How to Select and Use Fonts in PPT: Presentation Fonts Guide

Basic information on slides is conveyed through text. However, if the font for the presentation is chosen incorrectly, it will distract the audience from the main idea and ruin the whole impression of the presentation. It is important that each listener, viewer, and the reader can easily read the content on the slides. To realize it, you have to choose the right font size among the variety of best ppt fonts. In this article, we provide some guidelines on how to design effective typography that will brighten up your slides and improve the flow of information in the business presentation.

The main problem with slides that the audience is constantly complaining about is “too much text”.

What is the balance between image and text?
How to shorten the text as much as possible but keep it understandable?
Where is the balance between detail and brevity?

One thought per slide is a level completely unattainable for many (both people and companies). Not because the slides are overloaded, but it is very difficult to find even one meaningful thought among a lot of text on the slides. Thus, in a significant part of business presentations, there is no clear thought for the whole presentation, and readability is absent. Of course, if there is no thought, good design will not work anyway. Even though you know most professional fonts for presentation, you can’t make a design out of the chaos of thoughts.

Writing headlines is a considerable part of the art of design. The title gives us an idea of what genre the slide belongs to and how to rate it. It also gives a hint of how much text should be on the slide. The number of slides and most readable font for presentation is calculated individually, and, in these calculations, there are too many variables: speech timing, preferred letterforms, the number of people in the hall (more people – less text on a slide), screen size and resolution, distance to it, etc.

Good fonts for presentations

Good standard fonts for presentations divide based on the presentation program:

PowerPoint:

Trebuchet;
Verdana;
Century Gothic;
Franklin Gothic;
Garamond;

Keynote:

Helvetica;
Futura;
Myriad Pro;
Gill Sans;

Non-system programs:

Roboto;
Open Sans;
Proxima Nova;
Bodoni.

Unsuccessful PowerPoint fonts:

Lobster;
Comic Sans.

In general, it is better to choose simple fonts for presentations. Thus, you can easily replace one with another, while maintaining the dimensions. If you use handwritten or decorative fonts, they should be made much larger: letters of complex shape are initially more difficult to read. Sizing is also important for better information structuring. You need a large font for headings and a smaller font for body copy. You can also use separate dimensions for subheadings, notes, chart captions, and diagrams. However, it’s best to take no more than five different font sizes per presentation. And strictly follow your own hierarchy rules – otherwise, the listeners will get confused about which signatures refer to what content.

Sans Serif fonts in PowerPoint

I would like to devote sans serif fonts to a separate paragraph because these are recognized and perceived best for presentation text. It includes Arial, Calibri, Helvetica, Verdana, Lucida Sans, Tahoma, and Century Gothic, etc. It is important to differentiate serif fonts since a Serif font is the one good small text, but a Sans Serif font is the one you need for a presentation on the screen. It looks more clean, modern, and sleek due to the absence of ‘wings’ at the end of its lines. Sans Serif fonts in a presentation look better in titles and text on the screen. Nevertheless, it is rather friendly advice, so you are free to combine and use any font you prefer.

5 Tips on how to use best fonts for your PowerPoint presentation

1. Choose a typical font

One of the funniest and most challenging parts of a design project is browsing and choosing fonts. When it comes to PowerPoint, the choices should be as limited as possible. There are many standard fonts for PowerPoint, as well as cute fonts ppt. Likewise, you can find unique and well-designed text styles for PowerPoint slides on the web.

If you use a custom font, it is likely to end up with a chaos of characters instead of text when transferring a file to a PC. PowerPoint will try to replace fonts, which can cause readability issues. If you still want to personalize your presentation with an original but well-readable font, it’s best to translate your slides into image format.

2. Apply contrast

Regardless of font choice, readability decreases without contrast. Black and white text is known to be the easiest to read. Therefore, try to choose a light fill on a dark background or vice versa. Remember the conditions in which the presentation will be shown, e.g., screen, computer monitor, or projector screen. Because of the ambient light, the picture on the projectors looks dimmer, which should be taken into account when choosing colors and contrast.

3. Do not use Caps Lock

When choosing a font, avoid those including only capital letters. Using them in presentations has the same effect as in emails or messages. It feels like someone is shouting at the audience. Caps Lock can be used in titles or logos, not in the text body.

4. Avoid italics and handwritten fonts

Although handwritten fonts look beautiful, they are quite difficult to read. It is hard to adjust contrast or size to keep the text legible from a distance. The same goes for italics: anything designed to emphasize the text should make it easier to read. Italics can be great for the web or print documents, but presentations are subject to different rules.

5. Disable animation

Don’t use all PowerPoint effects. The text movement, letters flying from the side of the screen – such text is difficult to read and distracts. If you want to animate the text a bit, the main thing is to be guided by the principle of KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid), namely “don’t complicate”.