CG PPT study guide
CG PPT · Work through your exam, one topic at a time.
CG PPT (Certified Graphics Professional – Presentation Proficiency Test) is a presentation-design credential aimed at people who build slide decks as part of their job: marketing and communications staff, instructional designers, consultants, trainers, and graphic professionals who want their slide work recognized alongside print and layout skills. The exam pairs knowledge questions with a hands-on presentation task, so it tests judgment as much as menu knowledge - whether you can plan for an audience, build a coherent visual system, and hand off a file that works on someone else's machine. The CG PPT study guide has 9 sections and about 2,912 words.
01Presentation Planning and Audience Analysis
Domain focus: how you convert an objective and an audience profile into a defensible structure before any formatting decisions are made. Write one sentence: "After this presentation, the audience will ." If the blank cannot be filled with a decision, an approval, or a behaviour change, you have a report, not a presentation.
338 words, about 2 min02Slide Design Principles and Visual Hierarchy
Domain focus: whether a viewer's eye lands on the intended message first, and whether the slide reads as one composed object rather than scattered boxes. Contrast (size, weight, colour, space) tells the eye what matters.
326 words, about 2 min03Master Slides, Themes, and Templates
Domain focus: the inheritance chain that makes a deck editable and consistent - theme, slide master, layouts, then individual slides. A theme supplies theme colours (four text/background plus six accents), theme fonts (Heading and Body), theme effects and background styles.
315 words, about 2 min04Text, Typography, and Content Layout
Domain focus: whether text is readable at projection distance and whether the wording supports speaking rather than replacing it. Use one heading and one body face, or a single family in two weights; sans-serif reads better on projectors and screens.
318 words, about 2 min05Graphics, Images, and Media Handling
Domain focus: choosing the right asset format, sizing it without distortion, and keeping the file portable. PNG for transparency and screen captures; JPEG for photographs; SVG for icons and logos because it scales and can be recoloured in PowerPoint; never enlarge a small bitmap.
318 words, about 2 min06Charts, Tables, and Data Visualization
Domain focus: whether the chart answers the question the slide asks, and whether the data is honest and legible. Line for trend over time; column or bar for comparison across categories; bar rather than column when labels are long; pie only for parts of a whole with five or fewer slices; scatter for correlation; waterfall for cumulative change.
337 words, about 2 min07Transitions, Animations, and Interactivity
Domain focus: using motion to control attention and pacing, and navigation that lets a presenter move through a non-linear deck safely. Transitions govern how a slide enters.
314 words, about 2 min08Output, Export, and Delivery Formats
Domain focus: picking the right container for the audience and making sure it survives the venue's machine. .pptx stays editable; .ppsx opens straight into show mode and resists accidental editing.
311 words, about 2 min09Accessibility, Consistency, and Quality Assurance
Domain focus: whether every audience member can consume the deck, whether it looks like one document, and whether it holds up under review. Every slide needs a unique, descriptive title - screen readers announce it first.
335 words, about 2 min