Article Category: Ask Six Minutes, Visual Aids

How Many Slides Should You Have?
How Many Slides Do You Need?


This article is part of the 12 Days of Ask Six Minutes.
This event is over now, but you can send your questions anytime.

Imagine yourself in these scenarios:

  1. You’re delivering a 1-hour keynote address on pursuing your dreams to high school graduates.
  2. You’re teaching a full-day corporate course on quality assurance processes.
  3. You’re giving a 10-minute pitch at your local service club to partner with Habitat for Humanity.

How many slides would you prepare for each presentation?

As this is a very common question, it seems like a great starting point for our 12-day event of answering reader questions.

Alex, a Six Minutes reader, asks:

Can you provide some guidance on deciding how many slides should be in my PowerPoint presentations? I’ve read that you shouldn’t have too many slides because it distracts from the speaker. But I’ve also read that having lots of slides keeps the presentation fast-paced and prevents boredom. What’s right? How many PowerPoint slides should I have?

Sometimes, the answer is zero.

Even if you are accustomed to presenting with slides, there are many situations when you should go without any slides at all. These include formal situations such as:

There are many other situations when slides would distract more than aid your presentation. For example, I find that for very short presentations (10 minutes or less), I rarely need slides. If I do, then perhaps just one or two is required.

Don’t fall into the trap of believing that you must have slides every time you stand before an audience, regardless of the situation.

Usually, the answer is “Fewer than you think.”

Most presenters use too many slides.

Slide decks overflow when the presenter uses the slides as a crutch (so they can read bullets), or when the presenter tries to put everything on the slides.

To combat this, let’s start with two core assertions:

  1. PowerPoint slides, like any visual aid, are support material for your message, not the message itself.
  2. PowerPoint slides are for your audience, not for you.
Want to learn more?
For certain presentations, the 10-20-30 rule may apply, which encourages 10 slides over 20 minutes.

Instead of asking how many slides you should have, the right question to ask is “How many slides do I need to communicate my message to my audience?”

Then how many slides do I need?

For each element of your presentation (major points, minor points, anecdotes, stories, etc.), ask yourself this simple question: Can I convey this idea clearly with words alone, or would my audience benefit from visual support?

  • If the answer is no, then don’t add a slide. It’s redundant.
  • If the answer is yes, then perhaps you need to add a slide (or two) or incorporate a prop into your presentation.

For each idea which needs support, craft a slide which conveys it in the clearest way possible. A diagram? A chart? A photograph? A table?

How many slides will fit in my 30 minute speech slot?

Don’t fall into the trap of believing that you must have slides every time you stand before an audience, regardless of the situation.

One lesson that I’ve learned the hard way is that adding slides to a presentation adds time to the presentation as well. It takes time for an audience to absorb the information from slides, and (often) it takes time for you to set the context and explain the meaning on slides.

So, when you rehearse, it is important to rehearse the entire presentation including the slides with a sample audience. This will help you to determine:

  • How smoothly do your slides fit your narrative?
  • How effective are the individual slides?
  • How long does it take for each slide to be absorbed?

Not all slides are equal.

Technical diagrams (even well-designed, simple diagrams) take longer to absorb than photo-centric slides with a single phrase.

Similarly, slides will take longer to absorb if your audience is not familiar with your content.

Create your own rule of thumb.

Don’t worry about your slide count. Just make your slides count.

-- Duarte.com

If you often speak in similar situations (audience composition, subject matter, and time frames), it is reasonable that you may find yourself needing about the same number of slides each time you speak.

For example, I deliver technical presentations of an hour or more. For these situations over many years, I have determined that I need approximately one slide for every two minutes of speaking, or about 30 slides per hour. That’s my rule of thumb for those situations.

You will have a different rule of thumb, depending on your speaking style, and the situation where you find yourself speaking. Just remember not to use that number as a goal (e.g. I must create 30 slides, or else). Instead, use that number as a sanity check (e.g. Uh oh. I have one hour to speak, but I’ve created 72 slides. I need to take out some material.)

Video: Make Your Slides Count

The creative geniuses at Duarte recently addressed the same question in a wonderfully satirical puppet show video. It is only two minutes long, and well worth your time.

Original link: Duarte “Make Your Slides Count” video

Take out? Take out? No, no, no, no, no. I’m not taking anything out. This is corporate gold. I’m leaving it all in. I’m just going to talk four times faster.

That is absolutely perfect. And so is their summary statement:

Don’t worry about your slide count. Just make your slides count.

Your Turn: What’s Your Opinion?

How do you answer this question? How many slides works for you?

Please share this...

This is one of many public speaking articles featured on Six Minutes.
Subscribe to Six Minutes for free to receive future articles.

Add a Comment

Comments icon8 Comments

  1. Good article, Andrew.

    The “Rules” should be considered guidelines.

    The presenter is the presenter, not the slides.

    Don’t forget the “B” Blank button or placing blank slides in the deck to put the audience’s eyes on you – the presenter.

    Thanks for the Post!

  2. Marcie says:

    I don’t know the rules about the number of slides you need for a presentation, but I’ve seen some elaborate slides on Slideshare.

    Also, I’m reading Slide:ology: The Art and Science of Creating Great Presentations by Nancy Duarte. This gives some great information and details on how to create slides. Who knew there was an art to creating slides?

  3. Nice post on slides.

    Slides & presentations, like life itself, rarely fit neatly into a set of rules. I’ve done a 45 minute presentation on slides and at the end an audience member asked me how many slides I’d used. We were both shocked to learn it was 145 slides! But the point for us in the room that day, as you indicate above, wasn’t about a rule or a guideline. It was what was needed to help the audience. 145 slides wasn’t too many for that talk.

    Thanks again for the post!

  4. Jason Anthony says:

    I like to remind my presenters that people come to presentations to listen, not read. Many presenters use PPT as a planning tool, and load slides with everything they think they need to present. Some presenters know it’s too much, and intend to severely edit, but that rarely happens, and it ends up that there is a slide for every point. I recommend finding other ways to plan and hold off designing slides until content has been determined. Then, when it comes time to design slides, design three essential and well-designed slides first and only add more if a slide would be supportive. This is taking a building up approach, rather than a taking down one. I find this often results in fewer and more thoughtfully-designed slides.

    1. Andrew Dlugan says:

      I couldn’t agree more, Jason. I give the same advice in presentation courses that I teach. Delayed opening of slide software is key.

  5. Sharon Bint says:

    It all boils down to the individual speaker and the quality and usage of the slides. At a professional teachers’ meeting once, I saw a woman speaker, who entered the meeting place dressed in a plain, black skirt and jacket and with very little attention paid to her makeup. As she set up the slides, those of us who did not know her mumbled about another boring presentation to endure after our meal. Were we ever in for a surprise when this plainly attired woman began to speak! She was so excited about her topic that she had our attention immediately. Somehow, her aspect and demeanor changed before our eyes; and, the entire audience was leaning forward, listening attentively, and anxiously awaiting the next slide! She made her topic come alive with the use of her own enchantment with it and with the effective use of her slides. We usually made a quick escape after our presentation, but she had to leave for another commitment in order to get away from us. That took place many years ago, but we still recall that day and that speaker. I do not know how many slides she used, but they were just enough!
    (I don’t know how personal you want us be, so I will not reveal names. That speaker became a world-renouned, professional archeologist and professor, who later used her low-key charisma and talent to lead a state university to great strides of modernization and growth that will be remembered forever in that community, state, and beyond.)

    1. Andrew Dlugan says:

      You are right, Sharon. The speaker and what they say (and how they say it) is far more important than slides. Slides are meant to complement the presentation, not _be_ the presentation.

  6. I was just asked this in a training session. The participant does sales presentations and his main customer has a rule that they are to use 6 slides only. Which is ridiculous and arbitrary because obviously with a small font you could fit a 1000-plus words on 6 slides. They should instead impose a time limit (10 or 20 minutes or whatever).

    As you said, every presentation is different. Mine are not technical, so my slides are almost entirely visual. If there’s text it’s one to three words. So I may have 80 or more slides in a 50-minute session. (That includes builds.) So it all depends.

Tweets iconRecent Tweets