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Temporarily switching to a black display or slide is an effective way in PowerPoint to change focus, add audience interaction or to handle discussions or content not related to the current slide in a presentation. Why bother? You don’t want to leave your audience distracted by the slide in front of them especially if the presentation or conversation has changed. Plus, a black display quickly signals a change in topic or material.

Explore the 5 ways to work with black slides in PowerPoint:

1. Presentation Remote
2. Projector Remote
3. Quick Slide Show Keyboard Shortcuts
4. Create a Black Slide
5. End with a Black Slide

Presentation Remote

The easiest way to switch to a black display is with a presentation remote. If you use one, practice using the button to go to a black screen so you are less likely to accidentally hit this button when you don’t want it.

Projector Remote

If a presentation remote is not available, you may have access to the projector remote control. This is more likely for smaller or internal presentations when the A/V equipment is not so tightly controlled as with conference sessions or large groups. Many projector remotes have an option for “Black Screen”. Also, practice turning this feature on and off. Do not choose “Standby” as it may take several minutes to “wake-up” the projector from this mode.

Quick Keyboard Shortcuts to a Black Display

While running your PowerPoint slide show, easily switch to black by pressing the letter B (for black) or press the [Period] key while running your slide show. Just press B again to restore the presentation.

You can also press the letter W (for white) to toggle/switch to a white display. A white display, however, is often too bright in many presentation environments.

Create a Black Slide

As with other parts of a presentation, you may also want to build in or choreograph your interaction and other transitions in addition to the slide show. Do this by adding a black slide at the point where you want to temporarily change focus.

One advantage of a black slide over just turning the screen black is that, when you continue with your presentation, the next slide or topic will display instead of the slide you were previously displaying. Plus, a black slide may “jog” your memory about planned transitions.

To create a black slide in PowerPoint:

1. Create a slide with a Blank Layout.
2. Pick on the Design tab > Format Background.
3. Click Hide Background graphics.
4. Choose Solid fill and pick a black from the Color options.

End with a Black Slide

Another way to work with a black slide in a PowerPoint presentation is to choose whether or not you want to end your presentation with a black slide. Although this is a default in PowerPoint, you can quickly verify or change this option.

To set the option to end a slide show with a black slide:

1. File > Options.
2. Select the Advanced category. Under the Slide Show section, check or uncheck End with black slide and OK to continue.

Bonus Tip:

To avoid moving too far at the end of a PowerPoint presentation and accidentally exiting out of a slide show, I like to add a few “buffer” slides I don’t plan to show. If I do, however, click too many times with my presentation remote, the extra slide will display. Good choices for these ending slides include a simple slide with your company logo or website or an appropriate photo.

Finally, as with any presentation, make sure to practice your presentation (along with planned interaction) so that you can effectively and successfully deliver your message.

Were these PowerPoint tips helpful? Discover more PowerPoint techniques and shortcuts here.

In financial terms, the Present Value refers to the total amount that a series of future payments is worth at the present time. To calculate this value, you use the PV function which returns the present value of an investment.

Syntax of the PV function is as follows:

=PV(rate,nper,pmt,[fv],[type])

Rate refers to the interest rate per period, usually per annum. For example, if you invest in a fund, such as an education fund for your kids and the fund pays 10 percent annual interest rate with monthly payments, your interest rate per month is 10%/12, or 0.83%. You would enter 0.83%, or 0.0083, into the formula as the rate.

Nper is the total number of payment periods in an annuity. For example, if investment is over a 10 year period, and makes monthly payments, your investment has 10*12 (or 120) periods. Then enter 120 into the formula for nper.

Pmt is the fixed contribution payment you need to make each period. This amount cannot change over the life of the investment. If pmt is omitted, you must include the fv argument.

The fv and type arguments are optional arguments in the function (indicated by the square brackets). The fv argument is the future value or balance that you want to have after making your last payment. If this value is omitted, Excel assumes a future value of zero (0).

The type argument indicates whether the payment is made at the beginning or end of the period: Enter 0 (or omit the type argument) when the payment is made at the end of the period and use 1 when it is made at the beginning of the period.

Let’s assume you have the followings:

Interest Rate (Rate) is 10%

Total number of payment periods (nper) is 10 years or 12*10

Fixed contribution payment you need to make is $500 per month.

Then the formula would look like:

=PV(10%/12,10*12,500,,0)

And it produces a result of -$37,835.58

Excel produces a negative result because it represents money that you would pay, an outgoing cash flow.

What the result means is that if you’re asked to pay an up-front amount that is less that the present value, it’s a good deal. If this up-front amount is more than the present value, you should choose to pay an annuity or a series of payment. This is because the present value of the annuity, -$37,835.58 in this case, is less than what you are asked to pay.

Let’s look at another example and say you’re purchasing a vehicle. You have 2 choices to finance your purchase. You can either pay up-front which cost you $20,000. You can also finance the purchase of your car by paying $400 per month for 5 years at an interest rate of 10%.

To compare the true cost of this purchase, you need to compare the present value of the monthly payments to the $20,000 you would pay today. The formula in this case would look like:

=PV(10%/12,5*12,400,,0)

Which gives a result of -$18,826.15

This means paying $400 per month for 5 years is a better deal as you would be $1,173.85 ($20,000 – $18,826.15) better off.

To have a presentation that’s easy to follow and easy to understand-which should be any speaker’s objective-there needs to be a clear sense of organization. The beauty of a well-organized talk is it not only helps the audience follow along and stay with you, but it also helps you stay on track and not lose your train of thought.

The simplest, yet most powerful, tool for organizing and delivering your thoughts logically and coherently is the “talk template.”

Here’s an outline and explanation of the elements of the template. Note it’s divided into three parts. But it’s not three equal parts. Like the famous sandwich of the comic strip character Dagwood, all the meat is in the middle. The intro and conclusion serve to hold it all together, to add a little flavor and interest, but the body is the meat of your talk-it’s what you’ve got to say.

I. INTRODUCTION: The introduction sets the stage, establishes your credibility, gets your momentum going, and makes the audience want to listen to you. Two components:

A.    Hook: get the audience’s attention. Reel ‘em in. A great hook will make the audience take notice and want to listen to you. Possible hooks include: an anecdote, story, prop or visual, question, quotation, startling statement.

B.     Reason to Listen: Tell the audience how they’ll benefit from your talk. How will it will make them happier, safer, more successful, make their jobs easier, make their wallets thicker?

II.             BODY: This is the meat of your talk. Here is where you present your main ideas in a logical order and explain and elaborate on each point as much as your time limit allows. It’s composed of:

A.    Road Map: Just as a map on a road trip helps you know where you’re going, a road map for your talk lets the audience know where you’re going to take them. It makes it easier for them to follow along. This is the same thing as the classic speech adage, “Tell ‘em what you’re going to tell ‘em.”

B.     Main Points: Identify your main ideas-usually about three to five-and chose the most logical way to order them.

• Topical-your main points are arranged by particular topics.
• Chronological-your main points follow a natural sequential flow, such explaining a recipe.
• Spatial-your points are arranged according to geography, such as reports about the North, South, East and West divisions; or a description of a room, a building, a city.
• Problem-Solution-you explain the problem you encountered, then describe how you solved (or propose to solve) it.

III.    CONCLUSION: The ending of your talk is important because it’s your last chance to make a good impression. To be effective, it should have two elements, plus note how the Q&A is inserted:

1. Summary: bring it all home, wrap it all up, deliver one final gem that embodies the essence of what you’ve said.
2. Q&A. In order preserve the impact of your close, consider opening the floor for questions before you deliver your closing. After your Q&A session, you deliver your closing statement.
3. Closing: bring the talk to a definitive and memorable end. You can use the same tools in closing as in your hook: an anecdote, story, prop or visual, quotation.

A final thought about your template. Don’t write it out word for word. Instead, outline it with key words and bullet points-enough to keep you on track, but not so much that you feel the need to read them. This will enable you to be conversational and natural, a great attribute of a compelling speaker.