If you want to give a pretty good presentation, please keep the following principles about various visual aids in mind:

Video. Don’t bother! This has the potential to add lots of headaches. I use video every day because I am a professional speaker; I have to show video of people speaking, and they pay me lots of money to do so. But I’m assuming that you aren’t a professional speaker so I recommend that you stay as far away from video as possible. There are a million things that can go wrong, and dealing with them can become a black hole that sucks up your time. Stay away—you won’t be sorry!

PowerPoint. Don’t use PowerPoint just because everyone else is; but do use it if you feel you have some visuals (i.e., graphics, photos, charts, or images) that will help your audience understand your ideas better. Never use PowerPoint to simply display bullet points with words on it.

Emails/memos/handouts. If you’ve got a lot of text on the subject you are presenting, give it to your audience in every way possible. Email them everything you’ve written. Give a handout after your presentation. But don’t feel the need to read to people a text memo that you have cut and pasted into a PowerPoint.

Flip charts/whiteboards. These are great for drawing something that can be more easily grasped in a visual manner. Drawing on a chart or board is also helpful; it slows you down to a point that prompts you to discuss only one topic at a time.

Props. Actual props are a great way of making your ideas come alive to an audience. So, for example, if you are talking about the problems of a deep freeze destroying an orange crop, don’t just show a PowerPoint photo of a damaged orange. Instead, simply pass around a damaged orange for each person in the room to touch. This doesn’t work for large audiences, but for the average business audience of 30 people or fewer, props are an excellent and underused way of making your points more memorable.

Cheat sheets. This is actually the most important visual aid of all: a one-page cheat sheet just for you to consult during your presentation. This page of notes should have one to three words per bullet point to trigger your memory, plus any key numbers or facts that you might not easily remember. Make this cheat sheet your best friend; and make multiple copies to place in different parts of the room if you plan on presenting while standing.

Finally, remember that no matter what presentation tools you use, it is essential that you practice at least once in circumstances similar to the one where you will be giving your presentation. Slides that look great on your laptop will look fuzzy and hard to read on a projected screen. A PowerPoint slide playing off of a DVD on your laptop suddenly doesn’t play at all when the conference organizer tells you that the computer being used in front of the audience has no DVD drive and there is no time to change computers.

Key concept: You don’t want to ever have to learn or become familiar with a new tool, trick, prop, or piece of equipment in front of an audience. Do that in private, so that you look comfortable when it comes time to present.

This article was taken from my new book "How to Give a Pretty Good Presentation" You can order a copy from Amazon.com or from your local bookstore.