Which document do you actually need? A decision tree

1. Will you be in the room while they read it?

If you are speaking over it, you want slides. Big type, one idea per screen, almost no sentences, because nobody can read and listen at the same time. Your voice is the content and the screen is the punctuation.

If you are not there, you want a page. No one is narrating, so the document has to carry the argument alone. That means prose, headings, and enough detail to survive being read cold at eleven at night.

2. Will someone need it on paper?

Checklists, onboarding guides, workshop material and anything that ends up on a wall or in a binder want a printable. Fixed page size, high contrast, nothing that depends on colour alone, and a layout that survives a black and white printer.

If nobody will print it, do not pay the price of designing for paper.

3. Does the reader need to try something, or just be told something?

If there is a price, a model, a timeline or a comparison the reader will want to poke at, build it interactive. A slider that recalculates, a filter on a chart, a toggle between two scenarios. People believe a number far more once they have moved the inputs themselves.

If the message is settled, a static page is faster to build and easier to read.

4. How long does it need to stay true?

Anything that will change again wants a live link, so the version everyone holds updates the moment you patch it. Anything that is a snapshot, a signed proposal or a board pack as of a date, wants to be frozen and exported.

Tips for slides that actually land

One idea per slide, and the idea belongs in the headline. If your title is “Market overview” the slide is doing nothing. If it is “We are losing the mid market to two players” the room already has the point.

Cut the text down to what you cannot say out loud. Numbers, names, the shape of a chart. Everything else is speaker notes.

Build the ending first. Decide what you want the room to do when you stop talking, then work backwards. Most decks fail because they were assembled forwards out of whatever the team had.

Show one chart at a time, and say what it means before you say what it is.

Prompts that get the right thing first time

The format lives in the prompt. “Make me a deck about pricing” gets you a generic deck. “Build a six slide presentation I will talk over, one idea per slide, the takeaway in the headline, dark background, no paragraphs” gets you something you can present.

The same holds for the rest. “Build a one page site someone will read without me, with a clear argument and a summary at the top.” “Build a printable one page checklist that is safe in black and white.” “Build an interactive page with a headcount slider that recalculates the annual cost.”

Then host it, send the link, and let the engagement data tell you whether you picked right.