Presentation rules: the 10-20-30, 5-5-5 and 7-7-7 rules and when to ignore them

The 10-20-30 rule says a presentation should have ten slides, last no more than twenty minutes and use no type smaller than 30 points. Guy Kawasaki wrote it for pitches to investors.

His reasons are practical. A listener cannot weigh more than about ten ideas in one meeting. Twenty minutes leaves room for setup problems and discussion. Large type forces you to find the points that matter, because nothing else fits. For the type size he offers a fallback: half the age of the oldest person in the room, which gives 30 points for a 60-year-old. He says the rule applies to any presentation meant to reach agreement, but he set the numbers for a venture pitch.

Where it helps. A first investor pitch, or any short meeting that should end in a decision. Ten slides in twenty minutes means two minutes per idea, and the type size makes padding impossible. The pitch deck template is built on ten slides.

Where it misleads. Outside a pitch. A board pack that people read in advance needs more on the page. A table with eight rows does not fit in 30-point type. A 45-minute workshop is not a 20-minute talk. Treat 30 points as a way to force cuts, and ask the real question: can the back row read it?

The 5-5-5 rule says no more than five words per line, five lines per slide and five text-heavy slides in a row. SlideModel's explainer presents it as a guideline, not a hard law.

Its third part is the one people forget, and it is useful because it limits the deck, not only the slide. Treat it as a pacing rule: after a text-heavy slide, show a chart, a number or a picture.

Where it helps. Catching a slide that has become a paragraph.

Where it misleads. A title that states a point needs about 8 to 15 words (see action titles), so five words per line cannot apply to titles. It also says nothing about charts and tables, where the question is clarity, not word count. Apply it to body text only.

The 7-7-7 rule has no single definition. The common version allows at most seven lines per slide and seven words per line, also written 7x7. HubSpot's explainer leaves titles out of that limit, adds a variant that also caps the deck at seven slides, and says no specific data supports the 7x7 limit. It mentions 6x6 and 8x8 versions as well. Numbers that move this easily are conventions, not findings, and that answers the question about a 6-6-6 rule too: same idea, different number. Say which version you mean before you adopt one in a team.

Seven lines of seven words is 49 words of body text. That makes a useful ceiling for a deck people read, such as a handout or a pre-read. It is a poor target for a deck you present: a listener who is busy reading 49 words has less attention left for what you are saying.

The rules also disagree about pace. 10-20-30 allows one slide every two minutes; PechaKucha shows three a minute. Both are right for their format. For the number your own talk needs, use how many slides you need.

Yes. A slide can pass a word count and say nothing. The reverse also happens: a slide breaks the cap and works, because it carries one message and proves it.

The third slide of the example quarterly business review works the same way: a full-sentence title, one chart and a short takeaway.

No, but two lines of research sit behind their spirit.

• Short-term memory. The number seven is often linked to George Miller's 1956 paper “The magical number seven, plus or minus two”. It is about how many items people can keep in mind, and its lasting point is chunking: grouping items so that more fits. Nelson Cowan's 2001 review puts the central limit nearer four chunks. Neither paper is about slides.
• Words on screen while you speak. Richard Mayer's work on multimedia learning describes a redundancy effect: in lessons, people tend to learn better from graphics with narration than from graphics with narration plus the same words as on-screen text, though conditions apply (Multimedia Learning, Cambridge University Press, 2009). It studies teaching material, not business decks, but it is the best argument for keeping your script off the slide.

Edward Tufte warns about the opposite risk. His essay The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint argues that fragment-sized bullets often lower the quality of analysis, and a hard cap on words per line can push a writer toward exactly that.

There is no official list; the “five golden rules” and “ten golden rules” that circulate differ from source to source. These six hold up for decks people use at work:

• Lead with the answer. The first content slide states the conclusion and the decision you need (pyramid principle).
• One message per slide, stated in the title. If you cannot say it in one sentence, split the slide.
• Match density to use. A deck you present needs less on the page than a deck people read alone. If you need both, build two versions of the story.
• Say it or show it, not both. Do not read your slide aloud, and do not paste your script onto it.
• Let speaking time set the length. Count minutes first, then slides.
• Test legibility, not point size. Look at the slide from the back of the room and check that you can read the numbers (best fonts for presentations covers type choice).

State your limits in the brief: the number of slides, the speaking time, one message per slide and how much text a slide may carry. AI builds to the instructions it gets, so the limits are yours to set.

In the plan, check the slide count against your speaking time and that each card carries one message. After the build, a render check looks at each page for overflow, cut-off text, weak contrast and logos that are too small. Check every figure against your source before you present, as with any draft.