel like you have to move through two slides per minute. It really depends on the complexity of the information you are talking about.

Record your presentation as you run through it. Did you finish on time? And were you able to see each slide long enough to understand it during the natural flow of the presentation before moving on to the next one?

• Include plenty of white space for an organized, easy to read design.
• Use a mix of images and text to keep the visual flow moving.
• Use legible fonts that are consistent from slide to slide.
• If a slide looks cluttered, break the content into multiple slides.
• Don’t go crazy with bullets. The goal of each slide is to present an idea, not serve as notes for you.

How Many Slides for a 15 Minute Presentation?

There’s a fairly logical relationship between the time you have to present information and how complicated the content is. The number of slides you need for a 15-minute presentation might not be that much different than at 10 minutes.

That’s because what’s on each slide might need to sit with the audience a little longer. You need to leave a chart on the screen long enough for the audience to understand it. A photo, on the other hand, can flash up and go away quickly and still be understood.

Carefully consider your presentation topic and then use this recommendation as needed: Allow for 20-30 slides for a 15-minute presentation .

• Pick a theme for each slide: Image or text? Don’t expect the audience to “read” both on every slide.
• Use image based slides to connect a short text point (or no text at all) to an idea the audience can see.
• Use text-based slides without images for more complex information or to show bullet points, charts or numbers.
• You don’t have to have a new photo and image for each slide. Use the same image and change the text if you need to. Or don’t use an image at all. Nice typography is pretty awesome.
• Include more detailed information in the notes area for you as you are giving the presentation or to the audience to download and print later.

How Many Slides for a 30 Minute Presentation?

Once you get into the territory of longer presentations, you might want to use slides of varying types – some that are super quick and others that stay visible longer – to get different points across and fit the conversational flow.

This varying approach can be interesting for the audience but might require a little math and planning on your part to determine the exact right number of slides.

Start with this formula for a 30-minute presentation :

• 4 minutes: Amount of time for opening and closing (1 slide each)
• 2 minutes: Time for each point in your presentation (1 slide per point)
• 1 minute: Time for each sub-point in your presentation (1 slide per sub-point)
• 3 minutes: Deep dive for one or two key takeways (1-2 slides)
• Flash slide (quick on and off the screen): For transitions between large topic areas or polling the audience to keep them engaged

Now you can look at your content and do a few quick calculations to get a rough idea of how many slides you might need. For a 30-minute presentation with 5 points with two subpoints each and a takeaway, that’s in the neighborhood of 20 slides.

How Many Slides for a 45 Minute Presentation?

For longer presentations, pace and energy are key. Some presenters can go through an exceptional number of slides because of the way they speak.

Seasoned speakers, often giving a presentation that they’ve done a lot of times, can average 5 slides per minute. These are fast-paced quick hit images that really keep the audience thinking and engaged. It’s a fun style but can be difficult to pull off.

A more moderate estimate is 1 to 2 slides per minute at a varying pace. That’s what you commonly see in corporate presentations and talks. (The content is often complex as well.)

• Consider location with longer presentations. Will the slides be projected on a large screen? Design for that environment.
• Include mixed media clips if appropriate in longer presentations. Varying formats can keep the audience interested.
• Use a design theme for a consistent look and feel for the entire presentation.
• Don’t let slides sit on the screen for too long. Mix it up with a new photo even if the content theme hasn’t changed much. Once you set an expectation for the audience with visuals, you don’t want them to check out.
• Make the most of the top half of the slides. If you are in a big room, sometimes the lower portion is obscured for some audience members. Even if you need to use more slides to keep content toward the top, do it.

• Scroll to top

How many slides should I have in my PowerPoint presentation?

When you’re planning out your next big presentation, it can be hard to know what the slide count sweet spot is. How many slides to put in a presentation, to keep your audience’s attention, is a much bigger question than it may seem.

We’d love to tell you there’s a simple answer, but if you really want to create a persuasive argument, there are a few variables to consider when planning the number of slides in your presentation. And despite what other articles spout, it has nothing to do with time.

We bet you’ve heard a few conflicting theories on this subject, so we thought it was about time we weighed in. You might’ve heard  Guy Kawasaki ’s 10/20/30 rule. This rule states that the “perfect” presentation has ten slides, lasts for 20 minutes, and uses a 30pt font. Or you might’ve read that every minute you speak equates to one slide on display behind you. You might even have uncovered some more formulaic and intricate theories than those, where x = the perfect number of slides. To reach x, you simply divide the number of people in the audience by how many seconds you have to speak, times that by how many steps between your house and the venue, to the power of your height in centimetres. If you’ve already worked your way through a series of varying opinions, you might currently be crying out “just tell me how many damn slides I need!”

Just tell me how many damn slides I need! You

While a lot of these theories are rooted in intelligent thinking and, sometimes, even science, we can’t get on board. They’re just too damn limiting. The people behind the theories were probably trying to over-simplify this complicated question, just to give you an answer. But do you want any answer? Or do you want the right answer?

The right answer is: you’re thinking about presentations wrong.

Do you think Jack Kerouac, Graham Greene, or Dan Brown ever sat down to write with the sole intention of landing on 432 pages? No, they had stories to tell, and it didn’t matter how many pages they took to tell them.

What makes you so different from  Kerouac ?

How many slides until there’s purpose?

You’re writing a presentation with a purpose. There’s a change you want to make, and your task is to convey your message persuasively, to inspire everyone that hears it to want the same change. Your purpose is not to fill exactly 20 minutes with exactly ten slides. It takes as many slides as it takes.

No, we’re not just going to leave you with that. We’re not trying to lose friends, clients and beloved readers.

We understand that presentations do often have a time limit, and that limit is one we have to consider when writing. But that limit needs to influence the number of ideas you try to convey, not dictate how many slides go into your presentation to convey these ideas. Because that’s what we’re really talking about here: ideas. For a shorter presentation, you’re going to need to be cut-throat with your editing. To trim the excess, until all that’s left is the most impactful, delicious centre piece. 

That doesn’t mean, if you have the freedom of time, you should use it to reel off every idea you’ve ever had. But you can allow yourself the luxury to layer linked ideas that all point towards one conclusion. To build a nest of ideas. And to support those ideas with facts, figures, previous successes, as well as other people’s ideas.

Only once you’ve written your detailed narrative structure, or your full script , if that’s how you feel most comfortable, should you even start to think about PowerPoint slides.

Give your ideas room to breathe

Each of your ideas deserves its time to shine. A dramatic pause works to let an impactful sentence sink in, giving the audience a moment to consider the gravity of the spoken word. Uncluttered slides have the same effect. If you try to include too many ideas on one slide, none of them are going to be understood, or remembered. 

If you’re just starting out in the world of persuasive communications, a good rule to follow is:  one idea, one slide . This will allow each idea to have its moment, without competing with any of the other ideas. This will also mean, visually, you’ll have more opportunity to enhance your message. With more slide real estate to play with, you can create presentation designs that hammer your ideas home, rather than confuse the situation further.

The journey of an idea:

• introduce it
• let it sink in

and signal the introduction of the next idea with a brand-new slide.

This is a great guide, for those lacking confidence, to use as a starting point. It is not a rule.

What counts as an idea?

Now, this is a much more complicated question, and one that will change for every presentation. In our role as guides in this scenario, we want to give you a tangible answer to your query, not simply introduce more questions, and more confusion, into the mix. After all, if your presentation is tomorrow and your search was the result of extreme desperation and maybe a little too much wine, well, you’re probably not reading this anymore because you’ve already poured said wine over your laptop in frustration. But if you are still with us, you’re probably really keen to get an answer right about now.

Frustration and confusion are not our goals. We just respect you too much to lie to you. We trust that you’ve caught on to the general theme that there are many considerations that go into the slide count of any presentation that comes through the Hype Presentations studio doors. Now that we’ve addressed that, we can give you a template to help you along your way.

If you’ve read any of our other  storytelling blogs , you already know that every story – this includes your presentation – needs a beginning, middle and end . Let’s break down a very basic structure, and accompanying slide count, for these three key sections.

This is where you set the scene, pique the audience’s interest, give them a clue as to what’s in it for them, and establish common ground. It might look something like this:

• Title slide : give your audience something exciting to look at, as they’re waiting for the presentation to begin. One slide.
• Agenda: lay out the journey they’re about to go on, and why it will be worth their while. One slide.
• Current situation : describe the landscape as it currently stands, making sure everyone is on the same page before you set off. No man left behind. One slide.

This is where we get into the real juicy bit of storytelling. And it’s also where all hope you had of squeezing a definitive slide count out of us will come tumbling down. 

A persuasive argument needs to acknowledge your audience’s challenges, and propose a solution to each one of them. Your audience might have one challenge, they might have 50, which is where the ambiguity kicks back in. Each challenge needs its own slide, and each solution does too. 

If your audience does have 50 challenges, try to find common themes between them, so you can address them as a cohesive group, all under one idea umbrella. Human beings find patterns comforting, so they’ll appreciate the bundling, as well as the reduced slide count.

Appealing to emotion, by showing you have the answer to your audience’s problems, is just one part of landing a persuasive argument. You also need to apply to logic and establish credibility. Again, this could take one slide, or it could take nine, but here is some general guidance:

• Case studies: one case study per slide.
• How it works: if the technology, service, or process you’re proposing is simple, showing your audience how it works may only take one slide. However, if it’s complicated, you’ll need to break it into component parts and tell this story across multiple slides. Remember, it’s about clarity and comprehension. It takes as many slides as it takes for the information to be processed.
• About you: audiences don’t care that much about how you were formed, or where your CEO worked before he came to be with you. Edit your company information down to what actually matters to them, and what will establish credibility in their eyes. If you’ve won awards that prove your innovations are the best in your field, show them the accolades. If the technology partner you work with is exclusive to you, let them know. The most effective ‘About us’ sections are one or two slides at the most. Avoid the company timeline, at all costs.

To close, you’re going to want to sum your key points up in one slide. Just a gentle reminder of the immense benefits they will receive by working with you.

And finally, your end slide should be, as the name suggests, one slide with a powerful call to action. To find out more about how to leave a lasting impression on every audience you encounter,  take a look at this article .

Even if you’re still pulling your hair out, desperately grasping for a simple number, hopefully these guidelines have given you some food for thought.

And now we’re going to complicate the already-fuzzy rules we’ve put in place. 

At Hype Presentations, we never look at the number of slides.

Give a shit, that’s what we say. Slide count doesn’t mean a damn thing. Sometimes we spread one message across five slides, because that’s how you get the animation to work seamlessly. Complicated navigation often requires duplicating slides, so that you don’t confuse PowerPoint as to where action came from. In contrast, we can present really complicated messaging on just one slide by using animation builds to break up the story, instead of a series of slides. There are so many variables. All we’re trying to say is, stop worrying yourself about slide count. 

However, some things, to do with slide count, you should worry yourself about:

Bad advice  

This is a call back to some of those other articles you likely stumbled across in your search. If you’re basing your presentation on hitting exactly one minute per slide, you’ve already lost your audience and you’re not even stood in front of them.

If you’re basing your presentation on hitting exactly one minute per slide, you’ve already lost your audience and you’re not even stood in front of them.

Are all ideas created equal? No. Does your audience care about everything you have to say in equal measure? No. Even if you’ve taken the “so what?” test, and all your messages have passed and are providing value to them, they’re not going to appreciate you skipping over important parts of the solution because the clock is ticking. 

Take time to explain the ideas with the greatest impact, and appreciate your audience’s intelligence enough to assume they’ll understand what an award means, without you describing it for a minute, just because the rule says so.

Do you need slides at all? 

Pick your jaw up off the floor. Just because we create next-level presentations day in, day out, and we absolutely bloody love PowerPoint, doesn’t mean we’re going to lead you astray. Sometimes, you just don’t need the support that slides bring. 

Slides are not there to remind you, as presenter, what your key talking points are. If you’re one of the – terrifyingly few – people who practice adequately ahead of a big presentation, you won’t need your memory jogged anyway. 

Slides are not there to tell the whole story for you. The slideshow is not the presentation. The words coming out of your mouth are what the audience came to hear. You are the star of your own presentation.

Before you start closing your laptop down in celebration, let’s take a step back and talk about why you (probably) do need slides.

What are slides for, anyway?

When  designed  and animated correctly, slides enhance your spoken message so that it’s easier to understand, easier to remember, and more persuasive. You and your slides are a team. There are some things that a visual can just do better than you can. Take, for example, a chart. You could spend half an hour painting a word picture of a chart you saw once. Or you could whack an impactful piece of data vis up on the screen and move on.

So, back to the original question you never even asked:

When might you not need slides?

If you only have five minutes to influence that desired change in the minds, hearts, and actions of your audience, an emotional and well-told story, spoken directly from your heart, without the dilution of technology or the fumbling of a slide clicker, could be the best way to get your message across. No distractions, no gimmicks, just authenticity. 

In this instance, it wouldn’t matter how many slides are in your presentation, they’re never going to be more impactful than your honesty and vulnerability.

In this short amount of time, your audience is unlikely to suffer from information overload and forget any of your messages, so you don’t need the slides for their ability to enhance memory. They’re unlikely to lose the train of your narrative, so you don’t need the slides as visual guidance. And if your story is told right, speaking to their challenges, and wrapped up in a situation that’s personal to them, you won’t need the persuasive powers of PowerPoint either.

But, nine times out of ten, a PowerPoint can only better your spoken messaging. Fact.

Nine times out of ten, a PowerPoint can only better your spoken messaging.

Extra time means extra slides 

And not just because of the extra ideas. If you’ve been asked to speak for a long time, firstly ask yourself if it’s really necessary. Can your audience concentrate for that long? Could the session be split into smaller chunks? Is it even going to be valuable for them? Do you have that many relevant ideas?

If it turns out to be necessary, there are some extra slides you’re going to want to add to your deck. Consider adding regular breaks (one slide per break), recaps (one slide per recap), even quizzes (one slide per question-answer combo) to keep your audience engaged, check understanding, and give them a chance to stretch their legs.

And, with the freedom of time, comes the opportunity to use other people’s voices to enhance your own. Consider adding relevant quotes, audio clips, or videos from recognisable people who support your message. Of course, you could animate these elements onto your slide with a click, but if you’re not that confident using PowerPoint, creating a new slide for each is an easier option.

When we’re deciding what the most impactful way to tell a client’s story is, we bring brilliant minds from each department together to throw ideas around, consider workarounds for each limitation, and push ourselves to deliver the best solution for each client. And not once do we say “But is that the right number of slides?”

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Presenting Effectively in Six Minutes and 40 Seconds

Do you have an important presentation coming up? Worried about talking for too long? Insecure about your visual? Can’t seem to get your thoughts organized? SAY NO MORE! Here’s a solution that will make your next presentation, precise, timely, informational, and professional. Presenting: the Pecha Kucha. 

3 Things to know about Pecha Kuchas 

• A Pecha Kucha is a presentation style with a 20x20 format: 20 slides that each last for 20 seconds, no exceptions. With the strict timing guidelines, each Pecha Kucha presentation is limited to 6 minutes and 40 seconds. 
• This style of presentation uses the time allotted to focus the presentation’s message, deliver only the necessary information, and put an end to long and monotonous PowerPoint presentations. A Pecha Kucha challenges the presenter to determine what the audience needs to remember most. 
• Images are the key to effective Pecha Kuchas. The 20 slides of this presentation are imbedded with one powerful image per slide, often illustrations or metaphors of the key points. 

3 Ways to Avoid “Beginner Mistakes” of Pecha Kucha Delivery 

Fact: 20 seconds is not a lot of time, especially when defining, describing, or introducing a topic of study or conducting an analysis. “Practice makes perfect” truly does ring true to Pecha Kucha preparation. Here are a few tips for editing, condensing, and practicing delivery. 

• Build in Catch-Up Spots: Write a sentence in your presentation that can be omitted if the slide transitions before you’re done speaking. This sentence should contain information about your subject but is not vital to the heart of your analysis. 
• Memorize Key Points: Memorizing the keys points of each slide for a Pecha Kucha delivery is the best approach. It saves time, but also helps you avoid stumbling over thoughts or words. But be sure to present using a conversational tone of voice rather than the monotone voice of memory. 
• Tell a Story: The best presentations are often good stories, rather than a plethora of facts strung together. Consider how your story will combine with the images you’ve chosen to solidify your message and take your audience on a journey. 

Pecha Kuchas challenge presenters to condense their ideas and writing to fit a very precise and unique format—resulting in a sharp, engaging, professional presentations that are enjoyable to listen to. 

For a video guide on Pecha Kucha design visit http://www.pechakucha.org.

- Rebecca Garner ‘17

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How Many PowerPoint Slides Should You Use in a Presentation?

Instead, you want to figure out what you want to say first . Then, after you have designed a great presentation, go back and figure out what visual aids you will need to better make your key points. The main rule of thumb is to provide only the number of slides that you absolutely need and absolutely no more than that.

So in this session, I’m going to cover a few examples for the right number of slides needed in short presentations, the long presentation, the best way to give corporate presentations.

The Max Number of Slides for a 15-Minute Presentation (or Less.)

Instead, especially for short talks, the first thing you want to do is make a list of the most important items that need to be covered in your presentation. Then, rank these items based on their list of importance. As you go down the list, you should notice that the level of importance for each item drops exponentially as you go down the list. So, instead of covering all of the items, just cover the three (or five) most important items in your presentation.

On your first slide, give an overview of all of the points. Just list them out for the audience so they can see what you will be covering. Then, create a separate slide for each of the three (or five) main points. Finally, on your last slide, just copy the content from your first slide and your introduction now becomes a nice conclusion as well.

By the way, for most business presentations, if you can deliver the important things in a 10-minute speech, you will be loved. If you require a 30-minute presentation time, the audience will like you about three times less.

For more details about how to design presentations or to use our helpful online presentation generator click here.

What If You Have an Hour-Long Talk? How Many Slides Do You Need?

Start with an introduction slide with an overview of all five bullet points. On your internal slides, just cover the single main idea for each bullet. You will have five internal slides. Then, end with your summary slide with the main concepts one more time. This repetition of the main concepts will increase the audience’s retention of the material. For the more seasoned presenter, you can use just three main bullet points but add an extra relevant story to each point. The more that you use this technique the easier you will find it to fit your content into the correct presentation length.

For instance, if you find yourself rushing at the end without enough time to finish, you can give fewer details in your stories. If you finish early, you can add more details into your examples and stories.

For a 60-minute presentation, use five bullet points and seven slides . This time insert a couple of different stories as evidence of each bullet point. I like to use the “bad example/good example” technique. On each of the internal slides, give your audience an example of yourself or someone else who did the opposite of the point. Then, follow up with a good example.

The “Bad Example/Good Example” Technique.

If I were to use the technique to prove the point that you need seven slides for an hour presentation, I could use the following…

Bad Example : A few years ago, I went to a three-day seminar where the presenter taught about how to market to universities. On the first morning, his team gave each of us a three-ring binder with hundreds of pages. I was actually pretty excited as I scanned the binder. It was full of a ton of great information. During the first hour, the speaker gave us over 50 great tips and techniques. In the next hour, he covered another 50. He did this over and over for two and a half days. Because I am a public speaking

However, a better example is…

Good Example : A few weeks ago, a long-time client asked me to design a custom workshop for his team. He had a team who were working on a project that had been discontinued. So, he wanted to help the team members have an easier time getting rehired elsewhere in the company. We created a short class for them on how to do well in a job interview. I started by making a list of the most important items they would likely want to know. Art the top of the list was how to reduce nervousness. I spent the first few minutes covering details on how to do this. Second, I gave them a simple process to help them answer questions with credibility. Finally, I gave them a list of questions they would likely be asked. I could have covered hundreds of other tips. However, these were the things that would give them the most bang-for-their-buck.

How Many Slides for a Longer Presentation

Basically, if you design a 120-minute PowerPoint presentation, start by creating two 60-minute presentations. Then, just insert a short break in between each session. When I created the two-day Fearless Presentations ® class, I didn’t start with two days of content. On the contrary, I started with an outline of the “most important” items just like what I suggested you do in your 15-minute presentation.

Here is the list that I started with:

• How to Reduce Public Speaking Fear.
• Designing Short Impromptu Speeches.
• How to Create a Presentation that Is Easier to Deliver.
• Adding Energy and Enthusiasm to Boring Topics.
• Ways to Add Impact and Interactivity to a Presentation.

If I wanted to, I could deliver the entire content of this speech in an hour-long keynote. I’d just need to insert a few examples for each point. That is pretty easy. However, if I want to turn the list into a 2-day seminar, that is pretty easy as well. I’d start with the first point, “How to Reduce Public Speaking Fear.” This becomes the topic of a new one-hour presentation. I use the same technique. “What is the most important thing I can teach the audience about reducing nervousness? What is the second most important thing? And the third thing?”

Basically, the entire two-day class is just a collection of five shorter presentations. In my entire slide deck, I use about 30 different slides in two full days.

The Guy Kawasaki 10/20/30 Rule of PowerPoint

Guy Kawasaki created an interesting PowerPoint rule for entrepreneurs coming to him for venture capital. He calls it his 10/20/30 PowerPoint Rule . This general rule is what he requires presenters to use when they come to him for help. Basically, he noticed that presenters spend too much time blathering about unimportant things. So, he gave them a guide and set time limits for each presenter.

• 10 PowerPoint Slides
• 20-Minute Presentation
• 30 Point Font

Obviously, he created these criteria for a certain type of presentation. However, his logic is sound. In fact, the only thing I might argue with him about is the 10 slides rule. Kawasaki says, “Ten is the optimal number of slides in a PowerPoint presentation because a normal human being cannot comprehend more than ten concepts in a meeting.”

Let me reiterate that. A normal human being cannot comprehend. He doesn’t say retain. The average person can comprehend more information than he or she can retain. For instance, if I read an entire book on accounting, I might comprehend all of the content. However, because the book covers so many concepts, I’m likely to retain only a few. Knowing this, reduce your number of slides and you will increase retention of your important points.

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How many slides for a 15 minute presentation?

When the time allotted for a business presentation varies, so must the slide’s content to fit the minute quota. Yet, it can be hard to know how to achieve the right amount of slides for the time frame that you’ve got. Therefore, we’ve considered how many slides for a 10-minute presentation an entrepreneur would ideally need, as well as how many slides for a 15-minute presentation, and how many slides for a 5-minute presentation. And, we’ve also included a note to the number of slides for a 3-minute pitch. 

Without more introduction, we’ll get right to the heart of it. 

How many slides for a 15-minute presentation 

With as many as a slide per minute, you could still range at a 15 slide average. However, some will say you could even do three slides per minute, depending on your content, so these could go up to even 45 slides according to that rule. 

In general, the answer to how many slides for a 15-minute presentation lies in about 25 slides. Yet, think anywhere between 20-30 as the broadest use of those. 

And if you genuinely wish to stick to the standard, remember any pitch deck should be able to withstand a 10-20 slide average. Therefore, you might be better off sticking to your 15 slide quota on this one. If you can afford it with 15 with all your must-haves, we say you do so. 

How many slides for a 10-minute presentation 

Twenty slides are the usual for a 10 min business pitch. Yet, you usually create anywhere from 10 to 20. 

If the number 20 on a 10-minute slot is making you think of 2 slides per minute, please take the load off your shoulders on that obligation before you start. It’s the best you could do. If you make yourself present two slides per minute, you might find you’ll be rushing through what you have to say, looking to cover a lot and find time to be a killer for the way you conceive your pitch.

On the contrary, think of what you need to include in your pitch. What’s better yet is to look up a business presentation template to give you an idea of the required content and its order so you can take it from there. We’ve even created a list full of pitch deck examples from successful startups (such as Airbnb, Uber, Facebook , and many others.) You’ll probably find much use relying on those, so take a look and start from there if it helps. 

On this one, it’s also helpful if you rely on images to keep a visual flow. Also, in considering how many slides for a 10-minute presentation, make sure your font is at the perfect size to be visible and not disturbing. As long as we’re at it, don’t overdo it with the bullet points and declutter your slides to make them look perfect!

How many slides for a 5-minute presentation 

Now let’s get to how many slides for a 5-minute presentation. A 5-minute presentation could already count as a prolonged elevator pitch . If those are new to you, we recommend you read up on How to Create an Elevator Pitch with Tips and Examples . 

In theory, a 5-minute presentation could be done with 5-6 slides at most, cutting your presentation time to about 45 seconds per slide. For this (and with any business presentation, really, but here especially), cut your text down to very basics. If people are lost reading your pitch deck, the chances of them listening to you for those 5 minutes decrease. 

Instead, create a presentation that keeps your audience engaged with what you’re saying. And remember, we still use story-telling even if the time is short, which will demand of your pitch planning a more concise and cohesive content. 

To get there, work on your script. As every word counts, you’ll find drafting a text and then polishing it will make for a precious exercise as you cut down on unnecessary wording to get to your point in the most succinct manner. 

You get this time to make an impression and leave something by which the audience can remember you. So be memorable. 

If you’re looking for less: the 3-minute pitch

Just in case, if you’re going for 3 minutes, we also have a 3 Minute Pitch Deck Template that can help you out. It works perfectly for Demo Day and going on-stage.

The deck includes a nice-looking cover followed by a critical question slide, your problem, and solution, along with chart slides for your financial slides, video inserts for your product demo, even room for a full quote, and much more! Feel free to check it out!

Regardless of the allotted time: Rehearse!

Whether you’ve got 5, 10, or 15 minutes on your business presentation clock, always prepare with much rehearsal. You need to practice your pitch, especially if time variations will be a demand from you. 

There needs to be a clear understanding of your absolute essentials if 3-5 minutes is all you’ve got to draw an investor. While this scenario might sound very wild, trust us that they exist for a very valid reason based on actual need and use in the startup industry. 

Also, by tailoring these pitch variations in regards to time differences, you’ll find a much more polished rendition of your business pitch. And that will significantly help give shape to the best version of your business presentation you could find. 

Please don’t take this for granted. Rehearse all you can as practice does make perfect. Record yourself on video or tape, listen and watch yourself so you can improve and get advice from others. Peer feedback helps, but even your family and friends can give you tips on presenting that can make your pitch go a long way. If not, we’ve drafted the Best 5 Tips on Presenting and Public Speaking to help out, as well.

And remember: whatever you do, don’t rush! A rushed presenter is a business pitch’s fall. Make the best use of your time without rushing, so people can listen to you and pay attention other than to your hurried stance. 

Are you out of ideas?

Before we let you move on to your pitch creation, are you fresh out of ideas on how to build a pitch deck? Just in case that’s you, our CDO and co-founder, Vini, has created a guide to an outstanding presentation deck with presentation deck ideas .

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How to Create an Engaging 5-Minute Presentation

Published: September 15, 2023

A 5-minute speech can feel both incredibly short and infinitely long.

While this short format encourages audiences to pay more attention, presenters often struggle to fit everything into five minutes even as they navigate nervousness that seems to stretch out each second.

As a result, preparation is key for 5-minute speech success.

But how can you ensure your presentation accomplishes everything it needs to within just five short minutes? We’ve put together an (appropriately condensed) guide on five-minute presentations to help you get started.

How many words are in a 5-minute presentation?

A five-minute presentation is approximately 700 words long. The average person speaks 120 to 160 words a minute, which means the average five-minute presentation is 600 to 800 words.

10 Free PowerPoint Templates

Download ten free PowerPoint templates for a better presentation.

• Creative templates.
• Data-driven templates.
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You're all set!

Click this link to access this resource at any time.

To calculate your own personal speaking speed (words per minute, or WPM):

• Make an audio recording of yourself speaking for one minute.
• Use a free transcription service to generate a text version of your speech.
• The number of words you spoke in that minute is your personal WPM.

When constructing a longer presentation, you might be more concerned about transitions and keeping the audience engaged with more extensive narrative elements.

In a short presentation, everything you say should directly tie back to your central premise and further advance your main point.

Keeping a tight scope and using your words carefully ensures your time isn't wasted and the audience leaves with a clear, singular takeaway.

How many slides are in a 5-minute presentation?

Five or six slides, or about one per minute, is a good baseline for a 5-minute presentation. Depending on your subject matter, however, you might use up to 20 slides and spend about 10 or 15 seconds on each.

More important than your slide count is what each slide contains. It‘s a good rule of thumb to keep your slides simple and focused on visuals instead of text for a presentation of any length.

This becomes especially important when you’re dealing with a condensed presentation window.

Trying to cram in as much information as possible within a short time frame can be tempting. Resist the urge. Instead, focus on simple, clean visuals that all tie back to your central premise.

You can also use these free presentation templates to arrange your slides in a way that makes the most sense for your delivery and the content of your presentation.

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How to Create a 5 Minutes Presentation

Giving a 40-60-minute speech isn’t a synonym for success. Sticking to shorter presentation formats can increase the impact of large-format events. Among its many advantages, allowing multiple speakers to give their insights rises above everything. Still, presenters often struggle to be concise, as they aim to disclose as much content as possible, ending up overdoing the allotted time or delivering rushed-up presentations.

In this article, we’ll share our experience on how to master the art of 3-5 minute presentations, keeping your speech concise while using powerful graphics to connect with the audience.

Table of Contents

What is a 5 Minutes Presentation?

What are the requirements of 5 minutes presentations, how many slides for a 5 minute presentation, 5 minute presentation ideas, how to make a 5 minute presentation, common mistakes to avoid in 5-minute presentations, recommended templates for 5 minute presentations, final words.

A 5-minute presentation is a short talk designed to convey a specific message, idea, information, or argument within a limited timeframe, between three to five minutes – the latter being the average duration. Due to the brevity, these presentations require careful planning and preparation to ensure the content is concise, focused, and impactful. 

We can define a five-minute presentation’s must-have(s) in seven different categories.

Objective Definition

The purpose of your talk has to be clear from the presentation planning phase. This implies acknowledging whether you intend to inform, persuade, inspire, or instruct your audience on a given topic.

On this behalf, we made a list of frameworks to help you pinpoint the core objective of your presentation:

• SPIN (Situation, Problem, Implication, Need-payoff): Intended for sales strategy or customer-driven presentations. The focus is set on understanding the audience’s situation, presenting the problems, implications, and potential benefits of a proposed solution.
• AIDA (Attention, Interest, Desire, Action): The AIDA framework is extremely popular in marketing campaigns and sales presentations. You can learn more about this approach for engaging presentations by checking our guide on the AIDA model .
• SCQA (Situation, Complication, Question, Answer): Intended for problem-solving meetings and business presentations. The SCQA framework establishes a context and its challenges, raises a question, and provides solutions for it.
• Minto Pyramid Principle: This unconventional approach is used for business presentations and reports, and was developed by Barbara Minto at McKinsey & Company in the 1970s . We start by stating the conclusion or core recommendation, then organize the information that supports your statement in a logical flow. By implementing this approach, you inspire the audience to think critically about the presented scenario, while discussing complex ideas in an easier-to-digest format due to its hierarchical organization of ideas.
• Monroe’s Motivated Sequence: A framework with a focus on persuasive presentations. It is structured by five pillars recognized by its author, Alan H. Monroe : Attention, Need, Satisfaction, Visualization, and Action. 

Concise Content

“How many words in a 5-minute speech” is a commonly asked question by beginner presenters. The average range for seasoned speakers is 130-150 words per minute in a fluent speech, and depending on the topic, that can go slower (technical-based presentations) or faster (motivational presentations, like the ones delivered by Tony Robbins ). 

Therefore, for a 5-minute speech, you might aim for:

• At 130 words per minute: 130×5=650 words
• At 150 words per minute: 150×5=750 words

That calculation can help you curate the script for your speech. In general lines, our expertise tells us that selecting a topic that can be covered within 5 minutes is roughly 60% of the job. After effectively selecting a topic, you must restrict the content to 2-3 main points to remain within the time limit and end your presentation in style. 

Presentation Structure

In more laid-back scenarios, presentations can lean toward a conversational mode rather than a strict agenda. Still, we ought to ensure the presentation structure contains an Introduction, a Body, and a Conclusion. 

The Introduction helps us familiarize the audience with what’s expected out of your presentation. Additionally, it is our chance to make a good first impression . Knowing how to start your presentation guarantees audience engagement from the initial moments of your delivery.

Moving to the Body, this is where facts are laid out and backed up using evidence or examples to support your view. Visual aids can contribute to minimizing the need for lengthy text walls. 

Finally, the Conclusion summarizes the key takeaways and, when applicable, brings a call to action in the format of thought-provoking statements, data shared, an irresistible offer, and plenty of other scenarios.

Audience Engagement

Connecting with the audience is vital, especially in short formats like Pecha Kucha presentations . Your speech pace and body language are significant factors that contribute to how the audience perceives your interest in their time. 

Aim for a relaxed but confident attitude, as if you were passionately talking about a topic with a group of acquaintances. This reinforces your authority in the topic you deliver, as being anxious or rushing through the presentation only speaks of a lack of interest.

Apply professional presentation techniques like storytelling for presentations or harnessing the power of visual communication strategies to make your message memorable. 

Audience Acknowledgement

Tailoring your presentation for the audience’s interest is the first step every presenter must take to guarantee success, especially if we’re another speaker in large-scale events. In some niches, like academic presentations, it is vital as some of the audience may not feel connected with your research topic. 

Based on information gathered from our customer’s feedback, a good recipe to connect with your audience is to work with a sales approach in mind and create your “ideal audience persona.” This would be your attendee who’s 100% connected with what you intend to share. Compare and contrast demographics with the public you know will attend, and find the common points and where you need to adjust your expectations to meet the audience’s interest.

If the event format allows for it, be ready to present questions at the end of your presentation that may drive the interest of a Q&A session.

Visual Aids

Slides featuring infographics , dashboards , or storytelling-based illustrations help to attract the spectator’s interest and increase the retention rate, as research proves it’s easier to recall pictures than words . As previously mentioned, leveraging graphics helps us reduce our slides’ word count.

Other presentation aids , like videos, audio, and even sensory elements such as smells, can drive a broad range of emotional responses within the audience. It’s worth exploiting this route if your presentation aims to persuade or motivate the spectators. 

Time Management

Last but not least, time management is an etiquette rule of respect for fellow presenters. Your content has to fit within the 5-minute limit, including transition times and variations in your delivery speed.

A good presenter is an adaptable one. Be ready to adjust your speech on the fly if you find yourself running short or long on time or if the audience’s interest drives the conversation briefly away from your intended destination.

Defining how many slides is a 5 minute presentation isn’t an automatic task. Some topics can be quickly resolved following the premises of the 1-2-3 rule for presentations, applying:

• One main message: Your presentation should center around a single, clear main message or idea. This ensures focus and helps your audience grasp the core of your presentation without getting lost in details. 
• Two supporting points: Support your main message with two strong, relevant points or arguments. This structure helps provide depth to your presentation without overwhelming your audience with too much information. 
• Three examples or pieces of evidence: For each supporting point, provide three examples, pieces of evidence, or data points to substantiate your arguments. This reinforces your message and helps in making your case more convincing.

In short, implementing this practice can result in a range between 5 and 10 slides in your 5-minute presentation. More complex topics, like medical presentations or scientific conferences, cannot be summarized easily, as graphs require one full slide for accurate data visualization. In this case, weigh the critical points your presentation must cover, assign a maximum of 3 slides per crucial point, and avoid filler content.

Googling around you can come across lists with 200, 60, 40, and plenty other title combinations referring to 5 minute presentation ideas. Despite it being a good starter to brainstorm potential topics or angles for your presentation, we shall introduce our method to implement AI tools to come up with 5 minute presentation topics. The following instructions apply to ChatGPT , Gemini (Bard) or Bing.

• Consider the niche in which you want to deliver a 5 minute presentation. 
• Gather the main keywords around the topic you intend to present. For example, if you want to deliver a presentation about artificial intelligence, the following keywords may suit your needs as well: AI, artificial intelligence chatbot, types of artificial intelligence, artificial intelligence solutions, what is artificial intelligence.
• Open your AI tool of preference and write the following prompt: “Give me a list of 20 5-minute presentation ideas in the IT niche that fit these keywords: AI, artificial intelligence chatbot, types of artificial intelligence, artificial intelligence solutions, what is artificial intelligence.”

And this is the list generated by ChatGPT-4

• Introduction to Artificial Intelligence: Basics of AI, its history, and evolution.
• Exploring AI Technologies: A dive into machine learning, neural networks, and deep learning.
• Types of Artificial Intelligence: From narrow (or weak) AI to general (or strong) AI, and superintelligence.
• AI Chatbots: Revolutionizing Customer Service: How chatbots are changing the customer service landscape across industries.
• Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare: Discussing AI solutions for diagnostics, treatment recommendations, and patient care.
• The Role of AI in Autonomous Vehicles: Examining how AI technologies power self-driving cars.
• Ethical Considerations in AI: The moral implications of AI in decision-making and privacy concerns.
• AI in Cybersecurity: Using artificial intelligence to predict, detect, and respond to cyber threats.
• The Impact of AI on Job Markets: How AI is reshaping employment opportunities and the workforce.
• Machine Learning Algorithms Explained: An overview of popular algorithms and their applications in AI.
• AI and Big Data: How AI algorithms process and analyze large datasets to extract meaningful insights.
• Natural Language Processing (NLP) in AI: Understanding how AI interprets, understands, and generates human language.
• AI in Finance: The use of artificial intelligence in fraud detection, algorithmic trading, and personalized banking.
• Artificial Intelligence for Environmental Sustainability: Exploring AI solutions for climate change, conservation, and sustainable energy.
• AI and Robotics: How AI is applied in robotics for automation, exploration, and manufacturing.
• Deep Learning and Neural Networks: An introduction to the architecture of neural networks and their significance in AI.
• Implementing AI Solutions in Small Businesses: Practical AI applications for improving efficiency and productivity in SMEs.
• The Future of AI: Predictions and emerging trends in artificial intelligence technologies.
• AI in Education: Personalized learning, automated grading, and AI’s role in educational institutions.
• Ethics and Bias in AI: Addressing the challenges of bias in AI algorithms and ensuring ethical AI development.

In this section, we will apply the explained suggestions earlier, approaching a real use case of a motivational speaker addressing an audience of marketing professionals. The speaker has to deliver a 5 minute presentation for a large onsite event.

Defining the Objective & Core Message

Our presenter is faced with the challenge of highlighting the importance of data analysis in marketing these days, and why marketing professionals should be adaptable to the latest trends. Therefore, using Minto’s Pyramid Principle, the presenter who already knows the answer – that hunch-based decisions need to be turned into data-driven decisions – plans how to convey the importance of that statement into the presentation’s flow.

Then, a powerful hook comes to mind on how to start this presentation: “Today, I want to share why embracing change isn’t just necessary; it’s our most powerful tool for growth in the marketing world.” Since that statement can sound somewhat vague, the presenter opts for a quote to impact the audience. A definition of what Social Listening is, indicating the connection between data and consumer behavior analysis.

Concise Content Tailored for the Audience

Research or inquire about the audience’s background in marketing. Are they novices or seasoned professionals? What challenges are they facing? Use this information to shape your presentation content.

In our presenter’s case, the event’s organizer gave some basic information about the demographics and audience’s background. Returning to the “ideal audience persona” concept, this presenter’s audience consists of mid-level marketing professionals facing rapid industry changes. Some already have experience working with data analytics but couldn’t extract the full potential. Therefore, rather than losing time with basics, the presenter prepares a compelling dashboard slide showing metrics of how working with data helped a client grow its revenue rate by 19% in three months.

The time limit for this presentation is 6 minutes in total, as a 1-minute Q&A session is contemplated. Therefore, using our word-per-minute calculation, the presenter opts for a 5 minute speech word count of 600 words, as it’s best to impact with powerful visuals and data storytelling rather than to rush the speech. As the recommended slide deck length for this presentation format is between 5 and 10 slides, the presenter opts for 3 extra slides, totaling 13 slides, since the two main points require 2-3 slides each.

The Introduction for this presentation is a powerful statement, as we mentioned above, taking one full minute to deliver the phrase and share the information that backs up such a statement.

The Body will take 3 minutes to be presented, and it shall cover a three-tier structure with the following premises:

• Challenge: “The digital marketing landscape is evolving faster than ever before, leaving many behind.”
• Strategy: “Yet, some marketers are thriving by adopting agile methodologies and data-driven strategies.”
• Success Story: “Take, for example, a small business that doubled its online engagement and grew its revenue rate by 19% in three months just by simply listening to its audience through social media analytics.”

The Conclusion takes another minute, using a powerful slide to leave a lasting thought that the audience can dwell on.

As the format is brief, the presenter will use powerful graphics to boost audience engagement. Additionally, there’s a short exercise at the beginning of the presentation where the speaker promptly says: “Turn to the person next to you and share one change you’ve embraced in your marketing strategy this year that made a difference.” This is a fine example of how to implement interactive presentation techniques to boost audience engagement.

Leveraging this kind of strategy helps the audience to connect with the importance of making changes in the marketing strategy of their work environments, but not just any change, something that’s measurable and has a significant impact. The presenter expects that not many members can successfully relate to change with results due to their inexperience in marketing data analytics – a piece of information disclosed by the event’s organizer – so the remaining of the presentation consists of ‘wowing’ the audience on the importance of data and how to measure that impact to stay tuned with the latest trends.

Although it seems an easy-to-adapt format, presenters working under 5-minute presentation can face some challenges that affect the overall outcome of their presentation delivery. Most of these presentation mistakes apply to any kind of presentation. In particular, we consider the following list as beginner mistakes we can easily prevent.

• Using Jargon or Complex Language: This can alienate your audience. Use clear, accessible language.
• Reading from Slides: This is literally “death by PowerPoint.” Use slides as a visual aid, not a script.
• Overuse of Animations or Transitions: While they can be engaging, too many can be distracting and appear unprofessional.

Check the following slide decks and PPT templates to maximize your performance in 3-5 minute presentations.

1. 5 Minute Business Marketing Presentation Template

Create eye-catching marketing presentations by using this best PPT template with a clean layout and wavy backgrounds. The information can be structured around the included icons, maximizing the retention rate by giving an area to focus on just the core information to be disclosed.

Use This Template

2. Business Executive 5-Minute Presentation Template

Geared toward business presentations, this slide deck layout contains cutting-edge graphics that grab your audience’s interest. It can be easily customized to speak about your company’s growth process, reach out to potential investors, or even for non-business topics.

3. Modern Hexagon 5-Minute Pitch Deck PowerPoint Template

Another clean layout template with vivid colors to highlight the information shared. This professional PPT slide deck helps us discuss data or compare features between competitor products in the blink of an eye. The color palette uses gradients to transition between sections smoothly.

4. Kaleidoscope 5-Minute Company Profile PowerPoint Template

Although it is intended for company profiles or company overview presentations, this highly visual PPT template can be repurposed for many niches. Due to its limited-space placeholder text areas, the 5 minute speech word count can be significantly reduced, aiming for concise content.

5. Academic 5-Minute Presentation Template

An ideal template for presenting thesis dissertations, this slide deck features designs to introduce the scope of our research, problem statement, methodology used, outcomes, and their significance while preserving a cohesive aesthetic.

As we can see, concise presentation formats like the 5 minute presentation have their own challenges when we strive for quality. Consider rehearsing your presentation multiple times, opting for the slideshow mode , to spot any areas where you can trim the speech or change text for graphics. 

Speak reasonably, and remember it’s best to fall short some seconds and allow for a Q&A session rather than rushing and not giving a proper closure to your speech.

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Table of Contents

The 20-minute presentation checklist.

If you’ve been given only 20 minutes, 10 minutes, or even 5 minutes to make your point, you don’t need to jam everything you ever learned into that precious time.  It won’t make you look smarter. Let’s take a look at what’s possible.  Below are three TED Talks that I find to be amazing examples of short presentations.

How many slides should be in a 20 minute presentation?

There is a lot of advice about slides and it usually starts with a rule about what you should or shouldn’t do. My experience tells me that people often rely too heavily on slides. Don’t think of your slides as your content.

20-minute Presentation Example

Take a look at this example from a compelling presentation by Jane McGonigal titled The Game That Can Give You 10 Extra Years Of Life .

Did Jane make her point? Just like in her presentation, you should think about your slides as your co-facilitator.

In 2018 ATD published my thoughts on this in a booklet called PowerPoint: Your Co-Facilitator . When you design your slides, ask yourself how many times you want your audience looking at the slides and not listening to you? Years ago, my company, Endurance Learning , worked with a manufacturing company and reduced their slide deck from hundreds to 13 for a day and a half training session. This training program continued to be successfully implemented for years with 13 slides. The number isn’t as important as what work the slides do for you.

How many slides should you have in a 10 minute presentation?

Shorter presentations come with new challenges. In a 10 minute presentation, you should be very careful. Conventional wisdom would say that you can have roughly 5 slides at 2 minutes each. Just like when you had to edit your essay down from 3 pages to 1, a shorter presentation will challenge you to only show the slides that matter. Even the slightest change of pace or adjustment to your talking points could have you leaving slides on the proverbial cutting room floor.

10-minute Presentation Example

Take a look at this compelling presentation by Marla Spivak: Why Bees Are Disappearing.

How many slides should you have in a 5 minute presentation?

Now we’re talking! You may have gotten the sense above that the rules aren’t as important as why you’re using the slides. When you get to a 5 minute presentation (and maybe even on the 20 and 10 minute presentations), you should ask yourself why you are using slides.

5-minute Presentation Example

How important are slides in this 5-minute presentation by William Kamkwamba titled How I Harnessed The Wind ?

There are, of course, examples where you can take a short presentation with rapid-fire slides. I talked about Pecha Kucha before and showed how you can make it incredibly fun and engaging. That said, Pecha Kucha is a very specific format that is often used at events where a group of people are presenting in this format. For your 5 minute presentation, think about what you want to achieve and ask yourself if slides will be a critical part of supporting that message.

Designing Slides for Short Presentations

How can you emulate great short presentations the next time you’re asked to make a short presentation – in a staff meeting or in a public symposium?  Try incorporating the following elements:

• Give Your Presentation a Compelling Title : Who doesn’t want to know more just by reading the title?
• Find a Hook : Within the first minute, there’s a reason for me to pay attention – whether it’s looking at photos of an empty grocery store or how I can increase my lifespan. There’s something in these presentations for me .
• Remove Physical Barrier and Crutches : There’s no podium between the speaker and the audience. The speaker just feels more accessible.
• Focus on Making Attractive Visual Aids : Though PowerPoint is used, there’s not a single template. There are no bullet points. The slides have vivid, dramatic images and few words. Even statistics and scientific evidence is easy to digest. If you want to learn more consider checking out the podcast with Connie Malamed about visual design . In it she says, “When the visual design is poor, when there’s a lot of extraneous information, when things aren’t aligned, when it’s sloppy, it detracts from the learning. It makes it harder for people to visually process the screen or the slide in terms of e-learning and in terms of job aids or manuals, books, it’s the same story.”
• Encourage Active Listening : The Jane McGonigal presentation especially uses this strategy by giving the audience an assignment at the beginning (“I want you to think about how you’ll spend your extra minutes and hours of life”). She also intersperses questions throughout, inviting the audience to think for a moment before she proceeds. You should also check out the discussion with Melissa Marshall about creating engaging technical presentations . In it, she says that “… the concept of being a tour guide for the slide is even more important than it’s ever been, which is to very methodically walk people through what they should be noticing, what’s important about it.”
• Provide Concrete, Real-life Examples : We could have been exposed to the numbers of people without power in Malawi or mind-numbing charts on the science behind gaming, but the presenters instead chose to share stories and make an emotional connection. Since we live in the real world (and not in theory or in books), presentations are more gripping when they’re about what we do and how the numbers or the theories actually impact us.
• Share Your Passion : Each presenter shared their passion through their obvious preparation, their voice intonations and they allowed their personalities to show. They’re not just smart, but they care about both their topic and their audience.
• Tie It All Together : The speakers didn’t simply end by saying “thank you.” Their thank-you to the audience came in the form of a brief summary, wrap-up and call to action.

The next time you have a chance to present, don’t just do what’s easy. Use some of these tips and deliver a meaningful presentation!

What inspiration have you gotten from TED talks? Have you used this formula to sharpen your 20-minute, 10-minute or 5-minute presentation?

Brian Washburn

Brian has over 25 years of experience in Learning & Development including the last 7 as CEO of Endurance Learning.

Brian is always available to chat about learning & development and to talk about whether Endurance Learning can be your training team’s “extra set of hands”.

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Ace the Presentation

How to Effectively Manage Time During a Presentation? Short and Long Ones!

Slides are one of the best ways to engage an audience and nail a presentation. Nowadays, people use the most efficient and practical skills to make the slides clear, easy to understand. However, most people struggle to plan and manage time in their presentations.

How Many Slides are Suitable for Finishing a Presentation on Time?

The general rule says 1 to 2 slides per minute. However, it is critical to note that the presentation’s number of slides will vary according to the topic complexity, audience, available time, presentation structure and format, and goal. Good planning, rehearsal, and delivery skills are essential!

To be more specific, if you have too many slides in a presentation at the range of 3 to 15 minutes, you will end up confusing your audience or spending a significant part of your time explaining the slides. It does not mean you have to prepare a lot of information and squeeze it into few slides, and the best practice is to summarize your content to understand it easily.

From 25 minutes to 60 minutes, you can make a considerable number of slides. Some experts recommend 1 to 2 slides per minute, but as I said before, it will depend on the topic. Imagine that one of your slides contains graphs about some work you have been doing that can take more than 2 minutes, and it is important to explain it in detail to the audience.

It all starts with planning, researching, organizing all the collected data, prioritizing your key points, and making a structure. After this exercise, it will be easier to know how many slides you will have according to your given time.

To sum this up, there is no exact rule to set a number of slides for a given time frame, and it will vary according to the topic, your research, and your presentation skills. All you have to do is to balance the slides with your speech and time.

How many Slides for a 3-minute Presentation?

For a 3-minute presentation, the presenter should use four slides. Depending on how the slides are structured, 15 seconds to 2 minutes can be spent on each slide.

What really matters is not the amount of the slides but the quality. You can make three powerful slides and nail your presentation or make 5 with too much content and ending up having a boring presentation.

A good practice for a 3 minutes presentation is to keep it clean and straightforward. Keep in mind that slides are more engaging with visuals rather than texts. And on your speech, be as brief as possible, make a 15 to 20 seconds introduction, and do the same on the conclusion.

How many Slides for a 5-minute Presentation?

Five minutes is enough time to deliver your message and engage your audience with content that is straight to the point. The only thing you need to do is keep in mind that every second of your time counts a lot for your presentation.

How many Slides for a 10-minute Presentation? 

The Rule of Thumb for a 10-minute presentation is having 10-12 slides. Presenters with good skills use up to 30 seconds per slide to keep it nice and engaging. This time frame is suitable for elaborately introducing the subject or topic, diving deep into it, and highlighting the key points.

According to your topic, you can even make eight slides considering the fact that slides are only the guide of your presentation. That is why it is essential to make an excellent structure to organize your content on the slides properly; this will help you to put aside unnecessary data and focus only on what is essential for the audience.

How many Slides for a 20-minute Presentation?

According to  Guy Kawasaki , a 20-minute presentation should have ten slides where each slide utilizes a 30 point font. Using this rule of 10/20/30, the speaker would spend up to 1 minute per slide, which gives time for even allowing 1 or 2 questions from the audience.

To structure a 20 minutes presentation using the rule of 10/20/30 from  Guy Kawasaki , you have to use the first slide to introduce your subject, case study, or others, and from the second slide, start diving deep until you get to the conclusion.

In some cases, each slide has a different theme, and you will need to approach them differently. Having different themes per slide will require you to summarize each slide’s content in under a minute.

Although the Rule of Guy Kawasaki is suitable for a 20-minute presentation, you can set your own number of slides according to your subject and how much time you spend on a single slide as long as you deliver the message properly and engage your audience.

How many Slides for a 25-minute Presentation?

For a 25-minute presentation, the general rule is to use 20 to 30 slides. By spending up to two minutes per slide and focusing on the main subject, the speaker can keep the audience engaged for this period of time. 

Kawasaki believes that a human being can comprehend at least ten concepts in a meeting. In other words, you have to include in your topic or subject up to ten themes to be discussed. Any More than that can make your audience get confused or bored.

In this given time frame, you now have the opportunity to interact more with the audience, start with a quote, let them raise some clarification questions, and get more involved with them. 

How many Slides for a 30-minute Presentation?

Experts recommend 30 to 40 slides to make a memorable presentation. With 30 minutes, the presenter has more options compared to when the given time frame is short. Consider making the content as straightforward as possible. Also, make two paragraphs per slide at the most.

This technique will allow the audience to read all the information on the slide easily and quickly and move to the next one alongside you. If you add too much content on one slide, the audience will likely read something that you are not explaining yet or the opposite.

But you can make more than 40 slides and still have a memorable presentation in just 30 minutes, and I will explain to you how. Well, if you want your audience to understand clearly each content of your slide, make it one paragraph or one sentence, and use more visuals.

Using this method, you will spend 1-2 seconds per slide, and the audience will understand way better seeing the visual (which counts more than text). The explanation is gradual from the beginning to the end.

How many Slides for a 45-minute presentation?

As a general rule, for a 45-minute presentation, between 20 and 50 slides would grant a memorable presentation. Spending 1-2 minutes per slide, the speaker will have time to make a great introduction, interact more with the audience and have a questions and answers session.

A 45-minutes presentation is in the range of long times ones, and in these cases, you have to use the slides very carefully, making them proportional to your presentation time. Consider having a wristwatch to control your time.

A good practice is to use the slides only to guide your speech during the presentation, but you will need to master them. Rehearse the most important of each slide to make sure you spend the right time, or even less. This time management will give you an advantage because you will have enough time to make a great conclusion.

How many Slides for an hour Presentation?

Experts recommend 30 to 60 slides for a 60-minutes presentation. This period of time gives the speaker two main options: summarize the content in 30 slides or make a structure that allows one theme per slide. These two options also give more time to interact with the audience make a great introduction and conclusion.

Both of them are OK. But there are aspects that you have to consider; if you are preparing few slides, you will need to train how to summarize content to make sure you don’t spend too much time explaining all the points or having your audience stuck on reading your slide. 

And if you are planning to make one theme per slide to facilitate the understanding to the audience, make sure you spend 30 seconds at the most. But also consider having black screen slides to make pauses or small breaks and entertain or reengage your audience.

How many Slides for a 90-minute Presentation?

A 90-minutes presentation should have not more than 60 slides. In this situation, the speaker will need to know how to keep time on presentations. Experts recommend up to 2 minutes per slide, but depending on how the presentation is flowing, spending more than 2 minutes per slide is possible.

If you fail to make these pauses to double-check if the audience is on the same page with you, you will be running a risk of going back from almost the end of the slides to the first ones to explain something that the audience did not get very well.

How many Slides for a two-hour presentation?

A two-hour presentation would need 60-80 slides to deliver the message memorably. Some experts recommend one theme per slide to make it clear and easily understandable. Keep in mind that a presentation this long requires careful planning and a very well-organized structure.

Generally, a presentation with more than one hour of duration is for professional speakers who can deal with time management. The best way to not have your audience boring is to use the method of one idea per slide; it will make them easily understand each part of your content.

How many Slides for 2+ hours presentations?

Presentations with more than two hours should have not more than 80 slides. Long presentations with over 2 hours, the speaker can organize the information in order to spend 2-3 minutes per slide. 

120+ minutes is considered an extended time frame; a good practice is to keep the slides brief and clean to ensure your audience won’t get exhausted.

What are the skills needed to Deliver Long Presentations or Speeches?

For long presentations, several skills are required to ensure successful delivery, such as:  

• Time management;
• Engaging the audience
• Solid posture
• Good eye contact
• Controlling your voice, and more. 

All these skills will keep your audience engaged and entertained, and make sure you reserve 15-20 minutes for questions and answers after a long presentation or speech.

How to keep time in your presentation?

First of all, to have complete control of your time on stage, you have to write the schedule of time you will spend on each part of your presentation, something like setting time for your opening, how long time you will spend on the introduction, how long time you reserve for questions and answers, etc.

Make sure you start your presentation on time. If you fail this step, then everything that comes ahead may also delay and end the presentation after the scheduled time. You also need to plan how long your speech will take and have a clock to control it.

Planning is also crucial to keep time on your presentation. The main thing in the plan to deliver your message is the structure of your content. A good structure will allow you to know how much time you will spend on each point.

I have an excellent article with  a guide for outlining your speech , which should help you nail this part of the process. A  good speech outline  is key in managing presentation time.

And last but not least, you need to rehearse before you go on stage. It will allow you to know how much time you need for the presentation and practice to see if you need to remove or add something to your presentation to make it perfect.

Why do people usually fail to finish a presentation within the stipulated time?

Generally, people fail to finish a presentation on time because they do not make a good plan, underestimate rehearsing, and fail at an impromptu delivery attempt at the last minute. What commonly happens is that people make too many slides and fail to go from one to another on time. The rule of thumb says that 1-2 minutes per slide is enough using standards.

Another session that makes speakers fail to finish the presentation in time is the question and answers. This mistake happens when the speaker does not practice enough or predict questions that may come and end up thinking about the answer when the question is raised.

Not setting time for each session of your presentation also makes you not finish on time. This mistake will cause you to take longer at one point or another, especially if you don’t have a clock to keep track of the time.

How to keep your Presentation Brief and Clear

To keep a presentation brief and clear, organize your content to be only one theme per slide. To be more specific, consider having one paragraph or idea per slide, one that is concise, straightforward, and should also include minimalist visuals. 

The design is also essential to help you get a clean design. Choose a layout that comfortably suits your text and image. Another detail is the color, which has to be neutral to help the reader focus on the content only. 

For More Tips on Designing and Nailing a Presentation, open the recommended articles below.

Designing a Killer Presentation in 8 Steps

Planning and performing a presentation that meets expectations and involves the public requires a lot of care. The details involved in holding a talk will be super important to ensure her success and approval from those who participated. Therefore, we have prepared a post with a few crucial steps that you should follow to organize…

What Makes a Great Presenter? 9 Key Qualities to Look for!

Want to Stand Out? 15 Key Tips for an Awesome Presentation

In conclusion, the number of slides a presentation should have for a given time depends on who is presenting and the topic or subject. And also, it varies according to the methods that you use to deliver your message. As long as it reaches the audience properly and on time, the number of slides should be the least of your concerns. 

But you can follow the standards that some experts recommend for a presentation from 3 minutes to 120+ minutes. For example, Guy Kawasaki recommends the rule of 10/20/30 for a 20 minutes presentation. This rule of thumb allows you to have ten slides to be presented in 20 minutes, and the font should be 30 points. 

This example shows that you can follow the standards and still have a successful presentation. the main thing you have to do, is a good planning, a good structure, and make your content brief and clear, that will help them understand and enjoy your presentation 

References and Further Reading

How to Create a Killer 5-Minute Presentation (hubspot.com)

How Many Slides For A Whatever-Minute Presentation? (slidecow.com)

https://www.soappresentations.com/how-many-slides-should-be-used-for-a-60-minute-presentation/

The ideal number of slides for an hour-long presentation, and other thoughts on preparing slides | I’d Rather Be Writing Blog (idratherbewriting.com)

Presentation Slide Counts (duarte.com)

3 Ways to Choose the Right Number of Slides for a Powerpoint Presentation (wikihow.com)

Brevity, Clarity and Wit: 10 Commandments for a 10-Minute Talk | Cath Lab Digest | HMP Global (hmpgloballearningnetwork.com)

How Many Slides to Use For a 5, 10, 15+ Minute Presentation (tutsplus.com)

The 10/20/30 Rule of PowerPoint – Guy Kawasaki

How Many Slides to Use in a Presentation? 5 Tips | Design Shack

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Slides Per Minute Calculator

Introduction.

Slide presentations are a common and effective means of conveying information in various settings, including business meetings, educational lectures, and conferences. The timing of slide transitions plays a crucial role in maintaining audience engagement and ensuring that the information is comprehensible. Slides that change too quickly can overwhelm the audience, while transitions that are too slow can lead to disinterest. The Slides Per Minute Calculator assists presenters in finding the optimal balance between slide transitions and audience comprehension.

The formula for calculating the ideal number of slides per minute is:

Slides Per Minute (SPM) = (Total Number of Slides) / (Total Presentation Time in Minutes)

• SPM represents the slides per minute, indicating how many slides should transition in one minute.
• Total Number of Slides is the count of all slides in the presentation.
• Total Presentation Time in Minutes is the desired or allocated time for the entire presentation in minutes.

This formula provides a straightforward way to determine the recommended slide transition speed based on the presentation’s length and content.

How to Use?

Using the Slides Per Minute Calculator involves the following steps:

• Determine Total Number of Slides : Count all the slides in your presentation. This should include the title slide, content slides, and any additional slides like section dividers or conclusion slides.
• Specify Total Presentation Time : Decide how long you want your presentation to last or how much time you have been allocated for your presentation. Express this time in minutes.
• Calculate Slides Per Minute (SPM) : Use a calculator to perform the calculation.
• Apply the Result : The calculated SPM value will provide you with the recommended speed at which slides should transition to match the desired presentation time.

Let’s illustrate the Slides Per Minute Calculator with an example:

Suppose you have a presentation with a total of 20 slides, including the title slide and conclusion slide. Your allocated presentation time is 15 minutes.

Using the formula:

SPM = 20 slides / 15 minutes

SPM ≈ 1.33 slides per minute

In this example, the Slides Per Minute Calculator suggests transitioning approximately 1.33 slides per minute to fit the presentation into the allocated 15-minute time frame.

1. Is there an ideal SPM value for all presentations? The ideal SPM can vary depending on the nature of the presentation, the audience, and the content. Some presentations may require a slower pace for complex topics, while others may benefit from a faster pace for concise delivery.

2. What if my calculated SPM is not a whole number? It’s common to obtain fractional values for SPM. In such cases, you can round to the nearest whole number or use a decimal value if you prefer a more precise pace.

3. Can I adjust the SPM during my presentation? Yes, presenters can adapt the slide transition pace during the presentation based on audience engagement and feedback. Flexibility in pacing can enhance the overall effectiveness of the presentation.

Conclusion:

The Slides Per Minute Calculator is a valuable tool for presenters who want to strike the right balance between slide transitions and audience comprehension. By calculating the ideal number of slides per minute, presenters can ensure that their presentations are well-timed, engaging, and effective in conveying the intended message. This tool empowers presenters to create presentations that resonate with their audience, ultimately leading to more successful and impactful communication.

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The ideal number of slides for an hour-long presentation, and other thoughts on preparing slides, comparing two recent presentations, the right number of slides, font size and bulleted lists, avoiding laundry lists, argument overview slide, a good essay makes for a good presentation.

These past two weeks, I gave two presentations — a keynote at an internal writers conference at SAP, and a keynote at an internal writers conference at Amazon. (Sorry that I can’t post the recordings.) Both presentations filled an hour time slot. Because I’ve been in presentation mode this past month, especially preparing slides, I’d like to share some thoughts I have about how to create slides for presentations.

Hands-down, the best advice for creating slides is Guy Kawasaki’s 10-20-30 rule of PowerPoint , which says you should have just 10 slides , your presentation should last no more than 20 minutes , and your font should be no less than 30 points .

I have aspired to follow Kawasaki’s slide rule for a number of years, but one fear always gets in the way: if I have just 10 slides, what if I run out of things to say after 20 minutes? I mean, usually I have to fill an hour presentation slot, right? In order to guard against running out of time, I have a tendency to add more and more slides, helping me remember points I want to make and ensuring I don’t end early.

With my first keynote presentation, I unfortunately had 50 slides (and got through about 40 of them during the presentation). (Granted, many were “sub-slides,” but they were still slides.) For my second presentation, I had only 14 slides (and got through them all). I felt the second presentation went better than the first.

Here’s the problem with having too many slides: the slides lock you into a fixed, rigid presentation order. The more slides you have, the more locked in you are to a fixed set of topics in a predefined order — which may or may not be the right order you want while presenting. With 50+ slides, you won’t have the freedom and flexibility to flow in a more natural way. The more slides you have, the more fixed the order becomes. Instead of a crutch, these slides become a cast that restricts your movement.

The absolute best presentation I’ve ever attended was by David Crystal at UA Europe , and he had no slides at all. He simply had a stool where he occasionally sat, and he spoke for about an hour and a half. It was the most mesmerizing presentation I’ve ever attended, and much of it focused on grammar (and stories about the origins of language). Crystal is the author of some 100+ books on language , and after the presentation, it was clear to me that he was a complete language genius.

I once gave a 20-minute presentation with no slides at all (at a WordPress conference), and I felt a bit naked. It wasn’t a great presentation, but it didn’t tank either. At some point, I’d like to develop the ability to present with just a few slides. I think such a presentation would resemble that of a stand-up comedian or other performer (like the Moth). I don’t have stage performer skills, so I doubt the slide-less presentation will ever be something I pull off. Still, I think as a general rule, the fewer slides one has, the more knowledge and experience the presenter has. Lots of slides is a red flag that the presenter isn’t an expert.

Until I can go slide-less, I have compromised at what I feel is the ideal number of slides for an hour-long presentation: about 15 slides (including the title and conclusion slides). Kawasaki says to limit the number of slides to 10 because no one can retain any more than 10 ideas in an hour, and though I don’t know what data supports this, I generally agree. I bumped my estimate up from 10 to 15 because Kawasaki’s ideal time of 20 minutes seems too short for the hour-long time slot.

Limiting the number of slides to 15 provides the perfect balance between flexibility and structure. You can pursue your ideas in a more freeform, natural way without being locked into a fixed, rigid order that might not fit the idea journey of your presentation.

You might object and say that if you practice your presentation enough, the slides can exactly match the idea journey you want to tell. Hence, you wouldn’t be locked into a structure you don’t want — instead, the slides would help you follow that desired structure.

Well, maybe. But I’ve given about 90 presentations, and it never seems to work out that way for me. Consider the analogy of a conversation. You want to have talking points that allow you to move about in a more freeform way, not necessarily a rigid order in which each topic must be spoken. If you imagine yourself having a conversation with the audience (rather than presenting a presentation), the talking points idea has more merit.

Another Kawasaki principle is to limit the font to no less than 30 points. This is also key. When I see slides with extensive bulleted lists, I cringe. While these bulleted lists might prompt the presenter with details to say, what ends up happening is the presenter more or less reads the slides and presents the presentation rather than telling a story.

Whenever you present a slide with text, the first thing the audience does is tune you out and start reading the text. As an audience member, it’s impossible not to — the screen is huge and directly in front of you.

If you reveal the bulleted list point by point, it has the same effect as flashing multiple, separate slides on the screen: It locks the presenter into a fixed order that potentially interrupts the natural flow of the story.

Ideally, I think good slides should be idea diagrams or visual sketch notes that demonstrate your ideas. Some presenters just put photos from Flickr on their slides to generally depict an idea, but I like more purposeful concept diagrams that might have multiple ideas going on. For example, like this:

Or like this:

Granted, some font on these slides is less than 30 points, but you don’t see extensive bulleted lists here.

For my second presentation slides , I tried to include about 3 stories per slide depicting concept diagrams like this. My thought was that I could glance at the pictures, and each picture would trigger 3 points to cover for the topic. I could cover the 3 stories/points in whatever order I wanted, so I wasn’t locked into a fixed outline. It more or less worked.

I also had slide notes in the presenter view that I could fall back on, but these presenter notes are challenging to read while speaking, and I think most presenters end up ignoring them. Pictures that trigger thought without interfering with one’s language-speaking functions work much better (for me anyway).

I use The Noun Project and Illustrator to create my concept diagrams, as it allows me to more easily manipulate different objects into the slides I want. The images aren’t spectacular, and they’re mostly black and white, but they aren’t embarrassing either, and I have fun making them. I end up exporting these artboards into my presentation. Each artboard is basically a slide in my presentation.

I use RevealJS for my presentations (and have been for the past several years). RevealJS is an HTML/CSS/JS framework that lets you code your slides with simple HTML syntax. For my second presentation, I put the SVGs as slide backgrounds , leaving ample room on the sides to allow for visibility even when the slide show is not in full screen. This worked quite well.

I also put each RevealJS slide presentation into its own GitHub repo. This makes it easy to update the slides. Kawasaki doesn’t say anything about RevealJS, PowerPoint, Google Slides, or Keynote. It really doesn’t matter which tool you use. (I just added some tool-related details here in case you were curious.)

I’ve given many presentations that turn out to be laundry lists of points — a format I regret. This was the problem with my first keynote presentation. After highlighting a trend, I started listing a number of points that could provide solutions to the challenge. These “laundry list” topics tend to be on a lower-level than topics that provide a fuller, richer argument throughout.

Here’s an example of what I mean by a laundry list. In my first presentation, my argument overview was this:

Technology is getting simpler on the front-end for end-users But the code underneath is becoming increasingly specialized/complex Tech writers are generalists, not specialists To provide value in specialist contexts, tech writers must exploit the gaps These gaps are (1) doc tools/processes, (2) understanding user feedback/experiences, and (3) information usability

Then within the “(3) information usability” section, I covered these points:

Give users a map Make information discoverable as needed Ensure harmony across all docs Reduce and distill to its essence Confirm to genre expectations Reduce language complexity Iterative design of docs

Can you see how the presentation just devolved into a laundry list of points rather than focusing on a more focused idea journey? The laundry list comes into focus with the “(1)”, “(2)”, “(3)” points in the last bullet, followed by the 7 bullets later. When I was a composition teacher, I docked student essays for presenting similar laundry lists of ideas rather than going in depth with one point.

For my second presentation, I decided to chop out this laundry list of ideas and instead focus more singularly on my trends argument. So my argument overview was as follows:

Technology is getting more specialized/complex. This complexity drives up the value of technical knowledge, making it more prized than writing skills. To handle the complexity, technical writers must play increasingly collaborative roles with engineers to create documentation

And that’s it. No laundry list at all. I instead spent much more time developing, supporting, and exploring each of these parts of my argument.

Speaking of arguments, I also recommend putting up an “Argument Overview” slide right after your intro hook slide (which usually comes after your title slide). In other words, after you introduce the relevance of your topic, present the audience with your overall argument, so they know where you’re going and what you’re arguing for.

Many presentations will omit this argument overview. When they do, I find myself wondering what the presenter’s overall point is, if they even have one, or if they just have a collage of lots of little ideas. People can often take 10-15 minutes working their way up to some point, which they articulate in fuzzy ways.

I think a good presentation mirrors the elements of an essay:

• relevance hook
• argument/thesis

Many other essay elements might be reflected as well.

Kawasaki says to limit your presentation to 20 minutes. His main scenario isn’t presenters at a conference but rather presentations from startups to venture capitalists (VCs), and he doesn’t really give much reason here for the 20-minute length except to sarcastically say that if you have a Windows machine, it will take 40 minutes to troubleshoot the display. My guess is that VCs are executive types who have a lot of questions and don’t want to be lectured at extensively.

For too many presentations I’ve given, I’ve filled the entire time slot, without leaving any time for questions. This has been a mistake, in part due to having too many slides in the first place. For my second keynote, I spoke for only about 40 minutes and then let Q&A dominate the remaining 20 minutes. Although as an audience member I sometimes dislike listening to other audience members ask questions, I do like to ask my own questions.

Further, very few people can sit patiently listening to a lecture for an hour without engaging with more interactive dialogue. My brain isn’t wired to listen to lectures this long, and neither are many other people’s. You have to be pretty interesting to retain my attention for a full hour in an engaging way.

Probably the biggest reason, though, is that the purpose of a conference is not to present lectures — it’s to confer . You come together to confer with other people, and so you need this space to allow time to discuss your ideas.

What if no one has any questions, and you’re done 20 minutes early? Won’t that feel like you didn’t fill the time, that you short-changed what you promised?

If no one asks questions, it might mean you didn’t make a real argument in your presentation, but instead focused on something everyone already agrees on.

Coming back to the essay comparison, a good presentation focuses on an argument. And an argument must be something that people can take different sides on. If everyone already agrees on the position you’re taking, why bother making it in the first place? Are you already telling people something they already know?

I realize that many presentations at conferences are more information-based rather than argument-based, and people come to “learn” rather than to “debate,” but I’d counter that almost every topic has areas of controversy or uncertainty, and I like to see someone taking a position and defending it with evidence. This shows my bias towards the essay format, as I think good essays reflect this focus as well.

At any rate, if you’ve focused on some argument that people can disagree about, then ending 20 minutes early for Q&A should be ideal, as you will have set the stage for a lively discussion — which is one draw to these gatherings in the first place. You’re setting up the discussion and then allowing for the audience to engage in critical thinking.

Additionally, note that as a presenter, you can also be the one to ask questions. A good teacher doesn’t just lecture to students for 20 minutes and then ask them what questions they have. The teacher asks challenging questions to students and invites them to engage. Why can’t presenters at conferences do the same?

A good essay and a good presentation share many similarities. For many presentations I give, I’ll often write out the content as a blog post or essay before hand. For example, for my second keynote presentation, my Tech comm trends - take two post was the essay form of the post. The essay was about 8,000 words, which is about right for an hour-long presentation. For my first keynote, the essay was an earlier version of the same trends topic .

If the essay doesn’t have a good shape and focus (no idea journey, no story arc, no argument, no evidence, no analysis of opposing views, no interesting questions, etc.), then the presentation will probably lack life as well.

The absolute best advice for any presentation is to structure the idea journey as a story. I don’t mean to pepper in anecdotes everywhere (though that is actually great advice). I mean presentations should follow the general story arc. You have some sort of goal, and you encounter challenges to that goal. The bulk of your work is in getting through these challenges, until you finally come to some realization or conclusion. This flow aligns perfectly with the essay format.

Although I’m not a professional presenter and I lack more training and polish, in the presentations I’ve given over the years, fewer slides work better than more slides. Overall, if I can shape the essay right in the first place, it usually eliminates most of the problems with presentations. That’s why I spend about 90% of the time writing the essay first, and then in the last couple of weeks create the slides.

About Tom Johnson

I'm an API technical writer based in the Seattle area. On this blog, I write about topics related to technical writing and communication — such as software documentation, API documentation, AI, information architecture, content strategy, writing processes, plain language, tech comm careers, and more. Check out my API documentation course if you're looking for more info about documenting APIs. Or see my posts on AI and AI course section for more on the latest in AI and tech comm.

If you're a technical writer and want to keep on top of the latest trends in the tech comm, be sure to subscribe to email updates below. You can also learn more about me or contact me . Finally, note that the opinions I express on my blog are my own points of view, not that of my employer.

© 2024 Tom Johnson

How Many Slides For Presentations (10, 15, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 Minutes)

You should limit your presentations to one slide per minute at a maximum. Try to include the least amount of slides while trying to get your message across in a concise while still complete manner.

An alternative rule is the “10/20/30 Rule,” which suggests that a good presentation will limit itself to 10 slides, last 20 minutes in length, and include a font size no smaller than 30 points.

PowerPoint presentations can be overwhelming to the point that they put off people from learning new material and discourage them from taking in the presented information.

The purpose of this article is to help people make their presentations more exciting and easier to follow and discover how many slides are generally needed so you can time your presentations accordingly.

Of course, all of the below points are just suggestions and the number of slides that you will use for your own presentation will of course depend on the content as well your target audience.

How many slides for a 10-minute presentation?

How many slides for a 15-minute presentation, how many slides for a 20-minute presentation, how many slides for a 30-minute presentation, how many slides for a 40-minute presentation, how many slides for a 50-minute presentation, how many slides for a 60-minute presentation.

A 10-minute presentation would require no more than 10 slides. It’s much better to start with too few than too many, so users will likely appreciate the shorter list of bullet points. Your goal is to provide the right amount of information for your audience to understand the topic without overwhelming them.

If you are just giving an overview of something that you want the audience to remember in 10 minutes or less, then this is probably enough. Keep your slides simple and keep them limited to two-three bullet points per slide.

A 15-minute presention should have a maximum of 15 slides. This is the right amount of information for audiences to grasp without feeling overwhelmed or bored. If you can give this type of presentation in 10 minutes or less, it’s even better.

During a 15 minute presentation. These slides should be able to cover the basics of your topic, but if you try to make it too complicated, your audience will lose interest, and you will end up wasting their time.

A 20-minute presentation should require no more than 20 slides. On average, you should only be using 5-7 bullet points on each slide. You can also include one or two images on each slide to help facilitate understanding.

If you are giving an overview of something that you want the audience to remember in 20 minutes or less, this might be the perfect time to follow the 10/20/30 rule. This concept should relate to the audience or is a key part of your speech or presentation.

A 30-minute presentation would require no more than 30 slides. You can use 5-7 bullet points per slide or 8-10 bullet points if the presentation is necessary to convey ideas in great detail. If you are including lots of images and charts to help illustrate your point, then reduce the amount of bullet points used.

It’s a good idea to follow this rule because too many slides can make it challenging to keep track of all the points you are trying to make, and your audience will be more likely to lose interest in what you’re saying or miss important ideas as they go by quickly. It’s also easier for people to focus on your presentation when it’s broken up into smaller sections.

On 30 minute presentations, it is a good idea to leave a few minutes for Q&A. This will allow your audience to ask questions about things they didn’t understand or missed in the part of the presentation. It also gives your audience a reason to get involved in the session.

For a 40 minute presentation, you should try to keep it to 40 slides maximum, you can dole out some information in detail and leave a bigger chunk of time for Q&A. People will stay attentive when the material is broken up into smaller segments.

You should keep in mind that different people respond to different mediums and will better understand an idea when it’s presented to them in a way they are accustomed to receiving information (i.e. some people benefit from text and others from images, some people need the material broken up into small pieces while others prefer a long, steady stream of information).

It will also depend on the type of presentation you are doing. If it’s a demonstration or special event, then more slides are better (and less time per slide is good). If you’re there to present statistics, research, comparison charts, etc., fewer slides with more information per slide would be best.

A 50-minute presentation should include no more than 50 slides. You can have more slides than this if you have a very engaging visual presentation with limited amounts of information per slide.

Similar to a 40-minute presentation, a 50-minute presentation can allow you to go into a lot of detail in some places and remain at a high level. You should also feel free to leave out certain information if it is not essential in a particular presentation’s overall scheme of things.

As a general rule of thumb, experienced public speakers or subject matter experts are the ones who feel the most comfortable holding longer presentations and sessions, which allows them to go into greater detail in certain areas.

If you’re new to this kind of work, it might be best to keep your presentations between 30 and 40 minutes and leave the rest of the time slot open for questions from the floor.

A 50-minute presentation would require no more than 20-25 slides, as the only purpose they serve here would be just as a reminder for the speaker to stay on point as he conveys the story to the audience.

A 60-minute presentation should include no more than 60 slides. If you have a very engaging visual presentation with limited amounts of information per slide, you can have more slides than this.

If the presentation is going to be more interactive, then it’s better to cut down on the number of slides and instead focus on how much each slide will contribute to the overall story you’re telling. You must also leave plenty of time for a Q&A session at the end. 

The number of slides for a presentation varies. While too many can bore your audience, not enough will leave them wondering what you’re talking about.

Your slides can serve as visual reminders of your talk and also help you maintain a narrative flow in your presentation. You must know what you want to accomplish with each slide, how long it will take to read the text and absorb information from a chart or graph and how much time you have for Q&A.

Remember that slides can and should be used as visual aids, not as the main point of the presentation. The speaker needs to convey that information, not just read it from their slides.

Related Posts:

How many slides are too many for a presentation?

Hrideep barot.

• Presentation , Public Speaking

So, you are preparing a presentation for your next conference or event and can’t figure out how many slides are too many slides for a presentation?

Then you are at the right place!

According to the general rule of thumb, people prefer to use 1-2 slides per minute . This can help you figure out a broad range of slides that would be ideal for your presentation.

Here it is also important for you to understand that we cannot give you a specific number of slides that would be too many for a presentation. Determining whether or not a certain number of slides would be too many for a presentation would depend on tons of factors.

Factors that determine the Number of Slides in a Presentation

1. your topic.

Your topic would give you a brief idea about how many slides you would essentially require. So, for instance, if you were to present on a generic or popular topic like climate change, you might have way more information available to you that you can add to your presentation than if you were presenting on how to make vegan chocolate banana cake.

2. Duration of your presentation

At times, you might be given a very specific duration for the presentation like 10-15 minutes to present your research findings or 20 minutes for your TED talk.

3. Purpose of your presentation

What is the purpose behind presenting this particular idea to your audience? Is it because you want to inform them about something or because you want to sell your product?

In both cases as the content of the slides change, there would be a huge change in the ideal number of slides as well.

4. Your audience

Let’s say you are to present to an audience that has a majority of primary students. What is something that you would definitely include in your presentation?

You might as well include videos of cartoons or animated GIFs to keep the students entertained. This might add a couple of your slides to your presentation.

On the other hand, when it comes to corporate presentation, you might add diagrams and charts to explain a certain concept or view which would essentially bring down your slide count.

5. Content of your presentation

Content of your presentations concerns understanding whether your presentation is informative, descriptive, persuasive, or of any other form. In each case, the number of slides necessary for the presentation to be effective would differ.

6. Number of speakers

Another factor that plays a crucial role in the total number of slides that should be added to a presentation is the number of speakers. The reason behind this is that each speaker would have their own unique pace and style of presenting .

For instance, you might find it very easy to explain a concept based on a couple of bulleted points while your partner may find it much easier to explain the same concept through charts or diagrams.

7. Mode of presentation

Is the presentation being conducted in front of an audience or is it online? The answer to this question may sometimes also affect the number of slides added to a presentation.

There are no general rules for the ideal number of slides for your 3-minutes , 5-minutes , or even 30-minutes .

Because there are tons and tons of ways you can structure your presentation and add slides. At the end of the day, you can add any number of slides to your presentation as long as you are able to reach your audience and present your topic effectively .

But how many slides are too many slides for a presentation?

Some people have made presentations with more than 1000 slides as well, so if you think your presentation Is too long, ask yourself does your presentation beat them?

If yes, we suggest you must consider enrolling yourself in the Guinness World Records .

Don’t believe us? Check out this CEO who made 1284 slide presentations titled “Lessons from my 20s” during his 30th birthday here .

On the other hand, as discussed presentations don’t usually come with a set number of slides that need to be added. This means you can have as little as one to no slides for your presentation and still call it a successful presentation!

What is the maximum number of slides you can add to a PowerPoint presentation?

If you are making a presentation on PowerPoint, then you are free to add any number of slides as long as it doesn’t exceed 100MB of storage space .  

So now the question is, to what extent are you willing to experiment with your slides for your next presentation?

Problem with having too many slides in a presentation

While we know we have said it before that it is your call to decide the number of your slides, you also need to understand that it doesn’t mean you add slides just for the heck of it or just because it looks more aesthetically pleasing.

There is a major problem with having too many slides in a presentation. This issue is what we call the issue of rigidity in presenting.

What does rigidity in the delivery of a presentation mean?

Rigidity in presenting is when you have structured your presentation in such a way that it is difficult for you to go off the track planned by you . This especially poses a big challenge when you try to rote learn and aren’t able to recall your speech.

When you have too many slides in a presentation, it becomes difficult for you to tweak your speech. And tweaking your speech after assessing the mood of your audience or the room happens to be one of the crucial aspects of carrying out an effective presentation.

How to determine if there are too many slides for a presentation?

Have you already made a PowerPoint presentation but aren’t sure if you should continue with the same or you should cut down on the slides?

Two situations would help you determine if there are indeed too many slides in a presentation, they are:

1. when you aren’t able to complete the presentation on time.

This is something that you can assess while practicing your presentation. If you are given time duration of 10 minutes and asked to present on the topic, the first thing that you need to check is whether you are or aren’t able to complete the presentation well before time. If not, then those are too many slides for your presentation.

2. When you have to increase your pace to fit the content of slides

Another factor that you need to take a look into is whether you have to increase your pace while presenting or is your pace close to your usual pace?

The pace of presenting is the number of words spoken per minute . An average person usually speaks 250-300 words per minute .

If you have to increase your pace of presenting, then sadly there are too many slides for that presentation and you need to work on it!

Things to keep in mind while creating slides for a presentation

Here is where we talk about the Dos and Donts of making a presentation.

Golden rules of presentation

When we talk about golden rules, there 2 very basic and important things that you must not ignore while making a presentation. These are the most essential Dos for any presentation. And it stays the same for all types of presentations!

1. Keep it to the point

Copy pasting a couple of important paragraphs from your study or source or speech can seem exciting for you as a presenter for it will make the task of delivering the presentation more convenient. However, presentations are often less about the presenter and more about the audience.

Presentations with short bulleted points as opposed to paragraphs are more aesthetically pleasing plus it keeps the interest alive in the audience as these short points give out only limited information about your topic.

2. Add visuals

Visuals include pictures, GIFs, charts, or even tables and can easily enhance your presentation in no time. It gives the audience a chance to picture and relate to what you are talking about. It also helps them analyze and review the charts or tables for themselves.

Besides visuals help you compress your descriptive content on the slides.

An example of a slide for a presentation is given below:

Mistakes in making slides for a Presentation

1. text over image.

When making presentations, you might have come across the idea of adding an image in the background and adding text over it. The reason we suggest you not do that is that the texts at times aren’t visible or get merged with the image .

You can see an example of how text over the image can seem very unflattering from a viewer’s point of view.

2. Too much information

As we have discussed before, writing paragraphs or long lines in your slides is not only aesthetically unappealing but also gives the audience a clear bait to simply read the content in your presentation rather than listening to you. And no, you can’t blame your audience for not listening to you!

An example of how not to add content in your slides is given below:

3. No visuals

A presentation with no visuals is like an ice cream sandwich with no ice cream. It is less exciting to look at , and may even increase the number of slides in your presentation making the overall presentation lengthier .

4. Poor fonts

One of the biggest mistakes you can do in trying to beautify your presentation is selecting fonts that are challenging to read from. An example of the same is given below.

Try to add fonts that are easy to read and make your presentations look cleaner . If you cannot find one then stick to using the most popular font style, Times New Roman.

5. Background noises and transitions

If you plan on adding transitions or background noises to your presentations, ask yourself how necessary is it to add them.

In case of transitions, try to avoid very dramatic transitions that take to move from one slide to the other.

How do you find the right number of slides to add to your presentation?

Although as discussed, we would suggest you not have a very specific number of slides in your mind while making your presentation, there are still a couple of ways you can try to figure out just how many slides would be enough or too many slides for a presentation.

The idea of this blog is to not push you to follow any one or two such rules. Rather read through them and see for yourself what suits best for you and what doesn’t.

Slide Rules for Presentation

10/20/30 rule in presentation.

Formulated by Guy Kawasaki , the 10/20/30 rule is very popularly adopted by presenters worldwide.

The rule states three things.

First, your presentation should not be more than 10 slides long as people’s interests and attention span usually deteriorate after reaching the 10th slide.

Second, your presentation should not be longer than 20 minutes because again, it is challenging for people to be attentive after listening to someone speak for 20 minutes straight.

But what do you do if you are given a 30- or 45-minutes time to give your presentation?

• Try adding a question-and-answer session
• Try to add an activity to engage the audience
• Follow a different method of making presentations like the 2/4/8 or 5 by 5 .

The third thing that Kawasaki discourages through the rule is having a font size smaller than 30. Try to add fonts that are either 30 or bigger so that it is easily visible  

2/4/8 rule in PowerPoint

The 2/4/8 rule for presentation suggests that you should ideally change slides every 2 minutes , and have no more than 4 bulleted points per slide with each bullet point comprising of 8 words or less .

5 by 5 rule in PowerPoint

You would be using the 5 by 5 rule of presentation when all slides in your presentation comprise 5 lines or points each , with each point or line having only 5 words or less .

6 by 6 or 1-6-6 rule in presentation

6 by 6 rule for presentation which is also sometimes known as the 1-6-6 rule states that in one slide, you must have no more than six words per point/line/bullet or six bullets per image. So, what do the other 6 indicate? Any guesses?

Yes! It is the limit for the number of words you should add to each of your points or lines.

So, 6 bullet points per slide with each point comprising of 6 words or less is what the 6 by 6 rule for presentation talks about .

How many slides should you add to a presentation?

As discussed, when it comes to the number of slides that you should add to your presentation, it would depend on how you want to go about with your presentation.

The numbers given by us would be most beneficial or accurate for you if in your presentation you are planning to

• Add one idea per slide
• Add one slide per minute
• Add one slide per 2 minutes

The table below will help you glance through the number of slides that you can add to your presentation.

How many slides are needed for a 2-minute presentation?

For a 2-minute presentation, you can add 1-4 slides excluding the basic descriptive and thank you slide. You can also choose to give the presentation with no slides !

An example of a 2-minute Presentation or pitch is given below.

Do check it out to see how beautifully the speaker makes use of humor and rhetoric while presenting in such a short time.

How many slides for a 3-minute presentation?

For a 3-minute presentation, 2-3 slides should be sufficient provided you are able to convey your idea effectively .

You can also choose to be very minimalistic by having less than 3 slides for your 3-minute presentations.

Check out the example below wherein the speaker makes use of merely 1 slide for her 3-minute presentation.

How many slides for a 4-minute presentation?

Having 2-4 slides informative slides can prove to be very effective in delivering on-point 4-minute presentations.

How many slides for a 5-minute Presentation ?

You can present your topic in 5 minutes with either no or 1 slide or you can make use of 2-5 slides for your 5-minute presentations .

An example of a scientific research study presentation is given below. We recommend you to watch it and check the great use of diagrams by the presenter to explain his topic.

How many slides for a 7-minute presentation?

You can add 4-7 slides for your 7-minute presentations.

How many slides for a 10-Minute presentation ?

5-10 slides are generally used for 10-minute presentations.

The TED presentation by Ayana is a good example of a 10-minute presentation. She makes use of well-structured slides, using the Venn diagram to explain her ideas and also sharing with the audience stories of how others found their joy in climate action after using her Venn diagram method.

How many slides for a 15-Minute Presentation ?

For a 15-minute presentation, adding 10-15 slides can help you present effectively.

When it comes to an example of a 15-minute presentation, there is one presentation that I can never get out of my mind and that is the one given by Tim Urban on TED.

His use of epic visuals topped with excellent humor is what has stayed with me and if you want to see it too, check out his presentation below:

How many slides for a 20-minute presentation?

Adding 10-20 slides for your 20-minute presentations might help you put your ideas across to your audience and conveniently reach them.

But you are also free to add many more slides than the number suggested based on the kind of information you are planning to share.

An example of adding many slides for your 20-minute presentation is given below. The most distinctive factor was how the speaker simply makes use of photographs he has taken of people and discussed their stories with the people.

How many slides for a 25-minute presentation?

Adding 17-25 slides for a 25-minute presentation should essentially help in navigating you through your entire topic effectively .

How many slides for a 30-minute Presentation ?

According to the general trend, having 15-30 slides in your 30-minute presentation should be sufficient.

How many slides for a 60-minute presentation?

30-60 slides for a 60-minute presentation should essentially help you present your topic in a very detailed and crisp manner .

How many PowerPoint slides for a 90-minute presentation?

For 90-minute presentations, you can include any number of slides between 45-90 or can choose to add even more than 90 slides if necessary.

Final Words

While we might be tempted to find a particular number of slides that are necessary to be included in our presentations, the truth I that there are no specific rules or numbers that you can refer to while making your presentation.

At the end of the day, presentations are about sharing your ideas, opinions, or results with the audience which makes it important for you to focus on the content of your presentation rather than the number of slides you are supposed to add.

In short, you can say that there are too many slides in your presentation when affects the quality of your overall presentation.

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What is an Ignite presentation, and why should you try it?

What if there was a template you could use to help you with all of these decisions? There is such a template, and it is growing in popularity. Read on to find out more about Ignite!

What is Ignite?

Promoted under the slogan, “Enlighten us, but make it quick,” Ignite is a presentation format where a presenter speaks while slides advance automatically to support them. An Ignite presentation is exactly 5 minutes, and contains exactly 20 slides. The slides advance automatically after each slide is displayed for 15 seconds.

With fixed timing and clear constraints, the Ignite style is suitable for many situations , including classroom presentations, Toastmasters meetings, and both corporate and conference events.

History of Ignite Presentations

Brady Forrest, technology specialist for O’Reilly Media, and Bre Pettis of MAKE magazine developed Ignite in 2006 as a way for the Seattle tech community to get together, socialize, and share their personal and professional passions. Ignite was born out of this desire to combine amazing, big ideas with networking. After the initial event in Seattle, Ignite has gone global in over 100 cities.

Examples of Ignite Presentations

Though Ignite began in the tech community, not all presentations must be tech-based. Three of my favorite Ignite presentations are shown below:

• Great Designers Steal, by Jeff Veen
• Jane the Concussion Slayer, by Jane McGonigal
• The Doodle Revolution, by Sunni Brown

Benefits of Ignite talks

“ A good Ignite presentation — like all good presentations — should leave an audience satisfied but still hungry for more. ”

There are several benefits inherent in the Ignite method which will aid you and your audience.

1. The Ignite style can prove much more fulfilling for an audience than the standard free-form presentation.

Garr Reynolds wrote, “One secret to a healthy life (and a great presentation).” In his article , Reynolds defined the concept hara hachi bu – to eat until you are 80% full. Reynolds believes we should apply this concept both to our meals and to our presentations. The Ignite presentation format is so short that it gives the audience just a taste; the presenter isn’t stuffing them full of information. A good Ignite presentation — like all good presentations — should leave an audience satisfied but still hungry for more.

2. The Ignite format emphasizes content decisions, not numbers of visuals or timing.

While the idea of speaking under such strict constraints may seem intimidating, the Ignite format helps a presenter eliminate some tough decisions about the execution of his or her speech. The speaker can instead spend time on making content-based choices. Spending much more time on speech content allows a speaker to pinpoint and explain the main idea as opposed to rambling aimlessly.

3. Preparation is mandatory.

Preparation is essential for any great presentation. Most of us, however, aren’t actually willing to put in the amount of preparation time it takes to resonate with our audiences. Even presenters who believe they can “wing it” are forced to prepare with the Ignite format . The extra practice and preparation leads to stronger speeches.

4. Ignite presentations respect audience time.

Many presenters ignore time limits. With a self-playing format that requires the extra element of practice and preparation, speakers are more likely to remain on track for time .

For example, I teach the Ignite format in my public speaking class. During non-Ignite presentations, students are likely to speak longer than the time allotted, but during Ignite presentations, students rarely go much longer than 5 minutes. The Ignite format does not guarantee that a speaker will finish at exactly 5:00; for example, the students who go over on time speak after the presentation has finished.

“ If done properly, an Ignite presentation will do just that: ignite an audience to support your idea, event, or cause. ”

5. The Ignite format encourages concision.

With only 20 slides, a presenter must make important decisions about introduction, body, and conclusion. There is an emphasis on cutting and reducing, and this is always a good thing when it comes to presentations. The age-old advice of Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch also applies to presentations: we must learn to “murder our darlings.” The act of cutting and reducing adds to the effectiveness of the speech. Why? Strong presenters know that refining a presentation allows the audience to receive, hear, and digest only the most important information.

There are drawbacks to the Ignite format:

• The fixed timing can be a drawback if your message cannot be communicated within 5 minutes. For example, the Ignite style probably wouldn’t work for a lecture on the composition of the human brain. If your topic is complex, an Ignite may serve as an introduction, but the format isn’t conducive for all of those intricate and dense details.
• If you need to use multimedia , Ignite won’t work for your presentation. Video doesn’t fit well into the format. Additionally, transitions and animations aren’t recommended because of the simplicity emphasized by the automatically-playing format. Remember, you don’t have a clicker, so you can’t control the slides while you present.
• Additionally, since the presentation runs automatically, the speaker doesn’t have time for extensive audience interaction   during the presentation. However, since the presentation is short, the time after the speech works well for Q&A or discussion.

Though there are drawbacks to this presentation format, the benefits are much stronger, and I encourage you to try out Ignite for yourself. If done properly, an Ignite presentation will do just that: ignite an audience to support your idea, event, or cause.

Next in this series…

In future articles, I’ll examine how to prepare and deliver an Ignite talk and how to organize an Ignite event.

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This format is nearly the same as the Pacha Kucha format, of 20 slides of 20 seconds each. Wikipedia states that pechakucha started in 2003, so the ignite format seems a sped-up version. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PechaKucha

Nichol, you are right. Pecha Kucha and Ignite are similar formats with similar goals (brevity, dynamic, up-tempo, visual, …)

I really like the idea of ignite presentations. Too often we get caught up in slides and wordiness.

There’s a chance I could be speaking at an event soon and I think this would be a terrific time to try this out.

In Phoenix Arizona, we have hosted 13 large events of 18 Ignite Presentations in theaters of 800+ people. Having hosted over 200 presenters in the past few years – including a 10yr old presenter – I believe that anyone can deliver a clear passionate message in Ignite style.

http://www.youtube.com/user/IgnitePhoenix

Thanks Alex. Nice examples in the videos you chose, too.

I did an Ignite talk back in March here in Sydney, and it was a great learning experience. The talks that went down best on the night were the quirky or funny ones – which mine wasn’t!

That was perhaps the biggest takeaway for me: Once again, it comes down to knowing your audience. Ironically, I’d had some humour in my talk to begin with, but took it out because it felt a bit forced. That’s probably for the best.

I also took out the brief audience interactions I’d planned, because of the risk they wouldn’t work or would make me stumble. So the end result was a drier talk than I’d hoed for.

After reading Alex’s post, if you’re thinking of doing an Ignite talk, I’d highly recommend it. My advice is to pick a quirky, witty or impassioned topic. I also found this tip really helpful as a way to reduce nerves – whether you’re male or female: http://remotepossibilities.wordpress.com/2012/01/12/boost-testosterone-present-better/

Alex, I’m looking forward to your later posts in this series. It’s a great topic!

I loved this article on Ignite. I just did my first Ignite presentation at the American Evaluation Association (AEA) conference last month and loved the format. Learning to be concise and prioritize content are key.

Alex, this is brilliant – thanks for sharing. It’s good to let Ignite presenters know up-front they need to spend some serious time preparing, and your method is very sensible. There aren’t no good reasons for doing it in a “normal” presentation, but it’s a major part of the fun of Ignite. The main idea, in my opinion, is to make presentations enjoyable again, as an antidote to all the boring, death-by-powerpoint sessions we’re used to. Making the slides auto-advance adds an extra challenge and an element of danger to the presentations – once they start, there’s no going back.

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Love this… What is an Ignite presentation, and why should you try it? https://t.co/ZPyCV6hDGG by @6minutes — @DW8674 Dec 12th, 2015

I’d like to try this format. #aisl16la conference debrief: https://t.co/zxDG3DmOdv — @DaveWee1 Apr 15th, 2016

Should we try Ignite/Pecha Kucha for the PI Planning Briefing? (inspired by comments in PI Planning Briefing Retro) https://t.co/oZLtQYo3qO — @yuvalyeret May 17th, 2016

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Great way to learn. https://t.co/KDkMbcRbGC — @SPGallagher Sep 4th, 2016

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What is an Ignite presentation, and why should you try it? Check out this blog post from Andrew Dlugan @6minutes https://t.co/9v5kmyyozu — @IgniteUXmi Feb 9th, 2017

What is an Ignite presentation, and why should you try it? https://t.co/NXW7aAVkeH — @reyaz4you Feb 10th, 2017

@cpaterso: Similar to @traintheteacher’s suggestion for Pecha Kucha: Ignite Presentation – you can adjust timings https://t.co/JalctBOU4O — @moTik Mar 24th, 2017

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What is an Ignite presentation, and why should you try it? « Creating Communication — Nov 1st, 2012

Presentation Tips from Kevin Daum | Creating Communication — Jul 11th, 2013

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