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Simple rules for making horrible slides

So you’ve decided to make a horrible presentation? No problem, I will guide you step-by-step!

Create a fancy background

Before adding any results, graphs, etc., your slide should already attract visual attention. Thankfully, creating a nice, dark gradient of two merging colors is a standard feature of today’s slide-generation software, like Apple’s Keynote. So start with an eye-catching background, like this one:

Help the audience learn from the text

Let’s face it, not everyone will pay attention to you talking all the time. To make sure that people really get everything that you wanted to say, put it all in writing! The additional benefit of this is that if you forget what you wanted to say, you can simply read the slide content!

Show all your equations

Okay, time to add the relevant equations. LaTeX makes it so simple! When you don’t need to get dirty with chalk dust to demonstrate all the tiny details of your work, you should really use that opportunity.

But wait, some equations are more important that others. We want to show the audience which ones are the really great ones! Let’s highlight the really important ones:

Add graphics, everytime, anywhere

And also, this talk is about neural networks, so let’s draw one! Hmm… we’re kinda running out of space here. But luckily you can save graphics with a transparent background and make them serve as a background to your text!

Celebrate your horrible slides!

And there you go, first slide is ready! Who said that preparing presentations has to be difficult?

Oh wait, did you say great presentations?