Microsoft PowerPoint certainly lives up to its name in more ways than one. It is the top of the line for many when it comes to making slide shows for business presentations, conferences and more. One problem that many people encounter is not knowing what size to make their slide show background image. The good news is that you don’t have to reformat your entire computer to create perfect slide shows every time.

The first step to understanding how to create the right size images for PowerPoint is to toss out any ideas you’ve been given about formatting your images by scanning them to a certain dpi. When it comes to PowerPoint, there is a simple way to ensure that your figures are clear, dazzling and easy to view, forget about dpi all together and turn your focus instead towards the screen resolution of the computer you’re using. This doesn’t mean that you have to be concerned with the resolution if you go to a larger screen either, such as a video projector.

It doesn’t matter how small or large your screen is, it is the resolution of the machine the matters. Here is the answer you’ve been looking for to make perfect images in PowerPoint for your slide shows: When you want to create images that fit the slide, the image size must be the same as the screen resolution of the machine you’re using. In other words, if your screen resolution is 1024 x 765 and you want to have full screen images in your slide show, the image resolution, in pixels, should match that number.

The same holds true for images that you want to be half the size in height; you should divide the numbers by 2, so half-size images should be 512 pixels wide by 384 pixels high. Ready for some more good news? You may be able to choose options that proportionately maintain the pixels for customized sizes. You may be wondering about this theory for using a system that you’re not familiar with, to which we say, don’t worry.

You can easily check the display resolution on any machine via the Windows desktop. Just right mouse click and a menu will appear. Select “Properties” then select the “Settings” tab from the “Display Properties” dialog box. Look at the “Screen Resolution” to see what the current setting is. As a rule of thumb, the display resolution is often defaulted to 1024 x 768. That means whether you’re using a laptop, video projector or other type of computer, you usually can’t go wrong with this setting for your PowerPoint slide show.