Guidelines for Presenters and Authors:
Preparing your Slide Decks and Papers

Accordion Content

Template

Draft your slide deck using this PowerPoint template that TAC provides for the convenience of conference presenters. Presenters may use their own organization’s template, but it must follow TAC’s guidelines.

Title Slide

Must include:

• Title of presentation
• Presenters’/Authors’ full names, titles and organizations
• “For session: [session name]”
• “2026 TAC Conference & Exhibition, Winnipeg, Manitoba”

Formatting Requirements

• Software: Use PowerPoint (Widescreen format 16:9).
• Slide count: Presentations are limited to a maximum of 25 slides; exceeding this limit is not allowed.
• Fonts: Use only one of these fonts: Aptos, Arial, Calibri, Helvetica, or Tahoma.
• Conference logo: If you wish to include the TAC Conference logo, contact cghazal@tac-atc.ca.

Designing your Slides

• Limit each slide to one main idea.
• Limit text on each slide, using no more than seven lines double-spaced.
• Headings: Use headings and sub-headings of different sizes to create a visual hierarchy and help the audience follow along.
• Visuals: Use photographs, charts, and graphics to complement your verbal presentation. Ensure tables and figures are labelled and legible. Leave some surrounding white space.
• Effects: ‘Builds’ that lead the audience through a slide one point at a time can be effective. Other animations and transitions are not recommended and should generally be avoided. Videos must be embedded in the presentation file; linked videos may fail to play or play poorly.
• Structure: Objectives are clear and linked to the conclusions, methodology is sound, conclusions are supported.
• Neutrality: Content does not promote proprietary products or services, the author’s employer or other commercial entity.

Permissions

Authors are responsible for obtaining permissions from employers, clients and partners to disclose presented information, and for securing any necessary clearances from copyright holders.

References

Material not original to the slide deck must be properly referenced by author’s name, source, publisher and date on the slide where the material is located.

Saving your File

Submit the PowerPoint presentation using TAC’s file naming convention: Session code_presenter last name+first initial_presentation title_version#.pptx

Template

Draft your slide deck using this PowerPoint template that TAC provides for the convenience of conference presenters. Presenters may use their own organization’s template, but it must follow TAC’s guidelines.

Title Slide

Must include:

• Title of presentation
• Presenters’/Authors’ full names, titles and organizations
• “For session: [session name]”
• “2026 TAC Conference & Exhibition, Winnipeg, Manitoba”

Formatting Requirements

• Software: Use PowerPoint (Widescreen format 16:9).
• Slide count: Presentations are limited to a maximum of 10 slides; exceeding this limit is not allowed.
• Fonts: Use only one of these fonts: Aptos, Arial, Calibri, Helvetica, or Tahoma.
• Conference logo: If you wish to include the TAC Conference logo, contact cghazal@tac-atc.ca.

Designing your Slides

• Limit each slide to one main idea.
• Limit text on each slide, using no more than three lines double-spaced.
• Headings: Use clear headings and sub-headings to guide the audience through your main point to create a clear visual.
• Visuals: Use simple and clear visual elements e.g. photographs, charts, and graphics to complement your verbal presentation. Avoid long tables and complex charts.
• Effects: Simple point-by-point reveals (builds) are allowed. All other animations or videos are not permitted.
• Structure: Present clear objectives, highlighting the most essential points that are clear and linked to the conclusion.
• Neutrality: Content does not promote proprietary products or services, the author’s employer or other commercial entity.

Permissions

Authors are responsible for obtaining permissions from employers, clients and partners to disclose presented information, and for securing any necessary clearances from copyright holders.

References

Material not original to the slide deck must be properly referenced by author’s name, source, publisher and date on the slide where the material is located.

Saving your File

Submit the PowerPoint presentation using TAC’s file naming convention: Session code_presenter last name+first initial_presentation title_version#.pptx

Template

Draft your paper using the Microsoft Word template that TAC provides for the convenience of conference paper authors. It includes guidance for title page contents and text requirements.

Formatting Requirements

• Software: Use Microsoft Word; letter-sized pages in portrait format.
• Length: Papers should be no longer than 20 pages including tables and figures. Number all pages consecutively (“Page x of y”).
• Text: Use single-spaced body text, with double spaces between paragraphs and before and after headings.
• Fonts: Use only one of these fonts: Aptos, Arial, Calibri, Helvetica, or Tahoma
• Visuals: Number figures and tables separately and include titles and external sources. Figures may be colour or black-and-white.
• Abbreviations, acronyms and symbols: Identify these the first time they are used.
• Structure: Include an abstract. Objectives should be clear and linked to the conclusions, methodology is sound, and conclusions are supported. Avoid appendices.
• Neutrality: Content does not directly promote proprietary products or services, the author’s employer or other commercial entity.

Permissions

Authors are responsible for all statements contained in the paper, for obtaining permission from employers, clients and partners to disclose presented information, and for securing any necessary clearances from copyright holders.

References

Material not original to the paper must be properly referenced using superscript footnotes and a list of references at the end of the paper, following the example below.

Saving your File

Submit the paper using TAC’s file naming convention: Session code_presenter last name+first initial_paper title_version#.pdf