creating dynamic presentations with powerpoint

How to Make an Interactive PowerPoint Presentation: An Expert Guide (Free Downloadable Playbook)

Zhun Yee Chew

Are your PowerPoint presentations lacking impact and failing to engage your audience? You’re not alone. I experienced that before. I used to spend hours carefully crafting the perfect PowerPoint presentations only to be met with disinterested faces.

In a world where attention spans are getting shorter, traditional PowerPoint presentations often struggle to hold the interest of the audience. So here’s the hard truth: unless you adapt and embrace interactivity in your PowerPoint presentations, your valuable hard work and content run the risk of getting lost in presentations.

Fret not, as in this comprehensive guide, we will share with you expert tips on how to make an interactive PowerPoint presentation through interactive animations, transitions, hyperlinks, quizzes, games, and many more.

And perhaps the sweetest part of the deal is that you will also have access to a downloadable playbook of 60+ pages with a wealth of tutorials, templates, cheat sheets, resources and tools to elevate your PowerPoint skills from average to extraordinary through interactive PowerPoint presentations.

Are you prepared to impress those who once found your presentation dull? If your answer is a resounding ‘yes,’ then let’s begin.

What is an Interactive Presentation?

What is an interactive powerpoint presentation.

Interactive PowerPoint presentations are simply PowerPoint presentations that are made interactive to convey information in a more dynamic and engaging manner.

Creating an interactive PowerPoint presentation involves deciding if you want to make your slide content interactive or if you want your audience to interact with your slides. 

Interactive PowerPoint presentations can generally be divided into two main dimensions: interaction with slide content through interactive elements and fostering interaction with the audience.

Interaction with Slide Content:

In the first dimension, PowerPoint presentations are made interactive through enhancing the slides content with interactive elements, usually native to PowerPoint. 

We will cover interactive elements including:

• Transitions
• Interactive data visualization
• Annotations. 

They function to enhance slide interactivity through adding movement to static objects, enabling non-linear slides navigation, as well as adding a dynamic touch to data and information presentation. 

Audience Interaction:

In the second dimension, PowerPoint presentations are made interactive through interaction between the presenter and the audience, usually with the help of PowerPoint add-in tools. We will cover: 

• Assessments
• Brainstorming
• Collaborative multimedia uploading

Once you have decided which strategy you would like to use, you can then follow  these step-by-step guide  and the following expert tips to turn your PowerPoint slides into an interactive experience!

Benefits of an Interactive Presentation

The fact that you are still reading this suggests that you don’t need further convincing on the benefits of interactive PowerPoint presentations. 

However, if you do, here are some quick statistics:

68% of individuals hold the belief that interactive presentations have a greater potential for being remembered. Webinar Care

This means that a simple action of making your PowerPoint slides interactive has a profound impact on how your presentation is received by the audience. From our years of experience creating interactive PowerPoint presentations, they generally: 

• Increases  engagement , motivation and knowledge  retention . 
• Result in better  impression  and more impactful messaging being conveyed.
• Allow presenters to better tailor their content or offerings to the audience or clients because they can gather  real-time feedback .
• Open up room for  creative   storytelling  and showcases.

Interactive Puzzle PowerPoint Templates

Master the tricks to turn your PowerPoint into an interactive experience today!

Expert Tips on How to Make an Interactive PowerPoint Presentation – Before Presenting

1. add animations, but use them judiciously.

The first and most straightforward way of making your PowerPoint presentations interactive is through adding animations to your slides. However, so many people use PowerPoint animations the wrong way. PowerPoint animations are more than just making bullet points or images appear or fly in during your presentation.

Remember, using animations excessively in your PowerPoint presentation will only reduce the appeal and professionalism of your slides. The key is to use them judiciously and purposefully. Before you hit the “Animations” tab, ask yourself, “Does this animation enhance the message I want to convey to my audience?”  

2. Add 3D PowerPoint Animations Using PowerPoint Native 3D Stock Elements

Did you know that PowerPoint has free animated 3D elements you can use? We recommend you to try them up to instantly upgrade your presentation from ordinary to extraordinary. 

❓ How?  Simply go to Insert > 3D models > stock 3D models > animated models. And you will find a wide range of free 3D models ranging from food and animals to plants and characters, and many more. You can also select different animation scenes by heading to the Animations tab.

3. Add Animations With Triggers for Visual Excitement

You can take your PowerPoint animations up a notch by incorporating combining animations with triggers to create interactive pop-ups with extra information . These on-click pop-ups are valuable when presenting a map or when you want to explore specific aspects of an object or topic in more detail. You can also use these pop-ups as markers to alert the audience to exciting elements within different parts of the slide, as such: 

❓How? To create on-click pop-ups in your PowerPoint slides, first add shapes that will become clickable buttons, one to “open” the pop-up and the other to “close” the pop-up. Then, add text boxes with extra information you want to show, as well as entrance and exit animations. Combine the animations with “triggers” to activate the animations when the open or close buttons are clicked on. 

For a more detailed tutorial on this pop-up animation, download our Interactive PowerPoint Playbook  below. 👇

4. add non-linear slide transition.

A quick way to add interactivity to your PowerPoint slides is by using PowerPoint transitions. The first we want to discuss is PowerPoint Zoom. PowerPoint Zoom enables you to zoom in and out of and navigate to specific sections or slides on click, anytime during your presentation.

To  access the PowerPoint Zoom feature : click on Insert in the  PowerPoint ribbon  >  Zoom  > then choose  Slide ,  Section , or  Summary   Zoom . Each of these PowerPoint Zoom option serves slightly different functions:

• Slide Zoom: zooms into specific slides
• Section zoom: zooms into specific sections
• Summary Zoom: creates a summary slide for the different slides or sections in your PowerPoint presentation for easy navigation.

❓ How? To  set up PowerPoint slide zoom , select the starting slide where you wish to implement the Zoom effect. Next, click  Insert  >  Zoom  >  Slide Zoom . Here, you can pick the specific slide or slides you want to zoom in on. Click the Insert button, and thumbnails of the chosen slides will be added to your current slide.

Alternatively, for a more manual setup process, you can also set up a navigation menu at the beginning of your presentation that allows the audience to jump to different sections or slides using hyperlinks.  Read more in the Hyperlinks section below. 

5. Add PowerPoint Morph

Like PowerPoint Zoom, PowerPoint Morph empowers presenters to create dynamic transitions that elevate the visual storytelling in their presentations. But PowerPoint Morph brings storytelling to a whole new level and adds a layer of intrigue to your slides by simulating object transitions or evolution across slides. It functions similarly to animations but offers a smoother and more organic visual experience, without the need for complex setup steps. 

Personally, we think the outcomes generated by PowerPoint Morph are more professional and polished-looking as compared to traditional animations. And if you are looking for a more advanced-looking presentation, try this 3D morph animation In PowerPoint .

We’d also like to share with you the numerous applications of PowerPoint Morph contributed by our colleagues and PowerPoint professionals at ClassPoint:

• Moving background
• Rotating wheel
• Rotating cogs
• Photo gallery
• Slide Zoom with Morph
• Creative reveal
• Parallax effect
• Continuous slide transition
• Phone frame
• Movie frame

Gain access to free templates for all these PowerPoint Morph applications and effects by downloading our Interactive PowerPoint Playbook. 👇

6. add hyperlinks – they can link to so many more places than just websites.

Much like PowerPoint Zoom, hyperlinks enable presenters to create interactive menus and navigation structures, allowing audiences to jump to specific slides or sections effortlessly. However, while PowerPoint Zoom primarily focuses on creating a visual and interactive overview of content within a single presentation, hyperlinks extend this capability to connect with external resources, web content, or even additional PowerPoint files. 

There are a few ways you could add hyperlinks to your PowerPoint presentation to transform  it into an interactive experience effortlessly: 

4 Ways You Can Add Hyperlinks to PowerPoint: 

• Slide Transition : You can navigate to specific slides in a non-linear manner by simply inserting a hyperlink into your current slide. Head over to Insert > Link > This Document and select the slide you want to link to. You can apply hyperlinks to text, shapes, or pictures. 

• Interactive Navigation Menu : Adding an interactive navigation menu at the beginning of your presentation allows clear navigation between different slides and sections in your presentation. Head over to Insert > Link > This Document and select the slides you want to link to.

• Action Buttons : With hyperlinks, you can also create Action Buttons in your PowerPoint presentations to make your PowerPoint slides behave like interactive web pages, allowing users to navigate, explore, and engage with the content in a dynamic and user-friendly manner. Head over to Insert > Action Buttons and choose from the selection.

• Embedded Content : You can also hyperlink your PowerPoint slides to embedded content like PDFs, spreadsheets, and even web pages. Simply click Insert > Object and select the file you would like to embed in your PowerPoint slides. This way, you can remove the hassle of toggling between various files or windows during your presentation.

Expert Tips on How to Make an Interactive PowerPoint Presentation – When Presenting

1. turn your powerpoint slides into interactive quizzes.

The traditional way to add interactive quizzes to PowerPoint is through an unfavorable process of combining complex animations with triggers and hyperlinks. Let’s be honest, it takes an eternity! Even though PowerPoint offers an extensive range of presentation tools, it does not have audience interactivity built at its core. 

The good news is, audience interactivity can actually be effortlessly achieved with the various PowerPoint add-ins as listed below: 

We will get to polls and games in a bit. For now, let’s show you how you can turn your PowerPoint slides into an interactive quiz in a just a few clicks with PowerPoint add-ins like  ClassPoint , which offers a wide range of interactive quizzes from  Short Answer  and  Word Cloud , to Multiple Choice questions.

How to Create An Interactive Quiz in PowerPoint In A Few Clicks

Once you have downloaded ClassPoint, you will have a suite of additional interactive quiz features added to your PowerPoint ribbon. 

To turn  your PowerPoint slide  content into interactive  quizzes, simply  click on any of the interactive quiz features and add them to your slide. Enter PowerPoint Slideshow mode and you can start the quiz immediately. 

2. Run Gradable Assessments inside PowerPoint

With the versatile PowerPoint add-in,  ClassPoint , you can also create assessments and collect real-time responses right inside PowerPoint. This is wonderful news for teachers! All you have to do is set up  interactive Multiple Choice questions  and enable  Quiz Mode . 

ClassPoint’s Quiz Mode introduces an  automatic grading  feature to your Multiple Choice questions within PowerPoint presentations created with ClassPoint. This feature not only automates the grading process but also includes automatic star ratings, the option to select difficulty levels, and provides a quiz summary along with an exportable quiz report, making it the perfect tool for classroom formative assessments in PowerPoint!

3. Incorporate Annotations During Slideshow

Another unique way to interact with your PowerPoint slides is through the use of annotations. With annotations, you as the presenter can interact with your slides to draw your audience’s attention to specific details, highlight key points, and tell a more coherent story. 

There are 3 ways you could use annotations in PowerPoint: 

• PowerPoint Draw Tab:  To utilize the PowerPoint Draw Tab, click on the “Draw” tab in your PowerPoint ribbon and begin annotating anywhere on your slides using built-in features like the pen, highlighter, and Ink to Shape. However, please note that PowerPoint Draw only allows annotation in Edit mode.

• PowerPoint Pen Tools:  Another option for native PowerPoint annotation tools that permit annotation during slideshow mode can be found by clicking the pencil icon located in the bottom right-hand corner of your screen during a presentation. You can use the pen, highlighter, or laser tools to annotate any part of your slides during the presentation.

• ClassPoint  Toolbar:  The ClassPoint toolbar serves as an enhanced, free alternative to PowerPoint’s existing pen tools. It offers a broader range of additional annotation features, including text boxes, shapes, spotlight effects, fully customizable pens and highlighters, and more. This enables you to transform your PowerPoint slides into a creative canvas that will captivate your audience throughout your presentation.

4. Run Ice Breakers and Brainstorming Sessions in PowerPoint

The uses of interactive PowerPoint add-ins like  ClassPoint  are not only limited to teaching and learning. Give your PowerPoint meetings and presentations a strong start with a collaborative and dynamic brainstorming experience.

You can enhance your PowerPoint presentations and turn them into an interactive brainstorming experience by incorporating  Word Cloud  in PowerPoint, inviting participants to instantly contribute ideas, keywords, or concepts. This allows everyone to dynamically visualize emerging trends and interesting ideas.

❓ How? To start a brainstorming session in PowerPoint, click on the “Word Cloud”  button in your PowerPoint ribbon once you have downloaded ClassPoint to add the “Word Cloud” feature in your PowerPoint slides. Then enter PowerPoint slideshow mode to start brainstorming! 

5. Add Draggable Slide Objects (And Why It’s Better than Animations!)

Similar to animations, draggable objects allow you to interact with your slide objects freely during slideshow mode, except than you can do so with full control of where you want the slide elements to go!

This dynamic presentation feature adds an element of visual interest that captures your audience’s attention and can be a valuable tool for explaining complex ideas. Moreover, it has the potential to serve various purposes, such as revealing hidden information or acting as a movable marker to indicate your position on the slide content. You can also use it for group drag-and-drop activities, such as matching, categorizing, sorting, and more. You can either perform these actions yourself to provide a visual explanation or engage your audience by letting them instruct the movement of images and text on the slide.

❓ How? Draggable objects is a unique tool that is possible inside PowerPoint with the use of the add-in ClassPoint. Download ClassPoint, free PowerPoint add-in, the select any shape, image, illustration, or text on your slide to become draggable by clicking on “Draggable Objects” in your PowerPoint ribbon, and toggling “Drag enabled” on the side panel.

In slideshow mode, click on the draggable objects hand from the ClassPoint toolbar at the bottom of your screen to start dragging your slide objects around!

6. Create Playable Games In PowerPoint (Without Animations or Hyperlinks)

Much like interactive quizzes, PowerPoint games add a layer of interactivity and fun to PowerPoint presentations. However, what sets PowerPoint games apart is their ability to introduce competition through gamification. 

Here are  3 ways  you can instantly gamify your PowerPoint slides with  gamification elements :

• Set Up a Point and Reward System : Define how your participants can earn stars and points, and  award stars  to them when they have accomplished a goal during your presentation. 
• Add  Levels and Badges  to PowerPoint : Every game benefits from having levels and badges, and your PowerPoint game is no exception. You can create a simple game within PowerPoint by incorporating  questions  into your slides and defining the points and scores needed to progress to higher levels. When it comes to badges, you have the creative freedom to tailor them to your audience. For example, in an educational setting, badges can be skill-focused, while in a social gathering, they can take the form of fantasy characters that participants aspire to collect
• Add a  Leaderboard  to PowerPoint : Leaderboards are essential to keep track of scores or points during a PowerPoint game. You can of course create a manual leaderboard using PowerPoint’s tables and hyperlinks, but an easier and more straightforward way of implementing a leaderboard in your PowerPoint is using add-ins like  ClassPoint  and  Vevox .

With these fundamentals of gamification in place, you are now ready to create fun and exhilarating games in PowerPoint. 

Here is a full walk-through on  how you can create a PowerPoint game  in a few simple steps. 

If you are an educator, this  free trivia PowerPoint template and these 5 interactive PowerPoint game templates tailored for the classroom will be useful for you.

Expert Tips on How to Make an Interactive PowerPoint Presentation – After Presenting

1. run real-time polls in powerpoint.

Think of a memorable presentation you have attended? Did it use live polls? We bet it did! Live polling are especially helpful after a PowerPoint presentation to gather feedback for future improvement.

Traditional poll tools require presenters to switch between tabs during presentation. Thanks to PowerPoint add-ins such as  ClassPoint ,  Mentimeter  and  Poll Everywhere , this is no longer the case. And by eliminating the need to switch between different applications or tabs, the presentation experience becomes more fluid and engaging.

2. From Static to Interactive Data Visualisation

Incorporating interactivity through data visualization after a presentation concludes is a potent strategy for enhancing audience engagement and comprehension. Once the primary content delivery is complete, you can transition into a dynamic display of data or feedback you have gathered from your audience using interactive charts, graphs, or infographics.

This approach empowers your audience to explore the information at their own pace, dig deeper into specific data points, and ensure a two-way communication between the presenter and the audience. Whether it’s zooming in on specific trends, toggling between different data sets, or going through feedback, interactive data visualization encourages active participation and a deeper connection with the presented information. 

We recommend the following 2 ways to display data into your presentation:

• Insert tables, charts and graphs, and add a touch of interactivity through animations.

Below is a list of 10 PowerPoint animations most suitable for different kinds of graphs and charts: 

• Embed a website with data you want to go over. I’m not talking about a link that leaves PowerPoint for your default browser, but an actual embedded browser that loads your websites without leaving PowerPoint! Plus you can insert the page as a picture into your slide and start annotating on it!

Now that you have a collection of strategies and tips at your disposal, you are better prepared to leave your old and dusty PowerPoint toolkit behind and embrace these refreshing ideas. Whether your ultimate aim is to create a captivating classroom experience, deliver a memorable business pitch, or simply wow your friends and peers during  PowerPoint nights , don’t forget to: 

• Add animations, but use them sparingly.
• Make use of non-linear transitions and storytelling. 
• Turn simple transitions into stunning visual experience with PowerPoint Morph.
• Make creative use of polls, quizzes and games. 
• Make your presentation human with Bitmoji.
• Build anticipation with interactive presentation tools like annotations and drag and drop.
• Try out these 160 fun PowerPoint ideas for your next presentation!

To read more about Interactive PowerPoint Presentations, you can download our Interactive PowerPoint Playbook, which includes comprehensive guides, tutorials on various interactive PowerPoint presentation methods, cheat sheets, and a wide range of resources for mastering the art of creating interactive PowerPoint presentations.

About Zhun Yee Chew

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How to Create Dynamic PowerPoint Presentations with Slide, Summary, and Section Zoom

(Note: S uitable for users of PowerPoint 2016, 2019, 2021, and PowerPoint for Microsoft 365 . )

Use Slide, Summary and Section Zoom to create a dynamic slide deck that allows people to choose their own path through a presentation.

Slide Summary and Section Zoom Explained

Slide, Summary, and Section Zoom are three ‘new-ish’ tools available to users of PowerPoint 2019, 2021, and PowerPoint for Microsoft 365. So, what are these Zoom tools, and why are they useful?

Slide, Summary, and Section Zoom help bring our presentations to life. They make slides more dynamic and exciting and give our clients and customers the opportunity to choose their own path through the presentation. Goodbye linear, flat slide decks – hello dynamic, flexible content!

When we create a Zoom in PowerPoint, we can jump to and from specific slides, portions, and sections of the presentation in whatever order we please. This is helpful if we present a slide deck to an audience, as we can seamlessly dive in and out of sections. It’s also great if we have emailed a presentation to a client. They can choose how they want to move through the presentation and drill down quickly to the information of interest to them without clicking through 50+ irrelevant slides.

For example, we could have a presentation showcasing some new products to launch. We could add a slide to the deck that has an image of each product and then create a zoom so customers can click the image and zoom to the relevant slide or section.

We can create three types of zoom: Summary, Section, and Slide. We can find these tools on the Insert tab in the Zoom group.

In this article, we will take a look at all of them to identify the differences.

Summary Zoom

Selection zoom, change image, return to zoom, zoom styles and effects.

Related reads:

How to Superscript in PowerPoint

How to Add a Watermark in PowerPoint

How to Embed a Video in PowerPoint

Summary Zoom is a landing page where we can see parts of our presentation all at once. We get to specify which parts of the presentation are included in the summary Zoom. We can zoom from one place in the presentation to another, skip ahead or revisit slides without interrupting the flow of the presentation.

When we create a summary zoom, a new section will be added to the presentation titled ‘Summary’.

Let’s take a look at Summary Zoom in action.

• From the Insert tab in the Links group, click the lower half of the Zoom button.
• Click Summary Zoom .

The Insert Summary Zoom window will open.

• Select the beginning slide of each section.

• Click Insert .

A new summary slide is inserted into the presentation in a new section titled‘ Summary Section’. The selected slides show as clickable thumbnails and can be used in a similar way to a table of contents.

In this example, our customers/clients can choose which presentation tip they are most interested to read about and jump directly to that section of the slide deck.

• Press F5 to run the slide show.
• Click on any slide thumbnail.

PowerPoint will jump to that slide with a nice zoom-in effect. We can move through the rest of the section slides by clicking the mouse as normal. Once we get to the next section, PowerPoint will zoom us back out to the thumbnail page.

Section Zoom is similar to Summary Zoom in many respects. We can use a Section Zoom to dive in and dive out of different sections of our presentation. Sections help us manage long presentations by splitting the slides into manageable ‘chunks’ of related content.

For section Zoom to work correctly, ensure you have sections added to your presentation.

A difference between Section Zoom and Summary Zoom is that Section Zoom doesn’t create a summary slide of thumbnails. Instead, the clickable thumbnails will show on whichever slide we have selected in the presentation.

• Click on the slide where the thumbnails should appear.
• Click Section Zoom .

The Insert Section Zoom window will open.

• Select the slides to insert.
• Click the Insert button.

In this example, I have positioned the thumbnails in the bottom corners of the slide so users can click to jump to the next section or click to go back to the previous section.

Slide Zoom works in a similar way to Summary and Section Zoom. Slide Zoom does not create a summary page of thumbnails; our presentation doesn’t need to be divided into sections.

Slide Zoom lets us add individual slides as thumbnails to an existing slide so users can jump easily between different slides in the presentation.

• Click Slide Zoom .

• Press the F5 key to run the slide show.

Zoom Options

Section, Summary, and Slide Zooms can be customized using the Zoom ribbon.

We can change the size of the zoom, change the image, modify the zoom style, add a border, and much more.

Suggested reads:

How to Change PowerPoint Slides to Portrait

How to Change Slide Size in PowerPoint

How to Save PowerPoint as Video

When we insert a zoom, we will always get a thumbnail view of the slide or section we are zooming in to. We might want to use a different image as our Zoom thumbnail. In this example, we are going to use a PowerPoint icon.

• Click on any thumbnail.
• From the Zoom tab, click the arrow next to Change Image in the Zoom Options group.
• Click Change Image .
• Click From Icons .
• Select an Icon from the gallery.

The slide thumbnail has now been replaced with an icon.

Return to Zoom controls the running order of the slides in the presentation. For example, if we have created a summary Zoom and we want to zoom back out to the main thumbnail page once we’ve finished moving through the slides in the first section, we need to turn on Return to Zoom.

• From the Zoom tab, in the Zoom Options group, check the box next to Return to Zoom .

We can apply zoom styles and effects to our thumbnails.

• In the Zoom tab, click the drop-down arrow in the Zoom Styles group.
• Select a style from the gallery.

We can add a simple border around the outside of each thumbnail.

• Select one or more of the thumbnails.
• From the Zoom tab, in the Zoom Style group, click the drop-down arrow next to Zoom Border.
• Select Weight .
• Choose a line thickness.
• Click the drop-down arrow next to Zoom Border .
• Choose a color from the palette.

We can add effects to the thumbnail by clicking Zoom Effects .

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Deborah Ashby is a TAP Accredited IT Trainer, specializing in the design, delivery, and facilitation of Microsoft courses both online and in the classroom.She has over 11 years of IT Training Experience and 24 years in the IT Industry. To date, she's trained over 10,000 people in the UK and overseas at companies such as HMRC, the Metropolitan Police, Parliament, SKY, Microsoft, Kew Gardens, Norton Rose Fulbright LLP.She's a qualified MOS Master for 2010, 2013, and 2016 editions of Microsoft Office and is COLF and TAP Accredited and a member of The British Learning Institute.

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How to Create a Dynamic Presentation in PowerPoint

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Adding a summary slide to the end of a PowerPoint presentation is a good idea. That way, you can review items with your audience at the end of the presentation. The presenter controls what items make it to the summary slide and can even use each item on the slide to quickly return to the previous slide(s).

How to create a summary slide in PowerPoint

How to hyperlink summary items, how to insert a zoom summary slide in microsoft 365.

If you’re using an older version of PowerPoint (pre-Microsoft 365), you can create a summary slide as follows:

1. Select all of the slides you want to summarize in Slide Sorter view. Click the first slide, then press and hold the Ctrl key as you click the remaining slides ( Figure A ).

2. Click Summary Slide on the Outlining toolbar.

3. PowerPoint inserts the summary slide before the slides, so be sure to drag it to the end of the presentation.

When you’re done with the presentation, you can click to the summary slide for a brief period of questions and answers, if appropriate.

SEE: Spice up your presentation by adding multiple flashing stars in a PowerPoint slide .

If that’s the end of things, then the simple summary slide is adequate. However, you might want to display the original slides again as you answer questions from the audience. If that’s a possibility, hyperlink the summary items to their respective slides as follows:

1. Select the item on the summary slide.

2. Choose Hyperlink from the Insert menu.

3. Click Place In This Document in the left pane.

4. Identify the slide ( Figure B ).

5. Click OK.

You don’t have to hyperlink the items on the summary slide, but doing so lets you return to the original slide(s) with a quick click. You’ll probably want to add hyperlinks on each slide for the return trip to the summary slide.

SEE: Here’s how to tone down a busy picture using Merge in Microsoft PowerPoint .

If you’re using Microsoft 365, adding a summary slide is easier. Thanks to the Zoom feature, PowerPoint will generate a summary slide, but how you use it differs a bit from the older summary slide. There are no hyperlinks per se; clicking a thumbnail will zoom in on the original slide.

Let’s create a summary slide that includes the same slides 1, 3 and 5 using the Zoom feature:

1. Click the Insert tab.

2. In the Links group, choose Summary Zoom from the Zoom dropdown ( Figure C ).

3. In the resulting pane, click slides 1, 3 and 5 ( Figure D ). If you select slides before starting this process, they will already be selected.

4. Click Insert.

Figure E shows the resulting summary slide, which includes thumbnails of slides 1, 3 and 5. PowerPoint displays the summary slide at the beginning of the presentation, so remember to drag it to the end.

How to use the Zoom summary slide

To use the summary slide, simply click any thumbnail to zoom in on that slide. You’re not actually moving to that slide. What happens with the next click is where sections matter.

In Figure C , you can see two dimmed options. Section Slide is dimmed because the current presentation has no sections. When you apply the Zoom summary slide, PowerPoint automatically divides your slides into sections. How you intend to use the summary slide will determine whether you keep the new sections. The Zoom feature works well with sections, but they’re not required.

SEE: Create a moving arrow in Microsoft PowerPoint to gently guide the presentation from point to point.

If the presentation has sections, the second click will zoom in on the section slide in that section. Each subsequent click will display the next slide in the section until you reach the end of the section. Once you’ve reached that point, a click will return the presentation to the summary slide.

If the presentation doesn’t use sections or the section has only one slide, the first click zooms in on the appropriate slide. The second click returns you to the summary slide.

How to remove a section

There’s no way to stop PowerPoint from adding sections once you implement the Zoom slide feature. Fortunately, removing the sections is easy:

1. Right-click the section item.

2. Choose Remove Section ( Figure F ).

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13 PowerPoint Presentation Tips to Create Engaging Presentations

Written by: Chloe West

Have to create a PowerPoint presentation and dread it? Your presentations don’t always have to be dry, boring and limited. With these PowerPoint presentation tips, you’ll be able to put together a dynamic and engaging presentation.

Let’s start from the very beginning before you even open up your presentation tool.

• Start by writing out your talking points.
• Get creative with your slide design.
• Keep your design consistent throughout.
• Make your presentation interactive.
• Add animation.
• Put together seamless transitions.
• Use text creatively.
• Align objects with the grid.
• Create non-linear presentations.
• Place shapes strategically.
• Crop images into shapes.
• Utilize the presenter notes.
• Use a dynamic presentation software.

1. Start by writing out your talking points.

The first thing you need to do, before even considering your presentation design, is to write out your talking points and outline your speech.

Pay attention to popular and engaging presentation structures so you know the framework you want to follow throughout your talk. This will also make it easier to create an outline that focuses on each of your talking points.

Once you’ve put together an outline that represents your topic and touches on each important element you need to cover, you can start searching for a PowerPoint presentation template that will fit your topic.

Or, you can start browsing through Visme’s presentation templates below.

Presentation Templates

Ecommerce Webinar Presentation

Buyer Presentation

PixelGo Marketing Plan Presentation

Product Training Interactive Presentation

Company Ethics Presentation

Work+Biz Pitch Deck - Presentation

Create your presentation View more templates

2. Get creative with your PowerPoint presentation slide design.

When it comes to putting your content onto your PowerPoint presentation slides, you want to be sure your slides are clean, easy to read and engaging.

This means you should try out a variety of different creative themes. And while we have a post with over 100 creative presentation ideas you should check out, here are a few ways to really make your slideshow stand out.

Use more design elements than photos.

While a photo collage or stock image background tends to be PowerPoint presentation go-to’s, we’re trying to empower you to do something different!

Take a page out of this template’s book by taking advantage of different design elements. Here, we see a solid colored background, shapes, icons and text decorating the slides of this presentation.

In this example PowerPoint slides, we do still see a photo added to emphasize the point on one of the slides, but it’s used as a design element rather than the foundation of the slide.

Use a bold color scheme.

When customizing example PowerPoint slides , your color palette matters. Using a more bold and bright color scheme is a great way to grab audience attention and make yourself seem more serious about your topic.

A more powerful color scheme makes an impression on your viewers, helping them to further see you as an authority on the information you’re sharing.

This example PowerPoint slides uses a bold blue and orange color scheme to stand out. To get an idea for a color palette for your next presentation, take a look at these 50 combinations .

Hey marketers! Need to create scroll-stopping visual content fast?

• Transform your visual content with Visme’s easy-to-use content creation platform
• Produce beautiful, effective marketing content quickly even without an extensive design skillset
• Inspire your sales team to create their own content with branded templates for easy customization

Sign up. It’s free.

3. Keep your design consistent throughout.

We just shared a couple of different presentation templates available with our platform in the last point. What do you notice?

Here’s another example for you to take a look at.

All of the example PowerPoint slides have a similar look and feel, creating a cohesive presentation deck that looks intentional and professionally designed.

Imagine if you were sitting in a presentation that looked something like this.

This looks messy and cluttered. It’s an amateur-looking design, and your audience will be confused about how these slides make any sense together.

Because keeping your design consistent is an essential part of creating an engaging presentation, we’ve also created a few different presentation themes with hundreds of example PowerPoint slides that all follow the same design theme.

Here’s an example of our Modern presentation theme below with over 900 different slides so that you can find a variety of slides perfect for your next slide deck.

4. Make your presentation interactive.

One way to create a really dynamic presentation that will keep your audience engaged and create a memorable experience is to make your presentation interactive.

While we’ve covered 17 ways to create an interactive presentation before, let’s go over how you can do this using a tool like Visme.

PowerPoint is widely known as the go-to presentation software, but there are so many alternatives that can lead you to a better solution and a better end result.

In Visme’s presentation maker, you can easily add links to any object in your presentation that lead to web pages, other slides within your presentation or create popup or hover effects with other objects on your slide.

Simply click on the element that you want to add a link to, head to the Actions menu, then select which type of interactive link you want to add.

You’re also able to create interactive maps and data visualizations that allow you or your viewers to hover over each element in your visual to see more information.

Here’s an example of an interactive map that you can easily create to showcase more information in a more digestible format.

Visme also allows you to embed external content like videos, polls, forms, surveys, quizzes and more. Plus, there are several third-party integrations you can use to embed and connect even more interactive content.

5. Add animation.

Another way to help your slides stand out is by adding in animated elements. Try to incorporate enter and exit effects for various objects on your slides to grab your audience’s attention as new slides fly onto the screen.

Here’s a great example of how this could look.

Or, if you put together your PowerPoint presentation slides with a different tool – like Visme, wink wink – you can gain access to even more animated elements.

Visme provides users with fully customizable animated illustrations, icons, shapes and more that can have their size, colors and animation speed updated to fit your needs.

These illustrations can be perfect for adding even more depth to your presentation slides, especially when it comes to your title slides and section headers to help break up your presentation.

6. Put together seamless transitions.

When customizing example PowerPoint slides, you want to put a creative spin on it. Instead of having one slide disappear for another to appear in full, why not try out some creative transitions?

It’s important for us to note that if you find a transition you like, you should stick with it throughout your presentation. This goes back to our point about cohesive design. You want everything to flow well.

This means that you don’t want to throw a ton of different slide designs, animation types and transitions into the mix, or you’ll end up with a cluttered and hard-to-follow presentation deck.

Visme’s unique transitions offer not just slide transitions, but a way to seamlessly transition all of your elements onto the screen as well.

Take a look at this presentation below to see how this looks. Click through the slides to see them transition.

To get this effect, simply choose one of the following transitions that also show the slide elements following suit after the background appears.

Ready to create your own presentation in minutes?

• Add your own text, images and more
• Customize colors, fonts and everything else
• Choose from hundreds of slide designs and templates
• Add interactive buttons and animations

7. Use text creatively.

There are hundreds of fonts to choose from, so how do you know the best ones to use and how to make them stand out on your slides?

First, you can check out our guide to font pairing to understand some basics for choosing the right fonts for your slides.

For example, make sure you’re using 3 fonts max, and that each has a specific role in your presentation, as you see below.

Once you’ve chosen your preferred fonts, whether you look through our selections of top fonts , modern fonts , pretty fonts or elsewhere, start considering how you can use them creatively in your presentation design.

Pro Tip: It’s important to remember that in a presentation, you won’t have many words on the screen. So you want to make sure the text that you do include focuses on your main point of each slide and grabs attention.

Let’s cover a few ways that you can use text creatively and really make your slides stand out to your viewers.

Surround your text with shapes.

If you really want to make certain words pop off the slide, add a shape behind them like you see in this presentation about dinosaurs above.

While this is more of an informational presentation, this tactic can also be used for business-related presentations as well. 

Simply search through Visme’s library of shapes for something that matches your theme and set it behind your content.

Place your text on the white space of a photo.

Try positioning your photos strategically and utilizing pictures with more white space than you normally would. This helps you find the perfect spot to place your text so that it’s easy for your audience to read while still being visual.

In the above example PowerPoint slides, these minimalistic nature photos are the perfect backdrop for the text, providing tons of white space while still offering texture and visual elements.

Use color overlays.

Another great way to really make your words pop is by adding a translucent color overlay on top of your background photo.

Incorporating a photo into your presentation slide helps create more depth and visualize the words you’re saying, but you still want to be able to have your text be legible throughout the slide deck.

8. Align objects with the grid.

When using a tool like Visme to create your presentation, you can turn on a grid that allows you to ensure your design elements are properly aligned and perfectly symmetrical.

To access the grid in Visme’s editor, click the hamburger menu, then go to View Options , then toggle the Show grid option to turn it on.

You can set the size you want your grid to be to strategically align elements around your slide as well as set how opaque the grid lines are.

9. Create non-linear presentations.

You don’t have to go from slide to slide in your PowerPoint presentation. In fact, there are endless options for how you could navigate between slides when presenting.

Whether you let the audience decide the direction of your presentation by offering them different options to choose from, you create a navigation bar for your presentation or you allow yourself to determine the flow as you go by adding a progress bar, you have tons of options.

Here’s a great example of what your presentation could look like with a navigation menu within your slides.

10. Place shapes strategically.

Don’t underestimate the power of shapes in your presentation design. Or any design, really. 

Using various geometric shapes or even shapes you may not have heard of before to draw attention to various elements on the screen is a great design practice.

Our Creative presentation theme – with over 300 different slide layouts – is a great example of using shapes strategically to add design elements and emphasize various parts of your content.

Visme presentation maker has a library full of different types of shapes that can be used in diagrams, as backgrounds to icons , to frame text and so much more.

Put together a set of guidelines for which shapes you plan to use in your presentation and stick to no more than two or three different shapes throughout. While you can resize them based on your needs, you don’t want to clutter your slides.

11. Crop images into shapes.

Back with the shapes! Another creative way to bring shapes into your designs is to crop photos into different geometric shapes.

The presentation template below is the perfect example for how you can visually incorporate these cropped images into your slide design.

It’s easy to do this with a tool like Visme. Simply drag and drop your choice of photo from the photo library in the left sidebar onto your slide, click it, choose Frames in the navigation bar and choose the one that fits your design.

Take a look at a few of the frames available in our software.

12. Utilize presenter notes.

Want to really give a good presentation ? It’s important not to read off the slide and actually speak directly to your audience throughout your PowerPoint presentation.

One great way to keep yourself on task and ensure you don’t skip over any important information is to take advantage of presenter notes available to you when up on stage or in front of your audience presenting.

Visme has dynamic and comprehensive presenter notes built in that help ease the pressure of presenting.

Take a look below at what you can expect to see on your screen when presenting – all while your audience only sees the slide you’re showcasing.

You get access to the time of your presentation, the current slide, the slide you can expect next to help with the flow of your slideshow and the notes you’ve prepared for your talking points.

13. Use a dynamic presentation software.

The last way to create an amazing and engaging PowerPoint presentation is to use a dynamic presentation software that isn’t PowerPoint.

I know what you’re thinking – how can you deliver a PowerPoint by using a different software?

With a tool like Visme, you’ll get tons of premade example PowerPoint slides to choose from. You’re able to both import existing PowerPoints to edit and spice them up and export editable PowerPoints to present offline and make any last minute changes.

When creating your presentation, you can use Dynamic Fields to automatically update key information throughout the slides. You can also personalize the fields and apply them to other projects.

Our analytics tool helps you track the performance of your presentation. You can track views, unique visits, average time, average completion and a host of other key metrics.

Learn more about turning your Vismes into PowerPoint presentations in this quick tutorial video.

Start improving your PowerPoint presentations with Visme.

Ready to start creating PowerPoint presentations with Visme? Sign up for a business account today and improve your brand and the presentations you share with your audience. Start creating engaging and interactive presentations that your viewers will love.

Create beautiful presentations faster with Visme.

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About the Author

Chloe West is the content marketing manager at Visme. Her experience in digital marketing includes everything from social media, blogging, email marketing to graphic design, strategy creation and implementation, and more. During her spare time, she enjoys exploring her home city of Charleston with her son.

How to Create a Dynamic Presentation in PowerPoint

Creating an effective and dynamic PowerPoint presentation takes time and effort. However, with some key tips and best practices, you can develop memorable and impactful slide decks. This comprehensive guide covers how to format, design, and deliver a polished presentation in PowerPoint.

Format the Presentation Structure

Limit text on each slide. Include only key phrases, statistics, quotes, or questions – not full sentences. Let your verbal presentation provide further details and explanation.

Design Visually Appealing Slides

Choose an appropriate theme. Select one that aligns with your brand or content. Avoid overly bright, distracting, or unreadable color schemes.

Make text easy to read. Use fonts between 24-32 pt for headlines and 18-24 pt for body text. Sans serif fonts tend to work best for presentations.

Deliver a Polished Presentation

Use slide notes and presenter view for an outline, talking points, and slide previews. Avoid reading full sentences from slides.

Provide handouts so the audience can review detailed information from your slides after the presentation.

Advanced Tips and Tricks

About the author, vegaslide staff, related posts, how to make typewriter animation in powerpoint, how to make an animated line graph in powerpoint, tips and tricks to make your powerpoint presentation stand out, how to highlight in powerpoint.

• Add an image
• Draft and add content
• Rewrite text
• Chat with Copilot
• Create a summary
• Copilot in Word on mobile devices
• Create a new presentation
• Add a slide or image
• Summarize your presentation
• Organize your presentation
• Use your organization's branding
• Copilot in PowerPoint for mobile devices
• Draft an Outlook email message
• Summarize an email thread
• Suggested drafts in Outlook
• Email coaching
• Get started with Copilot in Excel
• Identify insights
• Highlight, sort, and filter your data
• Generate formula columns
• Summarize your OneNote notes
• Create a to-do list and tasks
• Create project plans in OneNote

Create a new presentation with Copilot in PowerPoint

Note:  This feature is available to customers with either a Copilot for Microsoft 365 (work) or Copilot Pro (home) license.

Create a new presentation in PowerPoint.

Select Send and Copilot will draft a presentation for you!

Edit the presentation to suit your needs, ask Copilot to add a slide , or start over with a new presentation and refine your prompt to include more specifics. For example, "Create a presentation about hybrid meeting best practices that includes examples for team building."

Create a presentation with a template

Copilot can use your existing themes and templates to create a presentation. Learn more about making your presentations look great with Copilot in PowerPoint .

Enter your prompt or select Create presentation from file to create a first draft of your presentation using your theme or template.

Edit the presentation to suit your needs, ask Copilot to add a slide , organize your presentation, or add images.

Create a presentation from a file with Copilot

Note:  This feature is available to customers with a Copilot for Microsoft 365 license for full options, or a Copilot Pro license for limited options.

With Copilot in PowerPoint, you can create a presentation from an existing Word document—or a PDF if you have a Copilot for Microsoft 365 (work) license. Point Copilot in PowerPoint to your document, and it will generate slides, apply layouts, create speaker notes, and choose a theme for you.

Select the document you want from the picker that appears. If you don't see the document you want, start typing any part of the filename to search for it. You can use a Word document—or, if you have a Copilot for Microsoft 365 (work) license, you can use a PDF, and encrypted documents are available as well.

Note:  If the file picker doesn't appear, type a front slash (/) to cause it to pop up.

Best practices when creating a presentation from a Word document

Leverage word styles to help copilot understand the structure of your document.

By using Styles in Word to organize your document, Copilot will better understand your document structure and how to break it up into slides of a presentation. Structure your content under Titles and Headers when appropriate and Copilot will do its best to generate a presentation for you.

Include images that are relevant to your presentation

When creating a presentation, Copilot will try to incorporate the images in your Word document. If you have images that you would like to be brought over to your presentation, be sure to include them in your Word document.

Start with your organization's template

If your organization uses a standard template, start with this file before creating a presentation with Copilot. Starting with a template will let Copilot know that you would like to retain the presentation's theme and design. Copilot will use existing layouts to build a presentation for you. Learn more about making your presentations look great with Copilot in PowerPoint .

Tip:  Copilot works best with Word documents that are less than 24 MB.

Welcome to Copilot in PowerPoint

Frequently Asked Questions about Copilot in PowerPoint

Where can I get Microsoft Copilot?

Copilot Lab - Start your Copilot journey

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Use Copilot to create and edit awesome PowerPoint presentations

march 8, 2024

by Deb Ashby

Are you looking for an efficient way of creating modern, multi-slide PowerPoint presentations? If so, then Microsoft Copilot is a game-changer!

In this article, we are going to explore how to use Copilot and AI design tool Microsoft Designer in PowerPoint to quickly create and edit presentations.

Set yourself up for Success: Copilot pre-requisites

In PowerPoint, the Copilot icon can be found on the Home ribbon.

If the Copilot button is greyed out (inaccessible), we need to make sure that we have completed the following steps:

• Save the presentation to the OneDrive account associated with your Copilot licence ( File > Save As > OneDrive ).
• Toggle on autosave.

Create a presentation with Copilot

In this scenario, we are a tech startup called Infotech. We are looking to create a sales pitch presentation to dazzle potential investors.

Let’s use Copilot to help us with this.

Create a blank presentation

• Open PowerPoint.
• From the File tab, click New and select Blank Presentation .

• From the Home tab, click Copilot to open the Copilot Preview pane.

The Copilot pane

The Copilot pane is split into halves. The top half shows three prompt suggestions, which are a good place to start when using Copilot.

The lower half is where we type our prompts and ask questions. We can also specify if we want to work within this presentation or if we want to work with our organization’s data.

• Select Using this presentation.

Note: The prompt area has dictation capabilities which can be useful for people with accessibility or mobility issues. Click the microphone icon to speak instead of type.

• In the prompt box, type the following: “Create a sales pitch presentation for a tech startup called Infotech to impress potential investors and secure investments. The tone should be professional.”

• Click Send .

Copilot will generate a multi-slide presentation with sample, placeholder text. This text is AI-generated based on the prompt you provided.

Redesign slides with Microsoft Designer

Often, the AI-generated images used in the presentation won’t be exactly what you want. You may want to use your own company images instead.

• Click on an image in the presentation.
• From the Picture Format tab, in the Adjust group, click Change Picture .
• Choose a picture source from the drop-down list.

In this example, I’m going to use a Stock Image .

• Click Insert .

We can change the look and feel of each slide in our presentation by using an existing AI tool, Microsoft Designer. The Designer pane will open each time you insert an image into a slide unless you have disabled the setting.

If you don’t see the Designer pane open automatically, click the Home tab and then Designer .

• Choose a new design to apply to the slide.

• Repeat this process for each slide in the deck.

Designer helps us quickly redesign slides and achieve a consistent look.

Edit the presentation with Copilot

We can use Copilot to make edits and structural change to our presentation.

Reword text on a slide.

• Select the text placeholder.
• In the prompt area type “Reword the text in this placeholder” .

Change fonts

We can change the fonts currently in use in the presentation. Let’s see if Copilot can help with this.

• In the prompt area type “Change the heading font on all slides to Lato Black” .

Copilot has returned a message that it can’t access this functionality directly.

However, it returns some instructions on doing this manually. We can even jump straight to the relevant command on the ribbon by clicking Show Me.

Delete and organize slides

We can use Copilot to help us delete slides and organize the presentation into sections.

Delete slides

• Click in the prompt area.
• Type the prompt, “Delete the last slide in the presentation” .

Organize the presentation

We can use Copilot to organize our presentation by adding sections.

• In the prompt area, type, “Organize this presentation” .

Copilot will add sections to the presentation and any other slides it feels might be necessary. We can see a summary of the changes made to the presentation in the Copilot pane.

Summarize the presentation

Copilot can summarize large presentations and produce a concise overview. This is useful if you are looking to send an email that gives people a summary of the key points in the presentation.

• Type the prompt, “Summarize this presentation” .

Copilot will return a summary of the deck with references. The reference number tells us which slide in the desk the summary item relates to.

• Click Copy to copy the summary to the clipboard.

We can now paste this information into an Outlook email, a Teams channel, a Word document etc.

Speaker notes

A cool feature of Copilot is that it automatically creates speaker notes and adds them to the presentation.

• Click the View tab.
• In the Show group, click Notes .

The notes will show at the bottom of the slide. Notes can be edited and will be displayed when using Presenter view.

Create a presentation from a file

When we create a presentation from scratch using Copilot, the text and images are generated by Copilot’s AI. This means the text and images can be somewhat generic and may not be tailored to our organization.

We can create more customised presentations by starting with an existing document.

• From File , click New and choose Blank presentation .
• On the Home tab, click Copilot .
• Choose the prompt, “Create a presentation from file…” .

In this example we are going to use an existing Word document. To use an existing file, the file needs to be saved in OneDrive.

• Click the Files tab.
• Select the file from the list.

Alternatively, we can paste the link to the OneDrive file directly into the prompt area.

• Open the file.
• Click Share and Copy Link.
• Click Copy .

• Go back to PowerPoint and paste the link into the prompt area.

Copilot will use the information and images in the file to build a presentation. It will automatically add notes to each slide and show you the outline the presentation will be based on.

We can then use Designer to redesign our slides or manually make changes.

What do you think of Microsoft Copilot and Designer in PowerPoint?

Remember, we’ve only scratched the surface here with what Copilot can do. I encourage you to try it out for yourself and start unleashing the power of AI!

Related topics

How to create a dynamic presentation

See funny and amusing charts for your next presentation in Excel.

To create a slide in the PowerPoint presentation with automatically updated data, do the following:

   1.   Select a chart or a table in Excel, that you want to add to the presentation and do one of the following:

• Click Ctrl+C

• Right-click on the selected object and then choose Copy in the popup menu.

   2.   Open the presentation slide, where you want to inset the Excel object and then, on the Home tab, in the Clipboard group, choose on the Paste dropdown list:

   2.1.   If you try to paste a chart:

In the Paste Options list, choose:

Use Destination Theme will take on the theme colors, fonts, and effects of the destination presentation that you are pasting to. The source colors, fonts, and effects will be changed.

Keep Source formatting will maintain the theme colors, fonts, and effects of the presentation that you are copying from. All colors, fonts, and effects will be the same, as in the source workbook.

Link Data is what you'll use if you want the information in the chart or spreadsheet to be automatically updated when the source data is updated. A Link is created to the original and changes to the source will make the changes in the destination document.

Caution! Because this method creates a link to a specific Excel spreadsheet, if you move or delete the source file, you won't be able to update the chart.

Note: See the description for other buttons below.

   2.2.   If you would like to insert a table, click Paste Special... :

Note: Any other paste option doesn't create a link to the source file, so, any changes in the Excel table doesn't update the table in PowerPoint.

In the Paste Special dialog box, check the Paste link checkbox and click OK :

Now, then you change anything in the chart or in the table, you will see changes in the PowerPoint presentation:

Other options for pasting an Excel chart:

Embed Workbook will create a copy of the data and embed it into the destination document. Future changes in the source will not be reflected. You can manually change the chart by double-clicking on it and making changes in the mini-spreadsheet that opens inside the destination document. Changes you make in the destination document also will not affect the source data. Embedding the chart and its source data is useful for sharing documents between viewer's and your own computers. However, it can create very large files.

See also this tip in French: Comment créer une présentation dynamique .

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How to create or insert tables in PowerPoint

60 Effective PowerPoint Presentation Tips & Tricks (Giant List)

Here's a PowerPoint presentation tips and tricks guide that takes you through how to make a good PowerPoint presentation.

The best PowerPoint presentations shouldn’t be remembered. Instead, they should fall into the background to support you and the message you’re trying to get across.

Unlike good PowerPoint presentations , bad PowerPoint presentations are a distraction. You may remember them, but not in a good way.

You’ve seen them before. They might have millions of lines of text. Or a disjointed flow to the slides. Even worse, some slides feature ugly photos and poor design that detract from the message you’re trying to get across. That can even hurt your credibility as a professional or speaker.

This article will take you from finding your initial topic to learning how to make a great PowerPoint presentation. Our guide covers everything in between so that you learn how to present a PowerPoint like a pro.

These Microsoft PowerPoint presentation tips and guidelines are organized into sections. So cut straight to the advice you need and come back when you’re ready for the next steps.

Guide to Making Great Presentations (Free eBook Download)

Also, download our Free eBook: The Complete Guide to Making Great Presentations . It’s the deepest resource for learning effective presentation skills for a PPT.

This eBook covers the complete presentation process. It takes the PowerPoint tips and tricks you learn in this article further. Learn how to write your presentation, design it like a pro, and prepare it to present powerfully. It’s another great source for presentation design tips.

Master PowerPoint (Free Course): 15 Essential Tips

This article is full of helpful tips so you can build a powerful presentation. You can also find more PowerPoint tips in this video lesson:

To learn even more about how to make a PowerPoint look good, review the huge list of tips below.

What Makes a PowerPoint Presentation Effective?

Knowing how to use PowerPoint and work within it quickly is helpful. But more important is making a good presentation that hits all your goals. A great PowerPoint presentation is:

• Prepared to Win . Research, plan, and prepare your presentation professionally. It helps you deliver an effective message to your target audience.
• Designed Correctly . Your visual points should stand out without overwhelming your audience. A good PowerPoint visual shouldn’t complicate your message.
• Practiced to Perfection . Rehearse your timing and delivery so that your points land as practiced with a live audience.
• Delivered With Poise . Present with a relaxed inner calm and confident outward projection. Give your audience warmth, excitement, and energy.
• Free From Mistakes . Avoid typos, cheesy clip art, and mistakes like reading directly from your slides.

Consider this your all-inclusive guide to how to make a good presentation. We’ll look at preparing your presentation and explore how to design it in PowerPoint. Plus, we’ll cover how to practice and nail your delivery successfully come presentation time.

We’ll also address what not to do in these tips for PowerPoint presentations—so you can sidestep any big mistakes. Now let’s dig into these tips for effective PowerPoint presentations.

Killer Presentation Preparation Tips to Get Started Right

Before even opening PowerPoint, start by addressing these things. These Microsoft PowerPoint tips and tricks will ensure that you’re prepared for your presentation:

1. Know Your Stuff

Your presentation isn’t about your slides alone. It’s about the message you want to get across. Before filling in stats, facts and figures, think about the narrative that’ll be discussed, why, and in what order.

2. Write It Out

Start in a Word or Google doc, and storyboard or script the entire presentation. This will give you an idea of how the information presented will flow and how viewers will see it in sequence. Learn the complete writing process .

3. Highlight What’s Most Important

A presentation covers the most crucial pieces only. Whatever you’ve been working on that led to this—a paper, a work project, a new product design—doesn’t need to be shared in its entirety. Pick key points and put the rest in an “Appendix” to refer to during the Q&A session at the end.

4. Know Your Audience

How you talk to a room full of medical professionals should be different from the way you address a room full of young entrepreneurs. Everything, in fact, is different: your topic selection, the language you use, the examples you give to illustrate points. The little bits of humor you include should be tailored specifically with your target audience in mind.

Understand your audience’s needs to create a successful PowerPoint presentation. Customize your content to meet their specific requirements.

5. Rehearse! (Yes, Already)

It’s never too early to get used to the rhythm of your presentation and take note of points you want to emphasize. While saying it out loud, you’ll start to develop a “feel” for the material. You’ll notice that some things work well, while others don’t and might need to be worked around.

6. Rewrite After You Rehearse

As you’re rehearsing your presentation, you’re bound to stumble over sections that don’t quite flow naturally. Instead of reworking your delivery, it might be time to consider the content and rewrite the areas that served as stumbling blocks.

“Editing is hard. ‘It’s good enough,’ is a phrase wannabes use. Leaders take editing seriously.” – Anthony Trendl

The most important part of creating a great presentation is the writing stage. The second most important stage is rewriting.

7. Share With a Friend

If the stakes are high for your presentation, it’s never too early to get feedback from those that you trust. Here’s an article that helps you collaborate as a team on a PowerPoint presentation. Get PowerPoint design tips from those that you trust when you collaborate.

Simple Tips to Design Your PowerPoint Presentation Better

Second only to you (the information you bring and how you present it) is your PowerPoint slides. If not designed well, a PowerPoint can be disengaging or distracting (regardless of the content quality). Here are some presentation design tips to make sure this doesn’t happen to you:

8. Keep Your Slides Simple

This is one of the most important PowerPoint presentation tips to follow when designing your slides. Keep in mind that less is more (effective.) A cluttered slide is distracting. It causes confusion for an audience: Which part of the slide should I focus on? Should I read the slide or pay attention to the presenter?

A simple, visually appealing slide will engage your audience, keeping them on track with your main points. Here’s an example of a simple slide that serves its purpose perfectly:

Minimalist slide templates like Nook can help you resist the urge to clutter your slides.

9. Limit Words on Your Slides

Piggybacking on the last point, less is more effective. If possible, avoid bullets altogether. Otherwise cut them to just a few simple words. The audience should be listening, not reading.

10. Use High-Quality Photos and Graphics

One of the most important tips for quality PowerPoint presentations is to use high-quality photos and graphics.

Earlier in this tutorial, you saw Envato Elements, an all-you-can-download service with PPT tips inside of templates. Those pre-built designs are a beginner’s best friend. They’re even better when paired with Elements’ unlimited library of stock photos .

People are more likely to take you seriously if your presentation is visually appealing. Users view attractive design as more usable. Similarly, they’ll view a more attractive PowerPoint as more effective.

11. Use Accurate and Relevant Charts and Graphs

Charts and graphs can also be distracting if they’re not used right. Make sure your information design is simple and clean so that the audience doesn’t spend the entire time trying to decipher what your X axis says. Learn more about PPT data presentation .

12. Use High-Quality, Fresh Templates

Have you seen the old PowerPoint template that looks like worn paper and uses ink splashes? Yeah, so has your audience. Templates can be distracting if they’re too basic or if the design feels dated. You need one with great design options.

Costs are always a concern. But when you use Envato Elements, you’ve got everything you need to create a great PowerPoint presentation . That’s thanks to the incredible all-you-can-download subscription package.

The best PowerPoint tips and tricks can hardly compare to the value of using a template while building your presentation.

On Envato Elements, there are thousands of PowerPoint design templates that are ready to use. Instead of designing a presentation from scratch, start with a template! Just add your specifics to the placeholders.

Templates like Galaxi are impressively designed and waiting for your slide specifics.

The best PowerPoint design tips save you time. And there’s no tip more powerful than this one: use a pre-built template . It helps you master how to present a PowerPoint without spending all your time in the app.

13. Choose Appropriate Fonts

Fonts are an important part of engaging your audience. Fonts and typography choices have a subconscious effect on viewers. They can characterize your company’s presentation and brand either positively or negatively. Make sure that you’re choosing fonts that are professional and modern.

14. Choose Color Well

Like font choice, colors cause specific subconscious reactions from viewers. Choosing an outdated color combination for your presentation will render it ineffective.

Below is an example of the Popsicle PowerPoint template , which has a modern presentation color choice:

The Popsicle PowerPoint template highlights how harmonized color palettes can create beautiful slides.

15. Clean + Simple Formatting Makes All the Difference!

We’ve got a full tutorial on how to make a good presentation slide . Give it a read through and review the accompanying video. Just remember, less is more. The focus is you and your message , not your slides.

16. Make Sure All Objects Are Aligned

A simple way to create a well-designed presentation is to make sure all items on a slide are intentionally aligned. To do this, hold down Shift and select all the objects you want to include. Then choose Arrange in the options bar and apply Alignment Type .

17. Limit Punctuation

This isn’t the place for exclamation points. Emphasize your points (while speaking). Don’t enlist punctuation to do this for you. (Leave these at home!!!)

18. Avoid Over-Formatting Your Points

This PowerPoint presentation tip is simple. There’s no need to have every word of every bullet point capitalized, or to have all your bullet points in title case. If possible, drop bullets altogether. Again, the simpler, the better!

Limit your text formatting, including reducing the use of bullets, underline, and other effects. Compare the before example on the left to the revised version on the right.

19. Combine Information With Graphics in PowerPoint

One of the most powerful presentation skills for PPT is using infographics. With the right type of visuals, slides come to life and reduce the text in favor of graphics.

Infographics help combine information with graphics. It’s easier to explain complex ideas when you use visual formats that are intuitive.

Practice Presentation Tips: Rehearse, Rehearse, Rehearse!

Delivery is probably more important than the actual content. Here’s how to become more aware of your own unique ticks, and how to present like a polished pro:

20. I’ll Say It Again, Rehearse!

Just do it. Again and again. Experiment with pauses, gestures, and body language. Practice around one hour for every minute of your speech.

21. Practice With a Timer

Consistency is key to an effective PowerPoint presentation. The timing should be similar (ideally the same) each time you rehearse. This one will especially pay off when it’s time to present in front of your audience.

22. Slow It Down

Many of the best speakers today intentionally speak slowly. You’ll have the chance to emphasize, appear more thoughtful, and make your information easier to digest.

23. Pause More Often

Like the prior tip, pausing more often allows your main points to be emphasized and gives time for information to sink in. You need to let key points breathe a little before rushing into the next section.

24. Record Yourself

Use your phone’s voice recorder. Assess and critique yourself. Consider:

• Are your pauses too short or too long?
• Are you speaking slowly enough? Too slow?
• When you’re nervous, does your voice get high like the mice in Cinderella?

It’s always weird to hear your own voice recorded; don’t stress it. Use this as a time to adjust.

25. Choose Three Focal Points in the Room

If you stare at the same spot (or even creepier, the same person) the entire time, your presentation will be ineffective (and awkward.) People will be distracted by you, wondering what you’re staring at.

Try this: pick three points in the room (typically: left, center, right). Take time to direct your delivery toward each physical focal point in the room. Also, focus on the center when making your primary points.

26. Vary Your Sentence Length

This makes you sound more interesting, and it’s easier for your audience to follow. Think short and punchy. Or go long and complex for dramatic effect.

27. Modulate!

Don’t speak in monotone for your whole presentation. Be conscious of raising and lowering your voice tone. Otherwise, people will tune you out, and you’ll come across like the teacher in Charlie Brown.

28. Practice in Front of a Mirror

What you look like is as important as how you sound. Pretend you’re having a normal conversation, and allow your hands to move with your speech to emphasize your points. Just don’t get carried away! (I’m thinking Brene Brown or President Obama , not your Aunt Jamie after a few gin and tonics.)

29. Use “Present Mode” When Rehearsing

When you finally are ready to hit the Present button in PowerPoint, make sure you use the Present Mode option. This allows you (and only you) to view extra notes about each slide—just in case you forget something!

30. Practice With New Audiences

If possible, try doing a few real live test runs as a webinar or even at a local Toastmasters organization to get some feedback from a live audience.

31. Engage the Audience by Asking Questions

There’s no reason that a presentation should be one-sided. Why not invert the format and ask your audience a question?

To learn how to create a slide that kicks off a Q&A, use this article . These PowerPoint design tips help you create an engaging and exciting discussion.

Helpful Tips to Step Up and Deliver Come Presentation Time

When the actual day arrives, there are only a few last PowerPoint presentation tips and guidelines to keep in mind:

32. Take a Deep Breath

Deep breathing is proven to relieve stress. It’s simple, and it’ll help you remain calm and in the moment, even up to the last minute before starting.

33. Lighten Up Your Mood

Tell yourself a joke or watch a funny video clip. Do this before the presentation, of course. Research concludes that happy people are more productive. More productive is more focused and able to perform better.

34. Remind Yourself to Take It Slow

When we’re stressed or nervous (or both), we tend to speak faster. Consciously, take yet another deep breath and remind yourself to take it slow!

35. Read the Room

Every presentation room has a temperature. It’s your job as a speaker to gauge it and tailor your presentation to it.

Here’s a great example. Layoffs are coming at a company, and you’re asked to speak to an audience. Even if the audience isn’t personally affected by the actions, you’ve got to consider the morale of the workforce.

Skilled speakers have a knack for reading the energy of the room and adjusting their presentation on the fly.

The last thing that group will want to hear is how strong the economy is and why the company is the best place to work. That doesn’t mean that you’ve got to align to their uncertainty, but don’t go too far against the grain while presenting.

Robert Kennedy III is a master of bringing energy and aligning a speech to the audience. Here’s his advice for adjusting:

“It can be hard to wake up a “dead” crowd but go for it. Most of all, don’t take their energy personally. Focus on serving them with every bit of your fiber then leave empty.”

36. Fake It ‘Til You Make It!

Go forward with confidence. If you act confident, you’ll start to feel more confident. Move slowly with grace, speak clearly, smile, wear something nice. You’ll appear confident to all attendees (no matter how you feel internally).

PowerPoint Presentation Tips and Tricks to Help Avoid Mistakes (What Not to Do)

Most importantly, focus on what you can do to make your presentation better. There are a few important things not to do that we’ve got to address. Here are a handful of PowerPoint presentation tips and tricks to help you avoid missteps.

37. Stop With the Sound Effects

Sound effects are distracting and outdated. In most cases, avoid them. Add audio or music to your presentation to inject interest or highlight an important point, but it’s something to take extra care with. If you insert audio, then make sure your use really connects with your audience and has a fresh approach. Otherwise, it’s best to leave it out.

38. Don’t Use Flashy Slide Transitions

Again, this is distracting and outdated. Use transitions and subtle animations in your PowerPoint presentation. But you need to take care and do it right .

39. Beware of Clip Art

This PowerPoint presentation tip shouldn’t even have to be said. But please, please don’t use clip art. Use professional graphics instead.

40. Don’t Be Afraid to Be Afraid

The fear of public speaking is a real one. Many beginners think that if they’re feeling nervous that a presentation won’t go well or succeed. That might lead them to cancel the presentation.

Here’s a tip from expert Sandra Zimmer, who leads The Self-Expression Center on conquering your fears before you take the stage:

“Get out of your head and into your body. I do this through a grounding exercise that really works to calm nerves and bring you present in the moment.”

If you think that public speaking fears aren’t normal, you might never give your award-winning presentation. So don’t be afraid to be afraid, and acknowledge it’s part of the process!

41. Don’t Read Directly During Your PowerPoint Presentation

If you spend your entire presentation looking at the screen or your note cards, you’re sure to lose your audience’s attention. They’ll disengage from what you’re saying, and your presentation will fall flat.

Reading from your paper or screen also makes it look like you’re not prepared. Many people do it, but no one should. As a general rule, only present something you know well and have, at least mostly, memorized the main points of.

42. Don’t Miss Out on PowerPoint Customizations

Many new PowerPoint users often make significant mistakes when using Envato Elements designs.

The best way to see how to make a good presentation PPT is to start with designs from others. That means using a template, but that doesn’t mean you can’t customize them!

Don’t forget that PowerPoint templates are infinitely customizable. Think of them as guides with built-in presentation design tips.

To see more presentation tips that show you what not to do, make sure to check out our guide .

Work in PowerPoint More Effectively (Tips & Tricks to Level Up Your PPT Skills)

These PowerPoint tips will help you get the most out of the application to level up your next presentation. Let’s dive in.

43. Use the Visual Guides

When you’re designing your next PowerPoint presentation, it helps to create a sense of visual rhythm. Slides that have objects aligned and centered are more likely to resonate with an audience.

44. Use a Few Animations (Tastefully)

Animations in effective PowerPoint presentations are a slippery slope. We’ve all sat through presentations where there were so many objects in motion that it was easy to lose focus on the key ideas in the presentation.

But that’s why animations get an unfairly bad reputation. Use animations to create motion and hold an audience’s attention. Use them sparingly and on key elements on your slide, and you’ll capture that attention properly.

45. Stage Key Content With Animations

You just learned that animations should avoid being distracting. But there’s an important principle to using animations properly. It’s called staging content.

Staging content means that the content appears step by step. There’s nothing worse than overwhelming an audience with all your content at once. But when you stage content, bring it on step by step.

Take it from presentation pro Suzannah Baum :

“If you’re sharing a slide with lots of different points on it, using the animation to reveal those points one at a time is a way to keep the presenter’s content flowing smoothly.”

For more animation presentation tips and tricks, follow our guide .

46. Add a Video to Your PowerPoint

When you’re sharing a big idea in your presentation, it helps to share your perspective from a few different angles. Adding a video to supplement your content can do just that. Luckily, it’s easy to add and embed a YouTube video in your next PowerPoint presentation.

47. Add Charts & Graphs

Charts and graphs can help you tell stories with data. It’s easy for an audience to zone out when you throw a big data table or set of statistics at them.

instead, convert those to charts and graphs. Try out our tutorial to learn how to edit those graphs.

48. Build Your Own Infographics With SmartArt

Earlier in this tutorial, we gave you one of my favorite PowerPoint design tips: use infographic templates.

Here’s another. One of my favorite PowerPoint features is SmartArt, which allows you to build infographics right inside the app.

You don’t have to use another graphic design app like Photoshop or Illustrator to add visuals. Instead, try out SmartArt to help you build graphics that are easy to update.

49. Use Presenter View

Remember that when you use the PowerPoint, you’ re the presentation. The slides are just there to reinforce what you’ve got to say and support your speaking points.

That’s why I always recommend using Presenter view. More often than not, you’re going to have several displays. Presenter view shows your content on your screen, while your presentation is displayed on another screen.

50. Track Your PowerPoint Changes

One of my favorite PowerPoint design tips is to collaborate. Those who know you best will suggest compelling changes that are sure to help you succeed.

As you start collaborating on your presentation, it helps to keep track of proposed and included PowerPoint changes. Use this article to track changes made by others.

10 More Advanced PowerPoint Tips & Tricks

Really need to wow an audience with a good PowerPoint presentation? Give these tips a try to make an unforgettable impression:

51. Engage With an Interactive Quiz

A good PowerPoint presentation gets your audience involved. One of the best PowerPoint tricks is to do that with a quiz. By engaging audiences, a quiz makes your slides memorable.

By adding trivia, you’ll see how to present a PowerPoint in a way that people will love. Channel your inner game-show host today. MIDTEST is a  good PowerPoint presentation  with quiz slides.

52. Illustrate With Custom Image Masks

One of the top PowerPoint tips is to illustrate your slides. But you can go beyond simple, rectangular images on each slide.

The Burte template is full of  PowerPoint tricks , including custom image masks. Image masks shape photos into unique works of art. And thanks to premium templates, you can style photos just like this. Masks overlay your photos onto geometric shapes, instantly elevating your style.

53. Print Handouts With Extra Notes

Wonder how to give a good presentation PPT that audiences will remember? Give them a piece of it to take home.

PowerPoint makes it easy to print handouts with room for notes on the page. This way, audiences can keep copies of your slides, along with their own notes. This is the perfect way to ensure everyone engages with and retains your content.

54. Make Bulk Edits With Master Slides

When you think about how to present a PowerPoint, consider your branding. That means keeping your logo front and center in the eyes of an audience. But if you’re working with a lengthy slide deck, this could seem daunting.

That’s where master slides come in. They’re common in premium layouts, and they’re a leading example of presentation skills for PPT. Master slides let you make bulk edits fast.

55. Shrink File Sizes for Sharing

Many of the top presentation tips involve making your slides more accessible. Often, that involves sharing them with audiences online.

You’ll often find that email clients and cloud services limit the size of files that you share. This can be a problem with large PPT slide decks. But there are a few quick steps you can take to reduce PPT file size. Cut graphics, scale down photos, and more.

56. Map Processes With Flowcharts

As you consider how to do a good PowerPoint presentation, think of ease of understanding. After all, you’re trying to explain something to your audience.

The  Flowcharts in Infographics  template seamlessly illustrates ideas and processes. A flowchart maps out a process in a visual way. Instead of resorting to endless narration, try a quick illustration like this. It saves you time and effort, and your audience is sure to thank you.

57. Use Brand-Specific Colors

Using presentation skills for PPT helps form an association between your message and branding. There’s no better way to do that than with your brand colors.

PowerPoint makes it easy to change color themes, adding your brand colors and logo to each slide. This is one of the top PowerPoint tricks for marketing presentations.

58. Build Social Media Posts in PPT

A good PowerPoint presentation doesn’t have to be shared through a projector. Use the app and templates to build amazing illustrations to use anywhere.

A template like Soffee helps you learn how to present a PowerPoint easily with a pre-built design.

Try using PowerPoint to create social media posts. It helps you engage with your audience, with no need to design custom layouts from scratch.

59. Be Industry-Specific

One of the top presentation tips in 2024 is to be industry-specific. That means avoiding generic layouts and choosing something more customized.

This offers two key advantages. First, you save time by having layouts built for you. Second, you gain design inspiration for your specific topic. Themed templates are truly the best of both worlds.

The Medical and Health template is a good PowerPoint presentation with a set theme.

60. Design for Online (Virtual) Sharing

Last but not least in our list of PowerPoint tips comes virtual presenting. More and more often, slides will be shared with online audiences around the globe.

Why not design your slides for that very purpose? And then learn how to share flawlessly with a global team? It’s one of the top presentation tips for 2024. Embrace it today.

More Great PowerPoint Tutorial Resources

We’ve built a resource for Microsoft PowerPoint that you’re sure to want to try. It includes countless PowerPoint tips and tricks. It’s called How to Use PowerPoint (Ultimate Tutorial Guide) and has all the PowerPoint design tips you need.

Discover More Top PowerPoint Template Designs From Envato Elements for 2024

You’ve just seen our favorite powerful PowerPoint presentation tips and guidelines to help you improve your speaking. We’ve also mentioned Envato Elements, an incredible all-you-can-download source for top PowerPoint designs .

Here are five of the best PowerPoint templates that you can use to create your best presentation yet:

1. Galaxi PowerPoint Template

Blast off to success with the help of this PowerPoint template! Think of the pre-built slide designs as pro PowerPoint design tips. They’re built by professional graphic designers. All the popular and modern slide styles that are perfect for your next presentation. Use Galaxi’s five styles and 30 designs to create a great presentation.

2. Masmax PowerPoint Template

We selected templates for this article that match the PowerPoint tips and tricks provided. Masmax fits the bill perfectly across its 234 unique slide designs. These slide designs are sure to align with the latest in design expectations.

3. STYLE Multipurpose PowerPoint Template V50

Style is subjective, but we can all agree that this template is stunning! The light and airy slide designs are built with fashion-focused designs in mind. But that doesn’t mean that it’s not perfect for most presentations. When learning to present a PowerPoint, remember that templates can be customized to suit your purpose.

4. Peachme Creative PowerPoint Template

Peachme has image-focused slides with splashy designs. The slides are colorful and perfect for a modern presentation. Don’t worry about remembering all the PowerPoint design tips because they’re included in the pre-built slides. Use Peachme’s designs for your presentation today.

5. Buizi Office Building Rent PowerPoint Template

Buizi markets itself as a real estate focused template. It’s ideal for that purpose because of the minimal, image-focused slide designs. But that also makes it a perfect choice for presentations in many fields.

We’ve just scratched the surface of PowerPoint design tips with these five options. Here are many more, bundled inside of the best roundups on Envato Tuts+:

How to Build a Good PowerPoint Presentation Quickly (In 2024)

You’ve already seen effective presentation skills PPT techniques. But you may be wondering exactly how to do a good PowerPoint presentation. It only takes a few clicks. Let’s learn how in just five steps.

For this mini-tutorial, we’ll use the Enjoy PowerPoint Template from Envato Elements. You’ll see that it’s a beautiful template that helps you learn how to present a PowerPoint by giving you every object and layout you need.

Let’s get started:

1. Choose Your Slides

As you can see, a template like Enjoy has dozens of unique slides inside. The key to how to give a good presentation PPT is to choose only the slides that you need.

One of the best PowerPoint tricks is to start by selecting slides you wish to use from your template.

In PowerPoint, scroll through the sidebar on the left to view different slide layouts. Right-click and choose Delete to remove unwanted designs. Plus, you can click and drag slide thumbnails to reorder them in the deck.

2. Add Text

Consider how to do a good PowerPoint presentation without investing a ton of time. That’s where premium templates come in.

One of our top presentation tips when working with a PPT is to lean on the pre-built text boxes for your content.

To add custom text, simply click and select the contents of any text box on your slide. Then, type in your own words. Repeat as needed throughout your slide deck.

3. Customize Fonts

With text selected, it’s easy to customize fonts on each slide. Find the Font section on PowerPoint’s Home tab. From there, you’ve got a variety of dropdown options.

Another of our top tips for presentation tricks is to use a custom font setting in your template.

Click to change the font, font size, and more. You can also use the buttons on the left to add bolds, italics, and more.

Need more custom font styles? As an Envato Elements subscriber, you’ve got instant access to thousands of custom fonts . Use them in your presentation with ease.

4. Insert Images

Slides like this one contain an image placeholder. That’s another advantage found only with premium templates. These make adding images a breeze.

Add images to your PPTX template for more visually interesting slides.

To get started, find an image file stored on your computer. Then, drag and drop it over the placeholder. PowerPoint will import it, sized and scaled for a perfect fit.

5. Change Colors

One of the top effective presentation skills is changing shape colors. This helps you control the look and feel of each slide.

With a shape selected, find the Shape Format tab on PowerPoint’s ribbon. Then, click on the Shape Fill dropdown. You’ll see a color chooser menu appear. Click on any thumbnail to apply it to the shape or browse through the Gradient and Texture options.

Start Putting These PowerPoint Presentation Tips & Tricks Into Use Today!

Learning to write, design, and present a PowerPoint presentation is an invaluable skill, no matter where you use it. If you’re a good communicator of important messages, you’ll never go hungry.

Luckily, improving PowerPoint presentations isn’t as hard as it seems. Follow these tips for PowerPoint presentations to design and deliver with greater confidence.

Remember: Less is more (effective) . Use PowerPoint presentation templates for better design and more effective visual impact. And you can customize a PPT template quickly , with the right workflow.

Related Articles

PowerPoint 101: The Ultimate Guide for Beginners

Are you struggling with PowerPoint? You need a quick design in PowerPoint but don't know where to start? Don't worry, you have nothing to be ashamed of.

In this article, we're going to refresh the most important PowerPoint basics so you can take advantage of this Microsoft software and create high-impact presentations at any time!

Millions of users worldwide use Microsoft 365 services , making PowerPoint the presentation design software with the highest market share. And with good reason! PowerPoint's features stand out for its usability and originality . We can tell you that PowerPoint is pretty intuitive software, and it's a great option to choose when working with presentations on a daily basis. So, are you ready for a quick PowerPoint 101 class?

Let ' s see what you ' re going to learn today with this PowerPoint Guide :

What is PowerPoint?

What are the best uses of powerpoint, powerpoint basics: what are the components of powerpoint workspace, mastering powerpoint: what are the main features of powerpoint, what are powerpoint templates and where to find them, time to practice how to make a presentation in powerpoint.

Microsoft PowerPoint is a presentation design software that is part of Microsoft 365 . This software allows you to design presentations by combining text, images, graphics, video, and animation on slides in a simple and intuitive way.

Over time, PowerPoint has evolved and improved its accessibility to users. For this reason, it has been adapted to the main operating systems and modalities:

• PowerPoint Online

Additionally, you can use Word and Excel in this online version. That way, you'll be able to make real-time changes in the cloud without fearing losing your files. Sounds great, right?

PowerPoint has a versatile range of uses. Here's a list of the different tasks you can complete with this presentation design software:

• Business presentations or Pitch decks.
• Marketing, Sales and HR plans.
• Project briefs and timelines.
• Inductions to new employees.
• Seminars and educational classes.
• Professional portfolio of photos or designs.
• Presentations of a research summary.
• Presentations for special occasions.

These are just a few examples of the multiple possibilities this Microsoft software offers. Your imagination is the only limit!

Stay tuned as we continue with this PowerPoint 101 Guide...

In order to deeply understand this presentation design software, you need to recognize its main components. Now it's time to learn about the PowerPoint basics!

A quick note before going any further: when opening PowerPoint, some of the commands in the ribbons will look grayish and won't be highlighted when you hover the mouse over them.

This happens since some commands need to be selected in order to function. For example, if you want to change the color of a text, you first need to select it.

That being said, let's start with this Guide for PowerPoint beginners:

PowerPoint Main Window

The first aspect to learn is PowerPoint Main Window. To facilitate the explanation, we've organized its main elements with numbers from 1 to 10:

Based on that, the main components of PowerPoint window are the following:

1. Quick Access Toolbar: allows you to customize commands to have them at hand. You only have to select it and go to "More commands."

2. Title Bar: shows you the name of your file and other "Suggested options" like Slide Master View . These options will vary depending on the use you give to the commands.

3. File Tab: you will see the Home Menu (PowerPoint backstage) by selecting it. There, you can create a new presentation, save it, print it, export it, and many other options.

4. The Ribbon: it's where PowerPoint tabs and tools are. These tools can also be called "commands" or “features.”

5. More Button or Down Arrow: these arrows allow you to view more tools or layout options in PowerPoint.

6. Slides Pane: shows your slides in thumbnail size. By right-clicking, you can access additional options for customizing each slide. Perfect for PowerPoint beginners!

7. Slide: PowerPoint's blank canvas and the frame to be seen when presenting the file.

8. Placeholders: they are dotted boxes that will store your content.

9. Status Bar: allows you to view the slide number, grammatical errors, speaker notes, and the comments on your file.

10. Zoom: allows you to enlarge or minimize your PowerPoint workspace. The range goes from 10 to 400%.

PowerPoint Tabs

The PowerPoint tabs are the control desk of your presentation . Since PowerPoint's features are too many, they're organized in tabs.

You can come and go between tabs as you need. Once you click on a tab, it will open its ribbon, and there, you'll be able to see all the tools related to that particular category.

This PowerPoint tutorial for beginners will give you an overview of all PowerPoint tabs . Pay attention to the following list:

• Transitions Tab
• Animations Tab
• Slide Show Tab
• Recording Tab

1. Home Tab

The Home tab is the most common tab of PowerPoint. This is the tab you'll probably use the most if you're designing a presentation deck from scratch.

It allows you to add new slides and change the text characteristics : font, size, boldness, underlining, alignment, etc. If you've ever used Microsoft Word, these features will be familiar to you.

Also, you will find commands to edit the characteristics of the geometric shapes you insert. This includes: fill color, line color, sharpe effects, among others.

2. Insert Tab

The Insert tab is exactly what its name says it is. In this ribbon, you'll find all the options concerning adding a new element to your PowerPoint presentation .

You can insert a picture, some geometric shapes, icons, WordArt graphics, among others. We can tell you that this tab is really helpful for PowerPoint beginners!

For example, if you have a lot of data in PowerPoint , you could add a chart or diagram to show your information in a more visual way. Also, you can embed videos or music into PowerPoint really easily.

• PowerPoint tip for beginners: To be able to write text on your slides, you need a text box. So, if you're designing your presentation from scratch, remember to go first to the Insert tab and add a text box to start writing.

3. Design Tab

If you are one of those people who enjoy choosing the design of a PowerPoint presentation, this tab will be your favorite.

The Design tab offers a wide range of premade designs , allowing you to get more polished slides. Even better, if you explore its ribbon, you can adjust the color palette and change the overall style of your PowerPoint deck.

The PowerPoint interface, as this basic PowerPoint Tutorial, is really intuitive. We believe that you won't have any problem with this tab!

4. Transitions Tab

Using transitions in PowerPoint is a dynamic way to move from one slide to the next during a presentation. This feature is PowerPoint's stamp, so don ' t miss it!

Some PowerPoint transitions are really classic, like wiping the old slide to present the new one. Others are somewhat over the top, like the “Vortex” or the “Airplane” effect.

If you click on each kind of transition, you'll see a preview on how it would look when presenting. Really cool, right?

5. Animations Tab

In case you want to add special effects for certain elements in your slides , the Animations tab in PowerPoint will interest you.

Like the Transitions tab, you will find various animation effects in this ribbon. It's a matter of trying and choosing the best one according to your needs!

6. Slide Show Tab

As its name says, the Slide Show tab is about presenting your slides . We really like that it gives you several options to show up your presentation!

Considering that you're a PowerPoint beginner, you're not likely to use the Slide Show tab very much.

But if you're curious about this command, you must read our article: How to Make a PowerPoint Slideshow that Runs Automatically?

7. Review Tab

The Review tab is not often used by PowerPoint beginners either.

However, if your job is related to writing or if you work at an international company, this tool can be extremely useful!

With this tab, you can check the slide's spelling, translate the text in real-time, and add comments to your slides . This last function can be helpful to give feedback to a colleague.

8. View Tab

This View tab allows you to change the view of your PowerPoint slides and make handouts from them, among other things.

As you can see, the majority of its commands are really specific. So you won't have any issues while designing, test and see!

In this section, our favorite command for PowerPoint beginners is Slide Master . Explore more about this tool in our guide!

9. Recording Tab

In the last versions of this design presentation software, PowerPoint added the Recording tab. As its name says, it allows you to record all your presentation slides .

This ribbon has advanced commands, so the most common action for a PowerPoint beginner is to take a screenshot or record the screen sequentially .

10. Help Tab

Finally, there is the Help tab. If you have any problem or question concerning how to use PowerPoint, you may go here to look for a solution.

In the latest versions, Windows has added a “Show Training” option. You can click this command to practice the PowerPoint basics since it will download training templates.

As a beginner in PowerPoint, you must recognize the objective of each PowerPoint tab to be able to master the software . But, in order to conduct an outstanding presentation deck, you also need to dominate its most important features. Let's see some of them in the next section!

If you feel ready to delve deeper into PowerPoint's tools, this section is for you.

As you may know , 24Slides specializes in creating outstanding presentations for any Design Project . So, we asked one of our experts about her favorite PowerPoint features, and we want to share them all with you!

Carmen Navarrete , Graphic Designer at 24Slides, highlighted the following features that will make your presentations stand out from the crowd:

PowerPoint Feature #1: Crop to Shape

This first PowerPoint feature is simple but effective!

Let's see how to use it:

• First, choose an image you want to cut and insert it into your workspace.
• Once inserted, select it with the mouse.
• Go to the "Picture Format" tab.
• Press the arrow of the "Crop" button (right side of the screen).
• Select "Crop to Shape."
• Choose your favorite shape and customize your PowerPoint presentation!

PowerPoint Feature #2: Merge Shapes

If you don't like any figure enough, you can create one from scratch!

This is possible thanks to the "Merge Shapes" option. Follow these steps to unleash your creativity:

• First choose an image you want to cut.
• Check the list of PowerPoint shapes (Insert tab > Shapes).
• Choose two or three figures you want to merge (they can be the same figure).
• Select the figures you are going to merge (see the image).
• Once selected, go to the "Shape Format" tab.
• Press the "Merge Shapes" option and the type of merge you want (test and choose!).

• A new figure will appear, and you must fill it with the image from the first step.
• Stay on the Shape Format tab and go to "Shape Fill" (button in the middle of the ribbon).
• Select "Picture Fill" and browse for your image.
• Select the image to fill your new figure, and that's it!

• PowerPoint tip for beginners: When your merged figure is ready, paste the image to the background of your slide to achieve a better result. This way, you can use your image as a canvas and see if both elements fit well.

PowerPoint Feature #3: Insert Icons

This PowerPoint feature is quite easy to follow for PowerPoint beginners!

Just follow these steps:

• Go to the Insert tab.
• Select the "Icons" option.
• A Microsoft 365 library will open, where you can search for the required icon.
• Now, you must insert it into your presentation and adapt it to your design.
• If you have an active Microsoft 365 subscription, you'll have access to a larger number of icons in PowerPoint.

• PowerPoint tip for beginners: If you want to learn more about icons in PowerPoint, read our article on How to Use Icons to Make Amazing PowerPoint Presentations .

PowerPoint Feature #4: Insert SmartArt

PowerPoint's SmartArt is one of the most popular and accessible tools to dominate while learning about PowerPoint basics.

To use it in your slide deck, you must:

• Select SmartArt.
• See all SmartArt categories and choose your favorite based on your needs.
• Add the text you have prepared and adapt it to your presentation.

We want to give you some ideas to master this SmartArt tool in PowerPoint: you can make timelines , flowcharts , and even a Venn diagram in just a few seconds. Try and see!

PowerPoint Feature #5: Remove Background

If you don't know how to use Photoshop and want to remove the background from an image, in this PowerPoint 101 Guide, we show you how:

• First choose the image you want to remove the background from.
• Insert the image in the PowerPoint workspace.
• Select the image and go to the "Picture Format" tab.
• Select "Remove Background" (first option on the left).
• You can keep and remove parts of the image with the first two tools of the ribbon (see image).
• Keep in mind that all the sections highlighted in purple will be deleted.

• We recommend zooming in to keep or remove parts of the image with more detail.
• Once you're done, press the "Keep Changes" button.
• Finally, adapt the new image to your PowerPoint presentation.

• PowerPoint tip for beginners: Choose a high-contrast photo or image for best results. In other words, the outline of the person or object you want to cut out must have clear edges and cannot blend with the image's background color.

PowerPoint Feature #6: Add Speaker Notes

The latest PowerPoint feature is a command you can use to prepare your speech before presenting to an audience.

Learning how to add speaker notes in PowerPoint is simple:

• Select the slide that needs some notes.
• Usually, there is a footer below the slide, but if not, you will have to activate it.
• Go to the View tab and select "Notes."
• The Speaker Notes section will appear, and you can add whatever you want!

• PowerPoint tip for beginners: In case you want to practice your entire presentation and have a lot of notes, go to the View tab and select "Notes Page" (fourth command). You'll be able to see all your Speaker Notes faster!

PowerPoint Feature #7: PowerPoint Translator

If you've ever wondered how to translate your PowerPoint Slides, we'll explain the step by step here:

• Go to the Review tab.
• Select the text you want to translate.
• Press the “Translate” button.
• A panel will open on the right side of the screen.
• Choose the language you need and you'll see the translation in real-time.
• If you press Insert, the text will change to the new translation!

PowerPoint Feature #8: Screen Recording

The process of recording your screen in PowerPoint is straightforward and intuitive. Let's see:

• Go to the “Record” or “Recording” tab.
• Press the "Record Slide Show" button or the “From Beginning” button (depending on your PPT version).
• A new window will open.
• Select the red record button and start recording!
• When you're done, select “Export.”
• By default, the video will be 1080p. If you want to lower the video quality, go to "Customize export."
• Name the video, save it to a folder and that's it!

As you may have noticed, this software has endless PowerPoint design options for beginners. We encourage you to try and test each functionality!

However, we're clear that PowerPoint has different features, so it can be hard to know where to start. That's why understanding PowerPoint basics is crucial if you truly want to master this software!

Our PowerPoint 101 Guide continues; stay tuned to discover more great stuff about this Microsoft software. Keep reading!

A PowerPoint template is a pre-made design that you can use for your own means, and that will save you a lot of time!

Templates in PowerPoint are a great resource for designing since all the structure is already done, and you only have to update the content . We can tell you they're the perfect resource for PowerPoint beginners!

They can be incredibly specific. For example, there are templates for a SWOT analysis or a complete Marketing report. Otherwise, templates can also be very general, with several slides with a similar design.

If you struggle with the artistic part of designing presentations, downloading PowerPoint templates will be a life changer!

How to download PowerPoint templates for free?

If you didn't know, 24Slides has an extensive repository of PowerPoint templates. But how to obtain them? It's really simple:

• First, create an account on our Free Templates Website with the button “Register” (that way, you can download everything without problems!).
• Think about the graphics you need and the ideal structure for your presentation deck (you can also change the color palette later!).
• Download it in PowerPoint format (if you prefer it in Google Slides format, you'll also find this type in our repository).
• Edit and change everything you need for your PowerPoint presentation!

24Slides Designers specialize in business and corporate PowerPoints, but you'll also find other types of templates on our website: Data templates, Timelines, Roadmaps, Matrixes, Diagrams, and more.

Keep in mind that a well-designed PowerPoint deck helps you communicate stronger messages to your audience . Don't waste this opportunity to make your presentation shine!

If you want to learn more about how to master PowerPoint, do not miss the last section. We'll show you some PowerPoint basics from the software itself!

A PowerPoint 101 Guide wouldn't be that useful with no examples. So, if you enjoy the step-by-step guides, this section is for you.

Below, we'll show you how to make a simple PowerPoint presentation. But first, here are some tips to be more efficient in the process:

• Be clear about what type of presentation you're going to create (is it corporate, playful, or more creative?).
• Make a draft with the most important information you need to add and, thus, generate a good structure in your presentation .
• Get inspired by examples on the internet , but adapt them to your needs and audience.
• If you will create a business presentation, keep in mind your brand identity .
• Make sure your PowerPoint works , you may need to update to the latest version or pay for the subscription.

Step 1: Make a draft to structure your presentation

As we said before, writing a draft or script of your content will be vital to start on the right foot as a PowerPoint beginner.

This advice is so important that we choose it as the first step to learning how to make a PowerPoint presentation. Remember: Planning is key!

Regarding the process of planning, we share some good practices:

• If your presentation will be very long , write down all subtitles and content in a Word document. This will help you organize your ideas and give a correct sequence to your narrative. In addition to avoiding redundancies in the message you want to communicate.
• If your presentation will use many visual resources , we recommend choosing high-quality images. This will help you have a starting graphic base. Some good free image repositories are Freepick , Unsplash , and Adobe Stock .
• If your presentation is based on data , have all your results summarized or your most relevant conclusions at hand. The idea of making a PowerPoint presentation is to show your information in the simplest way possible for your audience.

Step 2: Create a new document in PowerPoint

Once you check that all the functions are working fine with the software, please open it and go to the File tab. If you've ever used Word or Excel, you'll probably find this Home Menu familiar.

In short, this is the main page of PowerPoint, where you can create a new presentation or open an older one. Let's see:

In order to follow this part of our PowerPoint Tutorial correctly, take into consideration the following points:

• On the lower side of the screen, you'll find your recently opened PowerPoint files. This option is great for saving some time.
• If you don't find the presentation you're looking for, click on the “Open” option at the left bar and find older files.
• Don't forget to save your presentation with a relatable name so you won't lose sight of it!

Step 3: Choose the perfect design for your presentation

With your information ready in a draft, it's time to choose the design of your PowerPoint slide deck. You must imagine that the available design options are endless!

For practical reasons, you have three options regarding the design:

• Start a design from scratch (very difficult for a PowerPoint beginner).
• Choose an established PowerPoint design or layout.
• Download a PowerPoint template and modify some details.

Don't worry if you don't know how to continue! In this PowerPoint 101 class, we're going to explain step by step the second option:

How do you set a default design in PowerPoint?

• First, go to the Design tab.
• Open the list of options by clicking on the third arrow.
• Choose the design you like the most for your PowerPoint presentation.

If you want to explore more PowerPoint designs, there is a way to research online. For that, you only need to:

• Go to the File tab (first tab, next to the Home tab).
• Select "More themes" (see image).

• Use the search engine and write the keyword you want (it can be related to your business or it can be a color).
• Check the list of PowerPoint themes and choose your favorite.
• Wait a few minutes while it loads and keep designing in PowerPoint!

How do you change the layout of one slide in PowerPoint?

In this PowerPoint 101 Guide, you will also learn how to configure the layout of each slide.

Keep in mind that to have a high-impact presentation, you must adapt your slides' design to the type of content you'll add. And using layouts is perfect for this purpose.

To change the layout type in PowerPoint, follow these steps:

• Right-click on the slide you want to change.
• Select the "Layout" option.
• You will find more than ten layout models.
• Choose the one that best suits your content.
• Repeat these steps for each slide (if you wish or require).

How do you customize your slides in PowerPoint?

The design process in this PowerPoint 101 Guide doesn't stop there.

You also can customize your presentation's color palette , font style, background format , and graphics effects .

Just go to:

• Design tab > Variants.
• Select Colors, Fonts, Effects or Background Styles (as you need).
• If you're inspired and want to create your own background in PowerPoint, select Background Styles > Format Background.
• Finally, custom your slides as you want!

Step 4: Add all your information to your presentation

Now, it's time to add all your information to your slides. If your script is long, take your time to copy each part of it.

In this PowerPoint Tutorial, we're going to show how our design is going so far. We design at your side!

Step 5: Add transitions or animations to your presentation

The stamp of PowerPoint is its transitions and animations! Naturally, our PowerPoint 101 has considered these essential commands.

If you want to add them to your presentation and make your speech more fluid, follow these steps:

• Go to the tabs section of PowerPoint.
• Select "Transitions" or "Animations" and try your favorite effects.
• Remember that if you select Transitions, these will modify the entire slide, while Animations can be added to each element individually.

When choosing one Animation, you can eliminate it if you aren't 100% convinced. You only need to:

• Select the Animation number that appears on the corner.
• Press the "Delete" or "Backspace" button on your keyboard.
• Choose another Animation in PowerPoint if you want!

This “PowerPoint for dummies” is full of tips and tricks! So here is one more: Don't overuse transitions or animations in PowerPoint ; they can make your presentation slower and unprofessional . Use this tool in a subtle way!

Step 6: Refine the final details

As always, every final product must be reviewed. Especially if you're learning the PowerPoint fundamentals with us.

We recommend reviewing each slide of your PowerPoint presentation one final time. In this process, you will be able to:

• Add icons if your presentation requires it.
• Change any image or illustration if they don't convince you.
• Change transitions or animations.
• Customize your presentation's color palette .
• Proofread your slides' text or add more information.
• Add speaker notes to your presentation.

Step 7: Slideshow your presentation

When your presentation is finished, it's essential to know how to make a PowerPoint slideshow. This way, you can see your slides from the exact same perspective your audience will see them.

To slideshow your presentation in PowerPoint, follow these simple steps for PowerPoint beginners:

• Position yourself on your first slide.
• Go to the bottom right of the software.
• Select the "Slide Show" button (see image).
• Have a look of your presentation by clicking on each slide or pressing the right arrow on your keyboard.
• To go out from the Slide Show mode, you have to press the ESC key.

Now you can present your slides like an expert!

When you master this presentation design software, you'll be able to create amazing things in PowerPoint : infographics, diagrams, charts, pitch decks, business cards, calendars, you name it!

This was our PowerPoint Guide for beginners. We hope that our compilation today will be useful for conducting more professional presentations in the future and, why not, achieve all your goals!

Don't forget to share this PowerPoint 101 Guide with your co-workers or whoever you want!

Want to boost your beginner PowerPoint skills? Check out this content:

• How to Work with Multiple Images in PowerPoint
• How to Add a Timer to Your Powerpoint Presentations
• PowerPoint Charts, Graphs, & Tables Made Easy | Tips & Tricks
• How To Use PowerPoint Design Ideas - All Questions Answered!
• 36 Fun Icebreakers for Your Next Presentation
• The Cost of PowerPoint Presentations: Discover the hidden expenses you might overlook!

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Home Blog PowerPoint Tutorials PowerPoint Animations: Animate Text, Objects, and Slides in Your Presentations

PowerPoint Animations: Animate Text, Objects, and Slides in Your Presentations

Working with graphic assets can bring a degree of expectancy when delivering a presentation, such as in the case of PowerPoint animations. They can help add emphasis to slide content and reveal parts of the slide gradually to help presenters discuss topics sequentially. 

As a presenting software, PowerPoint provides all kinds of animations for emphasis, entrance, exit, and to create a set motion. Join us today to learn all about animations in PowerPoint and unleash your creative potential.

Table of Contents

How PowerPoint Animations Can Benefit Presentation Design

Understanding powerpoint animation basics, types of animations in powerpoint, how to animate text on powerpoint, animating objects for visual impact, crafting seamless slide transitions in powerpoint, mastering advanced animation techniques in powerpoint, dos and don’ts of powerpoint animations, real-world use cases of animated presentation slides, recommended animated powerpoint templates, enhanced engagement and understanding through animations.

Dynamic presentations can have many benefits. The importance of such animations is often only realized by people familiar with PowerPoint. As we’ve seen in our guide on visual communication , graphical elements can make concepts more understandable. In the case of animations, we can use the transitions between slides or elements to split concepts and make them clearer.

Audience engagement is another factor, as eye-catching slides often include surprise elements hidden behind animations. These elements attract the audience’s interest and increase retention rate. In this case, animations serve as powerful presentation aids for the speaker.

Capturing Audience Attention

PowerPoint animations are more likely to capture the audience’s attention than static slides. The moving objects on-screen are the type of visuals people are likely to find attention-grabbing instead of trying to read through static slides or looking at static images. On this behalf, storytelling techniques boost their efficacy in connecting with the audience by implementing animations and transitions rather than sticking to static slides. 

Emphasizing Relationships Between Elements

Whenever we work with contrasting values, like pros and cons slides , animations help the presenter highlight areas of interest or disclose the opposite values section by section. This, in turn, structures the speech for real-time interaction with the graphical assets rather than having the audience read the slide and lose focus on the speech. 

Interactive Presentations

As mentioned before, presenters can craft compelling stories through the careful use of animations in PPT. What is often overlooked is the link between interactive presentations and animations. For instance, a speaker can deliver different outcomes of the presentation by selecting one path whose outcome is revealed through an animation. This “wow” factor induces surprise and creatively presents case scenarios.

Another option is when introducing your team in presentations. Rather than using static slides, incorporating animations gives more rhythm to the presentation and invites the public to interact with the speaker.

Getting Started with Animation in PowerPoint

To start with animations in PowerPoint, select an object you wish to animate and go to the Animations tab to choose an animation to add to the slide element. When adding animations to multiple objects in a slide, you should consider the sequence you wish to use to animate objects.

Accessing Animation Features

When accessing animation features, you will come across various animation types. By expanding the Animations menu, you can select animations for entrance, exit, emphasis, and motion paths to create a path for your animated sequence. You can also click to instantly preview an animation for the selected object or switch to slideshow mode to see how the animation will appear.

Adding Animations to Text and Objects

Once an animation is added to a text or object, a number is assigned. This number shows the sequence in which the object will be presented. For example, the object will be the first to be animated on screen, followed by two, three, and so on.

You can adjust the sequence of animations, triggers, and other settings from the Animation Pane in PowerPoint.

Timing and Sequence in Animations

The Timing menu in the Animations pane provides options to set the duration of the animation, the time to delay the animation on the screen (if necessary), and to assess if the animation starts on click, with the previous or after the last animation. How you select these animations will help you adjust the time and sequence of the animations. For example, you can use ‘ with previous’ option to show two animated objects simultaneously.

Entrance, Exit, and Emphasis Animations

Some of the most commonly used animation types fall under three categories: entrance, exit, and emphasis animations.

Entrance Animations

The Entrance Animations are meant to start or introduce objects. You can explore all entrance-related animations by going to Animations -> Animation (menu) -> More Entrance Effects . This will reveal all entrance animations you can click to preview for a selected object. These often consist of basic animations with effects like appear, fly-in, float-in, strips, wheel, circle, box, dissolve-in, split, wedge, wipe, plus, diamond, checkerboard, blinds, etc. The animations can be divided into three categories: basic, subtle, and moderate. These categories help identify the type of effects in each category according to how prominent they might be on screen.

Exit Animations

The Exit Animations are meant to help exit a slide or animated sequence to close a topic or subtopic, or to conclude the on-screen animations for a slide. These animations are similar to the Entrance Animations with the same effects. You can use these animation types for an exit sequence using effects like blinds, circles, checkerboard, box, plus, split, wedge, wipe, diamond, dissolve out, contract, swivel, fade, zoom, basic zoom, collapse, float up, etc.

Like the Entrance Animations, you can go to  Animations -> Animation (menu) -> More Exit Effects to preview the animations and to see the three categories for basic, subtle, or moderate animations.

Emphasis Animations

Other than basic, subtle, and moderate, the Emphasis Animations come with an additional category, ‘exciting.’ Emphasis animations in PowerPoint provide visual aids for emphasizing content within slides. The effects for these animation types in PowerPoint are also quite different from the entrance and exit-themed effects. Effects like fill color, grow/shrink, transparency, line color, teeter, color pulse, object color, desaturate, darken, lighten, blink, wave, and others can help emphasize an object within a slide to make it pop out before the audience.

Exploring Motion Path Animations

If primary effects aren’t what you want, it’s time to switch to Motion Paths . These are animated effects in PowerPoint that showcase objects across a specific path. In other words, these are elaborate animations that drag objects on the screen based on a particular shape or path, such as a 4,5, 6, or 8-point star, crescent moon, circle, diamond, football, heart, octagon, pentagon, square, trapezoid, teardrop, right triangle, arc (down, right, left, up), curvy right, bounce right, etc.

Motion Paths are divided into four categories. The basic effects consist of shapes, whereas, Line Curves provide lines and curves to animated objects. Similarly, the special category contains more elaborate effects such as inverted square, loop de loop, peanut, bean, curved square, etc.

Choosing Appropriate Animation Styles

When choosing animation styles, picking a style that best resonates with your presentation slides is important. The animations’ names and categories can help you identify what might work for you. Furthermore, after adding an animation, you can go to Effect Options to view the various directions and options used to refine the animation to build your sequence further. Depending on the animation type, you can pick variations of the animation, directions, colors, transparency, points to edit or lock, or other options for selected effects. The image below shows the variations for the Wheel animation in PowerPoint via Effect Options .

Similarly, if you select Transparency from Emphasis Effects, you can choose how transparent the object will appear on the screen. Likewise, many color-themed effects enable picking a custom color to animate an object.

Since Motion Paths are unique, you will get options to edit points, lock paths, reverse the direction of the default animated sequence, etc.

Now that you know how to animate in PowerPoint, it’s time to explore making written content more interesting using animations.

Start by opening a blank PPT file and adding a placeholder text. The idea is to learn how text interacts with animation effects without working with complex graphic layouts.

Select the text and switch to the Animations tab. In there, pick an animation effect of your preference. You will get a preview of the effect applied – which will show the number of the animation order once completed.

Animations for text, like any other animation, can be controlled in terms of behavior by accessing the panel at the right-most section of the Ribbon.

Additionally, we can expand the animations panel to select from the different effects offered by PowerPoint.

Animating Text Elements on PPT Templates

Animating text elements to highlight key aspects of your slides can be a great way to create engaging presentations. The Animated 3D 4 Steps & Core PowerPoint Template shown below are among the Animated PowerPoint templates at SlideModel that animate objects and text elements for emphasis while retaining a clear layout.

As visible from the animated sequence from the Animation Pane in the image below, the slide deck uses animated text boxes with a mix of other slide elements to create a sequence where a four-step diagram is highlighted with supported text to help elaborate each part of the diagram in an animated sequence. We can add, remove, or modify the included effects via the Animation Pane.

Balancing Text Animations for Impact

By balancing text animations, you can have maximum impact when highlighting content for your slides. The animations can be triggered to start simultaneously to reveal all the text after a sequence of objects, before objects appear, or one by one to reveal the diagram contents gradually.

Animating Images, Shapes, and Charts

When animating shapes and images, you can use a variety of animation types for entrance, exit, and emphasis, and to make the content pop out. However, charts require subtle animations, and it’s best to use basic effects to reveal charts, such as Appear and Disappear .

The Animated Network Diagram PowerPoint Template is an example of how to animate shapes.

The template’s title slide reveals shapes and icons in the form of a diagram in an animated sequence.

You can also include images in such a template to customize the given diagram and animate it to reveal the image simultaneously or after a set of objects has already been revealed.

If you are including a chart in your slide that is to be animated, make sure the animation corresponds to other elements that might also be animated. For example, you can trigger the chart to be revealed after the slide title with a simple Appear effect. In such a case, the chart can be displayed altogether or gradually, in animated form.

Applying Object Animations Strategically

When placing slide objects, you must apply the animations strategically to avoid revealing information out of sequence. Furthermore, it is also worth considering how your effects appear. For example, in the image of the diagram below, would you prefer the diagram to appear floating upward or downward? Such considerations and other vital elements, such as your branding needs, are important to ponder when setting your animated sequence.

Enhancing Presentation Flow with Transitions

While Animations for PowerPoint are one way of making your slides engaging, PowerPoint Transitions is another. You can access them via the Transitions tab in PowerPoint and apply transitions between slides.

While many legacy transitions provide basic effects when switching between slides, some of the more recent additions to this menu, such as Morph Transition , enable the creation of elaborate animations by using Transitions to animate your slides. The below example shows a slide with the Morph transition, giving an animated effect to the diagram.

Maintaining Coherence Between Slides

When applying Transitions, it is essential to maintain coherence between slides by ensuring they don’t overlap with any added Animations. To do this, you should preview your slide deck to see how it might appear once all the animated effects have been included in your slides. Like PowerPoint Animations, you can also use Effect Options for Transitions to set a sequence or direction that best suits your needs.

Layering for Complex Animation Effects

Using layers of multiple objects and slides can easily create advanced animation effects. This can be done using not only PowerPoint animations but also transitions. The Animated Pendulum Swing PowerPoint Templates from the SlideModel archive of animated templates use Transitions like Morph to create animated sequences. The below example shows a swinging pendulum created using Morph.

Combining and Triggering Animations

Depending on the number of elements within a slide and the animations used, you can use triggers to customize and set sequences for slide elements to animate. The example below shows the selected pendulum’s various linking options for the on-click trigger. By placing your slide objects to be connected and triggered with different parts of your slide, you can create and customize animated sequences that can be pretty attention-grabbing. 

PowerPoint Animation Painter

If you thought you had to start from scratch to animate each slide of your presentation, you are sorely mistaken. Much like the Format Painter option in PowerPoint, we can find Animation Painter , which is accessible via the Ribbon under the Advanced Animation control options.

This tool helps us duplicate animations between elements of the same slide or copy animation effects from one slide to another. As a format copying tool, it requires at least one animation effect to be placed otherwise the option is grayed out.

Creative Experimentation

Experimenting with Animations in PowerPoint can be pretty helpful to avoid making monotonous presentations. Experimentation does not necessarily require making slides from scratch, but you can also use ready-made templates such as the 3D animation PowerPoint Templates at SlideModel. Alternatively, some slide deck templates offer a considerable range of animation effects intended for maximum audience engagement, which users can quickly customize by editing placeholder areas for text, images, and logos.

Below is a list of do’s and don’ts of PowerPoint Animations for making presentations that best use animated effects.

Maintain Animation Moderation

It is essential to maintain moderation when using animations, as the use of too many animations on a single slide or presentation can make the content confusing.

Use of Appropriate Animations

Try to use appropriate animations for slide objects. The animation should suitably show if the object is to enter, exit, be emphasized, or be highlighted using a motion path.

Avoid Animation Overload

Avoid flashy animated sequences unless your presentation is meant for an audience that might find engaging, such as children in a classroom session.

Subtle can be Just as Engaging

Sometimes, subtle animations can be just as engaging as an animation with an elaborate effect. This can, in fact, be a better option than using animations that might be visually overpowering or difficult to follow due to elaborate effects.

Ensure Visual Consistency

As discussed earlier, it is vital to maintain consistency in using animated effects. Be it Animations or Transitions, using flashy effects or too many diverse effects can hurt how the audience perceives your content, as it might become confusing, visually overpowering, or unprofessional. In such a case, the audience might quickly lose interest in the presentation, leading to Death by PowerPoint.

Less is More

The design language of visual designs over the past decade or more has been intended to use fewer effects and graphical elements with ample space to make the interface look clean. Be it Modern UI or Material design apps, this design language has been evident across desktop and mobile UIs. Using the same concept, you can design your slides with fewer animations and graphical elements to make your content more visually appealing.

Turning PowerPoints into Millions

Courtney Allen, a professional PowerPoint designer who came out of a BFA in graphic design from Boise State University, had all but PowerPoint as a part of her portfolio. She started her freelancing career via Upwork, making over a thousand PowerPoints for clients, bringing in as many as $2 million. She suggests using simple designs and animations to make the most out of PowerPoint presentations. 

Guy Kawasaki Pitch Deck

Guy Kawasaki, a former Apple employee, whose famous 10-slide pitch deck has inspired a variety of PowerPoint templates. This rule was designed for startups and business presentations, focusing on pitching a concept to investors. While this isn’t directly related to using animations in presentations, it is an example of making the best use of minimalist content in a few slides. You can learn more about the Guy Kawasaki pitch deck from our article about the 10/20/30 rule for PowerPoint presentations .

How not to use an Animated PowerPoint Presentation in Court! 

Presentations with animations aren’t always a great idea. In 2014, a court in the United States criticized a PowerPoint presentation by the prosecutor, which led to the court throwing the case out. The presentation was made with sound effects and animations, with flashy elements like the bullseye. Some of the significant mistakes made by the prosecutor included ‘visual advocacy,’ where the defendant was marked with the word ‘guilt’ in the slide deck. Not to mention, the animated presentation seemed to be aimed at influencing the court using visual aids. Something that did not sit well with the court.

Use of PowerPoint by the US Military

The US Military has often been accused of Death by PowerPoint for preparing what some call the worst PowerPoint slides ever created. The issue became so profound that in 2011, it was revealed that an executive communications manager at Microsoft, Dave Karle, was tasked with ensuring that the US military could finally start using the software properly. After discussions with top military officials, an updated military presentation method was created, consisting of a number of presentation templates, tips, and graphics and more than 6000 map symbols. 

In this section, you can check some ready-made templates that can be easily customized for your presentation’s purposes. All these templates feature professionally made animation effects with native PowerPoint tools.

1. Multi-Purpose Animated PowerPoint Slide Deck

Those looking for how to animate in PowerPoint now have a ready-made solution to create mind-blowing presentations in a couple of minutes. This slide deck contains 26 slides in a broad selection of topics. We can present facts, introduce our team, our company, display charts with animated effects, and so much more. Check it out now!

Use This Template

2. Animated 8-Step Social Media Carousel PowerPoint Template

Bring dynamism to your social media posts by implementing this vivid social media carousel template. With eye-catching animated effects, this template emulates the typical carousel posts we can find on platforms like LinkedIn or Instagram.

3. Problem Solving Animated PowerPoint Template

Bring professional graphics to troubleshooting sessions with your team. This template, filled with PowerPoint animations, offers a user-friendly approach to conventional problem-solving situations in which the team has to observe the Issue Matrix, suggest possible solutions, and prepare an implementation plan and its corresponding process flow diagram. Thanks to its high-quality animation effects, the speaker can introduce the facts individually, without diverting attention from the speech.

4. Animated Company Profile Presentation Template for PowerPoint

We’ve seen this template as one of the examples of animations for PowerPoint. It is a 21-slide solution offering all the tools required for a corporate-styled company profile presentation, specifically tailored for service businesses.

5. Corporate Company Profile Animated PowerPoint Template

An alternative option for company profile presentations, featuring a minimalistic graphic layout with a broad variety of animation effects. Check these 12 slides and customize them with information relevant to your organization – we bring complex animation effects in a ready-made format. Colors and placeholder images can also be replaced.

6. Animated Roadmap PowerPoint Template

Bring more action to any planning meeting using this animated PowerPoint roadmap template. After a clear path overview, each milestone slide contains animation effects to introduce relevant information to the topic. It is a new take on traditional roadmap presentations that allows the speaker to pace themselves regarding how to disclose the information about the strategy to embark on.

7. Animated Pros & Cons Comparison Slide Template for PowerPoint

We mentioned the advantages of using PowerPoint animations to discuss contrasting values of a situation. Well, this animated Pros & Cons slide is the ideal tool for that purpose, offering a generalist view, then two accompanying slides for Pros & Cons, respectively, with animated effects to introduce additional information per point.

Using animations to make visually appealing and engaging presentations requires ensuring that your content corresponds with your added animated effects. It is always best to use animations in moderation and to keep your slides minimalist while unleashing your creativity as a presenter. Using ready-made PowerPoint templates can also help give you a good starting point to begin experimenting with animations and effects. This can also be useful for people new to PowerPoint Animations to explore what is doable with an animated slide deck, using animated sequences tailored for customization. 

Whether you’re using an animated template or making one from scratch, a preview in slideshow mode can save you a lot of trouble with potential issues tied to animated effects. Last but not least, using animations in PowerPoint isn’t always necessary, and you can even go for a simple slide deck with a handful of slides. What matters is that you should be aware of the information being presented, and the visual aids should be just to aid your slides and not meant to be the whole package on their own.

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17 PowerPoint Presentation Tips From Pro Presenters [+ Templates]

Published: April 26, 2024

PowerPoint presentations can be professional, attractive, and really help your audience remember your message.

If you don’t have much experience, that’s okay — I’m going to arm you with PowerPoint design tips from pro presenters, the steps you need to build an engaging deck, and templates to help you nail great slide design.

Download Now

Buckle up for a variety of step-by-step explanations as well as tips and tricks to help you start mastering this program. There are additional resources woven in, and you’ll find expert perspectives from other HubSpotters along the way.

Table of Contents

How to Make a PowerPoint Presentation

Powerpoint presentation tips.

Microsoft PowerPoint is like a test of basic professional skills, and each PowerPoint is basically a presentation made of multiple slides.

Successful PowerPoints depend on three main factors: your command of PowerPoint's design tools, your attention to presentation processes, and being consistent with your style.

Keep those in mind as we jump into PowerPoint's capabilities.

Getting Started

1. open powerpoint and click ‘new.’.

A page with templates will usually open automatically, but if not, go to the top left pane of your screen and click New . If you’ve already created a presentation, select Open and then double-click the icon to open the existing file.

10 Free PowerPoint Templates

Download ten free PowerPoint templates for a better presentation.

• Creative templates.
• Data-driven templates.
• Professional templates.

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You're all set!

Click this link to access this resource at any time.

Creating PowerPoint Slides

3. insert a slide..

Insert a new slide by clicking on the Home tab and then the New Slide button. Consider what content you want to put on the slide, including heading, text, and imagery.

• Finally, PowerPoint Live is a new tool that enables you to do more seamless presentations during video calls and may be a better overall match for doing presentations remotely. Check out this video:

11. Try Using GIFs.

12 Free Customizable Resume Templates

Fill out this form to access your free professionally-designed templates, available on:

• Microsoft Word
• Google Docs
• Microsoft PowerPoint
• Google Slides

15. Embed multimedia.

PowerPoint allows you to either link to video/audio files externally or to embed the media directly in your presentation. For PCs, two great reasons for embedding are:

• Embedding allows you to play media directly in your presentation. It will look much more professional than switching between windows.
• Embedding also means that the file stays within the PowerPoint presentation, so it should play normally without extra work (except on a Mac).

If you use PowerPoint for Mac it gets a bit complicated, but it can be done:

• Always bring the video and/or audio file with you in the same folder as the PowerPoint presentation.
• Only insert video or audio files once the presentation and the containing folder have been saved on a portable drive in their permanent folder.
• If the presentation will be played on a Windows computer, then Mac users need to make sure their multimedia files are in WMV format.
• Consider using the same operating system for designing and presenting, no matter what.

16. Bring your own hardware.

Between operating systems, PowerPoint is still a bit jumpy. Even between differing PPT versions, things can change. The easiest fix? Just bring along your own laptop when you're presenting.

The next easiest fix is to upload your PowerPoint presentation into Google Slides as a backup option — just make sure there is a good internet connection and a browser available where you plan to present.

Google Slides is a cloud-based presentation software that will show up the same way on all operating systems.

To import your PowerPoint presentation into Google Slides:

• Navigate to slides.google.com . Make sure you’re signed in to a Google account (preferably your own).
• Under Start a new presentation , click the empty box with a plus sign. This will open up a blank presentation.
• Go to File , then Import slides .
• A dialog box will come up. Tap Upload.
• Click Select a file from your device .
• Select your presentation and click Open .
• Select the slides you’d like to import. If you want to import all of them, click All in the upper right-hand corner of the dialog box.
• Click Import slides.

When I tested this out, Google Slides imported everything perfectly, including a shape whose points I had manipulated. This is a good backup option to have if you’ll be presenting across different operating systems.

17. Use Presenter View.

In most presentation situations, there will be both a presenter’s screen and the main projected display for your presentation.

PowerPoint has a great tool called Presenter View, which can be found in the Slide Show tab of PowerPoint. Included in the Presenter View is an area for notes, a timer/clock, and a presentation display.

For many presenters, this tool can help unify their spoken presentation and their visual aid. You never want to make the PowerPoint seem like a stack of notes that you’re reading off of.

Use the Presenter View option to help create a more natural presentation.

Pro Tip: At the start of the presentation, you should also hit CTRL + H to make the cursor disappear. Hitting the “A” key will bring it back if you need it.

Your Next Great PowerPoint Presentation Starts Here

Now that you have these style, design, and presentation tips under your belt, you should feel confident to create your PowerPoint presentation.

But if you can explore other resources to make sure your content hits the mark. After all, you need a strong presentation to land your point and make an impression.

With several templates to choose from — both in PowerPoint and available for free download — you can swiftly be on your way to creating presentations that wow your audiences.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in September 2013 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

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How to Make a PowerPoint Presentation (Step-by-Step)

• PowerPoint Tutorials
• Presentation Design
• January 22, 2024

In this beginner’s guide, you will learn step-by-step how to make a PowerPoint presentation from scratch.

While PowerPoint is designed to be intuitive and accessible, it can be overwhelming if you’ve never gotten any training on it before. As you progress through this guide, you’ll will learn how to move from blank slides to PowerPoint slides that look like these.

Table of Contents

Additionally, as you create your presentation, you’ll also learn tricks for working more efficiently in PowerPoint, including how to:

• Change the slide order
• Reset your layout
• Change the slide dimensions
• Use PowerPoint Designer
• Format text
• Format objects
• Play a presentation (slide show)

With this knowledge under your belt, you’ll be ready to start creating PowerPoint presentations. Moreover, you’ll have taken your skills from beginner to proficient in no time at all. I will also include links to more advanced PowerPoint topics.

Ready to start learning how to make a PowerPoint presentation?

Take your PPT skills to the next level

Start with a blank presentation.

Note: Before you open PowerPoint and start creating your presentation, make sure you’ve collected your thoughts. If you’re going to make your slides compelling, you need to spend some time brainstorming.

For help with this, see our article with tips for nailing your business presentation  here .

The first thing you’ll need to do is to open PowerPoint. When you do, you are shown the Start Menu , with the Home tab open.

This is where you can choose either a blank theme (1) or a pre-built theme (2). You can also choose to open an existing presentation (3).

For now, go ahead and click on the  Blank Presentation (1)  thumbnail.

Doing so launches a brand new and blank presentation for you to work with. Before you start adding content to your presentation, let’s first familiarize ourselves with the PowerPoint interface.

The PowerPoint interface

Here is how the program is laid out:

• The Application Header
• The Ribbon (including the Ribbon tabs)
• The Quick Access Toolbar (either above or below the Ribbon)
• The Slides Pane (slide thumbnails)

The Slide Area

The notes pane.

• The Status Bar (including the View Buttons)

Each one of these areas has options for viewing certain parts of the PowerPoint environment and formatting your presentation.

Below are the important things to know about certain elements of the PowerPoint interface.

The PowerPoint Ribbon

The Ribbon is contextual. That means that it will adapt to what you’re doing in the program.

For example, the Font, Paragraph and Drawing options are greyed out until you select something that has text in it, as in the example below (A).

Furthermore, if you start manipulating certain objects, the Ribbon will display additional tabs, as seen above (B), with more commands and features to help you work with those objects. The following objects have their own additional tabs in the Ribbon which are hidden until you select them:

• Online Pictures
• Screenshots
• Screen Recording

The Slides Pane

This is where you can preview and rearrange all the slides in your presentation.

Right-clicking on a slide  in the pane gives you additional options on the slide level that you won’t find on the Ribbon, such as  Duplicate Slide ,  Delete Slide , and  Hide Slide .

In addition, you can add sections to your presentation by  right-clicking anywhere in this Pane  and selecting  Add Section . Sections are extremely helpful in large presentations, as they allow you to organize your slides into chunks that you can then rearrange, print or display differently from other slides.

The Slide Area (A) is where you will build out your slides. Anything within the bounds of this area will be visible when you present or print your presentation.

Anything outside of this area (B) will be hidden from view. This means that you can place things here, such as instructions for each slide, without worrying about them being shown to your audience.

The  Notes Pane  is the space beneath the Slide Area where you can type in the speaker notes for each slide. It’s designed as a fast way to add and edit your slides’ talking points.

To expand your knowledge and learn more about adding, printing, and exporting your PowerPoint speaker notes, read our guide here .

Your speaker notes are visible when you print your slides using the Notes Pages option and when you use the Presenter View . To expand your knowledge and learn the ins and outs of using the Presenter View , read our guide here .

You can resize the  Notes Pane  by clicking on its edge and dragging it up or down (A). You can also minimize or reopen it by clicking on the Notes button in the Status Bar (B).

Note:  Not all text formatting displays in the Notes Pane, even though it will show up when printing your speaker notes. To learn more about printing PowerPoint with notes, read our guide here .

Now that you have a basic grasp of the PowerPoint interface at your disposal, it’s time to make your presentation.

Adding Content to Your PowerPoint Presentation

Notice that in the Slide Area , there are two rectangles with dotted outlines. These are called  Placeholders  and they’re set on the template in the Slide Master View .

To expand your knowledge and learn how to create a PowerPoint template of your own (which is no small task), read our guide here .

As the prompt text suggests, you can click into each placeholder and start typing text. These types of placeholder prompts are customizable too. That means that if you are using a company template, it might say something different, but the functionality is the same.

Note:  For the purposes of this example, I will create a presentation based on the content in the Starbucks 2018 Global Social Impact Report, which is available to the public on their website.

If you type in more text than there is room for, PowerPoint will automatically reduce its font size. You can stop this behavior by clicking on the  Autofit Options  icon to the left of the placeholder and selecting  Stop Fitting Text to this Placeholder .

Next, you can make formatting adjustments to your text by selecting the commands in the Font area and the  Paragraph area  of the  Home  tab of the Ribbon.

The Reset Command:  If you make any changes to your title and decide you want to go back to how it was originally, you can use the Reset button up in the Home tab .

Insert More Slides into Your Presentation

Now that you have your title slide filled in, it’s time to add more slides. To do that, simply go up to the  Home tab  and click on  New Slide . This inserts a new slide in your presentation right after the one you were on.

You can alternatively hit Ctrl+M on your keyboard to insert a new blank slide in PowerPoint. To learn more about this shortcut, see my guide on using Ctrl+M in PowerPoint .

Instead of clicking the New Slide command, you can also open the New Slide dropdown to see all the slide layouts in your PowerPoint template. Depending on who created your template, your layouts in this dropdown can be radically different.

If you insert a layout and later want to change it to a different layout, you can use the Layout dropdown instead of the New Slide dropdown.

After inserting a few different slide layouts, your presentation might look like the following picture. Don’t worry that it looks blank, next we will start adding content to your presentation.

If you want to follow along exactly with me, your five slides should be as follows:

• Title Slide
• Title and Content
• Section Header
• Two Content
• Picture with Caption

Adding Content to Your Slides

Now let’s go into each slide and start adding our content. You’ll notice some new types of placeholders.

On slide 2 we have a  Content Placeholder , which allows you to add any kind of content. That includes:

• A SmartArt graphic,
• A 3D object,
• A picture from the web,
• Or an icon.

To insert text, simply type it in or hit  Ctrl+C to Copy  and Ctrl+V to Paste  from elsewhere. To insert any of the other objects, click on the appropriate icon and follow the steps to insert it.

For my example, I’ll simply type in some text as you can see in the picture below.

Slides 3 and 4 only have text placeholders, so I’ll go ahead and add in my text into each one.

On slide 5 we have a Picture Placeholder . That means that the only elements that can go into it are:

• A picture from the web

To insert a picture into the picture placeholder, simply:

• Click on the  Picture  icon
• Find  a picture on your computer and select it
• Click on  Insert

Alternatively, if you already have a picture open somewhere else, you can select the placeholder and paste in (shortcut: Ctrl+V ) the picture. You can also drag the picture in from a file explorer window.

If you do not like the background of the picture you inserted onto your slide, you can remove the background here in PowerPoint. To see how to do this, read my guide here .

Placeholders aren’t the only way to add content to your slides. At any point, you can use the Insert tab to add elements to your slides.

You can use either the Title Only  or the  Blank  slide layout to create slides for content that’s different. For example, a three-layout content slide, or a single picture divider slide, as shown below.

In the first example above, I’ve inserted 6 text boxes, 3 icons, and 3 circles to create this layout. In the second example, I’ve inserted a full-sized picture and then 2 shapes and 2 text boxes.

The Reset Command:  Because these slides are built with shapes and text boxes (and not placeholders), hitting the  Reset button up in the  Home tab  won’t do anything.

That is a good thing if you don’t want your layouts to adjust. However, it does mean that it falls on you to make sure everything is aligned and positioned correctly.

For more on how to add and manipulate the different objects in PowerPoint, check out our step-by-step articles here:

• Using graphics in PowerPoint
• Inserting icons onto slides
• Adding pictures to your PowerPoint
• How to embed a video in PowerPoint
• How to add music to your presentation

Using Designer to generate more layouts ideas

If you have Office 365, your version of PowerPoint comes with a new feature called Designer (or Design Ideas). This is a feature that generates slide layout ideas for you. The coolest thing about this feature is that it uses the content you already have.

To use Designer , simply navigate to the  Design tab  in your Ribbon, and click on  Design Ideas .

NOTE: If the PowerPoint Designer is not working for you (it is grey out), see my troubleshooting guide for Designer .

Change the Overall Design (optional)

When you make a PowerPoint presentation, you’ll want to think about the overall design. Now that you have some content in your presentation, you can use the Design tab to change the look and feel of your slides.

For additional help thinking through the design of your presentation,  read my guide here .

A. Picking your PowerPoint slide size

If you have PowerPoint 2013 or later, when you create a blank document in PowerPoint, you automatically start with a widescreen layout with a 16:9 ratio. These dimensions are suitable for most presentations as they match the screens of most computers and projectors.

However, you do have the option to change the dimensions.

For example, your presentation might not be presented, but instead converted into a PDF or printed and distributed. In that case, you can easily switch to the standard dimensions with a 4:3 ratio by selecting from the dropdown (A).

You can also choose a custom slide size or change the slide orientation from landscape to portrait in the Custom Slide Size dialog box (B).

To learn all about the different PowerPoint slide sizes, and some of the issues you will face when changing the slide size of a non-blank presentation,  read my guide here .

 B. Selecting a PowerPoint theme

The next thing you can do is change the theme of your presentation to a pre-built one. For a detailed explanation of what a PowerPoint theme is, and how to best use it,  read my article here .

In the beginning of this tutorial, we started with a blank presentation, which uses the default Office theme as you can see in the picture below.

That gives you the most flexibility because it has a blank background and quite simple layouts that work for most presentations. However, it also means that it’s your responsibility to enhance the design.

If you’re comfortable with this, you can stay with the default theme or create your own custom theme ( read my guide here ). But if you would rather not have to think about design, then you can choose a pre-designed theme.

Microsoft provides 46 other pre-built themes, which include slide layouts, color variants and palettes, and fonts. Each one varies quite significantly, so make sure you look through them carefully.

To select a different theme, go to the  Design tab  in the Ribbon, and click on the  dropdown arrow  in the  Themes section .

For this tutorial, let’s select the  Frame  theme and then choose the third Variant in the theme. Doing so changes the layout, colors, and fonts of your presentation.

Note: The theme dropdown area is also where you can import or save custom themes. To see my favorite places to find professional PowerPoint templates and themes (and recommendations for why I like them), read my guide here .

C. How to change a slide background in PowerPoint

The next thing to decide is how you want your background to look for the entire presentation. In the  Variants area, you can see four background options.

For this example, we want our presentation to have a dark background, so let’s select Style 3. When you do so, you’ll notice that:

• The background color automatically changes across all slides
• The color of the text on most of the slides automatically changes to white so that it’s visible on the dark background
• The colors of the objects on slides #6 and #7 also adjust, in a way we may not want (we’ll likely have to make some manual adjustments to these slides)

Note: If you want to change the slide background for just that one slide, don’t left-click the style. Instead, right-click it and select Apply to Selected Slides .

After you change the background for your entire presentation, you can easily adjust the background for an individual slide.

Inside the Format Background pane, you can see you have the following options:

• Gradient fill
• Picture or texture fill
• Pattern fill
• Hide background

You can explore these options to find the PowerPoint background that best fits your presentation.

D. How to change your color palette in PowerPoint

Another thing you may want to adjust in your presentation, is the color scheme. In the picture below you can see the Theme Colors we are currently using for this presentation.

Each PowerPoint theme comes with its own color palette. By default, the Office theme includes the Office color palette. This affects the colors you are presented with when you format any element within your presentation (text, shapes, SmartArt, etc.).

The good news is that the colors here are easy to change. To switch color palettes, simply:

• Go to the  Design tab in the Ribbon
• In the Variants area, click on the  dropdown arrow  and select  Colors
• Select  the color palette (or theme colors) you want

You can choose among the pre-built color palettes from Office, or you can customize them to create your own.

As you build your presentation, make sure you use the colors from your theme to format objects. That way, changing the color palette adjusts all the colors in your presentation automatically.

E. How to change your fonts in PowerPoint

Just as we changed the color palette, you can do the same for the fonts.

Each PowerPoint theme comes with its own font combination. By default, the Office theme includes the Office font pairing. This affects the fonts that are automatically assigned to all text in your presentation.

The good news is that the font pairings are easy to change. To switch your Theme Fonts, simply:

• Go to the  Design tab  in the Ribbon
• Click on the  dropdown arrow  in the  Variants  area
• Select  Fonts
• Select  the font pairing you want

You can choose among the pre-built fonts from Office, or you can customize them to create your own.

If you are working with PowerPoint presentations on both Mac and PC computers, make sure you choose a safe PowerPoint font. To see a list of the safest PowerPoint fonts, read our guide here .

If you receive a PowerPoint presentation and the wrong fonts were used, you can use the Replace Fonts dialog box to change the fonts across your entire presentation. For details, read our guide here .

Adding Animations & Transitions (optional)

The final step to make a PowerPoint presentation compelling, is to consider using animations and transitions. These are by no means necessary to a good presentation, but they may be helpful in your situation.

A. Adding PowerPoint animations

PowerPoint has an incredibly robust animations engine designed to power your creativity. That being said, it’s also easy to get started with basic animations.

Animations are movements that you can apply to individual objects on your slide.

To add a PowerPoint animation to an element of your slide, simply:

• Select the  element
• Go to the  Animations tab in the Ribbon
• Click on the  dropdown arrow  to view your options
• Select the  animation  you want

You can add animations to multiple objects at one time by selecting them all first and then applying the animation.

B. How to preview a PowerPoint animation

There are three ways to preview a PowerPoint animation:

• Click on the Preview button in the Animations tab
• Click on the little star  next to the slide
• Play the slide in Slide Show Mode

To learn other ways to run your slide show, see our guide on presenting a PowerPoint slide show with shortcuts .

To adjust the settings of your animations, explore the options in the  Effect Options ,  Advanced Animation  and the  Timing  areas of the  Animation tab .

Note:  To see how to make objects appear and disappear in your slides by clicking a button,  read our guide here .

C. How to manage your animations in PowerPoint

The best way to manage lots of animations on your slide is with the Animation Pane . To open it, simply:

• Navigate to the  Animations tab
• Select the  Animation Pane

Inside the Animation Pane, you’ll see all of the different animations that have been applied to objects on your slide, with their numbers marked as pictured above.

Note: To see examples of PowerPoint animations that can use in PowerPoint, see our list of PowerPoint animation tutorials here .

D. How to add transitions to your PowerPoint presentation

PowerPoint has an incredibly robust transition engine so that you can dictate how your slides change from one to the other. It is also extremely easy to add transitions to your slides.

In PowerPoint, transitions are the movements (or effects) you see as you move between two slides.

To add a transition to a PowerPoint slide, simply:

• Select the  slide
• Go to the  Transitions tab in the Ribbon
• In the Transitions to This Slide area, click on the  dropdown arrow  to view your options
• Select the  transition  you want

To adjust the settings of the transition, explore the options in the  Timing  area of the Transitions tab.

You can also add the same transition to multiple slides. To do that, select them in the  Slides Pane  and apply the transition.

E. How to preview a transition in PowerPoint

There are three ways to preview your PowerPoint transitions (just like your animations):

• Click on the Preview  button in the Transitions tab
• Click on the little star  beneath the slide number in the thumbnail view

Note:  In 2016, PowerPoint added a cool new transition, called Morph. It operates a bit differently from other transitions. For a detailed tutorial on how to use the cool Morph transition,  see our step-by-step article here .

Save Your PowerPoint Presentation

After you’ve built your presentation and made all the adjustments to your slides, you’ll want to save your presentation. YOu can do this several different ways.

To save a PowerPoint presentation using your Ribbon, simply:

• Navigate to the  File tab
•  Select  Save As  on the left
• Choose  where you want to save your presentation
• Name  your presentation and/or adjust your file type settings
• Click  Save

You can alternatively use the  Ctrl+S keyboard shortcut to save your presentation. I recommend using this shortcut frequently as you build your presentation to make sure you don’t lose any of your work.

This is the standard way to save a presentation. However, there may be a situation where you want to save your presentation as a different file type.

To learn how to save your presentation as a PDF, see our guide on converting PowerPoint to a PDF .

How to save your PowerPoint presentation as a template

Once you’ve created a presentation that you like, you may want to turn it into a template. The easiest – but not technically correct – way, is to simply create a copy of your current presentation and then change the content.

But be careful! A PowerPoint template is a special type of document and it has its own parameters and behaviors.

If you’re interested in learning about how to create your own PowerPoint template from scratch, see our guide on how to create a PowerPoint template .

Printing Your PowerPoint Presentation

After finishing your PowerPoint presentation, you may want to print it out on paper. Printing your slides is relatively easy.

To open the Print dialog box, you can either:

• Hit Ctrl+P on your keyboard
• Or go to the Ribbon and click on File and then Print

Inside the Print dialog box, you can choose from the various printing settings:

• Printer: Select a printer to use (or print to PDF or OneNote)
• Slides: Choose which slides you want to print
• Layout: Determine how many slides you want per page (this is where you can print the notes, outline, and handouts)
• Collated or uncollated (learn what collated printing means here )
• Color: Choose to print in color, grayscale or black & white

There are many more options for printing your PowerPoint presentations. Here are links to more in-depth articles:

• How to print multiple slides per page
• How to print your speaker notes in PowerPoint
• How to save PowerPoint as a picture presentation

So that’s how to create a PowerPoint presentation if you are brand new to it. We’ve also included a ton of links to helpful resources to boost your PowerPoint skills further.

When you are creating your presentation, it is critical to first focus on the content (what you are trying to say) before getting lost inserting and playing with elements. The clearer you are on what you want to present, the easier it will be to build it out in PowerPoint.

If you enjoyed this article, you can learn more about our PowerPoint training courses and other presentation resources by  visiting us here .

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8 tips to make the best powerpoint presentations.

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This old third-party sonos app fixed my speaker issues, miss the old windows sounds here’s how to bring them back in windows 11, quick links, table of contents, start with a goal, less is more, consider your typeface, make bullet points count, limit the use of transitions, skip text where possible, think in color, take a look from the top down, bonus: start with templates.

Slideshows are an intuitive way to share complex ideas with an audience, although they're dull and frustrating when poorly executed. Here are some tips to make your Microsoft PowerPoint presentations sing while avoiding common pitfalls.

It all starts with identifying what we're trying to achieve with the presentation. Is it informative, a showcase of data in an easy-to-understand medium? Or is it more of a pitch, something meant to persuade and convince an audience and lead them to a particular outcome?

It's here where the majority of these presentations go wrong with the inability to identify the talking points that best support our goal. Always start with a goal in mind: to entertain, to inform, or to share data in a way that's easy to understand. Use facts, figures, and images to support your conclusion while keeping structure in mind (Where are we now and where are we going?).

I've found that it's helpful to start with the ending. Once I know how to end a presentation, I know how best to get to that point. I start by identifying the takeaway---that one nugget that I want to implant before thanking everyone for their time---and I work in reverse to figure out how best to get there.

Your mileage, of course, may vary. But it's always going to be a good idea to put in the time in the beginning stages so that you aren't reworking large portions of the presentation later. And that starts with a defined goal.

A slideshow isn't supposed to include everything. It's an introduction to a topic, one that we can elaborate on with speech. Anything unnecessary is a distraction. It makes the presentation less visually appealing and less interesting, and it makes you look bad as a presenter.

This goes for text as well as images. There's nothing worse, in fact, than a series of slides where the presenter just reads them as they appear. Your audience is capable of reading, and chances are they'll be done with the slide, and browsing Reddit, long before you finish. Avoid putting the literal text on the screen, and your audience will thank you.

Related: How to Burn Your PowerPoint to DVD

Right off the bat, we're just going to come out and say that Papyrus and Comic Sans should be banned from all PowerPoint presentations, permanently. Beyond that, it's worth considering the typeface you're using and what it's saying about you, the presenter, and the presentation itself.

Consider choosing readability over aesthetics, and avoid fancy fonts that could prove to be more of a distraction than anything else. A good presentation needs two fonts: a serif and sans-serif. Use one for the headlines and one for body text, lists, and the like. Keep it simple. Veranda, Helvetica, Arial, and even Times New Roman are safe choices. Stick with the classics and it's hard to botch this one too badly.

There reaches a point where bullet points become less of a visual aid and more of a visual examination.

Bullet points should support the speaker, not overwhelm his audience. The best slides have little or no text at all, in fact. As a presenter, it's our job to talk through complex issues, but that doesn't mean that we need to highlight every talking point.

Instead, think about how you can break up large lists into three or four bullet points. Carefully consider whether you need to use more bullet points, or if you can combine multiple topics into a single point instead. And if you can't, remember that there's no one limiting the number of slides you can have in a presentation. It's always possible to break a list of 12 points down into three pages of four points each.

Animation, when used correctly, is a good idea. It breaks up slow-moving parts of a presentation and adds action to elements that require it. But it should be used judiciously.

Adding a transition that wipes left to right between every slide or that animates each bullet point in a list, for example, starts to grow taxing on those forced to endure the presentation. Viewers get bored quickly, and animations that are meant to highlight specific elements quickly become taxing.

That's not to say that you can't use animations and transitions, just that you need to pick your spots. Aim for no more than a handful of these transitions for each presentation. And use them in spots where they'll add to the demonstration, not detract from it.

Sometimes images tell a better story than text can. And as a presenter, your goal is to describe points in detail without making users do a lot of reading. In these cases, a well-designed visual, like a chart, might better convey the information you're trying to share.

The right image adds visual appeal and serves to break up longer, text-heavy sections of the presentation---but only if you're using the right images. A single high-quality image can make all the difference between a success and a dud when you're driving a specific point home.

When considering text, don't think solely in terms of bullet points and paragraphs. Tables, for example, are often unnecessary. Ask yourself whether you could present the same data in a bar or line chart instead.

Color is interesting. It evokes certain feelings and adds visual appeal to your presentation as a whole. Studies show that color also improves interest, comprehension, and retention. It should be a careful consideration, not an afterthought.

You don't have to be a graphic designer to use color well in a presentation. What I do is look for palettes I like, and then find ways to use them in the presentation. There are a number of tools for this, like Adobe Color , Coolors , and ColorHunt , just to name a few. After finding a palette you enjoy, consider how it works with the presentation you're about to give. Pastels, for example, evoke feelings of freedom and light, so they probably aren't the best choice when you're presenting quarterly earnings that missed the mark.

It's also worth mentioning that you don't need to use every color in the palette. Often, you can get by with just two or three, though you should really think through how they all work together and how readable they'll be when layered. A simple rule of thumb here is that contrast is your friend. Dark colors work well on light backgrounds, and light colors work best on dark backgrounds.

Spend some time in the Slide Sorter before you finish your presentation. By clicking the four squares at the bottom left of the presentation, you can take a look at multiple slides at once and consider how each works together. Alternatively, you can click "View" on the ribbon and select "Slide Sorter."

Are you presenting too much text at once? Move an image in. Could a series of slides benefit from a chart or summary before you move on to another point?

It's here that we have the opportunity to view the presentation from beyond the single-slide viewpoint and think in terms of how each slide fits, or if it fits at all. From this view, you can rearrange slides, add additional ones, or delete them entirely if you find that they don't advance the presentation.

The difference between a good presentation and a bad one is really all about preparation and execution. Those that respect the process and plan carefully---not only the presentation as a whole, but each slide within it---are the ones who will succeed.

This brings me to my last (half) point: When in doubt, just buy a template and use it. You can find these all over the web, though Creative Market and GraphicRiver are probably the two most popular marketplaces for this kind of thing. Not all of us are blessed with the skills needed to design and deliver an effective presentation. And while a pre-made PowerPoint template isn't going to make you a better presenter, it will ease the anxiety of creating a visually appealing slide deck.

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Simple Steps to Make a PowerPoint Presentation

Last Updated: April 28, 2024 Fact Checked

Creating a New PowerPoint

Creating the title slide, adding a new slide, adding content to slides, adding transitions, testing and saving your presentation.

This article was co-authored by wikiHow staff writer, Darlene Antonelli, MA . Darlene Antonelli is a Technology Writer and Editor for wikiHow. Darlene has experience teaching college courses, writing technology-related articles, and working hands-on in the technology field. She earned an MA in Writing from Rowan University in 2012 and wrote her thesis on online communities and the personalities curated in such communities. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 4,332,076 times. Learn more...

Do you want to have your data in a slide show? If you have Microsoft 365, you can use PowerPoint! PowerPoint is a program that's part of the Microsoft Office suite (which you have to pay for) and is available for both Windows and Mac computers. This wikiHow teaches you how to create your own Microsoft PowerPoint presentation on a computer.

How to Make a PowerPoint Presentation

• Open the PowerPoint app, select a template and theme, then like “Create.”
• Click the text box to add your title and subtitle to create your title slide.
• Click the “Insert” tab, then “New Slide” to add another slide.
• Choose the type of slide you want to add, then add text and pictures.
• Rearrange slides by dragging them up or down in the preview box.

Things You Should Know

• Templates make it easy to create vibrant presentations no matter your skill level.
• When adding photos, you can adjust their sizes by clicking and dragging in or out from their corners.
• You can add animated transitions between slides or to individual elements like bullet points and blocks of text.

• If you don't have a Microsoft Office 365 subscription, you can use the website instead of the desktop app. Go to https://powerpoint.office.com/ to use the website version.
• You can also use the mobile app to make presentations, though it's easier to do this on a computer, which has a larger screen, a mouse, and a keyboard.

• If you don't want to use a template, just click the Blank option in the upper-left side of the page and skip to the next part.

• Skip this step if your selected template has no themes available.

• If you're creating a PowerPoint presentation for which an elaborate title slide has been requested, ignore this step.

• You can change the font and size of text used from the Home tab that's in the orange ribbon at the top of the window.

• You can also just leave this box blank if you like.

• You can also click and drag in or out one of a text box's corners to shrink or enlarge the text box.

• On a Mac, you'll click the Home tab instead. [1] X Research source

• Clicking the white slide-shaped box above this option will result in a new text slide being inserted.

• Title Slide
• Title and Content
• Section Header
• Two Content
• Content with Caption
• Picture with Caption

• Naturally, the title slide should be the first slide in your presentation, meaning that it should be the top slide in the left-hand column.

• Skip this step and the next two steps if your selected slide uses a template that doesn't have text boxes in it.

• Text boxes in PowerPoint will automatically format the bulk of your text for you (e.g., adding bullet points) based on the context of the content itself.
• You can add notes that the Presentation will not include (but you'll still be able to see them on your screen) by clicking Notes at the bottom of the slide.

• You can change the font of the selected text by clicking the current font's name and then clicking your preferred font.
• If you want to change the size of the text, click the numbered drop-down box and then click a larger or smaller number based on whether you want to enlarge or shrink the text.
• You can also change the color, bolding, italicization, underlining, and so on from here.

• Photos in particular can be enlarged or shrunk by clicking and dragging out or in one of their corners.

• Remember to keep slides uncluttered and relatively free of distractions. It's best to keep the amount of text per slide to around 33 words or less. [2] X Research source

• Slide content will animate in the order in which you assign transitions. For example, if you animate a photo on the slide and then animate the title, the photo will appear before the title.
• Make your slideshow progress automatically by setting the speed of every transition to align with your speech as well as setting each slide to Advance . [3] X Trustworthy Source Microsoft Support Technical support and product information from Microsoft. Go to source

• If you need to exit the presentation, press Esc .

• Windows - Click File , click Save , double-click This PC , select a save location, enter a name for your presentation, and click Save .
• Mac - Click File , click Save As... , enter the presentation's name in the "Save As" field, select a save location by clicking the "Where" box and clicking a folder, and click Save .

Community Q&A

• If you save your PowerPoint presentation in .pps format instead of the default .ppt format, double-clicking your PowerPoint presentation file will prompt the presentation to open directly into the slideshow view. Thanks Helpful 5 Not Helpful 0
• If you don't have Microsoft Office, you can still use Apple's Keynote program or Google Slides to create a PowerPoint presentation. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0

• Your PowerPoint presentation (or some features in it) may not open in significantly older versions of PowerPoint. Thanks Helpful 1 Not Helpful 2
• Great PowerPoint presentations avoid placing too much text on one slide. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0

You Might Also Like

• ↑ https://onedrive.live.com/view.aspx?resid=DBDCE00C929AA5D8!252&ithint=file%2cpptx&app=PowerPoint&authkey=!AH4O9NxcbehqzIg
• ↑ https://www.virtualsalt.com/powerpoint.htm
• ↑ https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/set-the-timing-and-speed-of-a-transition-c3c3c66f-4cca-4821-b8b9-7de0f3f6ead1#:~:text=To%20make%20the%20slide%20advance,effect%20on%20the%20slide%20finishes .

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Microsoft 365 Life Hacks > Presentations > 10 Ideas for Your Next PowerPoint Night

10 Ideas for Your Next PowerPoint Night

Picture this: a gathering where each slide is a portal to endless fun, evoking emotions you didn’t know a presentation could. Make your next gathering memorable with innovative PowerPoint ideas that captivate, entertain, and engage everyone in the room. Try these ten ideas for your next PowerPoint night:

Fun PowerPoint Night Ideas

Voice, a verb form, indicates the relationship between the subject and the action. In active voice, the subject performs the action on an object directly. This clarity makes active voice preferable for most writing, as exemplified in the sentence from the novel Parable of the Sower:

Tell your story with captivating presentations

Powerpoint empowers you to develop well-designed content across all your devices

1. Friends As Characters From Your Favorite TV Show

Poke fun at your family and friends and see how they compare to your favorite TV show characters. Take note of shared characteristics, or how each person would be best suited to play a particular role.

2. Worst Fashion Trends

Some fashion trends are best left in the past unless you want to unearth them for a fun PowerPoint night. Compile pictures of fashion disasters of the past and present with a presentation showcasing the most cringe-worthy trends. Your guests will be in stitches as they reminisce about their own fashion disasters.

3. Friends’ Worst Pictures on Instagram

Dig deep into the archives of your friends’ Instagram accounts to find their most embarrassing photos. Create a slideshow of their funniest, most awkward, and cringe worthy images for a night of laughter and nostalgia.

4. Celebrity Lookalikes

Find lookalikes for famous celebrities among your friends and family. Compile photos side by side and let the audience guess which celebrity each person resembles.

5. Reality TV Shows People Should Participate In

Imagine your friends and family as contestants on popular reality TV shows. Create mock profiles, challenges, and dramatic twists for each participant, and let the audience vote on who would thrive and who would falter in the reality TV spotlight.

6. Dating App Contenders

Screenshot accounts from a dating app and create a PowerPoint where friends “swipe” the profiles they like. Let the audience vote on the accounts they like and see how your friends’ dating tastes differ.

7. Most Hated Things

You and your friends each make a presentation about something you irrationally cannot stand. Go into detail about how it rubs you the wrong way, whether it’s something silly like the name of a store or song lyrics that simply don’t make sense. Make your case and let your friends have the change to try and change your mind.

8. Office Shenanigans

Compile workplace anecdotes and office memes for a presentation that resonates with anyone who’s ever had a job. It’s easy to bond with friends and family over the absurdities and frustrations in the workplace.

9. Friends’ Toxic Traits

Take a humorous yet insightful look at the less-than-perfect aspects of your friends’ personalities. Create slides highlighting their quirks, idiosyncrasies, and sometimes infuriating habits. From being chronically late to always monopolizing the conversation, explore the traits that make your friends uniquely flawed and lovable.

10. Travel Fails

Share travel mishaps, from lost luggage to language barriers, accompanied by amusing anecdotes and photos. Even when your trips are disastrous, they can make for great stories.

PowerPoint nights are a fun way to bond with your friends and family. Share toxic traits, fashion disasters, celebrity look alike and more to share laughs and embarrassment with your loved ones. For more help with structuring , practicing and delivering your PowerPoint, learn more presentation tips .

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The only good reason to add busy, cluttered slides to your presentation.

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The 2022 Apple Worldwide Developers Conference at the Apple Park in Cupertino, California. (Photo by ... [+] Wu Xiaoling/Xinhua via Getty Images)

We’ve all seen cringe-worthy PowerPoint slides so cluttered with information that they’re nearly impossible to read. You know the ones. The text is reduced to 9-point or 12-point font to squeeze everything in.

Busy slides frustrate the audience because of a concept called ‘cognitive load.’ Too much text, too many numbers, and too many graphs overwhelm our ability to process and retain information.

Effective presenters avoid text-heavy slides. Instead, they favor clean, minimalist designs that are attractive and easy to read. However, there is one reason—and one reason only—to include a busy slide in a persuasive presentation:

Add a busy slide to a presentation only when you intend to overwhelm your audience.

In other words, a slide could contain a mountain of information because it is not meant to be read, consumed, and digested. It’s there to stress a point.

For example, in March, the National Association of Realtors agreed to a massive $418 million settlement over commissions that home buyers and sellers pay to real estate agents in the U.S. Since the settlement might convince prospective home buyers to negotiate lower commissions, real estate agents have had to turn up their persuasive skills to articulate the value they provide.

Recently, Realtor.com launched a digital and print campaign to demonstrate the value agents bring to the transaction. One ad fills the entire length of a standard newspaper. The headline reads:

So, you’re ready to buy a home. Here’s the next 111 to-dos.

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Realtor.com advertisement

Good luck reading the remaining text (on left). It is purposely written in tiny font to squeeze in the dizzying number of details that buyer’s agents navigate to facilitate a home buying transaction

The point of the ad is that home buyers need support. The implication is that you can try to accomplish all the tasks yourself—researching, preparing financial documents, making offers, and considering legal protections. Or you can make just one decision: find a buyer’s agent.

Realtors making presentations to win over clients would be well served to include such a slide—one that's so dense it's almost illegible without a magnifying glass.

There are times when the intentional use of busy slides supports the argument.

Take Apple, for example. The company’s product launches are notable for minimalist and visually appealing slides that contain more photos and images than text.

However, in June, when Apple unveiled new products, features and plans to put artificial intelligence in every corner of its iPhone, the company's speakers intentionally broke the mold by including strategically cluttered slides.

For example, after one speaker highlighted notable updates in macOS Sonoma, the Mac's latest operating system, he projected a slide filled with boxes highlighting dozens of other features: updates to Apple’s browser, Safari, new gaming titles, iPhone mirroring on the desktop, and much more.

The slide only stayed up for 20 seconds. It was far too little time to read everything, but that’s the point—it was intentionally cluttered to put an exclamation point on the product announcement.

The intentional use of clutter is as much of an art as the deliberate use of white space. So get busy, but only when the time is right.

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A 20 legjobb PowerPoint alternatív prezentációs szoftver (2024)

A PowerPoint egy prezentációs szoftver, amelyet a kezel Microsoft. Ez a szoftver segít a fontos információk diavetítésében. A PowerPointnak azonban vannak korlátai, például a com képtelenségeplexegyes témák és korlátozott beépített infografikák. Following A PowerPoint legnépszerűbb bemutatószoftver-alternatíváinak válogatott listája népszerű szolgáltatásaikkal és webhelyhivatkozásaikkal. Ez a prezentációs szoftverlista nyílt forráskódú (ingyenes) és kereskedelmi (fizetős) szoftvereket is tartalmaz. Olvass tovább…

Visme egy olyan eszköz, amely segít megosztani erőteljes vizuális történeteket infografikák, prezentációk és egyéb vizuális tartalmak formájában. Adjon hozzá diagramokat, térképeket, videó-, hang-hivatkozásokat és interaktivitást bármely objektumhoz, hogy lenyűgöző jelentéseket, prezentációkat és infografikákat készítsen.

A legjobb online PowerPoint-alternatív szoftverek: A legjobb választás!

Visme egy olyan eszköz, amely segít megosztani erőteljes vizuális történeteket infografikák, prezentációk és egyéb vizuális tartalmak formájában.

• Adjon hozzá diagramokat, térképeket, videó-, hang-hivatkozásokat és interaktivitást bármely objektumhoz, hogy lenyűgöző jelentéseket, prezentációkat és infografikákat készítsen.
• Több mint 100 elemet, például betűtípusokat, minőségi ikonokat és képeket biztosít.
• Az eszköz lehetővé teszi hang rögzítését.
• Adatvédelmi szabályozással rendelkezik, amely segít tartalmait priváttá, nyilvánossá tenni vagy jelszóval védetté tenni.
• Egy prezentációt közzétehet online, vagy letölthet offline használatra.

Látogat Visme >>

Életre szóló ingyenes alapcsomag

2) Adobe InDesign

Adobe InDesign az Adobe által kifejlesztett szedő és asztali kiadói szoftver. Lehetővé teszi szórólapok, plakátok, brosúrák, hírek készítésétpapers, magazinok és egyebek.

• Ez a PowerPoint alternatíva segít stílusos elrendezések létrehozásában.
• Segít a diavetítések minőségének javításában az információkat megjelenítő táblázatokkal, és könnyedén illeszkedik a különböző méretekhez.
• Lehetővé teszi animált videók, hiperhivatkozások, diaátmenetek és egyebek hozzáadását a diákhoz.
• Több mint 17,000 XNUMX kiváló minőségű betűtípus közül választhat, hogy az információ rendszerezett és könnyen olvasható legyen.

Látogassa meg az Adobe InDesign webhelyet

3) DesignCap

DesignCap egy web-alapú eszköz online prezentációk létrehozásához. Lehetővé teszi bárki számára, hogy professzionális megjelenésű prezentációkat készítsen meglehetősen egyszerű módon, technikai ismeretek nélkül.

• Több ezer professzionálisan megtervezett sablont biztosít különböző témákban.
• Több mint egymillió stock fotó és ikon.
• Rengeteg eszköz, például betűtípusok, diagramok, előre beállított betűtípusok, modulok és háttérképek.
• Beágyazhat diagramstílusokat, például oszlopot, vonalat, táblázatot, sávot, dinamikus térképet stb.
• Szabadon beállíthatja az objektumok színét, méretét, helyzetét, és használhat más praktikus funkciókat, például csoportosítást/csoportbontást, képszerkesztő eszközöket stb.
• Több mentési és megosztási lehetőség a tervek megosztásához bárhol online és offline.

Látogat DesignCap >>

A Vyond egy online program, amely videó PowerPointhoz való hozzáadásával segíti a marketingszakembereket, hogy megnyerő prezentációkat készítsenek.

• Letöltheti a videofájlt, hogy gyorsan lejátszhassa azt bemutató közben, még akkor is, ha gyenge az internetkapcsolat.
• Importálhat GIF-eket, látványelemeket, mozgásokat és hangokat bemutatás .
• A Vyonddal karaktervezérelt történeteket vagy lenyűgöző adatvizualizációkat hozhat létre a közönség bevonása érdekében.

Link: https://www.vyond.com/

Canva egy ingyenes prezentációs alkalmazás, amely lehetővé teszi a közönség bevonását. Olyan dizájnt tartalmaz, amely segít ötletei hatékony kifejezésében; így fejlesztheti a kommunikátorrá válás képességét.

• Több száz professzionálisan megtervezett elrendezéshez férhet hozzá bármilyen témában, amely érdekli.
• Lehetővé teszi a prezentáció testreszabását iskolai vagy munkahelyi használatra.
• Beszédbuborék-készítővel rendelkezik, amelyet bármilyen fényképhez hozzáadhat.
• Halványítsa el bármelyik fényképet az átlátszósági eszközzel canva.

Link: https://www.canva.com/

6) Zoho Show

Az eszköz lehetővé teszi prezentációk létrehozását, együttműködését, sugárzását és közzétételét. Stabil URL-címet adhat teljesítményének, és megoszthatja diakészletét a világgal a minőség megőrzésével.

• Az eszköz zűrzavarmentes kialakítása segít kiemelni történeteit.
• Több mint 20 témával és 100 betűtípussal rendelkezik.
• Az adatokat vizuálisan kezelheti és javíthatja olyan eszközökkel, mint az alakzatok vagy a formázott szöveg box, diagramok és táblázatok.
• Körvonalakat adhat a szöveghez, bármilyen színnel kitöltheti a címeket vagy a kulcspontokat, vagy akár tükröződéseket is hozzáadhat.
• Válasszon egy előre meghatározott elrendezést a diagram sablonból történő beszúrásához.

Link: https://www.zoho.com/show/

A Ludus egy prezentációs alkalmazás kreatív szakemberek számára. Lehetővé teszi, hogy prezentációkat készítsen igazán együttműködő módon. Ez az egyik legjobb ingyenes PowerPoint alternatíva, amely lehetővé teszi PDF/HTML fájlok exportálását.

• Színválasztót biztosít a szín kiválasztásához.
• A Ludus iránymutatást ad ahhoz, hogy egy tárgyat a megfelelő helyre helyezhessen.
• Építsen és ossza meg ötleteit másokkal.
• Támogatja az SVG, JPG, GIF és PNG képeket.
• Betűtípusait feltöltheti a Ludusba.
• A vágólapról URL-eket illeszthet be harmadik féltől származó tartalom beágyazásához.
• Lehetővé teszi harmadik féltől származó tartalmak integrálását, mint pl YouTube or Vimeo videók.

Link: https://ludus.one/

8) Beautiful.ai

Beautiful.ai egy olyan eszköz, amellyel percek alatt jobb prezentációkat készíthet. Csak ki kell gondolnia egy ötletet, ki kell választania egy sablont, és hatékonyan és szépen kell dolgoznia.

• Segít abban, hogy gyönyörű javaslatokat és hangokat készítsen
• Adjon hozzá tartalmat, és a dia automatikusan hozzáigazítja azokat.
• Több millió ingyenes ikont és fényképet kínál.

Link: https://www.beautiful.ai/

9) Slidebean

A Slidebean egy olyan szoftver, amely segít professzionális megjelenésű diák létrehozásában. A szoftver segítségével pillanatok alatt megtervezheti a prezentációt Mesterséges Intelligencia .

• A sablon kialakítása úgy van elrendezve, hogy javítsa az esztétikai vonzerőt és az olvashatóságot.
• Automatikusan felismeri a képek fontos elemeit, és megfelelően igazítja azokat
• Az eszköz automatikusan kiértékeli a sok diát, hogy megtalálja a tökéleteset.

Link: https://slidebean.com/

A Prezi egy olyan eszköz, amely tervezősablonokat, több millió újrafelhasználható prezentációt és egy PowerPoint-Prezi konvertálót tartalmaz.

• Ez a PowerPoint-alternatíva rengeteg testreszabott grafikát, diagramot és elrendezést tartalmaz, amelyek segítségével gyorsan saját prezentációt készíthet.
• Gyors hatást gyakorolni
• A prezentáció készítése közben együttműködhet a csapattal.

Link: https://prezi.com/

11) Google Diák

A Google Slides a Google által fejlesztett prezentációs alkalmazás. Ez az egyik legjobb PowerPoint alternatíva, amely valós idejű együttműködést tesz lehetővé a szerkesztők között, és számos lehetőséget kínál a prezentációk megosztására.

• A Google Diák több száz betűtípust, beágyazott videót, bemutatótémát, animációt stb. kínál.
• Számos portfólió, pitch és egyéb előre elkészített prezentáció közül választhat.
• Ez az eszköz jobb, mint a PowerPoint, amely lehetővé teszi a csapat számára, hogy ugyanabban a prezentációban dolgozzanak.
• Prezentációját bárhol, bármikor megkaphatja és szerkesztheti.

Link: https://www.google.co.uk/slides/about/

12) Apple Keynote

Az Apple Keynote segítségével könnyen készíthet emlékezetes prezentációkat. Bármely iPaden használhatja az Apple ceruzát diagramok vagy illusztrációk készítéséhez.

• Valós idejű együttműködést biztosít, így a csapattal együtt dolgozhat, akár iPhone-on, iPaden, Macen, akár PC-n.
• Több mint 30 szemet gyönyörködtető téma közül választhat.
• Használhatja iPhone készülékét dokumentumok vagy fényképek beolvasására, és azonnal megtekintheti a Mac gép Keynote-jában.
• Használhat diákat galériákkal, fényképekkel, diagramokkal, matematikai egyenletekkel és több mint 700 testreszabható alakzattal.
• Animáljon objektumokat útvonallal ujjával vagy Apple Pencil segítségével iPaden vagy iPhone-on.

Link: https://www.apple.com/in/keynote/

Az Emaze egy ingyenes online alkalmazás prezentációk létrehozásához és megosztásához a közösségi médián vagy plmail. Ez az egyik legjobb program, mint például a PowerPoint, amely lehetővé teszi, hogy prezentációját történetté alakítsa.

• Együttműködhet csapatával, prezentációt tölthet le HTML, MP4 és PDF formátumban, és távolról prezentálhat a világ bármely pontjáról.
• Több száz 2D és 3D prezentációs sablon közül választhat.
• Írjon és szerkesszen szöveget, adjon hozzá videókat, fényképeket, élő weboldalakat, gif-képeket, egyéni effektusokat, vállalati márkaépítést stb.

Link: https://www.emaze.com/

14) Powtoon

A Powtoon egy animált prezentációs alkalmazás, amely lehetővé teszi a felhasználók számára, hogy történeteket készítsenek magyarázó videókhoz vagy prezentációkhoz.

• A Powtoon jól működik szinkronhangokkal, és segít egy nagyszerű forgatókönyv integrálásában fantasztikus animációs karakterekkel.
• Ezt az eszközt online elérheti, és percek alatt dinamikus prezentációkat hozhat létre.
• Ennek az eszköznek a sablonjai könnyen navigálhatók, és vizuális elemet adnak a prezentációhoz.

Link: https://www.powtoon.com/

15) FlowVella

A FlowVella egy mobilra készült alkalmazás, amely interaktívvá teszi a prezentációt. Kombinálhat szavakat, képeket, videókat, galériákat, linkeket és PDF-fájlokat, hogy a történetet interaktív beszélgetéssé alakítsa.

• A FlowVella segítségével bármikor dolgozhat; iPad, iPhone vagy Mac.
• Internetkapcsolat nélkül is létrehozhat prezentációt.
• Lehetővé teszi PDF dokumentumok, videók és képek hozzáadását.
• Ez az eszköz lehetővé teszi megosztható egyéni URL létrehozását.
• Tekintse meg, kik tekintették meg a prezentációt.

Link: https://flowvella.com/

16) Haiku Deck

A Haiku Deck egyszerű és egyszerű módot kínál prezentáció készítésére iPaden, weben vagy iPhone-on. Ez az egyik legjobb alkalmazás, mint például a PowerPoint, amely ösztönzi a legjobb prezentációs gyakorlatokat azáltal, hogy segíti a tanulókat üzeneteik egyszerűsítésében és az adatok egyértelmű bemutatásában.

• Választhat stílusos elrendezéseket, betűtípusokat és képszűrőket anélkül, hogy dollárt fizetne a grafikusnak.
• Több mint 40 millió ingyenes Creative Commons képhez férhet hozzá.
• A prezentáció a felhőben található, így megoszthatja a hozzá kapcsolódó bármely eszközzel.

Link: https://www.haikudeck.com/

17) Zseniálisan

A Genially egy eszköz prezentációk, infografikák, CVS, videoprezentációk, vetélkedők, ePosterek, dossziék stb. készítéséhez. Ezzel az eszközzel bárki hihetetlen vizuális történeteket hozhat létre a jobb kommunikációs élmény érdekében.

• Ez az egyik legjobb PPT alternatíva, amely interaktív vizuális élményeket hoz létre, amelyek növelik a kommunikációs készségeket.
• Animált és interaktív alkotásokat is hozzáadhat a prezentációhoz.
• Segít valós időben elemezni, hogyan használják fel alkotásait.

Link: https://www.genial.ly/en

18) Libre Office Impress

LibreOffice Az Impress lehetővé teszi professzionális diavetítések készítését, amelyek tartalmazzák a drawing objektumok, diagramok, multimédia, szöveg és számos egyéb elem.

• LibreOffice sokoldalúságot biztosít a diák létrehozásában és szerkesztésében különféle módok használatával: Normál, Vázlat és Jegyzetek.
• Szövegből vonzó 2D és 3D képeket adhat hozzá.
• Lehetővé teszi a diák megjelenítési sorrendjének kezelését.
• Különféle sablonokat tölthet le a webhelyről LibreOffice sablon tárház.

Link: https://www.libreoffice.org/discover/impress/

Mik a prezentációs szoftver előnyei?

Íme a prezentációs szoftver fő előnyei:

• Nagyon egyszerűvé teszi az információk megjelenítését
• Lehetővé teszi képek, grafikonok, táblázatok, diagramok, videók stb. hozzáadását.
• Tervek és sablonok széles választékát kínálja
• Lehetővé teszi a prezentációk egyszerű megosztását
• Fogd és vidd funkciót biztosít
• Különféle testreszabási lehetőségeket kínál
• Nem igényel semmilyen technikai tudást

Hogyan tehetném jobbá az előadásomat?

Following Ezek a pontok segítenek jobbá tenni a prezentációt:

• A prezentáció nem tartalmazhat több mint 10 diát.
• Az előadás maximum 20 perces legyen
• Ne használjon 30-nál kisebb betűméretet.
• Mutassa ki szenvedélyét, és összpontosítson a közönség igényeire.

Hogyan válasszuk ki a legjobb prezentációs szoftvert?

Érdemes megfontolni a következőtwing tényezők a legjobb prezentációs szoftver kiválasztásakor:

• Ár adott esetben
• Könnyű beállítani és használni
• A prezentációs szoftver hardver/szoftver követelményei
• Vélemények prezentációs szoftverekről
• Előre elkészített sablonok és elrendezések
• Több eszköz hozzáadásának támogatása, például grafikonok, diagramok, képek, hangok, videók stb.
• Együttműködési jellemzők
• Felhő támogatás

A prezentációs szoftver egy alkalmazás vagy program, amelyet az információk diavetítés formájában történő megjelenítésére használnak. Tartalmaz egy szerkesztőt, amely lehetővé teszi a szöveg beszúrását és formázását, egy módszert grafikus képek beszúrására és manipulálására, valamint egy diavetítő rendszert a tartalom megjelenítéséhez. Tekintse meg a legjobb Office Suite szoftvereket is: Kattintson ide

A prezentációs szoftver lehetővé teszi egy adott témával kapcsolatos információk és adatok megjelenítését. Lehetővé teszi képek, táblázatok, diagramok, grafikonok stb. felvételét a szöveges információkkal együtt. Mindezek az információk együttesen diavetítés formájában jelennek meg, ami megkönnyíti a nézők számára a téma megértését.

Following a legnépszerűbb ingyenes szoftverek online prezentációk készítéséhez:

• Google Diák
• Apple kulcstartó

Following ezek a legjobb videó prezentációs szoftverek:

A legjobb online prezentációs szoftver | Alternatív PowerPoint-eszközök: A legjobb választás

• Computer Vision
• Federated Learning
• Reinforcement Learning
• Natural Language Processing
• New Releases
• Advisory Board Members
• 🐝 Partnership and Promotion

• Recognize Your Audience : Understand who your audience is, as that will help you customize your content to meet their needs and preferences.
• Define Your Purpose : Clearly state the purpose and aim of your presentation. Knowing your exact goal can help you create material that will educate, convince, or entertain.

Brainstorming Ideas with ChatGPT

ChatGPT is excellent for generating ideas. Here’s how to get the best out of it:

• Prompt Examples : Use prompts like “What are some innovative ideas for a presentation on Artificial intelligence (AI)?” or “How can I make a presentation on Machine Learning (ML) engaging?”

• Topic Refinement : Ask ChatGPT to narrow down broad topics. For example, “What are the key points I should cover in a presentation about Machine Learning for beginners?”

Structuring Your Presentation

A well-structured presentation is crucial for maintaining audience engagement. Use ChatGPT to outline your presentation:

• Beginning : Request ChatGPT to write an engaging opening paragraph. For instance: “How can I effectively introduce the topic of Machine Learning (ML)?”

• Main Content : Divide your text into manageable chunks. Use prompts such as “List the main points for a section on the benefits of Machine Learning in education.”

• Conclusion : Conclude with a powerful statement. For instance: “How can I summarize the key takeaways of my presentation on Machine Learning?”

Creating Slide Content

Once you have the structure, it’s time to fill in the details. ChatGPT can help you prepare the content for each slide:

• Text Content : Use writing exercises like “Write a brief sentence discussing how Machine Learning has affected modern businesses.”

• Bullet Points : Highlight important details in bullet points. For example: “Convert this paragraph into bullet points.”

• Visual Suggestions : Ask ChatGPT for suggestions on images. For example: “Create some images or charts that I should include in the presentation about the benefits of Machine Learning in day-to-day life?”

Designing the Presentation

While ChatGPT can’t design slides directly, it can offer valuable advice:

• Slide Layouts : Request advice on how to organize your slides. For instance: “What is the best layout for the main body of this presentation?”

• Color Schemes : Find color schemes that work well for your subject. For instance: “Show me the color scheme I should use for a Machine Learning and Generative AI presentation?”

• Font Choices : You should always select a readable font. For instance, “What fonts are best for a technical professional business presentation?”

Practicing Your Presentation

ChatGPT can even help you practice your delivery:

• Q&A Preparation : Prepare for audience questions during the Q&A period. For example: “What questions might be asked after a presentation on Machine Learning?”

• Feedback and Enhancement : To improve your content, simulate feedback from the audience with ChatGPT. For example: “How can I improve my slide on Machine Learning?”

In Conclusion:

Using ChatGPT to create PowerPoint presentations can greatly improve your content, design, and way of delivery. You can take advantage of its capabilities to create engaging and polished presentations that grab your audience’s attention. Whether you’re presenting in a business meeting, academic setting, or public event, ChatGPT can be your valuable assistant in creating outstanding presentations.

Nishant, the Product Growth Manager at Marktechpost, is interested in learning about artificial intelligence (AI), what it can do, and its development. His passion for trying something new and giving it a creative twist helps him intersect marketing with tech. He is assisting the company in leading toward growth and market recognition.

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