Last week, I spent two days teaching Prezi at the Langley Center for New Media. As the event came to a close, a few attendees asked if I could sum up more than 16 hours of teaching in a top 10 list. Well, here’s my first stab at 10 tips that should help you become a better Prezi presenter and publisher.
1. Work in 1024 × 768
Import assets (like screenshots) at the resolution you plan to present at, otherwise your imported assets will look awful. I recommend you set up two monitors when you’re building your presentation. One monitor can be set at 1024 × 768 and the other can be used to find assets, organize your imported files, or to explore ideas online. Here’s a short video on setting the correct screen resolution.
2. Shift-drag frames
While we’re talking about the correct presentation resolution, it’s important to remember that Prezi is designed to help you easily present at 1024 × 768. Anytime you’re creating a cornered-frame, hold down the shift key while you draw it. This will ensure that you’re creating a frame that will fill a 1024 × 768 (or 4:3) presentation screen.
3. Learn & use the quick keys
Working efficiently in Prezi, like many software suites, completely hinges on using the keyboard shortcuts. Using these keys allows you to keep your mouse working close to the assets you’re organizing while you efficiently change modes.
4. Think in frames
When I set out to create a presentation, I think in 10-minute frames. Meaning that for a 60-minute presentation, I start by drawing six large circles on the canvas. Then I begin filling in each frame with about 10 minutes of material to build my six main points. Thinking in frames, instead of slides, is one of the hardest things to remember when working in Prezi, but it is the most liberating.
5. Experiment far away
While I’m constructing my presentation (constantly adding elements and trying to work through the story and element organization), I work across a widely separated landscape. Keeping all my big ideas spread out allows me to easily move a large number of items around without messing up other frames that already work. (Because there’s no “grouping” feature yet, ‘shift-click and dragging‘ around objects is much easier when they’re far away from any elements you don’t want to adjust.)
6. Use a move reference
There’s a tendency in Prezi to zoom all over the place. While this might seem fun, I don’t believe it adds value to the presentation and it disorients the audience. When you’re building moves think like a film editor.
Create an “establishing shot” when you’re about to zoom into something. If you’re going to spin to something, make sure the viewer has a reference point to spin from. This may be one of the hardest things to adjust to in Prezi, but work to help your audience understand where you are moving from and where you are moving to each and every time.
7. Overlap elements
One of the key secrets to building Prezi moves that help keep the audience oriented (and avoid dizziness) is to overlap elements – even ever-so-slightly. This ensures that the movement has a beginning and ending reference which helps orient your audience to the landscape you’re building.
8. Include presenter hints
PowerPoint, and other more traditional presentation tools, have become crutches for many presenters. I try to remember everything I’m going to present, but we all know this is impossible unless you have days to rehearse.
So to keep on my feet without a crutch, I include ‘presenter hints’ – very small text elements tucked into any areas where I need a ‘prompt’ or a reminder. For example, dates, numbers, or data sources are hard for me to remember, so I make sure to add these as small text elements in my frame. I just don’t make them the center of attention.
9. Frames and text as structure
As you’re building your Prezi, be consistent with the way you use frames and text styles. For example, if you use Circle Frames to organize big ideas, stick with that. If you use ‘blue text’ to headline your big ideas, stick with that. Although the audience may not consciously recognize this consistent use of elements, I believe it does help them understand the organizational structure of your presentation.
10. Path at the very end
I create and clear my paths sometimes a hundred times before I put the final presentation path in. This helps me organize and re-organize my presentation without worrying about perfecting the pathing. Wait until you’re all done adding items and organizing your presentation before you finalize your path. It will make pathing much less painful.
100 more hints
Even as I write this, I realize I have hundreds more hints and tips that I think have made my Prezi experience a wonderful one. Let me know if you have specific Prezi questions, and I’ll try do my best to answer them. I’m also hoping to create more Prezi Secrets video tutorials. So let me know how I can help.
Andrew Davis is an engaging speaker whose Prezi presentations have captivated audiences across the U.S. With a lively style and just the right touch of humor, Andrew makes topics like the future of publishing and social media success, approachable and engaging. Contact us to hire Andrew to speak at your company or association event.
These are great hints. I really appreciate that fact that some of these hints are focused on what all GOOD presentations. So many people make presentations and don’t know the basics of leading their audience through the story. I love Prezi and these hints will be a great reminder.
Chris,
Thank you so much for taking the time to read my hints-I know this was a long post. I am a huge fan of Prezi and really believe in its power to create more engaging presentations. I too agree that there is a lot of focus on how much fun Prezi is to present with today but the real value in the tool is found when you use it correctly.
Hopefully, these quick hints will help people present better using a tool that enhances their presentations.
If you have any hints or tips that you like to share please let me know! I’m always looking to learn more.
Think again Chris!
I think it’s tempting for people to take a look at an application such as Prezi and say, “ok, I can figure this out on my own.”
The reality is that while it’s possible to get up to speed with Prezi’s basic interface and functionality fairly easily, actually learning “how” to present with it is another matter. Add to this the fact that great Prezi presentations come from using an ecosytem of related applications and services which could take you weeks to months to learn on your own.
With Drew’s 2-day Prezi workshop/retreat, you ramp up to “power user” speed really quickly.
Great job teaching this workshop, Drew, and I look forward to seeing you again.
Best regards,
Russell
Russell,
Thank you so much for hosting the two-day Prezi workshop up there in Langley. I really enjoyed spending the time with each person to help them get the most out of a new presentation tool.
I can’t wait to see your next Prezi!
Thanks! Drew
Hi,
Thanks for sharing these tips. I’m still new to Prezi. I’m an online grad student in Instructional Design. I’m not doing any face to face presentations yet, but many of these tips can help with building online prezis. Could you explain points 6 & 7 a little more. I can’t seem to visualize what you mean by a reference point for the viewer, or for overlapping elements unless you mean when you frame a group of elements then allow that frame to include some neighboring things that will be viewed on the next um, sequence (I can’t say ‘slide’ so I don’t know what to call each framed and pathed group things that the viewer will see).
Brian
Brian,
Thanks so much for taking the time to comment. I would be happy to explain in a little more detail points six and seven.
I will try and be brief. (By the way, I call it passing when referring to the next frame or elements that I will be moving to in my presentation.)
Okay, so the best way to envision creating a reference point for your audience is to imagine that you have one square object framed up as the beginning of your path. Imagine that you have another square object as your next element in your path. If you scale that object down, rotate it a little to the left, and let it overlap the bottom right corner of your first element you will have created a reference-able move for the audience.
This means that when you move from path one to path two your audience can see the origin and resolution of the entire move.
Does that help?
Thanks again,
Drew
YES, that helps. I have seen this in several of the popular prezis that I have seen on prezi.com. Thanks for explaining that.
This whole article and also viewing other great prezis on prezi.com makes me think how this new ‘presentation/storytelling/other medium’ is different in some ways as to ‘design rules’ for other forms of presentation medium. For example, I am reading Duarte’s slide:ology book. I think that a lot of what she says applies to designing a prezi too. However, she suggested one create a grid system (she showed several different kinds) to place elements on a slide. I created two different grids and used them in building one of my present prezis. However, after viewing some fantastic prezis I realized that my prezi is still in a kind of ‘slide’ mentality as far as grouping things. Of course we have to group them like you said according to the dimensions of the prezi viewer. I think you know what I mean. So this is a different ‘ball game’.
In my Instructional design courses we have learned about ‘cognitive overload’ and the ‘modality principle’. From my experience with seeing presentations and reading Duarte’s book. I see how most people who create PowerPoint slides create “slide-u-ments” as Duarte calls it. The presenter will have everything they are going to say up on the slide rather than just a visual support medium to what they are saying. There is so much to learn about not getting the user/audience into cognitive overload when creating presentations and instructional things. I saw one amazing flash prezi that two Prezi interns created. However, after going through the prezi all I remembered was the cool graphics and how it was all put together, NOT the actual content. So, their animated elements were too much and detracted from the viewer actually getting the message.
Brian,
Thanks again for taking the time to comment. I would have to say one of the hardest things for me to grasp when I first began using Prezi was thinking outside of the traditional slide of mentality. I think what’s great about Prezi is that it forces you to think outside of the traditional slide format. I find this extremely liberating and it has changed the way I present completely.
Many people see a new presentation tool and immediately push it to its limits. Today, people are impressed by any presentation in Preszi or matter how bad it is. However, this will be a short-lived phenomenon in my opinion. We have to begin presenting powerful presentations that leverage this new medium to the best of its abilities.
Here is an example of one of the presentations I’ve given recently using Prezi http://morekeynote.com/2010/07/22/the-search-for-meat-loaf/
Thanks again Brian really appreciate the discussion.
Hi,
These were amazing tips in how to create a Prezi Presentation.
I admit that sometimes with the release o Prezi I went crazy with zooming but you have to be careful since you don’t want your audience start fainting because they’re dizzy.
I still lack on shortcuts with the keyboard but I think I brief summary would be just fine
Best wishes
Juan,
thanks so much for your comment.
I also went crazy with zooming the first time I used PREZI.
I think it comes with the territory. Good luck learning the keyboard shortcuts it will make a world of difference.
Thanks again!
I am using Prezi in my high school classroom, the kids love the zooming aspects and I love that I am not bound by slides. I am also teaching those who want to break out of the traditional ppt. box. I will definitely use your tips and would love to attend one of your workshops.
Rob,
Thanks so much for commenting. I’m actually thinking of doing these Prezi workshops – only for small groups – 10 people or so – around the country! Where are you located?
Maybe I should create a form for people that are interested so I can keep everyone notified as to when I’m hosting a workshop in your area.
What do you think?
- Drew
I am in Austin Texas.
Great tips! Any update on future Prezi workshops? I’m in NYC. Thanks!
Hey Tania,
No New York Prezi workshops scheduled. But if you get ten people together willing to spring $300.00 each for a day-long Prezi workshop, I’m sure we could make it work.
Thanks so much for inquiring!
- Drew
Wow – what an amazing set of tips. I use prezi a lot and I would call myself a proficient user but these tips were presented in a way which I really got and will help me become a better designer.
Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts.
Will,
My pleasure. Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help!
- Drew
I can’t tell you how much I appreciated getting the ‘shift-drag frames’ into common lanugage so I could finally – get it. This really does help a presentation look so much more professional. Much appreciated.
Julia,
Thank you so much for taking the time to comment on my post. The ‘shift-drag’ functionality is really key to maneuvering easily in Prezi. I’m so glad that I could help clarify the functionality.
Have a great day!
[...] 10 Tips to Help Master Prezi [...]
Hello,
how do you convert your prezi into a video?
thanks in advance: GZ
Gonye,
Thanks for the question. I use ScreenFlow to capture the screen cast of my Prezi presentations… it works really well! I’ll do a tutorial on it soon.
Thanks,
Drew
Thank you!
GZ
Great tips, thank you for taking the time to put these together. It would be great to see schools using thus sort of software to complement the more ‘traditional’ approaches!
Peter,
I agree, it would be great to see more and more institutions using a better presentation tool and teaching people to present.
Thanks for commenting and glad the tips are helpful!
- Andrew
Great tips! I am so dissapointed to hear you live so far from the Netherlands. I would have loved to pick your brain about Prezi or follow a workshop/training Presenting and Prezi with you. So let me know if you are ever in the neighbourhood!
Thanks again for the tips!
Sharon,
I’m sure I’ll be there at some point soon. I travel a lot doing speaking around the world. I’ll be sure to let you know when I’m in town.
Thanks for commenting!
- Drew
That sounds great! In the mean time I will make sure to follow you on the internet and ask you questions from time to time. If you don’t mind
Kind Regards!
Just starting on Prezi with my students. I have structured my Y11-13 curriculum around good design and these hints are very useful. Thanks.
Chris,
It’s my pleasure. So glad the tips are proving useful. I’m really glad to hear you’re teaching Prezi to students of a young age.
Thanks,
Andrew
[...] David from Tipping Point Labs has posted about PREZI and user tips for creating and using [...]
Andrew,
Thanks for your advice on Web -> PDF!! Huge help. But once I have my PDF, how do I put it into Prezi? Just insert file? Sorry… probably a dumb question.
Thanks!
Dan
Dan,
Glad this has proved useful. Just hit the ‘L’ key and you’ll be able to upload from your desktop. Learning the quick-keys is really something you should invest time in. It helped me move some much more efficiently in Prezi.
Thanks a lot!
Thank you for your support advice on Prezi.
I am trying to embed a YOUTUBE video from a certain time shot within the full video. The EMBED YOUTUBE feature will not allow me to import a shortened time clip of a full video. Have you encountered this and do you have any ideas to resolve? Thanks for ANY assistance you can offer.
[...] 10 tips to help master Prezi (tippingpoint labs) [...]
Thank you for all of your help. Is it possible to frame things and move the whole frame with all components? How do I group things together and move the group? it is driving me crazy and i have been reading a lot of info but i have to hand this in this week. Terri
Terri,
Great question. There is ‘group’ feature right now in Prezi. They tell me it’s on the way.
Here’s a video I created on how to do it though….
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4PipHth4Po
Let me know if it helps!
- Drew
Holding the shift key while drawing a frame around the objects you want to manipulate simultaneously groups them, if I remember correctly.
Jakob,
You’re right… here’s my video on grouping:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4PipHth4Po
- Drew
Hi Andrew,
Nolan Haims pointed me this way, because we were twittering about Prezi. I have taken a slightly more methodological approach to the “establishing shot” but failed to provide as convincing an analogy as you did. Thanks for the idea
Anyway, if you are interested in more theoretic musings about communication and how Prezi fits in there, please have a look at: designing information to scale
best wishes,
Jakob
Jakob,
I’m really excited about reading your stuff.
It sounds great! I’ll certainly dive in and I’m glad I could help!
- Drew
[...] 10 Tips to Help Master Prezi: Great list of tips to make your Prezi rockin’. [...]
I loved the 100 more hints video; it’s very cool. I was just wondering if you could tell me whether is it possible to add audio to a Prezi so that it plays the whole way through?
Cheers
Ty
Ty,
I don’t believe it’s possible to add a “soundtrack” to Prezi, meaning that it will play as you move. You could possibly build a little flash .swf that plays music continuously and that might work.
The other thing you can do is turn it into a video with a soundtrack…
- Drew
Hi, I am doing a Prezi for a class portfolio, it’s mandatory, and I was wondering if the site had ways to jump to a specific point of a presentation without going through each slide on the way? Sort of like a direct link on a website.
Hey KK,
Unfortunately, there’s no way to link to a direct section of your path from an external URL in Prezi. Great question though! Of course, you could re-path your duplicated presentation and link to that? But it doesn’t really help if you want 20 different links…
Hope that helps.
- Drew
Thanks so much! I am a student in high school an we recently had to do a presentation and I used Prezi. I definitely “wowed” my classmates. Thanks for all your tips and hints! They were great and taught me some new things.
[...] 10 Tips to Help Master Prezi | Technology [...]
Hi,
I am a big fan of Prezi. I make a lot of presentation for myself and my friends. Just now I was on the looking at the prezi blog and there was an item with winning prezi-presentation. In one of prezi-designers is using moving prezi logos in the presentation (the 2nd). Does anybody know how to make those? Is it an imported movie? Or can you actually make items move in a prezi??
http://blog.prezi.com/2012/01/17/prezi-designer-contest-winners/
Thanks in advance,
Sophie
Sophie,
Thanks for the question!
It appears that these are actually Flash files (.swf) files imported into Prezi.
All you have to do is import any .swf file into Prezi and it will work as prescribed.
Does that help?
- Drew
I saw a Prezi last year and was determined to do my next workshop in Prezi. The tutorials looks pretty simple so I got all my materials together from a powerpoint presentation and was ready to convert. OMG…it’s so much harder than I expected BECAUSE I can’t find resources. The tutorials are so basic…yeah, then what. I’ve been watching youtube video’s, looking up websites, books, etc…I wish you were doing a training in Miami or on-line. I have to present in a week and I hate to go back to PowerPoint.
Lena,
I wish I was doing a session in Miami soon, but I’m not. I apologize.
Is there anything specific you need help with?
- drew
Mr.Davis,
First of all, I thank you so much for your thoughtful tips you kindly presented.
I have two questions:
1- Can’t I edit pictures (like in photoshop) or change text fonts?
2-What are the main tips for an official prezi presentation?
thanks
Hey Hend,
Unfortunately, you can’t edit pictures like Photoshop. You can crop images – but that’s it.
As for the “offical tips” I’m not aware of any.
Thanks again,
drew
Thanks Drew for some great tips. I am becoming a great fan of Prezi and will use it in my teaching as a intro to lessons and to enable students to present their work in a creative way using technology.
Cheers
Kerryn
Dear sir,
First of all, thank you very much for your advice! They are very useful!
I wonder if you have a suggestion about a way to display lists. Im doing a prezi about communication in the workplace in general – basics. When talking about body language for example, I have to list the most important components of body language and discuss them. This is only one example among many others in my presentation.
I would grateful to you for having a suggestion or a piece of advice
Best regards
Nina,
Thanks so much for your kind comment.
I’ll create a quick suggestion video for you about how to deal with lists…
Thanks again,
Drew
Is there any way to go directly to a specific path location when you are not the owner of a prezi, and thus cannot enter edit mode? Example, a buddy says, “dude, you gotta check out ‘slide’ 120″. I want to go directly there, not click next 120 times. I’ve googled around and can’t seem to find an answer
Josh,
Thanks so much for the comment.
You’re right. There’s no easy way to reference a specific part of a presentation… it’s kind of a pain in the ass.
I usually tell people to Zoom all the way out – then too look for “Case Study” (or whatever) and then click on that to pick up the path.
That’s the best you can do.
Thanks again!
- drew
Damn. Seems like such an obvious feature. The viewer should atleast have a path navigator for those viewing the prezi or a key binding for it, especially since I may not know what the slide looks like (the one I’m searching for). I’ll have to go bang on their door (prezi’s).
FTR, it was this prezi http://prezi.com/a5tm-lf0879-/reverse-engineering-101-nyupoly-2010/ by Aaron Portnoy (+1)