different ways of creating a new presentation in powerpoint

7 Steps to Create a Presentation in PowerPoint (+ Templates)

Learn essential steps and tips to move beyond data slides. Discover why PowerPoint falls flat and unveil next-gen tools for impactful presentations.

Hadar Peretz

6 minute read

Short answer

7 steps to create a presentation in PowerPoint

Begin with a surprise or bold statement.

Provide necessary background information.

Frame your presentation as a story.

Keep the text concise and meaningful.

Use visuals to complement the text.

Incorporate interactive design.

Conclude with actionable insights.

Effective data and visual presentation requires specific knowledge

Displaying complex data and project visuals via multimedia elements demands substantial knowledge.

It's not merely about presenting data but doing so in a manner that's intuitive and engaging for the audience.

Utilizing graphs, charts, videos, and interactive animations effectively necessitates a good grasp of design principles, storytelling, and data visualization.

Moreover, familiarity with the technology and platforms for creating and sharing these multimedia presentations is crucial.

This blend of design acumen, technological expertise, and succinct communication is key to ensuring the data and project visuals are comprehended well by the audience.

5 benefits of mastering PowerPoint presentations

PowerPoint presentations come with a variety of benefits that make them a popular choice for both professional and educational settings. Here are some of the advantages:

Visual Engagement: Utilize visuals to keep audiences engaged and convey ideas effectively.

Organization: Structured slides ensure a clear, linear flow of content.

Customization: Modify designs to suit different topics or branding needs.

Compatibility and Reusability: Easily share across platforms, and update or reuse presentations.

Supports Multimedia: PowerPoint supports the integration of videos, hyperlinks, and other multimedia elements.

How to make a presentation in PowerPoint? (7 steps)

Creating a compelling presentation in PowerPoint is a blend of artistry and storytelling, combined with a clear understanding of the material at hand.

Let’s break down this process into seven detailed steps to craft a presentation that not only captivates your audience but leaves a lasting impact.

1. Start with a surprising statement, a bold promise, or a mystery

Kicking off with something unexpected grabs your audience's attention right from the outset.

It might be a shocking fact related to your topic, a bold promise of what they'll learn, or a mystery that piques their curiosity.

For instance, if your presentation is about time management , you might start with a surprising statistic about the average amount of time people waste on trivial tasks.

learn how to avoid these presentation starters : overloading facts, over-explaining initially, generic content, relying solely on PowerPoint norms, revealing key benefits early, and focusing on self over audience engagement.

Aim for curiosity-sparking, audience-tailored narratives.

2. Provide context with a bit of background information

Before diving deep, give your audience a clear understanding of the topic at hand. Offer a brief background to set the stage.

Going with the time management example, you could provide some insights into how modern distractions have made managing time more challenging.

3. Structure your presentation within a story framework

Stories are a powerful medium to convey messages. Structuring your presentation as a story keeps your audience engaged.

Introduce a protagonist, which could be an individual, a group, or even your audience, facing a problem that your presentation will help solve.

For instance, narrate a day in the life of a person struggling to manage time and how the techniques you’re about to share turn things around.

4 steps to structuring your presentation within a story framework:

Introduce Setting and Characters: Kickstart by presenting the backdrop and the entities involved, making them relevant to your audience.

Highlight a Conflict or Challenge: Unveil a significant problem or hurdle that the audience can relate to, setting the stage for your solutions.

Propose the Resolution: Unfold your solutions to the earlier stated problem, walking your audience through each resolving step.

Recap and Look Ahead: Conclude by recapping the narrative and offering actionable steps or insights for the audience to ponder upon or implement.

4. Make every word count, and use as few as possible

Conciseness is key. Make sure each word on your slide adds value to your presentation. This approach keeps your slides uncluttered and easy to follow.

For instance, instead of writing a long sentence about the importance of prioritizing tasks, use a brief statement like “Prioritize to Monetize.”

5. Use visuals only to support your presentation text

Utilizing visuals judiciously within your presentation is crucial. Visuals should complement your narrative, not overshadow it.

Explore the steps to make a presentation creative , apply these methods, and see your skills enhance, leading to captivating presentations.

The essence is to employ images, graphs, and charts to enhance understanding or convey a message more efficiently.

For instance, a simple pie chart can swiftly illustrate how much time is saved by effective prioritization.

By adhering to this guideline, you ensure that your audience remains focused on the key messages being delivered, with visuals serving as a supportive tool rather than a distraction.

6. Use interactive design to make your audience active participants

Engage your audience with interactive elements. Incorporating clickable links, embedded videos, or live polls can make your presentation more interactive and engaging.

For instance, a live poll could be used to understand the audience’s prior knowledge about time management.

7. End by telling your audience what they can do with what they’ve learned

Your conclusion should empower your audience to apply the learnings in their lives. Recap the key points and provide actionable steps they can take post-presentation.

For instance, share a list of time-management tools or a 30-day challenge to improve productivity.

By following these seven steps, you’re on the path to mastering the art of creating impactful PowerPoint presentations.

Each step is geared towards making your content more engaging, understandable, and memorable, ensuring that your message not only resonates with your audience but prompts action long after your presentation concludes.

Browse basic examples about how to end a presentation and discover what should be on the last slide of the presentation.

8 pro tips for crafting effective PowerPoint presentations

Crafting an effective PowerPoint presentation demands a blend of clear objectives, engaging narrative, visual creativity, and audience-centric communication.

Here are key tips to guide you in this endeavor:

Know Your Audience: Tailor your message to match audience expectations.

Clear Objective: Define the primary goal of your presentation.

Engaging Storyline: Employ a compelling narrative to convey your message.

Simplicity is Key: Keep content concise and language simple.

Visual Aids: Use visuals like images and charts to support text.

Practice and Prepare: Familiarize yourself with your content and anticipate questions.

Interactive Elements: Incorporate polls or Q&A to engage the audience.

C all to Action: End with a clear call to action guiding the audience on the next steps.

Why it's time to move to the next-gen presentation tools

Making a memorable presentation requires more than just PowerPoint slides. In fact, making a PowerPoint presentation interesting is impossible .

In today's digital era, engaging your audience demands innovative tools and a narrative approach.

Let’s explore a game-changing tool for impactful presentations.

Embrace interactivity

Interactive presentations foster real-time engagement, turning monologues into dialogues.

Tools like Storydoc offer a fresh, engaging approach to sharing your message.

With the right tools, creating lasting impressions is a breeze. It’s time to change the narrative and make your presentations both informative and inspiring.

Here’s our CEO, Itai Amoza, discussing the key elements that make a presentation engaging:

Best tool for making an effective presentation

Traditionally, PowerPoint or Google Slides were the go-to platforms for crafting presentations, offering simplicity.

However, to truly engage modern audiences, stepping up your game is essential. This is where next-gen AI-driven tools like Storydoc come into play.

Unlike static slides, Storydoc enables the creation of interactive, immersive content experiences. It’s not merely about showcasing data, but weaving a compelling narrative that resonates with your audience.

Creative presentation templates

Ever faced the daunting blank slide with a blinking cursor urging creativity? It's like having a stage awaiting your script.

Overcoming this initial challenge can be hefty, but there's a savior - creative presentation templates.

These templates act like a structured canvas, guiding your narrative while leaving room for your unique flair.

Grab a template and witness the simplicity it brings to narrating your distinct tale.

I am a Marketing Specialist at Storydoc, I research, analyze and write on our core topics of business presentations, sales, and fundraising. I love talking to clients about their successes and failures so I can get a rounded understanding of their world.

Found this post useful?

Subscribe to our monthly newsletter.

Get notified as more awesome content goes live.

(No spam, no ads, opt-out whenever)

You've just joined an elite group of people that make the top performing 1% of sales and marketing collateral.

Create your best presentation to date

Try Storydoc interactive presentation maker for 14 days free (keep any presentation you make forever!)

• Interface and Basics

Creating New Slides: Three Ways in PowerPoint

Did you know these three ways to create slides in PowerPoint? These ways can be used as sequential steps.

Author: Geetesh Bajaj

Product/Version: PowerPoint

OS: Windows and Mac OS X

Date Created: September 16, 2010 Last Updated: August 18, 2023

Learn PowerPoint

Solve this problem: Change PowerPoint slide size, and you lose fonts, backgrounds, and colors!

This question has been asked so often: how many ways are there to create new slides. There may be many ways, but broadly speaking all these techniques fall into three separate ways. You can use either one of these ways, or all three!

Here are the three ways, as shown in Figure 1 , below:

• Add new slides
• Import and reuse existing slides
• Import a structured outline

If you see Figure 1 , you'll notice that we have represented these three ways by using overlapping circles. This means you don't have to use just one way. You can combine whatever approach works best for you. Taking this further, we changed the overlapping circles to subsequent circles, as shown in Figure 2 , below.

This indicates that you should explore using a sequential approach, as explained in the following process:

• First create a structured outline so that your content has a sequential flow.
• Then import any existing slides you want to reuse. These could be slides from your own presentation or those from presentations of colleagues and friends (as long as you have their permission).
• Finally add any missing slides directly within your presentation. During this step, you can also add any charts or tables you want to add, or maybe you want to convert some bulleted slides into SmartArt graphics. Pictures too can help your presentation look great if they are relevant to the subject of your presentation.

People Also Ask:

What are the different types of slide layouts available in powerpoint.

The three most common layouts are Title slide, Title and Content slide, and Blank slide. There are many other types of slide layouts available in PowerPoint, but these are the most common. The best layout for your presentation will depend on the content that you are presenting and the style that you want to create.

How can I use a metaphor or analogy to help me explain my concept on a slide?

When using a metaphor or analogy, it is important to make sure that it is clear and relevant to your audience. You should also avoid using metaphors or analogies that are too complicated or that could be misinterpreted.

How can I test my PowerPoint slide with my audience to make sure that it is effective?

First, show the slide to a small group of people and ask for their feedback. You can also record yourself presenting the slide and watch it back to see how it flows. If this is an important presentation, get feedback from a professional presentation coach.

01 03 01 - Creating Slides: Creating New Slides: Three Ways in PowerPoint (Glossary Page)

You May Also Like: Beauty and the Beast: Eyeful’s Adaptation in PowerPoint | How to Create Custom PowerPoint Themes to Fit Your Brand

Popular Posts

Jeopardy-Like PowerPoint Template (25 Questions)

Want to play a Jeopardy-like game using PowerPoint slides? Yes, this is absolutely doable but making PowerPoint slides with all the interactivity and layouts takes too much work. Fortunately, we have done the work for you. just download our Jeopardy-like 25 (5x5) question PowerPoint template, replace the placeholders provided for questions, answers, and categories, and you’re done! You'll still need a real human being to track scores and you could soon be playing this amazing game as part of a fun exercise, a training program, or even a quiz show.

Download and play your own Jeopardy-like game

This is the original page. An AMP (Accelerated Mobile Page) version of this page is also available for those on mobile platforms, at Creating New Slides: Three Ways in PowerPoint .

Microsoft and the Office logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries.

Home | PowerPoint | Photoshop | PowerPoint Templates | PowerPoint Tutorials | Blog | Notes | Ezine | Media Kit | Feedback | Site Map | About Us | Contact Us Link to Us | Privacy | Testimonials PowerPoint Backgrounds | Christian PowerPoint Backgrounds | Business PowerPoint Presentation Templates

Plagiarism will be detected by Copyscape

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.

Download Free

All fields are required.

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.

Don't forget to share this post!

Related articles.

How to Create an Infographic in Under an Hour — the 2024 Guide [+ Free Templates]

20 Great Examples of PowerPoint Presentation Design [+ Templates]

How to Create the Best PowerPoint Presentations [Examples & Templates]

How to Write an Ecommerce Business Plan [Examples & Template]

Get Buyers to Do What You Want: The Power of Temptation Bundling in Sales

How to Create an Engaging 5-Minute Presentation

How to Start a Presentation [+ Examples]

120 Presentation Topic Ideas Help You Hook Your Audience

The Presenter's Guide to Nailing Your Next PowerPoint

How to Create a Stunning Presentation Cover Page [+ Examples]

Marketing software that helps you drive revenue, save time and resources, and measure and optimize your investments — all on one easy-to-use platform

A step-by-step guide to captivating PowerPoint presentation design

november 20, 2023

by Corporate PowerPoint Girl

Do you often find yourself stuck with a lackluster PowerPoint presentation, desperately seeking ways to make it more engaging and visually appealing? If your boss has ever told you to "please fix" a presentation and you didn't know where to start, you're not alone. In this article, we'll walk you through a straightforward method to transform your PowerPoint slides into a visually captivating masterpiece. 

Let's dive right in! 

Clean up your slides 

The first step in this journey to presentation excellence is all about decluttering your slides and elevating their impact. Say goodbye to those uninspiring bullet points that often dominate presentations. Instead, focus on what truly matters – the key call-out numbers. By increasing the font size of these numbers, you ensure they take center stage, immediately drawing your audience's attention. 

To make those numbers pop, consider breaking the text after the numbers into the next line and adding a touch of color. The contrast created by pairing a dark color with a lighter shade, like dark teal and light teal or burnt orange with peach, can work wonders. This simple adjustment makes your data more engaging , enhancing the overall impact of your presentation. 

Add dimension with boxes 

Now, let's introduce an element of depth and organization to your slides. By adding boxes, you'll create a visually pleasing structure that guides your audience through the content. In the "Insert" menu, select "Table" and opt for a one-by-one table. Change the table color to a light gray shade, elongate it, and position it neatly to the left of your text. 

To improve readability and aesthetics, increase the spacing between text phrases. A small adjustment in the before spacing setting (setting it to 48) significantly enhances the visual appeal of your slides. 

Insert circles 

To further enhance the visual appeal and engagement of your slides, let's introduce circles. In the Insert menu, navigate to Shapes and choose the circle. Adjust the circle's height and width to 1.2, ensuring it complements your content seamlessly. Match the circle's shape fill color with the corresponding text color for a harmonious look. 

Avoid using colored outlines for the circles, as they may distract from the overall aesthetic. This simple addition of circles adds an element of visual interest to your presentation, making it more captivating. 

Choose icons 

Now, it's time for a touch of creativity. Selecting icons to complement your text can elevate the clarity and appeal of your slides. In the "Insert" menu, you can search for relevant keywords to find the perfect icon from PowerPoint's extensive library . 

For instance, if your text discusses investment portfolio yield, search for "growth" and choose an upward arrow growth icon. These icons add an extra layer of visual appeal and clarity to your content, making it more engaging and informative. 

Final touches 

To wrap up the transformation process, we come to the final touches that give your presentation a polished, professional finish. Align your icons with their corresponding circles and change the shape fill color to white. This simple adjustment creates a crisp, cohesive look that ties everything together seamlessly. 

In conclusion, by following these steps, you've embarked on a journey to enhance your PowerPoint presentation . These initial steps are just the beginning of your exploration into the world of design elements and styles that can cater to your specific presentation needs. The key to a stunning PowerPoint presentation lies in the details. By following these steps, you can turn a lackluster set of slides into a visually engaging and dynamic presentation that will captivate your audience. So, the next time your boss says, "Please fix," you'll know exactly where to start. Happy presenting! 

Related topics

Critical PowerPoint Shortcuts – Claim Your FREE Training Module and Get Your Time Back!

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 .

🔒 Unlock the PowerPoint Shortcuts Trusted by Industry Leaders KKR, American Express, HSBC, and More!

Join over 114,880 professionals from diverse fields including consulting, investment banking, advertising, marketing, sales, and business development who have supercharged their PowerPoint game with our proven methods.

✅ Customize compelling presentations effortlessly.

✅ Master time-saving techniques for faster deck creation.

✅ Boost your career prospects with top-notch PowerPoint skills.

Get FREE access to the Critical PowerPoint Shortcuts module of our premium training course by entering your name and email below.

DISCLAIMER: PC Users Only!

We respect your privacy and will keep your info safe and confidential.

About The Author

Popular Tutorials

• How to Strikethrough Text (l̶i̶k̶e̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶s̶) in Word, Excel & PowerPoint
• How to Make Animated Fireworks in PowerPoint (Step-by-Step)
• Strikethrough Shortcut (l̶i̶k̶e̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶s̶) for Word, Excel & PowerPoint
• How to Create a Flash Card Memory Game in PowerPoint (Like Jeopardy)
• Keyboard Shortcuts Not Working: Solved

PowerPoint Tutorial Categories

• Strategies & Opinions
• Shortcuts & Hacks
• Pictures, Icons, Videos, Etc.
• New Features
• Miscellaneous
• Charts & Data Viz

We help busy professionals save hours and gain peace of mind, with corporate workshops, self-paced courses and tutorials for PowerPoint and Word.

Work With Us

• Corporate Training
• Presentation & Template Design
• Courses & Downloads
• PowerPoint Articles
• Word Articles
• Productivity Resources

Find a Tutorial

• Free Training
• For Businesses

We help busy office workers save hours and gain peace of mind, with tips, training and tutorials for Microsoft PowerPoint and Word.

Master Critical PowerPoint Shortcuts – Secure Your FREE Training Module and Save Valuable Time!

⌛ Master time-saving expert techniques.

🔥 Create powerful presentations.

🚀 Propel your career to new heights.

We value your privacy – we keep your info safe.

Discover PowerPoint Hacks Loved by Industry Giants - KKR, AmEx, HSBC!

Over 114,880 professionals in finance, marketing and sales have revolutionized their PPT skills with our proven methods. 

Gain FREE access to a full module of our premium PowerPoint training program – Get started today!

We hate spam too and promise to keep your information safe.

You are currently viewing a placeholder content from Facebook . To access the actual content, click the button below. Please note that doing so will share data with third-party providers.

Article Categories

Book categories, collections.

• Technology Articles
• Software Articles
• Microsoft Products Articles
• PowerPoint Articles

How to Create New Presentations in PowerPoint 2019

Powerpoint 2019 for dummies.

Sign up for the Dummies Beta Program to try Dummies' newest way to learn.

After PowerPoint is started, you can also create a new presentation by clicking the File tab to switch to Backstage View and then clicking the New command. This action brings up the screen shown here, which offers several ways to create a new presentation:

• Choose Blank Presentation: Double-click Blank Presentation to start a new presentation from scratch.
• Choose a template: You can select one of the displayed templates to create a new presentation based on the template’s design. Several templates are displayed on the New screen.
• Search for a template: You can type a search phrase into the Search text box and then click the magnifying glass icon. Doing this opens a list of templates that match your search criteria. Double-click one of these templates to create a presentation based on it.

How to edit text in a PowerPoint presentation

Most slides contain two text objects: one for the slide’s title and the other for its body text. However, you can add more text objects if you want, and you can remove the body text or title text object. You can even remove both to create a slide that contains no text.

Whenever you move the cursor over a text object, the cursor changes from an arrow to the I-beam, which you can use to support bridges or build aircraft carriers. Seriously, when the cursor changes to an I-beam, you can click the mouse button and start typing text.

When a text object contains no text, a placeholder message appears in the object. For example, a title text object displays the message Click to add title. Other placeholders display similar messages. The placeholder message magically vanishes when you click the object and begin typing text.

If you start typing without clicking anywhere, the text that you type is entered into the title text object — assuming that the title text object doesn’t already have text of its own. If the title object is not empty, any text that you type (with no text object selected) is simply ignored.

How to add a new slide to a PowerPoint presentation

• On the Home tab, click the New Slide button in the Slides group, as shown.
• Press Ctrl+M.
• Right-click in the Slides pane on the left and then choose New Slide.

In all three cases, PowerPoint adds a blank slide with a standard layout that includes a title and content area, as shown. If you want to choose a different layout, click the Layout button in the Home tab to display the gallery of slide layouts. This pane enables you to pick from several types of slide layouts. Just click the one that you want to use, and PowerPoint sets the new slide to the layout of your choosing.

Each slide layout has a name. For example, the Title and Content layout includes a text object in addition to the title area . This is probably the layout you’ll use most. It’s the best format for presenting a topic along with several supporting points. For example, this figure shows a typical bulleted list slide.

The bit about Psalm 46 secretly containing the name Shakespeare is true, and indeed worthy of a Dan Brown novel. It only works with the 1611 edition of the King James Bible, though. If you have a copy lying around, check it out!

Moving from slide to slide

• Click one of the double-headed arrows at the bottom of the vertical scroll bar. Doing so moves you through the presentation one slide at a time.
• Press the Page Up and Page Down keys. Using these keys also moves one slide at a time.
• Use the scroll bar. When you drag the box in the scroll bar, a tooltip appears to display the number and title of the current slide. Dragging the scroll bar is the quickest way to move directly to any slide in your presentation.
• In the list of slides on the left side of the window, click the thumbnail for the slide that you want to display. If the thumbnails are not visible, click the Slides tab above the outline.

Choosing a design

Because of space constraints, PowerPoint doesn’t display all the available themes on the Ribbon at the same time. But just to the right of the themes is a scroll bar that you can use to scroll through the themes. And the button at the bottom of the scroll bar brings up a gallery that displays all the themes that come with Office 2019.

A new design feature for PowerPoint 2019 is the Design Ideas task pane, which you can activate by clicking Design Ideas in the Design ribbon tab. It lets you apply fancy design features to your otherwise plain slides. The following figure shows a slide after the Design Ideas features has had its way. The Design Ideas tab is smart enough to suggest designs that relate to what it deduces to be the slide’s topic. For example, PowerPoint noticed the word Shakespeare in the slide, so it offered to include the classic dramatic comedy and tragedy masks.

About This Article

This article is from the book:.

• PowerPoint 2019 For Dummies ,

About the book author:

Doug Lowe is a master at demystifying technology. The 50+ technology books he's written include more than 30 For Dummies books, including Networking All-in-One For Dummies. Doug has been managing networks at publishing companies and nonprofit organizations for more than 20 years and is presently IT director for a civil engineering firm.

This article can be found in the category:

• PowerPoint ,
• How to Remove Picture Backgrounds in PowerPoint 2019
• Audio Options in Microsoft PowerPoint 2019
• How to Share Presentations via the PowerPoint Web App
• How to Share a PowerPoint 2019 Presentation in the Cloud
• PowerPoint 2019 Slide Libraries and Ways to Reuse Slides
• View All Articles From Book

How-To Geek

8 tips to make the best powerpoint presentations.

Your changes have been saved

Email is sent

Email has already been sent

Please verify your email address.

You’ve reached your account maximum for followed topics.

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.

• Microsoft Office

• PRO Courses Guides New Tech Help Pro Expert Videos About wikiHow Pro Upgrade Sign In
• EDIT Edit this Article
• EXPLORE Tech Help Pro About Us Random Article Quizzes Request a New Article Community Dashboard This Or That Game Happiness Hub Popular Categories Arts and Entertainment Artwork Books Movies Computers and Electronics Computers Phone Skills Technology Hacks Health Men's Health Mental Health Women's Health Relationships Dating Love Relationship Issues Hobbies and Crafts Crafts Drawing Games Education & Communication Communication Skills Personal Development Studying Personal Care and Style Fashion Hair Care Personal Hygiene Youth Personal Care School Stuff Dating All Categories Arts and Entertainment Finance and Business Home and Garden Relationship Quizzes Cars & Other Vehicles Food and Entertaining Personal Care and Style Sports and Fitness Computers and Electronics Health Pets and Animals Travel Education & Communication Hobbies and Crafts Philosophy and Religion Work World Family Life Holidays and Traditions Relationships Youth
• Browse Articles
• Learn Something New
• Quizzes Hot
• Happiness Hub
• This Or That Game
• Train Your Brain
• Explore More
• Support wikiHow
• About wikiHow
• Log in / Sign up
• Computers and Electronics
• Presentation Software
• PowerPoint Presentations

Simple Steps to Make a PowerPoint Presentation

Last Updated: July 23, 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 4,346,323 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 6 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 .

About This Article

• Send fan mail to authors

Reader Success Stories

Artis Holland

Sep 22, 2016

Is this article up to date?

Oct 18, 2016

Jul 23, 2016

Margery Niyi

Sep 25, 2017

Jul 21, 2016

Featured Articles

Trending Articles

Watch Articles

• Terms of Use
• Privacy Policy
• Do Not Sell or Share My Info
• Not Selling Info

Keep up with the latest tech with wikiHow's free Tech Help Newsletter

30 Amazing Things You Can Do And Create In PowerPoint

Everyone knows PowerPoint is one of the best – if not THE best – presentation software around. It’s great for making all sorts of presentations. From academic to corporate presentations (and everything in between), PowerPoint can seemingly do it all. But presentations are not all PowerPoint can do. The truth is, it’s a very powerful and versatile software. In this article, I’m going to share with you 30 amazing things you can do and create in PowerPoint. Let’s begin!

• Make social media images

Surprised? Yes, you can indeed use PowerPoint to make social media images. Whether it’s for your Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, and more, PowerPoint can do it all. Now, the first thing you need to do is figure out the image size so you can resize your PowerPoint slides.

You can do a quick Google search for this. Or you can download Louise Myers’ social media images cheat sheet here . Just scroll down the page and you’ll find her table of contents with links to top social media platforms’ image sizes.

So, now that you know the image dimensions, let’s head on over to PowerPoint. Go to the Design > Slide Size > Custom Slide Size . You’ll see this pop-up on your screen:

For width and height, the default measurement is either centimeters or inches depending on your location. The good news is you don’t need to do some mathematical calculations to do your conversions. PowerPoint will automatically do it for you. How?

If you look at the screenshot above, you’ll notice that in Width , I typed in “ 800 px .” ( Important note : There’s a space between “800” and “px.”)

The moment I moved my cursor to the next field, “Height,” PowerPoint automatically converted 800 pixels to 4.167 inches. Pretty neat, right? Try it!

This is what my 800 px x 800 px (or 4.167 inch x 4.167 inch) slide size looks like:

With the width and height dimensions set up properly, you can now proceed to designing your social media images. Just use PowerPoint like normal.

Now, here’s a great video with step by step guide to making a viral image quote poster for social media:

• Make YouTube videos

Yep, you read that right – YouTube videos! You don’t need to buy expensive camera gear for your first few YouTube videos. Before you get overexcited though, temper your expectations a bit. As you probably already know, PowerPoint is a slide-based presentation software, so you can’t use it for your vlogs. You can, however, create simple videos like lectures or tutorials.

You can use animations and transitions to make your presentation/video fun. Plus, you can record timings and narrations, and even laser pointer gestures! Here’s how you do it:

Once you’ve saved your file, go to File > Export > Create a video . Alternatively, you can go to the Recording tab and click on the Export to video button. What’s really awesome about making videos on PowerPoint is that you’re not limited to 480p or 720p (regular HD). You can make 4K or ultra HD videos on PowerPoint!

If you’d like to know more, you should watch this short 6-minute tutorial on this very subject:

Oh, and if you’re wondering if you can also create your YouTube intro and outro in PowerPoint, the answer is yes! Check out this tutorial article I wrote about this very topic here: How To Make Amazing YouTube Intros and Outros In PowerPoint .

• Make infographics

Just like social media graphics, infographics dimensions can be all over the place. It can be small or large depending on the information that needs to be conveyed. However, there’s actually a standard size for infographics.

Ideally, an infographic should not exceed 600 px in width and 1800 px in height. But some sites do have infographic size requirements though. So, before you create one, make sure it’s going to make the cut in your target platform.

That said, if you need infographic design inspiration, you should check out this link right here .

• Create eye-catching checklists

You can write down a checklist on a plain piece of paper. Or, you can use your favorite word processor like Microsoft Word. However, what’s really great about using PowerPoint to create your checklists is that you can quickly transform them into beautiful works of art. How? By converting your checklist, a.k.a. bullet point list, into SmartArt!

Here’s how:

First, type your checklist. Then right-click on the list and you’ll see the menu option below. Click on Convert to SmartArt . You can either choose from the default options or you can click on More Smart Art Graphics at the bottom.

Here’s my new and improved checklist after converting it to SmartArt graphic:

Note that you can format your SmartArt by going into the SmartArt Tools tab in PowerPoint.

Alternatively, you can download any of our free checklist PowerPoint templates . All you have to do is just replace the placeholder text with your content and you’ll have an eye-catching checklist in no time at all!

Here’s a screenshot of some of our checklist templates:

• Design business cards

For business cards, you’d need to set the slide size to 3.5 inches x 2 inches. The usual business card uses a horizontal layout. But if you want your card to stand out and be memorable, then consider using a vertical layout.

To do this, you’d need to use portrait orientation for your card. Go to Design > Slide Size > Custom Slide Size, then click on Orientation . The default option is Landscape, so you’ll need to click on Portrait, like so:

• Make creative visual resumes

Here’s another fun thing you can create in PowerPoint. If the job you’re applying for is fine with a bit of creativity, then submitting a visual resume is the way to go. However, if you’re interested in landing a spot at a more ‘serious’ firm, then Word may be your best bet. Else, you risk being flagged as a non-serious applicant and have your application rejected.

Creating visual resumes obviously will take a lot more time than if you just typed up the same thing in Word. However, if you’re applying for a job that requires – or at least appreciates – creativity, then you should take the time to create a visual resume. PowerPoint can easily help you with this.

• Use it as a journal

PowerPoint may not be at the top of your list as a journaling tool. But it does have a nifty feature called presentation protection which allows you to encrypt your file with a password. This means you’ve got the liberty to write whatever you want on your PowerPoint slides and be safe in the knowledge that it’s going to be for your eyes only!

At this point, you’re already well aware that PowerPoint is an excellent graphics creation tool. So, in addition to writing down your ideas, thoughts, and feelings, you can also add a variety of elements to make your journal come alive.

To lock your journal, a.k.a. your PowerPoint, go to File > Info > Protect Presentation > Encrypt with Password . Here’s a screenshot:

• Remove photo backgrounds

Removing an image’s background can come in handy in many situations. For example, if you’ve got a photo of a young boy in a park and you want to ‘move’ the boy elsewhere, you can remove the original background first and then insert a new background.

While PowerPoint is no Photoshop, it’s no slouch either when it comes to removing photo backgrounds. Here’s how:

First, you’ll need to click on the photo you want to edit. Then click on Picture Tools > Remove Background . Check out this tutorial for more info:

Just take note that PowerPoint can’t remove backgrounds from vector graphic files such as Adobe Illustrator Graphics (.ai) or Scalable Vector Graphics (.svg). But it works great for editing the more common PNG and JPG files.

A logo is part of a company or brand’s identity. If you’re looking to create a new logo for your business, then you’re in luck. You don’t need to spend any money to have it done for you. You can do it yourself in PowerPoint!

Now, logos don’t need to be complicated. A simple one will often be enough. Your logo creation options in PowerPoint may be a bit limited. But with a bit of creativity, you can create beautiful logos.

You can use a combination of Word Art, shapes, icons, even SmartArt. Then group all the elements together and save it as a picture (choose PNG format from the file type list). And that’s it! You’ve got your brand-new logo.

Now, if you want to add some transparency to your logo (which would be ideal in most cases), then you need to add a shape to the logo and adjust its transparency level accordingly.

If you don’t want to add a shape to your logo, don’t worry. The shape will only serve as a transparent medium, it doesn’t need to be visible in your logo. You can then set the transparency level for the shape before you save your logo. PowerPoint will preserve the shape’s transparency when you save it as a PNG file.

You can follow this short tutorial to give you an idea on how logo transparency works in PowerPoint:

• Make photo collages

Making photo collages on PowerPoint is fun and easy. First off, you’d need to insert your photos onto the slide. You can do this by dragging the pics manually or by going to the Insert > Photos tab. I recommend the following methods to get your collage quickly:

• Use Design Ideas tab

This tab should open up automatically once you add the photos. However, if this doesn’t appear you can just click on Design > Design Ideas . You’ll then see a bunch of recommended layouts for your collage. Click on the layout that catches your fancy and you’re good to go!

• Convert to SmartArt

To convert your images to SmartArt, you can press CTRL+A (Windows) or CMD+A (on Mac) to select all images. Then click on Picture Tools > Picture Layout . Select the layout you want to use. The downside to using this method is you’ll likely see text boxes, so if you don’t need those, you’ll need to manually delete them.

Note that both these methods crop the images automatically. If you want to adjust an image’s position in the collage, you can click on that image. Then go to Picture Tools > Crop . You can then drag the image around until you’re happy with the cropped result.

• Create desktop wallpaper

You’re probably wondering why you’d bother using PowerPoint to create a desktop wallpaper for your computer. After all, you can just go to Unsplash.com and download an unlimited number of beautiful images. Well, if you don’t want to do what everyone else is doing, then PowerPoint can help you create 100% unique wallpapers!

You can still download images from Unsplash. But with PowerPoint, you can add graphics, text, and other elements to make the wallpaper truly yours. Just remember to save the PowerPoint slide file as PNG or JPG, so you can see the option to set the image as desktop background. Here’s a screenshot:

• Create calendar

Manually creating a calendar in PowerPoint is doable, but it’s going to take some time. For instance, you’ll need to add a table (6 rows x 7 columns for basic calendars), then add the labels in. You’ll also need to think about the design if you don’t want your calendar to look like the most basic calendar ever created.

Fortunately, there’s a much easier way to go about adding a calendar to your slides. And that is by downloading a ready-made PowerPoint template.

You can open up a new PowerPoint file and search for free calendar templates, like you see below. However, as you probably already know, the templates you’ll find on Microsoft aren’t exactly lookers.

If you want high-quality and eye-catching calendar templates, I highly recommend you visit our Template Hub. You can download our free calendar templates . Here’s an example of what you can expect to see:

• Make brochures and flyers

Many professional designers use apps like Adobe Illustrator, Adobe InDesign, and Microsoft Publisher to create brochures and flyers. If you’re willing to learn how those apps work, you can create great-looking brochures and flyers. However, if you just want to create something basic, then PowerPoint can help.

Go to templates.office.com and download a free brochure or flyer. Make sure the file you download is compatible with PowerPoint. Check out the screenshot below:

I downloaded a tri-fold brochure template. Here’s what it looks like:

You can edit all the elements on the slides, so you can truly make it your own brochure or flyer!

• Use PowerPoint in webinars

Webinars are great for maximizing your reach. You can have a live webinar or you can pre-record it. What’s really great about webinars is that people can watch your content 24/7 without you physically needing to be there. The whole world can literally be your audience!

You can upload your webinar to YouTube and Facebook. If you want a more controlled environment, you can use webinar platforms like WebinarJam, GoToWebinar, and more.

If you want more information about this subject, read this article: How To Use PowerPoint For Your Webinar

• Make wedding invitation

Wedding invitations can be fun to make especially if it’s your own! You can go on Pinterest to look for design inspiration, like you see below:

You can choose from a wide variety of designs. You’re also not limited to using a single size or shape; the most common size seems to be 5×7 inches though. Your invitation can be as simple or as extravagant as you like.

Before you create in PowerPoint, just remember that if you’re mailing your invitations to some guests, you may need to consider using a more traditional wedding invitation size.

• Create ad graphics for Facebook

Did you know that over 2 billion people go on Facebook every month? If you want to take advantage of this massive platform, then you should definitely consider advertising on Facebook. It’s relatively more cost-effective than other advertising platforms.

That being said, you want to use ad graphics that will effectively stop people from scrolling down their feeds. As a PowerPoint user, you’ve got a powerful tool at your fingertips. Before you design your ads, however, make sure you check out Facebook’s ad format guidelines .

• Take a screenshot

There are plenty of apps that take screenshots. However, what’s really good about using PowerPoint is that in addition to getting the whole screen, you can also take screen clippings.

In the past, you could only take screenshots of open Microsoft Office files. But now, you can take screenshots of all open applications in your computer! For Office 365 subscribers, there’s a new Recording tab that allows you to take screenshots and screen recordings quickly. Here it is:

As you can see, I’ve got 3 windows open on my computer. Clicking on any of those thumbnails will add a full screenshot to my current slide.

Now, if you click on Screen Clipping , you will be taken to the app you opened prior to clicking on PowerPoint. An ‘overlay’ will appear on the screen and your mouse cursor will turn into a crosshair pointer. Just drag your mouse until it covers the area you want to screenshot. Your screen clipping will then automatically appear on your current slide.

• Do a screen recording

As mentioned in the previous point, you can do a screen recording just by going to the Recording tab in PowerPoint. You can select the area you want to record (great if you don’t want to share everything on your screen). You can also choose whether you want to capture your audio (from your default microphone) or if you wish to record your mouse pointer movement.

• Create a gif

Gifs are especially popular in social media. Go on sites like Reddit and Facebook, and you’ll probably see a gif every 5 seconds. It may be a bit of an exaggeration, but the point is that gifs (especially the animated kind) are extremely popular.

Now, PowerPoint can only make still gifs (non-animated). If you want to make animated gifs, there are a couple of different methods you can check out:

(1) You can add animations to your slide elements, save it as video, and then use an online converter to convert from video to GIF. Check out this video tutorial if you want to use this particular method:

(2) Alternatively, you can save your slides (with animated elements) as images and then go to a site like GIFmaker.me to create your free GIF. This post does a pretty good job explaining the steps of this specific method.

• Make a mind map

Mind maps are great for brainstorming and coming up with new, creative ideas. It helps you visualize your ideas and enables you to think outside the box. There are free mind mapping tools like MindMup which is easy enough to use. But if you want to try out how this works in PowerPoint, then let me tell you it’s actually quite easy.

All you have to do is fire up PowerPoint and use SmartArt! SmartArt is extremely flexible and will accommodate all your ideas in a single slide. It will automatically adjust the font size and the graphic size itself.

For mind maps, you can choose from any of SmartArt categories, but I think the best ones to use are in the List, Process, Cycle and Hierarchy categories. Check out this mind map I made using the Hierarchy SmartArt:

Play around with the different options until you find the right SmartArt graphic for your mind map!

• Make your own icons

You can download free icons on the web. But if you want to use something unique in your presentation, then you can actually make your own icons in PowerPoint. Amazed? You should be!

By creating your own icons, you take your brand a step further. You can use your custom icons on your website, your advertisements, your organization’s letterhead, and basically anywhere else you can think of!

This video should help you off to a good start in making your own PPT icons:

• Reshape photos into any shape you like

If you’re tired of using the same old rectangle or square shape for your images, then you may want to use PowerPoint to make your images more exciting. Here are a few tips to reshape your photos into fun, new shapes!

Method 1: Shape fill with pictures option

Go to Insert > Shapes if you want to use this method. The good news is you’re not limited to using only one shape per picture. If you want to make a truly unique shape, you can use the Merge Shapes option. You’d need to select the images you want to merge. Then you can choose from the following merge options: Union, Combine, Fragment, Intersect, and Subtract.

Play around with the different options and you’ll see that you can literally come up with an infinite number of unique shapes!

Method 2: Convert using SmartArt graphics

If you want a more uniform look for your images, then this is the method you should choose. I already gave a rundown on how you can convert photos to SmartArt in #10 (Make photo collages), so you should scroll up if you haven’t read that part yet!

There are plenty of things you can do with your photos on PowerPoint. I wrote a detailed guide on this very topic. If you want to know more about working with multiple images in PowerPoint, check out this article .

• Create photo album

If you want to create a photo album and turn it into a slideshow, then PowerPoint can easily help you out. It just takes a few clicks and you’ll have your album. Go to Insert > Photo Album and you’ll see this menu pop-up:

As you can see in the screenshot, you’ve got a lot of options to choose from. For picture layout, you can have up to 4 pictures per slide. You can select the frame shape as well as the photo album theme. Once you create in PowerPoint, you can then go a step further by going to the Design Ideas tab and switching up your photo album’s look!

• Use video as background

It’s quite easy to embed YouTube videos in PowerPoint and play it during your presentation. But not everyone knows that you can use video as your presentation’s background. Here’s how:

Go to Insert > Media > Video > Video On My PC . Once you’ve added your video, click on it to open up the Video Tools menu. Click on the Playback tab, and set your video to start Automatically . Then tick on the box that says ‘Loop until stopped.’

You can resize your video and make it fill the slide. Then you can add text, graphics, and various other elements in the foreground.

You can download free stock video footage on Coverr.co just like I’ve done in the screenshot above. The good thing is their video file sizes are quite small, so it’s not going to make your PowerPoint file too heavy and slow to load. The video file I downloaded and used in the sample above is only 10MB in size.

• Use 3D models for more engaging presentations

Sometimes, the usual 2D graphics just don’t cut it anymore. If you want to bring your presentation up a notch, try using 3D models. You can rotate your 3D graphic and show everyone a 360-degree view. You can even use Morph animation to make your 3D image come to life.

Fortunately, inserting a 3D model to your slide is just as easy as adding images, shapes, videos, icons, charts, etc. Just go to Insert > 3D Models and select whether to add from a file on your computer or from the Remix 3D community.

Check out this demo from Microsoft:

• Use free, high-quality templates

Yes, PowerPoint may have a bunch of free templates, but they’ve been around for ages. Their design hasn’t been updated in years, so if you use their default templates, your presentation will look like it’s a throwback to the 90’s!

If you’ve been on our website before, then you probably already know we’ve got hundreds of high-quality and professionally-designed free PowerPoint templates. But if this is your first time here, you should definitely check out this link to our Template Hub .

Here’s a screenshot of what you can expect:

Just sign up for a free account and you can download to your heart’s content!

• Save your PowerPoint as PDF

Saving your PPT file as PDF has a lot of advantages. You can keep all your slide elements intact – the text, graphics, shapes, formatting, etc. It will preserve the visual appearance of your slides. The only downside is you can’t export the animations and slide transitions. That said, saving your file as PDF is great if you want to share your presentation file via email or upload it to the web.

• Create Prezi-like effects

PowerPoint uses a linear, slide-based approach to presentations. Prezi, on the other hand, makes use of a single canvas where you put all your ideas together. Since it’s not slide-based, it uses a pan and zoom animation to move from one part of the canvas to another. Now you can do the same with PowerPoint. If you have Office 365, you can use Zoom animation to create Prezi-like effects.

Watch this tutorial if you want to know how this works:

• Embed fonts in your presentation

So, you spent hours choosing the right combination of fonts to make your slides look perfect. But when you finally get to the presentation venue, you realize your beautiful fonts have all been replaced by the default Calibri font. What a disaster! To prevent this from happening, learn how to embed your fonts in your presentation.

• Password-protect your presentation

If you don’t want prying eyes on your presentation, then you better put a password on it. This is a must-have if you’re presenting highly valuable information. Read this article to find out how you can password-protect your file as well as disable the password when it’s no longer necessary.

Final Words

Wouldn’t you agree with me when I say PowerPoint is amazing? It’s really no surprise why it’s still the best presentation software today even with all the competition around. The 30 amazing things you can create in PowerPoint that I shared in this article are just the tip of the iceberg. I’m sure you’ll discover more fun things to do in PowerPoint!

Create professional presentations online

Other people also read

Tutorial: Save your PowerPoint as a Video

How To Convert Google Slides To PowerPoint and Vice Versa

How To Add Animations To PowerPoint

27 Super Hidden PowerPoint Tips and Tricks Only The Pros Know!

Ausbert Generoso

Ever felt like your PowerPoint presentations could use a little magic? You’re not alone. Whether you’re a seasoned presenter or just getting started, there’s a world of PowerPoint tips and tricks waiting for you. In this guide, we’re diving into the nitty-gritty of Microsoft PowerPoint to uncover 30 hidden gems that’ll transform the way you create and deliver slides.

From making your designs pop to streamlining your workflow, these PowerPoint hacks are designed for real-world impact. No jargon, just practical insights that’ll have you presenting like a pro in no time.

Let’s cut through the noise and get straight to the good stuff – your next presentation is about to level up. Ready? Let’s get started.

27 PowerPoint Tips and Tricks That Put The Power in PowerPoint

1. Morph Transition for Seamless Animation

What’s it for:  Elevate your presentation by seamlessly animating objects and creating smooth transitions between slides. Morph transition is your key to a dynamic and visually engaging storytelling experience, allowing you to captivate your audience effortlessly. 

How to do it:

• Position the same object in different parts on multiple slides
• Select all slides, and go to the Transitions tab.
• Choose “Morph” as the transition effect.

2. SVG Image Integration

What’s it for:  Did you think SVG’s only work for websites and professional photo editing tools? They do, too, in PowerPoint! Import high-quality Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG). Maintain image clarity, resize without loss, and enhance your presentations with crisp logos and icons. 

• Save your chosen SVG on your device.
• Click on the Insert tab.
• Choose “Pictures” and select your SVG file.
• Adjust the size without compromising image quality.

3. Designer Feature for Quick Layouts

What’s it for:  Effortlessly create professional-looking slides with the Designer feature. Receive instant layout suggestions based on your content, saving time and ensuring your presentation looks polished. 

• Select a slide.
• Go to the Design tab and click Designer on the far right along the ribbon.
• Select through ready-made slide designs for instant layouts.

4. Insert 3D Models

What’s it for:  Amp up your presentations with manipulable 3D models, adding a dynamic dimension. Whether it’s showcasing products or visualizing data, 3D models bring your slides to life. 

• Click on the “3D Models” dropdown and proceed to Stock 3D Models.
• Search for a 3D model of your choice and insert.
• Manipulate and customize as needed.

5. SmartArt Graphics for Visual Hierarchy

What’s it for:  Convey complex ideas with visual hierarchy using SmartArt graphics. These graphics offer a structured and visually appealing way to organize information, making your content more digestible. 

• Go to the Insert tab.
• Select “SmartArt” and navigate through the available categories.
• Select a graphic template that fits your presentation needs.
• Enter your content and customize as needed.

6. Eyedropper Tool for Color Matching

What’s it for:  Maintain a cohesive design by using the Eyedropper tool to pick colors from images or elements within your presentation. Ensure consistency and professional aesthetics in every slide. 

• Select the editable, native PowerPoint object you wish to customize.
• Go to the Shape Format tab and click on the Shape Fill dropdown.
• Select “More Fill Colors…” and click the eyedropper icon to begin color appropriating.

7. Record and Insert Audio

What’s it for:  Infuse personality into your presentation by recording audio directly within PowerPoint. Ideal for adding voiceovers, explanations, or personal touches that enhance audience engagement. 

• Click on “Audio” and choose “Record Audio.”
• Record your audio and insert it into the slide.

8. Presenter Coach for Rehearsing

What’s it for:  Elevate your presentation skills with Presenter Coach. Receive valuable feedback on pacing, filler words, and more, refining your delivery for a confident and impactful performance. 

• Click on the Slide Show tab.
• Choose “Rehearse with Coach” to start practicing.

9. Hyperlink Navigation for Seamless Transitions

What’s it for:  Streamline your presentation flow by implementing Hyperlink Navigation. This trick allows you to create clickable links within your slides, enabling effortless transitions between related content or external resources, enhancing the overall navigational experience. 

• Select the text or object you want to hyperlink.
• Right-click and choose “Hyperlink” or use the Ctrl+K shortcut.
• Specify the destination, whether it’s another slide, a website, or a file, to create a seamless navigational experience.

10. Alt Text for Accessibility

What’s it for:  Improve accessibility by adding descriptive alternative text to images and objects. Ensure inclusivity for visually impaired individuals, making your presentation accessible to a wider audience. 

• Right-click on the image or object.
• Choose “Edit Alt Text” and enter a descriptive text.

11. Slide Zoom for Dynamic Navigation

What’s it for:  Elevate your presentation’s navigation with Slide Zoom, offering the flexibility to jump to specific slides during a presentation without adhering to a linear sequence. This dynamic feature ensures a more engaging and tailored audience experience. 

• Set a master slide where you’d like to put your “mini slides” altogether.
• Navigate to the Insert tab > Zoom dropdown > Slide Zoom.
• Select the slides you want to link onto your master slide and insert.

12. Live Captions and Subtitles

What’s it for:  Foster inclusivity by enabling live captions and subtitles in multiple languages. This feature enhances accessibility, making your presentation more engaging and comprehensible for a diverse global audience. 

• Go to the Slide Show tab.
• Select “Always Use Subtitles” and choose your language.

13. Password Protection for Security

What’s it for:  Safeguard your presentation’s sensitive content by adding a password. This security measure ensures that only authorized individuals can access and view the information, adding an extra layer of protection. 

• Navigate to the File tab.
• Select “Info” and click on “Protect Presentation.”
• Choose “Encrypt with Password” and set your password.

14. Animation Painter for Consistent Animations

What’s it for:  Maintain a polished and consistent look throughout your presentation by using the Animation Painter. Copy and apply animations across different objects with ease, ensuring a cohesive visual experience. 

• Select the object with the same, desired animation as the others.
• Go to the Animation tab.
• Click on “Animation Painter” and apply to other objects.

15. Linked Excel Charts for Real-Time Updates

What’s it for:  Integrate linked Excel charts for real-time updates in your PowerPoint presentation. Any modifications made to the linked Excel file automatically reflect in your slides, ensuring data accuracy. 

• Copy your Excel chart.
• In PowerPoint, use “Paste Special” and choose “Microsoft Excel Worksheet Object.”

16. Custom Slide Sizes

What’s it for:  Tailor your presentation to various screen dimensions by customizing slide sizes. This feature, accessible through the Design tab, ensures your content fits seamlessly across different display settings. 

• Navigate to the Design tab.
• Click on the “Slide Size” dropdown and choose “Page Setup”.
• Change “Slide sized for” to Custom.

17. Grid and Guidelines for Precision

What’s it for:  Achieve precise object alignment with gridlines and guides. This feature, essential for creating visually polished and organized presentations, ensures your content is visually appealing and professionally structured. 

• Go to the View tab.
• Check the “Grids” and “Guidelines” toggles for display options and customization.

18. Slide Master for Consistent Design

What’s it for:  Establish a cohesive presentation design by utilizing the Slide Master. This time-saving feature enables you to set consistent layouts, fonts, and colors throughout your presentation. 

• Click on “Slide Master” to access and customize master slides.

19. Quick Access Toolbar Customization

What’s it for:  Streamline your workflow by personalizing the Quick Access Toolbar with your most-used commands. This customization ensures quick access to essential tools, enhancing efficiency during presentation creation. 

• Click on the dropdown arrow on the Quick Access Toolbar.
• Select “More Commands” to customize your toolbar.

20. Ink Annotations for Handwriting

What’s it for:  Personalize your presentations with a touch-enabled device using ink annotations. This feature allows you to draw or write directly on slides, adding a unique and handwritten touch to your content. 

• Go to the Draw tab and click on Draw to begin drawing.
• Choose “Ink to Text” or “Ink to Shape” for handwriting annotations.

21. Crop to Shape for Image Customization

What’s it for:  Unleash your creativity by utilizing the Crop to Shape feature, allowing you to create custom image shapes. This adds a distinctive flair to your presentation, providing a visually dynamic and engaging experience. 

• Select the image.
• Navigate to the Picture Format tab.
• Click on “Crop” and choose “Crop to Shape.”
• Select the shape you want your image to have as frame.

22. Slide Show Recording with Narration

What’s it for:  Capture your entire presentation, including narration and animations, by recording a self-running slideshow. This feature is invaluable for sharing presentations with a wider audience, ensuring a consistent and engaging delivery. 

• Click on “Record Slide Show” and choose recording options.

23.  Dynamic Color Scheme Switch for Vibrant Slides

What’s it for:  Infuse energy into your presentation by dynamically switching color schemes. This handy trick allows you to quickly experiment with various color palettes, giving your slides a vibrant and fresh appearance in just a few clicks. 

• Explore different color options by selecting “Colors” and experimenting with the available palettes. Instantly transform the look of your presentation to match your desired mood and style.

24.  Smart Alignment and Distribution for Pixel-Perfect Precision

What’s it for:  Attain pixel-perfect precision in your presentation design with the Smart Alignment and Distribution trick. This technique allows you to not only align objects with accuracy but also evenly distribute them horizontally, ensuring a polished and visually appealing layout. 

• Select the objects you want to align.
• Navigate to the Format tab.
• Click on “Align” to access options like Align Left, Center, or Right for precise alignment.
• Further refine your layout by choosing “Distribute Horizontally,” ensuring equal spacing between objects and achieving a professional design.

25. Insert Online Videos

What’s it for:  Seamlessly integrate online videos directly into your presentation. This feature eliminates the need for external players, offering a smooth and immersive viewing experience for your audience. 

• Click on the “Video” dropdown and select Online Movie.
• Paste the video link and your video should be embedded onto your PowerPoint slide.

26. Embed Fonts for Portability

What’s it for:  Ensure consistent visual appeal on any device by embedding fonts in your presentation. This is particularly useful when sharing your work with others who may not have the same fonts installed, enhancing portability. 

• Go to the File tab.
• Select “Options” and go to the Save tab from the window popup.
• Check “Embed fonts in the file” as well as “Embed all characters”.

27.  Text Transformation

What’s it for:  Uncover the elegance of text transformation with the Shape Format trick. This hack allows you to access a myriad of text transformation designs, offering a swift and sophisticated way to elevate the visual appeal of your presentation. 

• Select the text you want to transform.
• Navigate to the Shape Format tab.
• Click on “Text Effects” and explore the “Transform” options for a variety of stylish text designs. Instantly apply a transformation that suits the tone and style of your presentation.

5 Critical Best Practices to Implement These Pro PowerPoint Tips and Tricks for a Technically Proficient Presentation

Enhance the technical brilliance of your presentation by focusing on these crucial best practices:

1.  Streamlined Font Selection

• Practice:  Limit your font styles to a maximum of three per slide.
• Why:  Simplifying fonts enhances readability, maintains visual consistency, and prevents distraction, ensuring your message is clear and impactful.

2.  High-Resolution Images

• Practice:  Source HD images from reputable free resource websites like Freepik or Unsplash .
• Why:  High-resolution images prevent pixelation, ensuring clarity and professionalism. Crisp visuals contribute to a visually appealing presentation.

3.  Cohesive Color Palette

• Practice:  Stick to a consistent color palette throughout your slides; use the eyedropper tool for precise color matching.
• Why:  A unified color scheme enhances visual harmony, reinforces brand identity, and elevates the overall aesthetics of your presentation.

4.  Efficient Data Visualization

• Practice:  Use charts and graphs for data-driven slides, choosing appropriate chart types for different data sets.
• Why:  Visualizing data through charts improves comprehension, making complex information more accessible and engaging for your audience.

5.  Transitions with Purpose

• Practice:  Apply slide transitions judiciously. Choose transitions that complement the content and avoid excessive animations.
• Why:  Subtle transitions maintain audience focus, while excessive animations may distract from the core message.

Final Thoughts

In presentation-making, technical practices harmonized with thoughtful design is the key to delivering an impactful message. Whether it may be as simple as considering font choices, to incorporating high-resolution visuals, you do not only get to enhance the aesthetics but also ensure your audience’s undivided attention.

Remember, a technically proficient presentation is not just a showcase of information, but also one that leaves a rather immersive experience for those who will see. But at the end of the day, it comes down to your delivery. So, no sweat! You’re doing amazing, rockstar!

Find them useful? Save them, or share these PowerPoint tips and tricks with others to make their day!

About Ausbert Generoso

Try classpoint for free.

All-in-one teaching and student engagement in PowerPoint.

Supercharge your PowerPoint. Start today.

800,000+ people like you use ClassPoint to boost student engagement in PowerPoint presentations.

Three Ways to Create a Powerpoint Presentation

Using a Microsoft PowerPoint presentation as a teaching tool, meeting aid or sales implement has many benefits. The visual aspect grabs and holds your viewers' attention. A slide show can also help you overcome the awkwardness that sometimes results from speaking before a crowd. PowerPoint is versatile as well, and you can create a slide show using one of several methods.

Advertisement

Create a PowerPoint Presentation Using a Template

Video of the Day

Microsoft offers many free presentation templates that you can use to create professional slide shows. Click the "File" menu in PowerPoint 2003, the "Office Button" in PowerPoint 2007 or the "File" tab in PowerPoint 2010. Click "New" and then click "From Design Template." Select a template you would like to use from the gallery. Double-click it to load the template into PowerPoint.

Click on a slide in the "Slides" pane to text or make changes. Click inside a text box to type over the sample text. Choose a different color palette or font set by selecting a different option in the "Themes" category. Add or change animations or transitions by choosing options in the "Slide Show" menu in PowerPoint 2003 or the "Animations" tab in PowerPoint 2007 or 2010.

Create a PowerPoint Presentation from Blank Slides

It is easy to make a PowerPoint slide show from scratch, as well. Open a blank presentation form by clicking "New" from the "File" menu, "Office Button" or "File" tab and selecting "Blank Presentation," or use the keyboard shortcut "Ctrl+N." Go to the "Format" menu in PowerPoint 2003 and click on "Slide Design" to choose a design option for your PowerPoint presentation. In PowerPoint 2007 or 2010, go to the "Design" tab and select a theme from the gallery.

Go to the "Insert" menu in PowerPoint 2003 or the "Insert" tab in PowerPoint 2007 or 2010 to insert objects onto a slide, such as text boxes, pictures or charts. Add animation and slide transitions from the "Slide Show" menu in PowerPoint 2003 or the "Animations" tab in PowerPoint 2007 or 2010.

Create a PowerPoint Presentation from a Word Outline

Send an existing Word outline to PowerPoint to create an almost-instant presentation. Open the outline in Microsoft Word. In Word 2003, go to the "File" menu, point to "Send to" and select "Microsoft PowerPoint."

In Word 2007 or 2010, you will need to add the "Send to PowerPoint" option to the "Quick Access Toolbar." Click the arrow at the right end of the "Quick Access Toolbar" and click "More Commands." Select "All Commands" in the "Choose Commands From" box. Click on "Send to Microsoft PowerPoint" in the list of commands and then click "Add." Click "OK" to add the command to the "Quick Access Toolbar" and close the dialog box. Click the "Send to Microsoft PowerPoint" button on the "Quick Access Toolbar."

Microsoft Word will send the outline to PowerPoint. It will create a new slide show using the outline headings as slide titles and the subheadings as bullet points. Add a layout theme, graphics and animations as in the previous sections.

• PowerPoint 2007: Create a Basic Presentation
• PowerPoint 2007: Apply a Template
• PowerPoint 2003: Make a PowerPoint Presentation from a Word Outline

Home Blog Presentation Ideas 23 PowerPoint Presentation Tips for Creating Engaging and Interactive Presentations

23 PowerPoint Presentation Tips for Creating Engaging and Interactive Presentations

PowerPoint presentations are not usually known for being engaging or interactive. That’s often because most people treat their slides as if they are notes to read off  and not a tool to help empower their message.

Your presentation slides are there to help bring to life the story you are telling. They are there to provide visuals and empower your speech.

So how do you go about avoiding a presentation “snoozefest” and instead ensure you have an engaging and interactive presentation?  By making sure that you use your slides to help YOU tell your story, instead of using them as note cards to read off of.

The key thing to remember is that your presentation is there to compliment your speech, not be its focus.

In this article, we will review several presentation tips and tricks on how to become a storytelling powerhouse by building a powerful and engaging PowerPoint presentation.

Start with writing your speech outline, not with putting together slides

Use more images and less text, use high-quality images, keep the focus on you and your presentation, not the powerpoint, your presentation should be legible from anywhere in the room, use a consistent presentation design, one topic per slide, avoid information overwhelm by using the “rule of three”.

• Display one bullet at a time

Avoid unnecessary animations

• Only add content that supports your main points
• Do not use PowerPoint as a teleprompter
• Never Give Out Copies of the Presentation

Re-focus the attention on you by fading into blackness

Change the tone of your voice when presenting, host an expert discussion panel, ask questions, embed videos, use live polling to get instant feedback and engage the audience.

• He kept his slides uncluttered and always strived for simplicity
• He was known to use large font size, the bigger, the better.
• He found made the complex sound simple.

He was known to practice, practice, and keep on practicing.

Summary – how to make your presentation engaging & interactive, fundamental rules to build powerful & engaging presentation slides.

Before we go into tips and tricks on how to add flair to your presentations and create effective presentations, it’s essential to get the fundamentals of your presentation right.

Your PowerPoint presentation is there to compliment your message, and the story you are telling. Before you can even put together slides, you need to identify the goal of your speech, and the key takeaways you want your audience to remember.

YOU and your speech are the focus of this presentation, not the slides – use your PowerPoint to complement your story.

Keep in mind that your slides are there to add to your speech, not distract from it.  Using too much text in your slides can be distracting and confusing to your audience. Instead, use a relevant picture with minimal text, “A picture is worth a thousand words.”

This slide is not unusual, but is not a visual aid, it is more like an “eye chart”.

Aim for something simpler, easy to remember and concise, like the slides below.

Keep in mind your audience when designing your presentation, their background and aesthetics sense. You will want to avoid the default clip art and cheesy graphics on your slides.

While presenting make sure to control the presentation and the room by walking around, drawing attention to you and what you are saying.  You should occasionally stand still when referencing a slide, but never turn your back to your audience to read your slide.

You and your speech are the presentations; the slides are just there to aid you.

Most season presenters don’t use anything less than twenty-eight point font size, and even Steve Jobs was known to use nothing smaller than forty-point text fonts.

If you can’t comfortably fit all the text on your slide using 28 font size than you’re trying to say and cram too much into the slide, remember tip #1.4 – Use relevant images instead and accompany it with bullets.

Best Practice PowerPoint Presentation Tips

The job of your presentation is to help convey information as efficiently and clearly as possible. By keeping the theme and design consistent, you’re allowing the information and pictures to stand out.

However, by varying the design from slide to slide, you will be causing confusion and distraction from the focus, which is you and the information to be conveyed on the slide.

Technology can also help us in creating a consistent presentation design just by picking a topic and selecting a sample template style. This is possible thanks to the SlideModel’s AI slideshow maker .

Each slide should try to represent one topic or talking point. The goal is to keep the attention focused on your speech, and by using one slide per talking point, you make it easy for you to prepare, as well as easy for your audience to follow along with your speech.

Sometimes when creating our presentation, we can often get in our heads and try to over-explain. A simple way to avoid this is to follow the “Rule of Three,” a concept coined by the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle.

The idea is to stick to only 3 main ideas that will help deliver your point.  Each of the ideas can be further broken into 3 parts to explain further. The best modern example of this “Rule of Three” can be derived from the great Apple presentations given by Steve Jobs – they were always structured around the “Rule of Three.”

Display one sentence at a time

If you are planning to include text in your slides, try to avoid bullet lists, and use one slide per sentence. Be short and concise. This best practice focuses on the idea that simple messages are easy to retain in memory. Also, each slide can follow your storytelling path, introducing the audience to each concept while you speak, instead of listing everything beforehand.

Presentation Blunders To Avoid

In reality, there is no need for animations or transitions in your slides.

It’s great to know how to turn your text into fires or how to create a transition with sparkle effects, but the reality is the focus should be on the message. Using basic or no transitions lets the content of your presentation stand out, rather than the graphics.

If you plan to use animations, make sure to use modern and professional animations that helps the audience follow the story you are telling, for example when explaining time series or changing events over time.

Only add engaging content that supports your main points

You might have a great chart, picture or even phrase you want to add, but when creating every slide, it’s crucial to ask yourself the following question.

“Does this slide help support my main point?”

If the answer is no, then remove it.  Remember, less is more.

Do not use PowerPoint as a Teleprompter

A common crutch for rookie presenters is to use slides as their teleprompter.

First of all, you shouldn’t have that much text on your slides. If you have to read off something, prepare some index cards that fit in your hand but at all costs do not turn your back on your audience and read off of your PowerPoint.  The moment you do that, you make the presentation the focus, and lose the audience as the presenter.

Avoid Giving Out Copies of the Presentation

At least not before you deliver a killer presentation; providing copies of your presentation gives your audience a possible distraction where they can flip through the copy and ignore what you are saying.

It’s also easy for them to take your slides out of context without understanding the meaning behind each slide.  It’s OK to give a copy of the presentation, but generally it is better to give the copies AFTER you have delivered your speech. If you decide to share a copy of your presentation, the best way to do it is by  generating a QR code  for it and placing it at the end of your presentation. Those who want a copy can simply scan and download it onto their phones.

Tips To Making Your Presentation More Engaging

The point of your presentation is to help deliver a message.

When expanding on a particularly important topic that requires a lengthy explanation it’s best to fade the slide into black.  This removes any distraction from the screen and re-focuses it on you, the present speaker. Some presentation devices have a built-in black screen button, but if they don’t, you can always prepare for this by adding a black side to your presentation at the right moment.

“It’s not what you say, it’s how you say it.”

Part of making your presentation engaging is to use all the tools at your disposal to get your point across. Changing the inflection and tone of your voice as you present helps make the content and the points more memorable and engaging.

One easy and powerful way to make your presentation interactive is experts to discuss a particular topic during your presentation. This helps create a more engaging presentation and gives you the ability to facilitate and lead a discussion around your topic.

It’s best to prepare some questions for your panel but to also field questions from the audience in a question and answer format.

How To Make Your Presentation More Interactive

What happens if I ask you to think about a pink elephant?  You probably briefly think about a pink elephant, right?

Asking questions when presenting helps engage the audience, and arouse interest and curiosity.  It also has the added benefit of making people pay closer attention, in case they get called on.

So don’t be afraid to ask questions, even if rhetorical; asking a question engages a different part of our brain. It causes us to reflect rather than merely take in the information one way. So ask many of them.

Asking questions can also be an excellent way to build suspense for the next slide.

(Steve Jobs was known to ask questions during his presentations, in this slide he built suspense by asking the audience “Is there space for a device between a cell phone and a laptop?” before revealing the iPad) Source: MacWorld SF 2018

Remember the point of your presentation is to get a message across and although you are the presenter, it is completely fine to use video in your PowerPoint to enhance your presentation.  A relevant video can give you some breathing time to prepare the next slides while equally informing the audience on a particular point.

CAUTION: Be sure to test the video beforehand, and that your audience can hear it in the room.

A trending engagement tool among presenters is to use a live polling tool to allow the audience to participate and collect immediate feedback.

Using a live polling tool is a fun and interactive way to engage your audience in real-time and allow them to participate in part of your presentation.

Google Slides has a built-in Q&A feature that allows presenters to make the slide deck more interactive by providing answers to the audience’s questions. By using the Q&A feature in Google Slides, presenters can start a live Q&A session and people can ask questions directly from their devices including mobile and smartphones.

Key Takeaways from one of the best presenters, Steve Jobs

He kept his slides uncluttered and always strove for simplicity.

In this slide, you can easily see he is talking about the battery life, and it uses a simple image and a few words. Learning from Jobs, you can also make a great presentation too. Focus on the core benefit of your product and incorporate great visuals.

Source: Macworld 2008

SlideModel.com can help to reproduce high-impact slides like these, keeping your audience engagement.

He was known to use large font sizes, the bigger, the better

A big font makes it hard to miss the message on the slide, and allows the audience to focus on the presenter while clearing the understanding what the point of the slide is.

He found made the complex sound simple

When explaining a list of features, he used a simple image and lines or simple tables to provide visual cues to his talking points.

What made Steve Jobs the master of presentation, was the ritual of practicing with his team, and this is simple yet often overlooked by many presenters.  It’s easy to get caught in the trap of thinking you don’t need to practice because you know the material so well.

While all these tips will help you create a truly powerful presentation , it can only achieve if applied correctly.

It’s important to remember when trying to deliver an amazing experience, you should be thoroughly prepared. This way, you can elevate your content presentation, convey your message effectively and captivate your audience.

This includes having your research cited, your presentation rehearsed.  Don’t just rehearse your slides, also take time to practice your delivery, and your tone.  The more you rehearse, the more relaxed you will be when delivering. The more confident you will feel.

While we can’t help you with the practice of your next presentation, we can help you by making sure you look good, and that you have a great design and cohesiveness.

You focus on the message and content; we’ll focus on making you look good.

Have a tip you would like to include?  Be sure to mention it in the comments!

Like this article? Please share

Audience, Engaging, Feedback, Interactive, Poll, Rule of Three, Steve Jobs Filed under Presentation Ideas

Related Articles

Filed under Presentation Ideas • November 29th, 2023

The Power of Audience Engagement: Strategies and Examples

As presenters, captivating the interest of our viewers is the most important thing. Join us to learn all that’s required to boost audience engagement.

Filed under Business • April 30th, 2020

A Manager’s Guide to Interpersonal Communication

People are promoted to management positions for a variety of reasons. For many, they rise to the top because of their knowledge, technical skills, and decision-making capabilities. As a manager, your effectiveness also strongly depends on your ability to communicate well with your team members and other stakeholders. Here is a quick guide on Interpersonal Communication for Managers.

Filed under Business • June 27th, 2019

Using 360 Degree Feedback in Your Organization

Many organizations use 360 degree feedback to provide assessment for employees via multiple sources to analyze the knowledge, skill and behavior of employees. It is also known as multi-rater feedback, multi-source feedback, 360 Degree Review and multi-source assessment, since it is used frequently for assessing the performance of an employee and to determine his/her future […]

2 Responses to “23 PowerPoint Presentation Tips for Creating Engaging and Interactive Presentations”

Very great advices!

Greetings ! A compact composed communication for the host to have an impact -VOICE

Thank You ?

Leave a Reply

Tips for creating and delivering an effective presentation

In this article.

Creating an effective presentation

Delivering an effective presentation

Tips for creating an effective presentation

Top of Page

Tips for delivering an effective presentation

Need more help?

Want more options.

Explore subscription benefits, browse training courses, learn how to secure your device, and more.

Microsoft 365 subscription benefits

Microsoft 365 training

Microsoft security

Accessibility center

Communities help you ask and answer questions, give feedback, and hear from experts with rich knowledge.

Ask the Microsoft Community

Microsoft Tech Community

Windows Insiders

Microsoft 365 Insiders

Was this information helpful?

Thank you for your feedback.

Unsupported browser

This site was designed for modern browsers and tested with Internet Explorer version 10 and later.

It may not look or work correctly on your browser.

• Presentations

How to Make Great PPT Slide Layouts in Microsoft PowerPoint

• Bahasa Indonesia

PowerPoint  is an industry standard for creating presentations for good reason: it's got enough tools to easily create professional presentations using good PowerPoint layouts. 

PowerPoint tools help create presentations without having to reinvent the wheel with each presentation you make. Tools like themes, animations, and slide layout  PowerPoint speed up the process of building presentations.

In this tutorial, I'll teach you to use and create  PowerPoint layouts.  You can think of a slide layout as a one-click starting point for making your presentation.

What Is a PowerPoint Slide Layout ?

Let's look at a definition of a slide layout, PowerPoint specifically, and what makes them so useful:

PowerPoint layouts are the combination and arrangement of objects on a slide. You can choose a layout in a PowerPoint presentation and start adding your own content to build out a slide.

PowerPoint themes include multiple slide layouts. In the screenshot below, you see a variety of slide layouts to choose from that are included with the Simplicity PowerPoint theme , available on GraphicRiver. 

A slide layout in a PowerPoint presentation can be as simple as a title, centered on a slide. A slide layout in PowerPoint can also contain complex combinations of text boxes, images, and graphics. Use a number of slide layouts for variety in your PowerPoint presentations.

5 Popular Types of PowerPoint Slide Layouts

In this section, I'm going to sample from PowerPoint slide layouts on Envato Elements. Elements is an all-you-can-download service that includes thousands of custom PowerPoint templates—each of which includes custom layouts.

Here are five PowerPoint layouts that you'll see in many custom templates from Envato Elements. Let's check them out and think about how you might use them. I'll show you the templates that include the best PowerPoint layouts you can use in your next presentation.

1. The Timeline Layout in PowerPoint Presentation

A timeline layout is the perfect example of a PowerPoint layout that isn't built-in. Many premium templates include timelines as a custom PowerPoint layout option.

Timelines can be used to tell stories and link events together in chronological order. It's one of the best ways to chain together events and tell a cohesive story.

2. The "Colorful Content" Slide

Minimalism and simple slides are all the rage in 2024. But throwing in the occasional bright, colorful slide can help break the rhythm and make a key slide really stand out.

In the example above, you can see a slide layout in PowerPoint that's common to many modern presentation templates. A simple combination of blocks that serve as the backdrop to your content is the perfect example of a PowerPoint layout you won't find built into the app.

3. The Device Mockup Layout

Want to see something in a real-world setting? A device mockup layout in a PowerPoint presentation may be the perfect way to show off an app or service. 

These can take many forms, but the example above is a prime one. Combining a device mockup with supporting points can bring an app or service to life.

4. The "Chart and Facts" Layout

Charts and graphs can usually stand on their own, but it helps when you put them side-by-side with key talking points. That's why a "chart and facts" PowerPoint custom layout is one of my favorite way to accomplish both on the same slide.

5. The "People Grid" Layout

There are  so many  presentations that benefit from showing your team. That could include business-centric presentations or a class presentation that shows everyone who contributed.

There are many PowerPoint layouts to do this, but the example above is one that's common to many templates: a simple combination of shapes and image placeholders that show off the contributors. 

How to Quickly Make Slide Layouts in PowerPoint (Watch & Learn)

In this screencast, I'll teach you how to choose from different layouts in PowerPoint. Then, you'll learn how to create your very own slide layouts. This helps you save and re-use your most common slide designs.

Read on for written, illustrated instructions for mastering PowerPoint slide layouts.

How to Change PowerPoint Layouts

To change your PowerPoint layout, make sure that you're working on the  Home  tab on PowerPoint's ribbon.

Choose the  Layout  dropdown. PowerPoint shows a menu with thumbnails for each of the different layouts packaged with the theme:

To change a layout, simply click on one of those thumbnails to apply a selected layout. The slide view in the main workspace will change to the selected PowerPoint layout.

When you choose a new slide layout, PowerPoint will put  placeholders  on a slide, empty boxes where you can insert your own content. Based on the slide layout, the placeholder might expect you to insert header text, bullet points, images, video, and more.

Each slide layout for PPT is different. They might include placeholders for images, text boxes for your content, or even video boxes. Slide layouts also can include background colors or images specific to each slide.

Think of a slide layout in PowerPoint as a blueprint for a slide. Different blueprints help you build different styles of slides. Specific slides might skip image placeholders or use all text, so choose the layout that helps you present your content efficiently.

How to Create Custom Slide Layouts

So far, we've looked at layouts that are built into a PowerPoint theme. What if you want to create your own slide layouts with custom combinations of elements? The theme that you're using may not include the PowerPoint layout you envision. In PowerPoint, you can create  custom slide layouts  and use them over and over.

If you find yourself creating the same arrangement of objects on a PowerPoint slide repeatedly, it's a good idea to create your own layout. Create PowerPoint custom layouts and re-use them with a single click. Here's how:

1. Navigate to Slide Master View

Enter  Slide Master View  to create your own PowerPoint custom layout. Click on the View  tab on PowerPoint's ribbon and choose  Slide Master  from the Master Views section on the ribbon.

Slide Master View is a feature to edit your slide templates. You can edit or insert new layouts with this view. The screenshot below shows one of the slide layouts that's built into the theme. Notice that it includes placeholder boxes where you can add your own content.

When you work in Slide Master view, you aren't working with the presentation file—you're adding layouts to the presentation theme itself. 

2. Insert a Slide Layout

Now that we've entered Slide Master view, we can add and edit slide layouts. Create your own PowerPoint slide layout if your theme lacks the structure you need.

To add a new slide layout, find the  Insert Layout  button on the ribbon and click on it. On the left side, PowerPoint will add a new thumbnail that represents a new PowerPoint layout.

This slide layout for PPT is your blank canvas to design your very own custom slide layout. The elements you add will show any time you use the custom slide layout.

3. Add Placeholders for Your Slide

Placeholders  are the objects you can add to a slide layout. When you select a slide layout in PowerPoint, you'll see boxes that are filled with your content.

To add those boxes, click on  Insert Placeholder  on the ribbon while in Slide Master view. Choose from one of the options to add a box.

Adding a placeholder to a slide layout in PowerPoint will create a box on the slide to add content. When you use that slide layout in the future, these placeholder boxes will appear, and you can add content to them.

A PowerPoint layout is just a set of placeholders that you can re-use, so don't add specific content like the slide title or bullet points to this view. The goal is to create re-usable slide designs that are flexible. In the screenshot below, I've added a couple of placeholders ("Content" and a "Picture" placeholder) to the layout.

Slide Master View also allows you to change font sizes and color. Those changes are included as a part of the new Slide Layout, so they'll appear anytime that you use the custom slide layout.

4. Use the PowerPoint Slide Layout

Let's leave Slide Master view and return to  Normal  view, the standard presentation-building view in PowerPoint. Click on  View  and click on  Normal  to leave Slide Master view.

Now that you're back in Normal View , return to the  Home  tab on the ribbon, and open the  Layout  drop-down. You'll see the new layout that we just created. Click on it to apply it to the active slide.

PowerPoint will change the current slide to the custom PowerPoint layout you select. Then, you can start adding content to the placeholder boxes you added in Slide Master view. Return to the Layout menu any time that you want to use your custom slide layout.

5 Top PowerPoint Presentation Slide Layout Design Tips for 2024

What are the elements that make for a great PowerPoint layout? We've all sat through too many presentations with crowded, confusing slides.

Not all slide layouts in PowerPoint are created equally. Here are my top tips for great slide layouts:

Above all, limit the number of items included on a slide layout. You want to focus on a few key bullet points or media to remain readable.

Consider font sizes when adding text boxes; use larger sizes for header text and smaller sizes elsewhere.

Don't fill the entire slide with placeholders; leave white space between each of the elements so that the slides flow naturally.

With that in mind, here are five quick tips to help you design a standout presentation: 

1. Stand Out With Custom Illustrations

Custom illustrations are a great way to make your presentation visually engaging so you can stand out from your peers. The Lionhead PPT template from Envato Elements does a wonderful job of using illustrations and making the entire presentation appear more colorful. 

2. Go Easy on Transitions and Animations

Transitions and animations can make your presentation more engaging. But if you go overboard, it can make your presentation look unprofessional. Save the transitions and animations for slides that introduce the next point in your presentation. 

3. Use Contrasting Colors

Take your presentation to the next level by using two contrasting colors. This is a great choice for companies and professionals that want to leave a lasting and bold impression on their audience. Use a template like Conference which comes with contrasting colors built into the slides. 

4. Make Use of the Slide Master

Use a slide master to create consistency in your presentation design. You can set the default colors and font sizes so they’re easy to update throughout the entire presentation in one place.

5. Get Creative With Slide Layouts

Your slides don’t have to be purely image based or text based. Experiment with image and text placement to create unique and attractive slides. Or use a template like Rockstar which comes with many slide layouts and types.

5 Top Premium PowerPoint Slide Design Templates From Envato Elements - For 2024

Envato Elements is one of the top places to find premium PowerPoint slide design templates. These templates have a modern and professional design as well plenty of features that'll take your presentation to the next level:

1. Casual PowerPoint Template

The Casual PowerPoint template is perfect for a fashion or eCommerce presentation. The template was designed in widescreen format and standard format. It includes 32 slides based on master slides. You’ll also find drag and drop image placeholders for easy editing. 

2. Guava PowerPoint Template

The Guava template features a minimalistic and clean design. It's got more than 50 unique slides and editable vector shapes. You can easily add your own photos thanks to image placeholders. The template also includes PPTX files and documentation. 

3. Simple Slide Layout in PowerPoint Template

The Simple Presentation PowerPoint template has a multipurpose design that can be used for any type of presentation. It includes a light and a dark version and drag and drop image placeholders. The template is easy to customize. 

4. Boris PowerPoint Template

The Boris template has a clean and minimal design. It comes with 30 slides based on master slides. It also includes 5 premade color schemes and picture placeholders. The template was designed in widescreen resolution.

5. Classics PowerPoint Template

The Classics template is a great choice if you’re looking for an elegant template. It can be used for all kinds of presentations. You’ll find 150+ unique slides and 5 premade color schemes. It’s easy to customize thanks to image placeholders and master slides. 

Common PowerPoint Questions Answered (FAQ)

If you’re thinking about using PowerPoint for your next presentation, you might have questions about this powerful program. Here, we’ve gathered the most common questions about PowerPoint to provide you with answers:

1. Is It Easy to Change Templates in PowerPoint?

PowerPoint comes with some built-in slide templates. But you can easily change them for a professionally designed template. We've got a tutorial that walks you through the entire process.

2. What Are the Best Dimensions for My Presentation?

This answer is a rather tricky one and depends on where and how you plan on presenting your slides. We've got a tutorial that'll help you design your presentation and ensure it looks great no matter where it’s presented.

3. Can I Edit Master Slides in PowerPoint?

Yes, you can and it’s quite easy to do. Editing the master slides will help you maintain consistency as well as use your favorite fonts, colors, and other styles.

4. Can I Learn PowerPoint Quickly?

PowerPoint is packed with features that might seem overwhelming. Luckily, there are a few tips and tricks you can use to get up to speed with PowerPoint quickly and create presentations in no time.

5. How Can PowerPoint Help Make Better Presentations?

PowerPoint has many features that help you create great presentations. This includes built-in layouts, the ability to rearrange slides, master slides, and more. You can learn more in our guide about key Microsoft PowerPoint features .

Keep Learning More About PowerPoint

Slide layouts are just arrangements of items on a PowerPoint slide, but they're essential to master for PowerPoint professionals. 

If you want to learn more about PowerPoint in general, we've got a great resource for you: the PowerPoint Ultimate Tutorial Guide . There's no other source that's got so much information in a single place.

You can make your own custom PowerPoint layouts or save time by working with a top professional PowerPoint template , which comes with great slide designs that are pre-built and ready to use: 

Grab Our New eBook on Making Great Presentations (Free)

Download  The Complete Guide to Making Great Presentations  eBook now for FREE with a subscription to the Tuts+ Business Newsletter. Get your ideas formed into a powerful presentation that'll move your audience!

Build Your Best Slide Layout in PowerPoint With Helpful Tutorials and Templates

In this post, we covered one of the most important aspects of Microsoft's presentation app: PowerPoint layouts. A layout for PPT is a blueprint you can use to set up the elements for your slides. PowerPoint certainly has built-in layout options that are easy to use as the starting point for your slides. 

But, custom slides from Envato Elements or GraphicRiver have limitless layout options that can help you build your best presentations ever. Jump to those links to design your presentation with custom PowerPoint layouts.

Editorial Note: The tutorial was originally published in July of 2017. It's been comprehensively revised to include new information—with special assistance from Andrew Childress   and Brenda Barron .

• Powerpoint Tutorials

How to Combine Multiple PowerPoints into One: A Complete Guide

Combining multiple PowerPoint presentations into a single file can be a daunting task, especially when dealing with numerous slides and different formatting styles. But with the right approach, you can streamline this process and create a cohesive presentation effortlessly. In this comprehensive guide, we’ll walk you through several methods to merge your PowerPoints, from basic copy-paste to advanced techniques. 

Method 1: The Classic Copy and Paste

The most simple and easy way to combine PowerPoints is by using the good old copy and paste method. Here’s how:

• Open both presentations: Start by opening the main PowerPoint where you want to incorporate the slides from another presentation.
• Select and copy slides: In the presentation you want to merge, select the slides you need. Right-click and choose “Copy” or use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+C.
• Paste into the main presentation: Go back to your main PowerPoint, click where you want to insert the copied slides, right-click, and select “Paste.”

Pro Tip: To maintain consistent formatting, try using the “Paste Special” option and choose “Keep Source Formatting.”

Method 2: Reuse Slides Feature

PowerPoint offers a built-in feature called “Reuse Slides” that simplifies the merging process. Follow these steps:

• Open the main presentation: Begin with the PowerPoint where you want to merge the slides.
• Access Reuse Slides: Click on the “Home” tab, then “New Slide,” and choose “Reuse Slides.”
• Select the presentation: Browse and select the PowerPoint file containing the slides you want to add.
• Insert slides: Choose the specific slides or insert all slides at once.

Method 3: Insert Object

For more complex scenarios, the “Insert Object” method can be helpful. Here’s how it works:

• Open the main presentation: Open the PowerPoint presentation where you’ll combine the slides.
• Insert Object: Go to the “Insert” tab, click on “Object,” and choose “Create from File.”
• Select the presentation: Browse and select the PowerPoint file you want to embed.
• Choose options: Decide whether to link the object to the original file or create a copy.

Method 4: Drag and Drop (For Similar File Locations)

If your PowerPoints are stored in the same folder, you can simplify the process by dragging and dropping slides.

• Open both presentations: Have both PowerPoints open side by side.
• Select and drag: In the source presentation, select the slides you want to move. Drag and drop them into the desired location in the main presentation.

Method 5: Compare and Merge (Advanced)

PowerPoint’s “Compare” feature offers a more advanced way to combine presentations while highlighting differences. This method is particularly useful when merging multiple versions of the same presentation. 

• Open the main presentation: Start with the PowerPoint you want to use as a base.
• Access Compare: Go to the “Review” tab and click on “Compare.”
• Select presentations: Choose the PowerPoint files you want to compare and merge.
• Review and merge: PowerPoint will display the differences between the presentations, allowing you to select the slides you want to keep.

Tips for a Seamless Merge

• Maintain consistency: Ensure a uniform look and feel by applying the same theme and formatting styles to all slides.
• Check for duplicates: Avoid redundant information by reviewing the content before merging.
• Proofread carefully: After combining the presentations, thoroughly proofread for errors and inconsistencies.

By following these methods and tips, you can effectively combine multiple PowerPoints into a single, well-organized presentation. Choose the approach that best suits your needs and enjoy the benefits of a streamlined workflow.

Visit our tips & tricks page to discover additional presentation hacks that can elevate your skills. If you are working on the Google Slides platform, we hope our blog on “ How to Connect Multiple Google Slides into One ” will help you achieve this.

By mastering the art of combining PowerPoints, you’ll save time, improve efficiency, and create impactful presentations that leave a lasting impression on your audience.

Spread Love

Related blogs.

Arockia Mary Amutha

Arockia Mary Amutha is a seasoned senior content writer at SlideEgg, bringing over four years of dedicated experience to the field. Her expertise in presentation tools like PowerPoint, Google Slides, and Canva shines through in her clear, concise, and professional writing style. With a passion for crafting engaging and insightful content, she specializes in creating detailed how-to guides, tutorials, and tips on presentation design that resonate with and empower readers.

Recent Blogs

What is a PPT and How to Make Impactful Presentations with PowerPoint?

PowerPoint Presentations, commonly known as PPTs, have become an essential tool in various fields such as business, education, and even...

How to Create a Jeopardy Game in Google Slides: A Step-by-Step Guide

Jeopardy is a popular quiz game that challenges participants with answers to which they must respond with the correct questions....

Why Roadmap PowerPoint Template Best For Project Management?

Project management, at this time, will be like walking in a maze, where one becomes lost in the middle of...

SIGNUP FOR NEWSLETTER