Shrink the Ink: How to Cut a Slide Deck in Half without Losing the Point

Most slide decks can be cut in half without losing the message. The fastest way to do it: take each paragraph, compress it to one sentence, then to a headline, then replace it with an image. Then check every slide against a three-second test.

There's a reason visuals do more work than text. In a classic 1973 study, psychologist Lionel Standing tested memory capacity and retrieval speed for pictures versus words and found pictures outperformed words on both (Learning 10,000 Pictures).

So what's on your slides matters. Here are three ways to check that your visuals are supporting your story instead of competing with it.

1. Your Audience Reads Faster than You Think

When you put up a slide covered in numbers and data, your audience is reading. Rather than listening to you, you’ve lost them in the reading. Not only are they no longer paying attention to your words, they’re mentally trying to make sense of what’s on the slide (regardless of what you’re saying). 

We also know that people learn better from graphics that support the narration, not just the same words on the screen as what you’re saying. 

So instead of data-heavy slides or bullets that say the same thing you’re saying, build a deck that visually supports your narrative. This allows your audience to listen while you speak, remember the visual, and actually comprehend what you’re sharing. 

2. The Four Steps to Shrink the Ink

Chances are your slides carry far too much information. In our Better Said 2.0 workshop, we walk teams through four steps to shrink the ink:

1. Start with a paragraph

2. Turn it into one sentence

3. Turn that sentence into a headline

4. Turn that headline into an image

It's a hard exercise, and that's the point. Fewer words, or an image instead of words, doesn't cost you the message. The simplification is what creates the clarity.

Use AI to help you cut. Draft the first pass yourself to get your thinking moving, then ask an AI tool to help you pare it back. Then again, and again. Keep going until you reach the shortest, simplest version of your message.

3. The 3-Second Rule: If It’s Not Fast, It’s Forgotten

Attention spans are at an all time low. If your message can’t be grasped in the first 3 seconds, it’s not clear enough. After you “shrink the ink,” do a 3-second slide evaluation. Open a deck, choose a slide, and ask yourself if you’re able to grasp the concept in the first 3 seconds. 

If not, it’s too long or confusing. This is another great time to return to AI and brainstorm how to cut down and clarify your message. Another practice is to take one dense slide from a past deck and simplify it into a new presentation version. 

Apply these concepts and remember that your story and visual combination is what sticks, not a bunch of data they have to read and sort through. 

Get Hands-On Support with Your Visual Storytelling

Better Said storytelling workshops focus on both the verbal and visual. If your teams’ decks are lengthy, stacked with numbers on slides, and confusing to look at (or just visually boring), we can help. Book a Better Said 2.0 workshop or reach out for a customized partnership to have our expert storytelling design team re-work your deck for you.

FAQs

• How do I cut a slide deck in half?

  Work slide by slide using the Shrink the Ink method: reduce each paragraph to one sentence, then to a headline, then to an image. Most text on a slide is a script you don't need, because you're saying it out loud. Removing it doesn't remove the message.

• How much text should be on a slide?

  As little as possible. Better Said's benchmark isn't a word count, it's a time limit: if the point of the slide doesn't land within three seconds, it's still too dense.

• Should presentation slides have bullet points?

  Bullets that repeat what you're already saying work against you. Research on multimedia learning shows people learn better from visuals that support narration than from narration plus the same words on screen. Use visuals that advance the story instead of duplicating your script.

• What is the 3-second rule for slides?

  It's a quick test: open your deck to any slide and see whether you can grasp its concept in three seconds. If you can't, the slide needs to be simplified.

• Can AI help me simplify my slides?

  Yes, and we recommend it. Write your first version yourself, then use an AI tool to help you pare it down repeatedly until you reach the simplest form of the message. You keep the judgment about what matters; AI speeds up the trimming.

• What is the Better Said 2.0 workshop?

  Better Said 2.0 is the Better Said workshop covering the visual side of storytelling, including the four-step Shrink the Ink process for cutting text from your deck.