PowerPoint pre-delivery checklist: 12 things to check before you send

In a report that has been through a few rounds, one common problem is one metric with different values in the summary, the body and the appendix — say, a market size of $12.8B on slide 5 and the old $12.5B still in an appendix table.

How to check by hand: List the 5 to 10 most important metrics in the deck, then search for each with Ctrl + F (⌘ + F on a Mac). Watch for different notations of the same number: “$12.8B”, “$12,800M”, “about $13B”.

The text gets the new number and the chart doesn’t — an easy mismatch to overlook. OfficeLint includes data from editable charts in its cross-slide check; charts pasted as images can’t be read and are marked “cannot verify”.

How to check by hand: Right-click the chart, choose Edit Data, and compare it with the figures quoted in the text. Charts pasted as pictures can only be compared against the original source.

TBD, XX%, “to be added”, “Click to add text”. These are signs of unfinished content worth checking before you send.

How to check by hand: Search for TBD, XX and TODO in turn. Empty title and body placeholders show their prompt text in Normal view, so page through once.

Comments left from internal discussion can contain views on the client or judgments that weren’t final.

How to check by hand: On the Review tab, open the Comments pane and work through each one. Before sending, open File → Info → Check for Issues → Inspect Document, run the inspection, then choose to remove the comments it finds.

Notes often hold talking points, internal reminders, even a contact’s phone number — and the recipient sees them as soon as they open the file. OfficeLint’s redaction checks notes for phone numbers, email addresses and similar data.

How to check by hand: Go through View → Notes Page slide by slide; if you don’t need them, remove presentation notes with Inspect Document.

Old slides that were hidden and draft text boxes dragged off the slide don’t show in a slideshow, but anyone who opens the file sees them.

How to check by hand: In Slide Sorter view, look for slide numbers with a line through them. Inspect Document finds invisible content and off-slide content.

When several people build a deck, Calibri Light or Arial creeping into the body text is a common sign — visible the moment someone flips through.

How to check by hand: Home → Replace → Replace Fonts lists the fonts in the file and replaces them in bulk. Note that it doesn’t distinguish headings from body text.

Full-width commas and brackets inside English sentences, half-width ones inside Chinese or Japanese text. Decks that mix languages are especially prone to it.

How to check by hand: Search for full-width characters such as “，” and “（” and check whether each one sits inside an English sentence.

Merged decks lose page numbers most easily: a few slides use a layout without a slide-number placeholder, or the numbers were lost when slides were copied from another file.

How to check by hand: In Insert → Header & Footer, tick Slide number and Apply to All; then page through to make sure every layout has a place for the number.

After a font change or a rewrite, text easily runs past its text box or the slide edge — so check this again after every other change.

How to check by hand: In Normal view, check the bottom and right edge of each text box, especially on slides where the font or size changed.

Before a deck becomes a case study, goes to an outside party or is handed to an AI tool, hide personal data with a fixed format. Client names, amounts and addresses need judgment and still have to be handled by hand.

How to check by hand: Search for “@” to find email addresses, and for common phone-number prefixes such as “+1” or “(”. Check tables and notes too.

“Final_v3_FINAL_edit2.pptx” makes it harder to tell which version is final, and the document properties may still carry the author, the company and the name of the last project.

How to check by hand: Rename the file to a clear name the recipient can recognize. Check Author and Company in File → Info → Properties, or remove document properties and personal information with Inspect Document.