how to do an awesome powerpoint presentation

HUGH CULVER

Author, speaker, coach, 10 easy ways to make any powerpoint presentation awesome.

Updated to Speaking on May 3, 2023.

This post was updated in 2023.

It was 20 minutes before lunch, my client was frantically looking at the clock, and the audience was squirming. We had suffered through endless forgettable PowerPoint slides and were all hoping for a merciful end. That’s when the presenter announced, “I see I’m running out of time, so I’ll just hurry through my last 30 slides.”

We’ve all suffered through slide shows with long lists of unreadable bullets, unnecessary YouTube clips, and overuse of graphics. Instead of holding our attention and making their point even stronger, each slide distracts the audience with more content they don’t need. Bad slides are agnostic. You can use PowerPoint, Keynote, Prezi, Google Slides, or hold up a piece of paper – it’s all a distraction if you don’t do it well.

Done well, a thoughtfully prepared slide deck can be the perfect slide dish for your full meal presentation. Done poorly and your audience will feel like they made one too many trips to the buffet table. This post will help you do it well.

For the first years of my speaking career, I presented with 35mm slides. You know, the photographs framed by cardboard that got jammed in the projector? That was me – hauling out the projector, clicking in the carousel, and praying that tonight it would all work. I soon learned that the more slides I showed the less the audience listened to me. So I cut back on the slides. I also noticed that when I switched to a black screen (see #9) the audience turned all their attention to me. So I practiced fading to black whenever I told a story or had an important point to make.

How I started

When I switched to PowerPoint I suddenly had a candy shop full of treats to sweeten my presentations with. And I started making all the same mistakes again: too many slides, too much content on each slide, and too distracting. After every presentation I always do a quick debrief – what worked, what needs to change? And slowly I developed a checklist for slide presentations.

I have shared with checklist with hundreds of speakers to help put the spotlight on them. Some were designing a new speech, some were preparing for a webinar and others needed slides to back up a video presentation. In every case, this checklist made their presentation better. They sold more products, got more referrals, and, in most cases, spent a lot less time working on their slide deck.

If you’ve ever struggled to create interesting slides or worry your slides are too wordy or you have too many of them, this will help.

Here are my 10 easy ways to make any PowerPoint presentation awesome.

1. Build your slides last

This might be the most important rule on the list. Don’t build your slide deck until you build your presentation.

You could be tempted to start monkeying with slides early in your speech writing process – after all, it’s a fun way to procrastinate from all that hard thinking – don’t. Building your slide deck before you build your presentation is like building a road before you know where it’s going.

Your slides are there to ADD to a well-designed speech, not to replace it.

2. Don’t try to replace you

People come to hear you. If you are launching your service on a webinar, they want to know how this solution has helped you and whether is it right for them. If you are delivering a keynote speech or workshop, they want a glimpse into your solutions that can help move them forward in their work or in life.

Fancy transitions, superfluous video clips, and endless bullet points will get your audience’s attention, but take their attention off of you. Every time you hit the clicker the audience leaves you and goes to the screen.

Your goal for every presentation is to deliver the goods, not the slides.

3. Use a consistent theme

We are easily distracted and confused. That’s why brands always anchor advertising on their unique colors, fonts, slogan, or a jingle. They know that consistency in their brand theme builds recognition and puts more attention on the message. You should do that with your slides.

Start with a simple, white background and san serif fonts.

A consistent, simple theme helps your audience focus on the content of each slide. Watch TED talks that have gone viral to see how simple a slide theme can be, like the ones by Dan Pink The puzzle of motivation (30M views), and Shawn Achor The happy secret to better work (25M views).

4. More images, less text

Want to quickly reenergize a tired slide deck? Make your images larger ( in this post I share where to get free images ) and reduce the text size. Remember, the theme in this post is that you are the presentation, not your slides.

Your brain can process images 60,000 times faster than text. When you use images (and less text) you allow your audience to process the image without distracting them away from your powerful story, or making a critical point. Like subtle mood music in the background of a dramatic movie scene, images can augment and enhance what you are saying without stealing the show.

5. One story per slide

When I started using PowerPoint I would have 60 to 80 slides for a 60-minute speech. It was a lot of work to prepare each deck and when I was deep into the speech I would sometimes forget where I was and have to jump forward a couple of slides.

Then it became 30-35 slides and I could breathe easier, knowing that fewer clicks meant less to worry about. As my confidence grew it became 10-12 slides and each slide became a key part of storytelling or point-making—they had to earn their place.

I might use a slide as a backdrop to a story or for a short list that supports a lesson I’m delivering. Either way, it’s always on ‘story’ per slide. If I don’t need a slide, I fade to black (#9).

But, I always stick to one story per slide.

6. Reveal one bullet at a time

This is an easy one – reveal one bullet at a time. The function of bullets is to reinforce (not replace) what you are delivering. That’s why they need to be short (see the 2/4/8 rule, below). A good bullet point is complete on it’s own, but much better when combined with a live presentation of it. Here’s an example from a list of (very wordy) time management strategies:

• Infrequent visits to your Inbox give you more time for deep work
• time blocking allows you to protect time for important work
• the Pomodoro technique can help you focus with fewer distractions

A better list – like one you might use on a PowerPoint slide – would be:

• visit your Inbox less often
• block time for important work
• the Pomodoro technique helps you focus

To reveal one bullet at a time in PowerPoint, right-click on your text box, select Custom Animation > Add Entrance Effect and then choose the effect you want. In Keynote, click Animate > Build in and choose the effect you want.

7. Leave the fireworks to Disney

It’s great that you know how to turn text into flames and make images spin with the click of your mouse – but leave those fireworks to Disney. Your job is to make your content the star of the show. Every time you haul the audience’s attention away to some animation you lose a truckload of opportunity to help them.

Your slides can still be amazing and helpful, but that should always be secondary to your primary purpose of helping people. Simple transitions, clean, san serif fonts, and large, attractive graphics trump PowerPoint tricks, every time.

8. The 2/4/8 rule

When I am advising other speakers I often don’t know their topic—certainly not as well as they do. So I rely on certain rules I have developed over many years. For slide decks, I use my 2/4/8 rule. Here’s how it goes…

• about every 2 minutes I have a new slide (that’s 30 slides for a 60-minute speech),
• no more than 4 bullets per slide, and
• no more than 8 words per bullet.

Just like any recipe, you can mess with the ingredient a bit. If your content is more technical, you might need more slides. Sometimes I need 5 or 6 bullets. I use the 2/4/8 rule to remind me that slides are there to support what I have to say, not replace me.

9. Fade to black

The last time I was shopping for a car, I noticed the salesperson had a clever technique. While he asked how I liked the car and if I had any questions, he kept his sales offer face-down on the table. Because there were no other distractions, he had my full attention. And when it was time to reveal his offer, it was much more dramatic (so was the price!) Use the same technique with your slides.

When you fade to black you regain your audience’s attention. For example, after I present a solution, I’ll fade to black while I expound on how to apply that solution in my audience’s work/life. When I’m finished, I turn black off and go to the next point. Or if I’m halfway through a story I’ll fade to back before the punchline so I know I have everyone’s attention.

It’s no different than a close-up scene in a movie—the director wants you to focus only on the speaker. Note that if you are shopping for a slide remote, be sure that yours has the black screen feature.

10. When in doubt, delete

This might be the most advice I can leave you with. When in doubt, delete it.

There is a weird attraction to more. Authors add more pages thinking it makes the book more valuable. Sales people who talk too much miss the opportunity to ask for the sale. And presenters add more slides thinking it will make them look better. Wrong.

When you are doing the final edits on your slide deck, the ultimate question you should be asking about each slide is, “Will it make my speech better?” If not, dump it.

Remember, nobody will miss what isn’t there. Also fewer slides allows you more time for side stories, spontaneous thoughts or even time for Q&A.

Remember this…

I’ve said it numerous times in this post, but it’s worth repeating. You are the show, not your slides. More slides means more time your audience is not paying attention to you. Fewer (and better) slides means you have more time to build rapport, share memorable stories, explain your solutions and motivate your audience to action. You are there for a reason. Now go and deliver.

One last thing. Spend the $80 and pack a remote (with spare batteries.) Nothing’s worse than watching a speaker repeatedly lean over, hunt for the right key, and then peck away to advance the slides.

If you enjoyed this article, here is more about presentation skills:

How the experts create world-class PowerPoint Slides (and you can too) PowerPoint Primer – the only 3 slides you’ll ever need How to add video to PowerPoint and Keynote like a pro

Slide by  Nathan Anderson  on  Unsplash

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60 Effective PowerPoint Presentation Tips & Tricks (Giant List)

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

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

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

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

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

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

Guide to Making Great Presentations (Free eBook Download)

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

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

Master PowerPoint (Free Course): 15 Essential Tips

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

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

What Makes a PowerPoint Presentation Effective?

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

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

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

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

Killer Presentation Preparation Tips to Get Started Right

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

1. Know Your Stuff

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

2. Write It Out

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

3. Highlight What’s Most Important

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

4. Know Your Audience

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

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

5. Rehearse! (Yes, Already)

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

6. Rewrite After You Rehearse

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

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

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

7. Share With a Friend

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

Simple Tips to Design Your PowerPoint Presentation Better

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

8. Keep Your Slides Simple

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

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

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

9. Limit Words on Your Slides

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

10. Use High-Quality Photos and Graphics

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

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

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

11. Use Accurate and Relevant Charts and Graphs

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

12. Use High-Quality, Fresh Templates

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

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

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

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

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

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

13. Choose Appropriate Fonts

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

14. Choose Color Well

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

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

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

15. Clean + Simple Formatting Makes All the Difference!

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

16. Make Sure All Objects Are Aligned

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

17. Limit Punctuation

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

18. Avoid Over-Formatting Your Points

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

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

19. Combine Information With Graphics in PowerPoint

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

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

Practice Presentation Tips: Rehearse, Rehearse, Rehearse!

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

20. I’ll Say It Again, Rehearse!

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

21. Practice With a Timer

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

22. Slow It Down

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

23. Pause More Often

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

24. Record Yourself

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

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

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

25. Choose Three Focal Points in the Room

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

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

26. Vary Your Sentence Length

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

27. Modulate!

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

28. Practice in Front of a Mirror

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

29. Use “Present Mode” When Rehearsing

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

30. Practice With New Audiences

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

31. Engage the Audience by Asking Questions

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

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

Helpful Tips to Step Up and Deliver Come Presentation Time

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

32. Take a Deep Breath

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

33. Lighten Up Your Mood

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

34. Remind Yourself to Take It Slow

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

35. Read the Room

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

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

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

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

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

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

36. Fake It ‘Til You Make It!

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

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

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

37. Stop With the Sound Effects

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

38. Don’t Use Flashy Slide Transitions

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

39. Beware of Clip Art

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

40. Don’t Be Afraid to Be Afraid

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

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

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

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

41. Don’t Read Directly During Your PowerPoint Presentation

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

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

42. Don’t Miss Out on PowerPoint Customizations

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

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

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

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

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

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

43. Use the Visual Guides

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

44. Use a Few Animations (Tastefully)

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

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

45. Stage Key Content With Animations

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

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

Take it from presentation pro Suzannah Baum :

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

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

46. Add a Video to Your PowerPoint

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

47. Add Charts & Graphs

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

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

48. Build Your Own Infographics With SmartArt

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

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

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

49. Use Presenter View

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

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

50. Track Your PowerPoint Changes

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

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

10 More Advanced PowerPoint Tips & Tricks

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

51. Engage With an Interactive Quiz

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

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

52. Illustrate With Custom Image Masks

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

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

53. Print Handouts With Extra Notes

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

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

54. Make Bulk Edits With Master Slides

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

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

55. Shrink File Sizes for Sharing

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

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

56. Map Processes With Flowcharts

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

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

57. Use Brand-Specific Colors

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

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

58. Build Social Media Posts in PPT

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

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

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

59. Be Industry-Specific

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

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

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

60. Design for Online (Virtual) Sharing

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

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

More Great PowerPoint Tutorial Resources

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

Discover More Top PowerPoint Template Designs From Envato Elements for 2024

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

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

1. Galaxi PowerPoint Template

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

2. Masmax PowerPoint Template

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

3. STYLE Multipurpose PowerPoint Template V50

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

4. Peachme Creative PowerPoint Template

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

5. Buizi Office Building Rent PowerPoint Template

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

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

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

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

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

Let’s get started:

1. Choose Your Slides

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

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

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

2. Add Text

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

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

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

3. Customize Fonts

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

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

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

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

4. Insert Images

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

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

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

5. Change Colors

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

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

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

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

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

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

Related Articles

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! 

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13 PowerPoint Presentation Tips to Create Engaging Presentations

Written by: Chloe West

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

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

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

1. Start by writing out your talking points.

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

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

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

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

Presentation Templates

Ecommerce Webinar Presentation

Buyer Presentation

PixelGo Marketing Plan Presentation

Product Training Interactive Presentation

Company Ethics Presentation

Work+Biz Pitch Deck - Presentation

Create your presentation View more templates

2. Get creative with your PowerPoint presentation slide design.

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

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

Use more design elements than photos.

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

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

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

Use a bold color scheme.

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

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

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

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3. Keep your design consistent throughout.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

4. Make your presentation interactive.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

5. Add animation.

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

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

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

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

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

6. Put together seamless transitions.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ready to create your own presentation in minutes?

• Add your own text, images and more
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• Choose from hundreds of slide designs and templates
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7. Use text creatively.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Surround your text with shapes.

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

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

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

Place your text on the white space of a photo.

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

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

Use color overlays.

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

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

8. Align objects with the grid.

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

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

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

9. Create non-linear presentations.

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

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

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

10. Place shapes strategically.

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

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

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

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

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

11. Crop images into shapes.

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

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

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

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

12. Utilize presenter notes.

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

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

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

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

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

13. Use a dynamic presentation software.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Start improving your PowerPoint presentations with Visme.

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

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About the Author

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

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How to Make a Beautiful PowerPoint Presentation: A Simple Guide

Ready to craft a beautiful powerpoint presentation these nine powerpoint layout ideas will help anyone create effective, compelling slides..

Below, we’ll dive into:

Key Elements of Winning PowerPoints

Tips on making beautiful powerpoint presentations, other considerations when creating a slideshow.

How many times have you sat through a poorly designed business presentation that was dull, cluttered, and distracting? Probably way too many. Even though we all loathe a boring presentation, when it comes time to make our own, do we really do any better?

The good news is you don’t have to be a professional designer to make professional presentations. We’ve put together a few simple guidelines you can follow to create a beautifully assembled deck.

We’ll walk you through some slide design tips, show you some tricks to maximize your PowerPoint skills, and give you everything you need to look really good next time you’re up in front of a crowd.

And, while PowerPoint remains one of the biggest names in presentation software, many of these design elements and principles work in Google Slides as well.

Let’s dive right in to learn how to make powerpoint presentation attractive and make sure your audience isn’t yawning through your entire presentation.

1. Use Layout to Your Advantage

Layout is one of the most powerful visual elements in design, and it’s a simple, effective way to control the flow and visual hierarchy of information. It’s also one of the most important elements to consider when thinking about how to make your powerpoint look better.

For example, most Western languages read left to right, top to bottom. Knowing this natural reading order, you can direct people’s eyes in a deliberate way to certain key parts of a slide that you want to emphasize.

You can also guide your audience with simple tweaks to the layout. Use text size and alternating fonts or colors to distinguish headlines from body text.

Placement also matters. There are many unorthodox ways to structure a slide, but most audience members will have to take a few beats to organize the information in their head—that’s precious time better spent listening to your delivery and retaining information.

Try to structure your slides more like this:

And not like this:

Layout is one of the trickier PowerPoint design concepts to master, which is why we have these free PowerPoint templates already laid out for you. Use them as a jumping off point for your own presentation, or use them wholesale!

Presentation templates can give you a huge leg up as you start working on your design.

2. No Sentences

This is one of the most critical slide design tips. Slides are simplified, visual notecards that capture and reinforce main ideas, not complete thoughts.

As the speaker, you should be delivering most of the content and information, not putting it all on the slides for everyone to read (and probably ignore). If your audience is reading your presentation instead of listening to you deliver it, your message has lost its effectiveness.

Pare down your core message and use keywords to convey it. Try to avoid complete sentences unless you’re quoting someone or something.

Stick with this:

And avoid this:

3. Follow the 6×6 Rule

One of the cardinal sins of a bad PowerPoint is cramming too many details and ideas on one slide, which makes it difficult for people to retain information. Leaving lots of “white space” on a slide helps people focus on your key points.

Try using the 6×6 rule to keep your content concise and clean looking. The 6×6 rule means a maximum of six bullet points per slide and six words per bullet. In fact, some people even say you should never have more than six words per slide!

Just watch out for “orphans” (when the last word of a sentence/phrase spills over to the next line). This looks cluttered. Either fit it onto one line or add another word to the second line.

Slides should never have this much information:

4. Keep the Colors Simple

Stick to simple light and dark colors and a defined color palette for visual consistency. Exceptionally bright text can cause eye fatigue, so use those colors sparingly. Dark text on a light background or light text on a dark background will work well. Also avoid intense gradients, which can make text hard to read.

If you’re presenting on behalf of your brand, check what your company’s brand guidelines are. Companies often have a primary brand color and a secondary brand color , and it’s a good idea to use them in your presentation to align with your company’s brand identity and style.

If you’re looking for color inspiration for your next presentation, check out our 101 Color Combinations , where you can browse tons of eye-catching color palettes curated by a pro. When you find the one you like, just type the corresponding color code into your presentation formatting tools.

Here are more of our favorite free color palettes for presentations:

• 10 Color Palettes to Nail Your Next Presentation
• 10 Energizing Sports Color Palettes for Branding and Marketing
• 10 Vintage Color Palettes Inspired by the Decades

No matter what color palette or combination you choose, you want to keep the colors of your PowerPoint presentation simple and easy to read, like this:

Stay away from color combinations like this:

5. Use Sans-Serif Fonts

Traditionally, serif fonts (Times New Roman, Garamond, Bookman) are best for printed pages, and sans-serif fonts (Helvetica, Tahoma, Verdana) are easier to read on screens.

These are always safe choices, but if you’d like to add some more typographic personality , try exploring our roundup of the internet’s best free fonts . You’ll find everything from classic serifs and sans serifs to sophisticated modern fonts and splashy display fonts. Just keep legibility top of mind when you’re making your pick.

Try to stick with one font, or choose two at the most. Fonts have very different personalities and emotional impacts, so make sure your font matches the tone, purpose, and content of your presentation.

6. Stick to 30pt Font or Larger

Many experts agree that your font size for a PowerPoint presentation should be at least 30pt. Sticking to this guideline ensures your text is readable. It also forces you, due to space limitations, to explain your message efficiently and include only the most important points. .

7. Avoid Overstyling the Text

Three of the easiest and most effective ways to draw attention to text are:

• A change in color

Our eyes are naturally drawn to things that stand out, but use these changes sparingly. Overstyling can make the slide look busy and distracting.

8. Choose the Right Images

The images you choose for your presentation are perhaps as important as the message. You want images that not only support the message, but also elevate it—a rare accomplishment in the often dry world of PowerPoint.

But, what is the right image? We’ll be honest. There’s no direct answer to this conceptual, almost mystical subject, but we can break down some strategies for approaching image selection that will help you curate your next presentation.

The ideal presentation images are:

• Inspirational

These may seem like vague qualities, but the general idea is to go beyond the literal. Think about the symbols in an image and the story they tell. Think about the colors and composition in an image and the distinct mood they set for your presentation.

With this approach, you can get creative in your hunt for relatable, authentic, and inspirational images. Here are some more handy guidelines for choosing great images.

Illustrative, Not Generic

So, the slide in question is about collaborating as a team. Naturally, you look for images of people meeting in a boardroom, right?

While it’s perfectly fine to go super literal, sometimes these images fall flat—what’s literal doesn’t necessarily connect to your audience emotionally. Will they really respond to generic images of people who aren’t them meeting in a boardroom?

In the absence of a photo of your actual team—or any other image that directly illustrates the subject at hand—look for images of convincing realism and humanity that capture the idea of your message.

Doing so connects with viewers, allowing them to connect with your message. This is one way to learn how to make your powerpoint stand out and ensure a dynamic presentation powerpoint.

The image above can be interpreted in many ways. But, when we apply it to slide layout ideas about collaboration, the meaning is clear.

It doesn’t hurt that there’s a nice setting and good photography, to boot.

Supportive, Not Distracting

Now that we’ve told you to get creative with your image selection, the next lesson is to rein that in. While there are infinite choices of imagery out there, there’s a limit to what makes sense in your presentation.

Let’s say you’re giving an IT presentation to new employees. You might think that image of two dogs snuggling by a fire is relatable, authentic, and inspirational, but does it really say “data management” to your audience?

To find the best supporting images, try searching terms on the periphery of your actual message. You’ll find images that complement your message rather than distract from it.

In the IT presentation example, instead of “data connections” or another literal term, try the closely related “traffic” or “connectivity.” This will bring up images outside of tech, but relative to the idea of how things move.

Inspiring and Engaging

There’s a widespread misconception that business presentations are just about delivering information. Well, they’re not. In fact, a great presentation is inspirational. We don’t mean that your audience should be itching to paint a masterpiece when they’re done. In this case, inspiration is about engagement.

Is your audience asking themselves questions? Are they coming up with new ideas? Are they remembering key information to tap into later? You’ll drive a lot of this engagement with your actual delivery, but unexpected images can play a role, as well.

When you use more abstract or aspirational images, your audience will have room to make their own connections. This not only means they’re paying attention, but they’re also engaging with and retaining your message.

To find the right abstract or unconventional imagery, search terms related to the tone of the presentation. This may include images with different perspectives like overhead shots and aerials, long exposures taken over a period of time, nature photos , colorful markets , and so on.

The big idea here is akin to including an image of your adorable dog making a goofy face at the end of an earnings meeting. It leaves an audience with a good, human feeling after you just packed their brains with data.

Use that concept of pleasant surprise when you’re selecting images for your presentation.

Setting Appropriate Image Resolution in PowerPoint

Want to learn how to make a powerpoint look good? Though you can drag-and-drop images into PowerPoint, you can control the resolution displayed within the file. All of your PowerPoint slide layout ideas should get the same treatment to be equal in size.

Simply click File > Compress Pictures in the main application menu.

If your presentation file is big and will only be viewed online, you can take it down to On-screen , then check the Apply to: All pictures in this file , and rest assured the quality will be uniform.

This resolution is probably fine for proofing over email, but too low for your presentation layout ideas. For higher res in printed form, try the Print setting, which at 220 PPI is extremely good quality.

For large-screens such as projection, use the HD setting, since enlarging to that scale will show any deficiencies in resolution. Low resolution can not only distract from the message, but it looks low-quality and that reflects on the presenter.

If size is no issue for you, use High Fidelity (maximum PPI), and only reduce if the file size gives your computer problems.

The image quality really begins when you add the images to the presentation file. Use the highest quality images you can, then let PowerPoint scale the resolution down for you, reducing the excess when set to HD or lower.

Resizing, Editing, and Adding Effects to Images in PowerPoint

PowerPoint comes with an arsenal of tools to work with your images. When a picture is selected, the confusingly named Picture Format menu is activated in the top menu bar, and Format Picture is opened on the right side of the app window.

In the Format Picture menu (on the right) are four sections, and each of these sections expand to show their options by clicking the arrows by the name:

• Fill & Line (paint bucket icon): Contains options for the box’s colors, patterns, gradients, and background fills, along with options for its outline.
• Effects (pentagon icon): Contains Shadow, Reflection, Glow, Soft Edges, 3-D Format and Rotation, and Artistic Effects.
• Size & Properties (dimensional icon): Size, Position, and Text Box allow you to control the physical size and placement of the picture or text boxes.
• Picture (mountain icon): Picture Corrections, Colors, and Transparency give you control over how the image looks. Under Crop, you can change the size of the box containing the picture, instead of the entire picture itself as in Size & Properties above.

The menu at the top is more expansive, containing menu presets for Corrections, Color, Effects, Animation, and a lot more. This section is where you can crop more precisely than just choosing the dimensions from the Picture pane on the right.

Cropping Images in PowerPoint

The simple way to crop an image is to use the Picture pane under the Format Picture menu on the right side of the window. Use the Picture Position controls to move the picture inside its box, or use the Crop position controls to manipulate the box’s dimensions.

To exert more advanced control, or use special shapes, select the picture you want to crop, then click the Picture Format in the top menu to activate it.

Hit the Crop button, then use the controls on the picture’s box to size by eye. Or, click the arrow to show more options, including changing the shape of the box (for more creative looks) and using preset aspect ratios for a more uniform presentation of images.

The next time you design a PowerPoint presentation, remember that simplicity is key and less is more. By adopting these simple slide design tips, you’ll deliver a clear, powerful visual message to your audience.

If you want to go with a PowerPoint alternative instead, you can use Shutterstock Create to easily craft convincing, engaging, and informative presentations.

With many presentation template designs, you’ll be sure to find something that is a perfect fit for your next corporate presentation. You can download your designs as a .pdf file and import them into both PowerPoint and Google Slides presentation decks.

Take Your PowerPoint Presentation to the Next Level with Shutterstock Flex

Need authentic, eye-catching photography to form the foundation of your PowerPoint presentation? We’ve got you covered.

With Shutterstock Flex, you’ll have all-in-one access to our massive library, plus the FLEXibility you need to select the perfect mix of assets every time.

Frequently Asked Questions About PowerPoint Presentations (FAQs)

What is the 5 5 5 rule in powerpoint.

The 5 5 5 rule in PowerPoint is fairly simple: 5 lines per slide, each line with no more than 5 words, and make sure your presentation is no longer than 5 minutes.

How Long Should Your PowerPoint Be?

A PowerPoint can be as long as it needs to be, but some people — and the 5 5 5 rule — advise you to keep five minutes or shorter.

What Is the Easiest Way to Make a PowerPoint Prettier?

Beyond using eye-catching imagery and colors, a pretty PowerPoint should also follow good design principles. You want the information to be organized, balanced, and easy to digest. It doesn’t matter how many appealing images you include are if the information is hard to internalize. Use appropriate fonts and shorts sentences to make sure the words are legible and don’t crowd the slides with too many elements.

License this cover image via F8 studio and Ryan DeBerardinis .

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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

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

• PowerPoint Tutorials
• Presentation Design
• January 22, 2024

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

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

Table of Contents

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

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

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

Ready to start learning how to make a PowerPoint presentation?

Take your PPT skills to the next level

Start with a blank presentation.

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

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

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

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

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

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

The PowerPoint interface

Here is how the program is laid out:

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

The Slide Area

The notes pane.

• The Status Bar (including the View Buttons)

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

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

The PowerPoint Ribbon

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

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

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

• Online Pictures
• Screenshots
• Screen Recording

The Slides Pane

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Adding Content to Your PowerPoint Presentation

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Insert More Slides into Your Presentation

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Adding Content to Your Slides

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• A picture from the web

To insert a picture into the picture placeholder, simply:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Using Designer to generate more layouts ideas

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

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

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

Change the Overall Design (optional)

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

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

A. Picking your PowerPoint slide size

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

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

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

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

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

 B. Selecting a PowerPoint theme

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

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

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

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

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

To select a different theme, go to the  Design tab  in the Ribbon, and click on the  dropdown arrow  in the  Themes section .

For this tutorial, let’s select the  Frame  theme and then choose the third Variant in the theme. Doing so changes the layout, colors, and fonts of your presentation.

Note: The theme dropdown area is also where you can import or save custom themes. To see my favorite places to find professional PowerPoint templates and themes (and recommendations for why I like them), read my guide here .

C. How to change a slide background in PowerPoint

The next thing to decide is how you want your background to look for the entire presentation. In the  Variants area, you can see four background options.

For this example, we want our presentation to have a dark background, so let’s select Style 3. When you do so, you’ll notice that:

• The background color automatically changes across all slides
• The color of the text on most of the slides automatically changes to white so that it’s visible on the dark background
• The colors of the objects on slides #6 and #7 also adjust, in a way we may not want (we’ll likely have to make some manual adjustments to these slides)

Note: If you want to change the slide background for just that one slide, don’t left-click the style. Instead, right-click it and select Apply to Selected Slides .

After you change the background for your entire presentation, you can easily adjust the background for an individual slide.

Inside the Format Background pane, you can see you have the following options:

• Gradient fill
• Picture or texture fill
• Pattern fill
• Hide background

You can explore these options to find the PowerPoint background that best fits your presentation.

D. How to change your color palette in PowerPoint

Another thing you may want to adjust in your presentation, is the color scheme. In the picture below you can see the Theme Colors we are currently using for this presentation.

Each PowerPoint theme comes with its own color palette. By default, the Office theme includes the Office color palette. This affects the colors you are presented with when you format any element within your presentation (text, shapes, SmartArt, etc.).

The good news is that the colors here are easy to change. To switch color palettes, simply:

• Go to the  Design tab in the Ribbon
• In the Variants area, click on the  dropdown arrow  and select  Colors
• Select  the color palette (or theme colors) you want

You can choose among the pre-built color palettes from Office, or you can customize them to create your own.

As you build your presentation, make sure you use the colors from your theme to format objects. That way, changing the color palette adjusts all the colors in your presentation automatically.

E. How to change your fonts in PowerPoint

Just as we changed the color palette, you can do the same for the fonts.

Each PowerPoint theme comes with its own font combination. By default, the Office theme includes the Office font pairing. This affects the fonts that are automatically assigned to all text in your presentation.

The good news is that the font pairings are easy to change. To switch your Theme Fonts, simply:

• Go to the  Design tab  in the Ribbon
• Click on the  dropdown arrow  in the  Variants  area
• Select  Fonts
• Select  the font pairing you want

You can choose among the pre-built fonts from Office, or you can customize them to create your own.

If you are working with PowerPoint presentations on both Mac and PC computers, make sure you choose a safe PowerPoint font. To see a list of the safest PowerPoint fonts, read our guide here .

If you receive a PowerPoint presentation and the wrong fonts were used, you can use the Replace Fonts dialog box to change the fonts across your entire presentation. For details, read our guide here .

Adding Animations & Transitions (optional)

The final step to make a PowerPoint presentation compelling, is to consider using animations and transitions. These are by no means necessary to a good presentation, but they may be helpful in your situation.

A. Adding PowerPoint animations

PowerPoint has an incredibly robust animations engine designed to power your creativity. That being said, it’s also easy to get started with basic animations.

Animations are movements that you can apply to individual objects on your slide.

To add a PowerPoint animation to an element of your slide, simply:

• Select the  element
• Go to the  Animations tab in the Ribbon
• Click on the  dropdown arrow  to view your options
• Select the  animation  you want

You can add animations to multiple objects at one time by selecting them all first and then applying the animation.

B. How to preview a PowerPoint animation

There are three ways to preview a PowerPoint animation:

• Click on the Preview button in the Animations tab
• Click on the little star  next to the slide
• Play the slide in Slide Show Mode

To learn other ways to run your slide show, see our guide on presenting a PowerPoint slide show with shortcuts .

To adjust the settings of your animations, explore the options in the  Effect Options ,  Advanced Animation  and the  Timing  areas of the  Animation tab .

Note:  To see how to make objects appear and disappear in your slides by clicking a button,  read our guide here .

C. How to manage your animations in PowerPoint

The best way to manage lots of animations on your slide is with the Animation Pane . To open it, simply:

• Navigate to the  Animations tab
• Select the  Animation Pane

Inside the Animation Pane, you’ll see all of the different animations that have been applied to objects on your slide, with their numbers marked as pictured above.

Note: To see examples of PowerPoint animations that can use in PowerPoint, see our list of PowerPoint animation tutorials here .

D. How to add transitions to your PowerPoint presentation

PowerPoint has an incredibly robust transition engine so that you can dictate how your slides change from one to the other. It is also extremely easy to add transitions to your slides.

In PowerPoint, transitions are the movements (or effects) you see as you move between two slides.

To add a transition to a PowerPoint slide, simply:

• Select the  slide
• Go to the  Transitions tab in the Ribbon
• In the Transitions to This Slide area, click on the  dropdown arrow  to view your options
• Select the  transition  you want

To adjust the settings of the transition, explore the options in the  Timing  area of the Transitions tab.

You can also add the same transition to multiple slides. To do that, select them in the  Slides Pane  and apply the transition.

E. How to preview a transition in PowerPoint

There are three ways to preview your PowerPoint transitions (just like your animations):

• Click on the Preview  button in the Transitions tab
• Click on the little star  beneath the slide number in the thumbnail view

Note:  In 2016, PowerPoint added a cool new transition, called Morph. It operates a bit differently from other transitions. For a detailed tutorial on how to use the cool Morph transition,  see our step-by-step article here .

Save Your PowerPoint Presentation

After you’ve built your presentation and made all the adjustments to your slides, you’ll want to save your presentation. YOu can do this several different ways.

To save a PowerPoint presentation using your Ribbon, simply:

• Navigate to the  File tab
•  Select  Save As  on the left
• Choose  where you want to save your presentation
• Name  your presentation and/or adjust your file type settings
• Click  Save

You can alternatively use the  Ctrl+S keyboard shortcut to save your presentation. I recommend using this shortcut frequently as you build your presentation to make sure you don’t lose any of your work.

This is the standard way to save a presentation. However, there may be a situation where you want to save your presentation as a different file type.

To learn how to save your presentation as a PDF, see our guide on converting PowerPoint to a PDF .

How to save your PowerPoint presentation as a template

Once you’ve created a presentation that you like, you may want to turn it into a template. The easiest – but not technically correct – way, is to simply create a copy of your current presentation and then change the content.

But be careful! A PowerPoint template is a special type of document and it has its own parameters and behaviors.

If you’re interested in learning about how to create your own PowerPoint template from scratch, see our guide on how to create a PowerPoint template .

Printing Your PowerPoint Presentation

After finishing your PowerPoint presentation, you may want to print it out on paper. Printing your slides is relatively easy.

To open the Print dialog box, you can either:

• Hit Ctrl+P on your keyboard
• Or go to the Ribbon and click on File and then Print

Inside the Print dialog box, you can choose from the various printing settings:

• Printer: Select a printer to use (or print to PDF or OneNote)
• Slides: Choose which slides you want to print
• Layout: Determine how many slides you want per page (this is where you can print the notes, outline, and handouts)
• Collated or uncollated (learn what collated printing means here )
• Color: Choose to print in color, grayscale or black & white

There are many more options for printing your PowerPoint presentations. Here are links to more in-depth articles:

• How to print multiple slides per page
• How to print your speaker notes in PowerPoint
• How to save PowerPoint as a picture presentation

So that’s how to create a PowerPoint presentation if you are brand new to it. We’ve also included a ton of links to helpful resources to boost your PowerPoint skills further.

When you are creating your presentation, it is critical to first focus on the content (what you are trying to say) before getting lost inserting and playing with elements. The clearer you are on what you want to present, the easier it will be to build it out in PowerPoint.

If you enjoyed this article, you can learn more about our PowerPoint training courses and other presentation resources by  visiting us here .

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10 Cool PowerPoint Tips and Tricks You (Probably) Didn’t Know About

PowerPoint is a versatile tool capable of many amazing tasks. It has lots of great features but unfortunately, most users aren’t even utilizing half of the software’s capabilities.

Today, we’re going to change that. In this guide, we share some of the best PowerPoint tips and tricks for doing cool things with the presentation maker.

You’ll learn cool tricks like inserting QR codes in PowerPoint slides, converting presentations to videos, removing the background of images, and much more.

These PowerPoint tips will not only allow you to design presentations more easily but they will also help impress your audience. Let’s dive in.

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Third-Party PowerPoint Templates

We wanted to start the list with a bit of an obvious but important tip: Use third-party PowerPoint templates!

Microsoft PowerPoint comes with a set of default templates pre-packaged with the software. These free templates are pretty good but they have been used by everyone, over and over again, to the point that anyone could immediately recognize which template you’re using by looking at the slide design.

The worst part is that it will allow your audience to tell how little effort you’ve put into designing the presentation.

What most users don’t realize is that you can download templates from third-party marketplaces and use them to create unique presentations. These templates are made by professional designers and they will immediately make your slideshows look ten times better.

You can check out our best PowerPoint template collection for some inspiration.

Use ChatGPT to Write the Slides

ChatGPT is an AI tool that revolutionized the way we work and made our everyday tasks so much easier and simpler. Now, you can use it to write the slides of your presentations. Here’s how it works:

First, go to the ChatGPT website and start a new chat. Create an account if you don’t have one already. It’s free!

Now ask ChatGPT to write the slides of your presentation. Give it as many details as you can. Specify the topic, how many slides your presentation has, ask it to include quotes and statistics, break down information into bullet points, etc.

Once it generates the copy, you can simply copy and paste the text directly into your slideshow. Make any adjustments as necessary.

You can take this a step further and use AI art generators to create unique illustrations, icons, and infographics for your presentation. Midjourney and DALL-E are some of the top tools you can use for this task. Just be mindful of their copyright policies if you plan on using the images for commercial projects.

This tip is not exclusive to PowerPoint. But if designing presentations is part of your job, it will make your life so much easier. Don’t be afraid of the AI tools, learn to take advantage of them.

Experiment With Color Schemes

Colors play a key role in every presentation. It helps set the mood and tone of your slideshow and has a huge impact on the success of your presentation.

As you know, there are psychological effects behind the colors you use. With the right colors, you can evoke emotions in your audience to make each slide in your presentation more impactful.

Experiment with different color schemes for your presentation designs. You can use a tool like Color Hunt to find beautiful color palettes for your slideshows. But always keep in mind to pick colors that are appropriate for your topic, audience, and your brand.

Contrast Is Key

Speaking of colors, you can also use them to create a strong contrast between the content and the background. For example, using a dark color for typography on a light background will highlight the text much more effectively. Or you can use colored shapes to bring attention to specific parts of a slide.

The same can be said about fonts. Using unique fonts will go a long way to help create contrast in your presentation. Check out our guide on choosing fonts for PowerPoint to learn more.

Take Advantage of Add-Ins

PowerPoint has a built-in store full of add-ons (or add-ins as it’s called in the software). And it’s one of the most underused features of PowerPoint.

This store is filled with amazing third-party tools that can supercharge your work and slideshows. There are hundreds of tools in this store you can install and use for free.

Explore the PowerPoint Add-Ins store and see what you can find. One of our favorites is the tool for adding QR codes to slides directly from the slide editor. We’ll explain it more in the next tip.

Add QR Codes In Slides

Using QR codes in PowerPoint presentations has two great benefits. One, it will make things much easier for you to share links, apps, and resources with your entire audience. Two, it will encourage the audience to engage and interact with your presentation.

Normally, you have to use online tools or apps to generate QR codes. But you can use a PowerPoint add-in to create QR codes directly from the slide editor.

Simply go to Insert > Get Add-ins and search for the Personalized QR Code Generator.

After installing the QR code tool, you can instantly generate QR codes and embed them into your slides to share links. The free version of this plugin will leave a small watermark in the QR code but it’s barely visible. Using QR codes is much cooler and more effective than sharing links as plain text.

Design Cool Image & Text Masks

Image masking is a popular effect used in graphic design for making photos and images appear more creative. With image masks, you can give unique shapes to images rather than boring and old square shapes. You can use it to make your slides look more interesting.

We found a simple YouTube tutorial that shows you how to design liquid image masks in PowerPoint.

You can also use text masks to create cool typography effects in PowerPoint. And yes, there’s a YouTube tutorial for that too. Try using these effects in your next presentation.

Instantly Remove Image Backgrounds

Have you been using Photoshop to remove the backgrounds of images? Well, now you don’t have to. Because PowerPoint has a tool that lets you get rid of image backgrounds with just a few clicks. Here’s how it works.

Select an image in your slideshow and go to the Picture Format tab then select the Remove Background option on the top-left side.

This tool will automatically make a selection of the background. If it clips into areas of the main object, use the Mark Areas tool to fix the selection. Then click the Keep All Changes button to finish.

Now you have a PNG-style JPG image without a background.

Design Posters & Flyers

PowerPoint can be used to create many cool things than just presentations. You can use it for simple graphic designs, such as posters and flyers.

You can use pre-made PowerPoint poster templates to easily make posters or flyers in vertical layout using the app. We also have a step-by-step guide on how to make posters in PowerPoint . Check them out to learn more.

This can be a huge money-saver when you have to design a quick poster for a project and don’t have access to software like Photoshop.

Export to Video & PDF

If you want to share your presentation with a wide audience, one of the best ways to do that is to convert your presentation into video format. That way, your audience will be able to watch your presentation even if they don’t have access to Microsoft PowerPoint software.

PowerPoint has a built-in function to help you with that process. Go to the File menu and select Export. From there you can choose the Create a Video option to convert your entire presentation into a video.

It’s perfect for creating video content for YouTube, online courses, and schools too. You can also export your presentation in PDF format or even turn it into a Word document.

In Conclusion

These are just a few of the cool PowerPoint tips and tricks we’ve found to be quite interesting. It’s surprising how much you can do with an app like PowerPoint. If you want to learn more cool PowerPoint tricks, be sure to check out our other guides.

Start with 7 tips for finding the perfect PowerPoint template . Also, read our 10 pro PPT tips guide. And our how to give a fun presentation guide has some useful tips too.

20 Great Examples of PowerPoint Presentation Design [+ Templates]

Published: January 17, 2024

When it comes to PowerPoint presentation design, there's no shortage of avenues you can take.

While all that choice — colors, formats, visuals, fonts — can feel liberating, it‘s important that you’re careful in your selection as not all design combinations add up to success.

In this blog post, I’m sharing some of my favorite PowerPoint tips and templates to help you nail your next presentation.

Table of Contents

What makes a good PowerPoint presentation?

Powerpoint design ideas, best powerpoint presentation slides, good examples of powerpoint presentation design.

In my opinion, a great PowerPoint presentation gets the point across succinctly while using a design that doesn't detract from it.

Here are some of the elements I like to keep in mind when I’m building my own.

1. Minimal Animations and Transitions

Believe it or not, animations and transitions can take away from your PowerPoint presentation. Why? Well, they distract from the content you worked so hard on.

A good PowerPoint presentation keeps the focus on your argument by keeping animations and transitions to a minimum. I suggest using them tastefully and sparingly to emphasize a point or bring attention to a certain part of an image.

2. Cohesive Color Palette

I like to refresh my memory on color theory when creating a new PowerPoint presentation.

A cohesive color palette uses complementary and analogous colors to draw the audience’s attention and help emphasize certain aspects at the right time.

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It‘s impossible for me to tell you the specific design ideas you should go after in your next PowerPoint, because, well, I don’t know what the goal of your presentation is.

Luckily, new versions of PowerPoint actually suggest ideas for you based on the content you're presenting. This can help you keep up with the latest trends in presentation design .

PowerPoint is filled with interesting boilerplate designs you can start with. To find these suggestions, open PowerPoint and click the “Design” tab in your top navigation bar. Then, on the far right side, you'll see the following choices:

This simplistic presentation example employs several different colors and font weights, but instead of coming off as disconnected, the varied colors work with one another to create contrast and call out specific concepts.

What I like: The big, bold numbers help set the reader's expectations, as they clearly signify how far along the viewer is in the list of tips.

10. “Pixar's 22 Rules to Phenomenal Storytelling,” Gavin McMahon

This presentation by Gavin McMahon features color in all the right places. While each of the background images boasts a bright, spotlight-like design, all the characters are intentionally blacked out.

What I like: This helps keep the focus on the tips, while still incorporating visuals. Not to mention, it's still easy for me to identify each character without the details. (I found you on slide eight, Nemo.)

11. “Facebook Engagement and Activity Report,” We Are Social

Here's another great example of data visualization in the wild.

What I like: Rather than displaying numbers and statistics straight up, this presentation calls upon interesting, colorful graphs, and charts to present the information in a way that just makes sense.

12. “The GaryVee Content Model,” Gary Vaynerchuk

This wouldn‘t be a true Gary Vaynerchuk presentation if it wasn’t a little loud, am I right?

What I like: Aside from the fact that I love the eye-catching, bright yellow background, Vaynerchuk does a great job of incorporating screenshots on each slide to create a visual tutorial that coincides with the tips. He also does a great job including a visual table of contents that shows your progress as you go .

13. “20 Tweetable Quotes to Inspire Marketing & Design Creative Genius,” IMPACT Branding & Design

We‘ve all seen our fair share of quote-chronicling presentations but that isn’t to say they were all done well. Often the background images are poor quality, the text is too small, or there isn't enough contrast.

Well, this professional presentation from IMPACT Branding & Design suffers from none of said challenges.

What I like: The colorful filters over each background image create just enough contrast for the quotes to stand out.

14. “The Great State of Design,” Stacy Kvernmo

This presentation offers up a lot of information in a way that doesn't feel overwhelming.

What I like: The contrasting colors create visual interest and “pop,” and the comic images (slides 6 through 12) are used to make the information seem less buttoned-up and overwhelming.

15. “Clickbait: A Guide To Writing Un-Ignorable Headlines,” Ethos3

Not going to lie, it was the title that convinced me to click through to this presentation but the awesome design kept me there once I arrived.

What I like: This simple design adheres to a consistent color pattern and leverages bullet points and varied fonts to break up the text nicely.

16. “Digital Transformation in 50 Soundbites,” Julie Dodd

This design highlights a great alternative to the “text-over-image” display we've grown used to seeing.

What I like: By leveraging a split-screen approach to each presentation slide, Julie Dodd was able to serve up a clean, legible quote without sacrificing the power of a strong visual.

17. “Fix Your Really Bad PowerPoint,” Slide Comet

When you‘re creating a PowerPoint about how everyone’s PowerPoints stink, yours had better be terrific. The one above, based on the ebook by Seth Godin, keeps it simple without boring its audience.

What I like: Its clever combinations of fonts, together with consistent color across each slide, ensure you're neither overwhelmed nor unengaged.

18. “How Google Works,” Eric Schmidt

Simple, clever doodles tell the story of Google in a fun and creative way. This presentation reads almost like a storybook, making it easy to move from one slide to the next.

What I like: This uncluttered approach provides viewers with an easy-to-understand explanation of a complicated topic.

19. “What Really Differentiates the Best Content Marketers From The Rest,” Ross Simmonds

Let‘s be honest: These graphics are hard not to love. I especially appreciate the author’s cartoonified self-portrait that closes out the presentation. Well played, Ross Simmonds.

What I like: Rather than employing the same old stock photos, this unique design serves as a refreshing way to present information that's both valuable and fun.

20. “Be A Great Product Leader,” Adam Nash

This presentation by Adam Nash immediately draws attention by putting the company's logo first — a great move if your company is well known.

What I like: He uses popular images, such as ones of Megatron and Pinocchio, to drive his points home. In the same way, you can take advantage of popular images and media to keep your audience engaged.

PowerPoint Presentation Examples for the Best Slide Presentation

Mastering a PowerPoint presentation begins with the design itself.

Get inspired by my ideas above to create a presentation that engages your audience, builds upon your point, and helps you generate leads for your brand.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in March 2013 and has been updated for comprehensiveness. This article was written by a human, but our team uses AI in our editorial process. Check out our full disclosure to learn more about how we use AI.

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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!

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How to Make Awesome PowerPoint Presentations

Awesome PowerPoint presentations usher in what everybody desires: the attainment of goals. These presentations—if prepared and administered efficiently—are worth more than millions especially to big brands. Of course, the results are mirrored on smaller brands.

That said, it’s worth investing time and effort to create a well-crafted PowerPoint presentation. Why? These tools while primarily used for marketing, are geared towards effective communication. If they are utilized wisely, they can catapult a company’s sales performance for the long haul. Consequently, ballooning sales volume translates to business growth.

This is a simple guide on better PowerPoint presentations:

1. Simplify.

2. Tell a story.

3. Clarify points within the body.

4. Have a grand finale. Incite action. Solicit emotions.

Let’s usher in more detailed explanations about the guide above.

• Draft your talk. Create an organized draft . You’ll use it as basis for your PowerPoint presentation.  
• Organize. Lay down a plan. Base on your draft, draw up a plan on how to create your presentation. The principle at work here is similar to the one used in making movies. Draw up an illustration board, even just on a piece of paper. (I’m serious, you can use any kind of paper.) Boards guide you to arrange your slides in an organize manner. You might think it’s a waste of time; on the contrary, it facilitates the process. Next, on your board, create sketched frames. On each frame, you sketch how your graphics will appear. Make it detailed. Include a space where you will put the text.
• Make clear, easy to understand frames which are not boring.  Remember these points: aim to have a clear message using graphics, make sure your letters are legibly printed, use appropriate colors, use visuals that will help ignite interest from your audience, make sure your slides enhance your talk rather than diminishes it’s impact, pacing must be just right. Not too fast and not too slow.
• Go directly to the point.  Follow this guide:  Don’t over introduce your presentation, have an intro that is short, yet thorough, and after the intro, go straight to your main topic. Your presentation should not veer away from the core of your topic. One of the most common mistakes of PowerPoint presentations is that they branch out to other topics that are not at all connected to the main focus of the presentation.
• They should enhance your talk. Always remember, your PowerPoint presentation is a tool to help you get across your message. It’s not the star of the show, your message is. So don’t make the mistake of making your PowerPoint presentation drown your star. It should act like a supporting actor in a movie. He makes the lead star shine even more. He enhances his character.
• Use strong visuals. Your visuals should be big enough for the size of your audience. If you have a way to check your venue, go check it before you create your visuals. In business circles, this is known as actual ocular inspection or AOI. Doing this will help you decide on what font size to use and the right size for your graphics. It will also help you plan on how big your body gestures should be. The standard is, the bigger the audience, the bigger your gestures should be.

Here’s a simple guide:

• Easy to identify
• Easy to comprehend
• Connect the ideas, words, symbols, graphics, graphs, and other elements you will use in your talk.
• If you are weak on graphics, I suggest you hire a good graphics artist. Remember, as Frederick R. Barnard said, “A picture paints a thousand words.”
• Use appropriate colors, shapes and internationally accepted symbols.

Here are some more insights about PowerPoint presentations: In conversations, you may metaphorically dance with the thoughts of whom you’re talking with. This will help you formulate thoughts; but in a PowerPoint presentation, you’re on the spot. Fail to deliver a clear and easy to remember message and your audience will go home confused and your reputation tarnished.

So what makes an awesome PowerPoint presentation?

• Your audience understands your topic much better.
• They remember the main points.
• They are inspired to take action (this is the emotional response you desire).
• The audience is equipped to share your message (i.e. your message is crystal clear and concise, therefore it’s easy to remember and to share).

To summarize everything, awesome PowerPoint presentations are short, punchy, and clear.

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How to create an effective PowerPoint presentation (2024 guide)

Jun 24, 2024

Posted by: Regine Fe Arat

Creating a compelling PowerPoint presentation is an essential skill in today's professional world. 

Whether you're presenting to colleagues, clients or a large audience, a well-designed and engaging presentation can make a significant impact. 

This guide will walk you through making a powerful, effective PowerPoint presentation. Let’s get straight into it with the most important part of all: Your audience.

Understanding your audience

Effective, tailored communication is the foundation of any successful presentation. 

To connect with your audience and deliver your message effectively, you must understand:

• who they are, 
• what they care about and
• what they hope to gain from your presentation. 

Researching your target audience and adapting your content ensures you create a presentation that resonates with them on a deeper level. This connection means you’re more likely to keep them engaged and motivated throughout. 

Let’s look at the key steps to understanding your audience and crafting a presentation that speaks directly to their needs and interests.

Analyzing your target audience

Before creating your presentation, it's crucial to understand your target audience. Consider factors such as their background, knowledge level, interests and expectations. 

For example, if you're presenting to a technical audience, you may include more detailed information and jargon. If you’re presenting to children, you might want to add some fun slide transitions that you wouldn’t use in a corporate environment.

Tailoring the presentation to the audience

Once you understand your audience, tailor your presentation accordingly. Adjust the content, language and tone to resonate with your audience. 

If you’re presenting to a client, can you align your presentation with their branding and messaging to create a sense of harmony? How can you create a compelling call to action if it's a business presentation ?

Use relevant examples, stories and case studies your audience can relate to, and always present the information in a way that’s easy to understand and engage with.

Planning and organizing content

A well-structured presentation is essential for effectively communicating your ideas and engaging your audience. 

The key to success is carefully planning and organizing your content before creating your PowerPoint slides.

Take time to develop your key ideas, structure your presentation flow and create a clear outline to deliver a compelling and memorable presentation. Let’s look at how to do that.

Developing key ideas

Start by identifying the key ideas and messages you want to convey in your presentation. Focus on the most critical points and organize them logically. 

Use mind maps, outlines or brainstorming techniques to organize your thoughts and ensure your presentation has a clear structure.

Structuring your presentation

Once you have your key ideas, craft your presentation to flow smoothly and engage your audience.

Begin with an attention-grabbing introduction, followed by the main content divided into clear sections or topics. 

Use transitions to seamlessly move from one section to another, and end with a strong conclusion that reinforces your main points.

Designing visual elements

Your PowerPoint presentation’s visuals play a big role in capturing your audience's attention and reinforcing your key messages. 

Carefully designing your slides can create an engaging and visually appealing presentation that effectively communicates your ideas.

Be mindful of your audience. They will appreciate it if you can include an element that represents them. It could be a color combination of a company’s logo or a symbol that represents a group. 

Let’s explore the principles of effective slide design to ensure your visual elements enhance your presentation.

Choosing the right fonts

Select easy-to-read, visually appealing fonts. Stick to a maximum of two or three font styles throughout your presentation for consistency. 

Use font sizes large enough for your audience to read, typically 24 points or larger for body text and 36 points or larger for titles.

Using engaging backgrounds and themes

Choose backgrounds and themes that complement your content and enhance the look of your presentation. 

Skip the distracting backgrounds that take away from your message. 

Incorporating high-quality images and videos

Incorporate visuals such as images, charts, graphs and videos to make a more memorable and engaging presentation. 

Use high-quality images that are relevant to your topic and add visual interest to your slides. Avoid too many decorative elements that can clutter your slides.

Using PowerPoint effectively

PowerPoint is the perfect tool for creating dynamic, engaging presentations. However, to make the most of this software, it's essential to understand its features.

In this section, we'll explore everything from animations to best practices for supporting your key messages and keeping your audience engaged .

Utilizing slide layouts and templates

PowerPoint offers various slide layouts and templates to save time and ensure consistency. Choose a layout that suits your content and conveys your message effectively. 

Customize the templates to fit your presentation style or branding, but avoid overloading your slides with too much text or information.

Adding animations and special effects

Use animations and special effects sparingly to emphasize key points or catch the audience’s attention. Too many animations can be distracting and take away from your content. 

Stick to simple animations that enhance your message rather than overpowering it. Use animations consistently throughout your presentation to maintain a cohesive look and feel.

Applying color schemes and design themes

Choose a color scheme that aligns with your branding (or your client’s) and creates a visually appealing presentation. Contrasting colors for text and backgrounds ensure readability. 

Applying design themes consistently throughout your presentation creates a polished and professional look.

Proper formatting and citations

Ensure that your presentation follows proper formatting guidelines and includes accurate citations for any external sources. 

Bullet points or numbered lists break down information into easily digestible chunks, making it easier to keep your audience interested. 

Including slide numbers and a clear agenda or table of contents helps your audience navigate your presentation. 

Always proofread your slides for any typos before finalizing your presentation.

Delivering an engaging presentation

Delivering an engaging presentation is more than just creating great slides; it also requires strong communication skills and the ability to connect with your audience. 

In this section, we'll focus on presentation delivery, providing you with techniques and strategies to captivate your audience and effectively convey your message. 

Enhancing presentation skills

Work on your presentation skills to become a confident and compelling speaker. Regular practice is one of the best ways to become a great speaker. 

Go beyond boring slides and speeches and use storytelling techniques to make your content more relatable and memorable. 

Practice active listening and reply to your audience's reactions and questions. If they seem bored, jazz it up a little with humor. 

Impromptu speaking is also ideal for engaging your audience. While it can be scary to move away from your script and slides, it can be very effective. 

Using effective body language and eye contact

Good body language is vital in engaging your audience. Maintain a confident posture, use gestures to highlight key points and make eye contact with your audience.

Avoid reading from your slides — use them as visual aids to support your message. 

Consider what side of the slides you want to stand on. Generally speaking, you want to be to the audience’s left of the screen. You want the audience to listen to you before looking at the slides. 

Using voice and tone to engage the audience

Vary your voice and tone to keep your audience interested and engaged. 

Use pauses for emphasis, adjust your speaking speed and modulate your volume to create a dynamic presentation. If you have an impactful slide, let the audience sit with it for a moment.

It’s also important to speak clearly. Properly pronouncing words and not mumbling ensures your audience understands your message.

Tips for a successful presentation

Creating and delivering a successful PowerPoint presentation requires careful planning and practice.

In this section, we'll provide you with valuable tips and best practices for elevating your presentation skills, from rehearsing to gathering feedback.

Preparing and practicing beforehand

Preparation and practice are key to delivering a successful presentation. 

Work backward when planning your presentation: What date is the presentation? Plan weekly milestones to ensure you don’t feel overwhelmed with everything you need to do.

Give yourself time to research your topic, gather relevant information and organize your content.

Rehearse your presentation multiple times to grasp the flow and timing. Practice in front of a mirror, colleagues or friends for feedback to make necessary improvements.

Tips for dealing with technical issues

Technical issues can disrupt your presentation and cause unnecessary stress. Be prepared with backup copies of your presentation on different devices or online platforms. 

Familiarize yourself with the presentation equipment and venue beforehand to minimize potential technical problems. 

Have a plan in case of unexpected issues. Printing handouts and preparing to deliver your presentation without slides are great ways to get ahead of issues.

Engaging the audience with Q&A sessions

If you can, allocate time for a Q&A session at the end of your presentation to engage with your audience and address their questions. 

Encourage participation by asking open-ended questions and actively listening to their responses. 

Be prepared to handle challenging questions with grace and professionalism. Use the opportunity to clarify any unclear points or provide additional insights.

The last card

Creating a good PowerPoint presentation requires effective design, careful planning and engaging delivery. 

Understanding your audience, organizing your content, effectively using visuals and enhancing your presentation skills can captivate your audience and leave a lasting impact. 

Keep exploring the Pip Decks website and our resources to discover more tips, tutorials and templates for even better PowerPoint presentations. 

What is the 10 20 30 rule of PowerPoint?

The 10-20-30 rule is a guideline for effective PowerPoint presentations. 

It suggests: 

• using no more than 10 slides, 
• limiting the presentation duration to 20 minutes and 
• using a font size of at least 30 points for optimal readability.

What are the 5 golden rules of PowerPoint presentations?

The five golden rules of PowerPoint presentations are:

• Keep it simple and concise
• Use visuals to enhance your message
• Maintain a consistent design and color scheme
• Use clear fonts
• Practice and prepare for a confident delivery

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Microsoft 365 Life Hacks > Presentations > How to work on a group presentation

How to work on a group presentation

Working in a group can be a great way to tackle complicated tasks or share unique knowledge. When it comes to illustrating your team’s results to an audience, it can be tricky to navigate how to pace your presentation and who gets to speak, among other factors. Check out these tips for how to start a presentation speech, how to conclude a group presentation, and everything in between.

How to do a group presentation

Some people thrive working in groups , while others prefer to tackle projects by themselves. Balancing all these differing personalities is one of the key skills to ensuring that your presentation goes smoothly:

Tell your story with captivating presentations

Powerpoint empowers you to develop well-designed content across all your devices

Designate roles and presenting order to team strengths

The clearest way to do set presentation roles, and the order of these roles, is to set them early in the process and based upon the strengths of your group members. Designate roles based on certain skillsets and to keep from duplicating efforts. For example, having one or two people work exclusively on designing your PowerPoint presentation can streamline the process. Depending on how long your presentation is, you can assign everyone on your team three to five slides to discuss.

The importance of practicing

In addition, it helps to rehearse your presentation multiple times to iron out any kinks and build confidence. Practice your presentation together as a group so everyone can be prepared in front of your audience. Here, communication is key, scheduling regular meetings and clearly delegating tasks ensure everyone is on the same page.

How to start a group presentation speech

Just like the rest of your presentation, it helps to have just one person speak at a time. Assign the role of introducer to someone on your team. You can also choose to designate someone as the narrator who can both start the presentation, introduce team members, and finish in the conclusion.

Ensure that they clearly state the purpose of your presentation and provide an overview of what you’ll cover. You can also start with a compelling hook or an intriguing question to grab the audience’s attention. Introduce each member of your group and their roles and expertise to establish credibility and cohesion.

How to conclude a group presentation

At the end of your presentation, it helps to summarize the key points of your presentation and reiterate your main message so that your audience can retain as much information as possible. End with a strong closing statement or call to action to leave a lasting impression on your audience. Thank them for their time and invite further discussion or questions.

Mastering the art of group presentations requires effective collaboration, enough time for preparation, and a confident delivery. Play to your group’s strengths, give everyone plenty of time to speak, and value everyone’s contributions equally. Check out more tips for how to create an effective presentation , how to make group projects go smoother , or how to connect with virtual audiences .

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Cut your presentation time down with the pechakucha method.

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My wait for a windows version of popular ipad app goodnotes was worth it, today's nyt connections hints and answer for june 30 (#385), key takeaways.

• PechaKucha is a 20-slide, 20-second format for concise presentations.
• It forces presenters to focus on essential information and encourages audience engagement.
• Not suitable for presentations requiring extensive data or deep dives, but it can be adapted for longer presentations.

As a veteran of many conferences, meetings, lectures, and any other place I had to stand next to a projector and explain something to a group of people. I've tried it all. However, of all the presentation formats I've attempted, none have been as useful or as effective as the PechaKucha.

What Is a PechaKucha?

Coming from the Japanese word for "chit-chat", PechaKuchas are short presentations that consist of 20 slides that last 20 seconds each. So the total length of a PechaKucha is only 400 seconds. While there are special PechaKucha events at conferences where everyone is doing the same format, nothing stops you from using the PechaKucha format for any presentation you want to do, assuming that the topic will work with this format.

Why PechaKuchas Work So Well

The PechaKucha format is one of my favorites for a number of reasons. It forces you to chunk your topic into at most 20 pieces, so you never get into the trap of having dozens or hundreds of slides.

Since you can only comment on a given slide for 20 seconds, you have to be judicious about what you say. Each chunk of your topic has to be something simple enough to say in 20 seconds, and your audience need to understand it immediately too, since the next slide is coming.

Using the PechaKucha template also limits how long it can take to prepare a presentation, and if you're someone who has to do them all the time, that can be a major time saver. Perhaps most importantly, I personally prefer to give most of my presentation slot time to questions and answers. So I present the most essential information in the first 400 seconds of the slot, and then spend the rest of the time taking audience questions to make sure they get the information they specifically came for.

PechaKucha is just a format, so you may have different reasons why it works for you (or not), but you'll have to experiment with fitting your presentation content into the template.

Setting Up a PechaKucha Presentation

It's quite easy to set up a PechaKucha, since it's just 20 slides lasting 20 seconds each. The tricky part is the 20-seconds bit, because there are different approaches to it. If you are participating in a formal PechaKucha session, then there will usually be an on-stage timer showing you how much of the 400 seconds you have left. Which means you can manually advance your slides and you'll be OK as long as all 20 are done before the timer runs out.

You can also use your own timer, but in most cases you'll want the presentation to advance automatically every 20 seconds. Which means building that timer into your presentation.

In PowerPoint , you simply select all 20 of your slides.

Then change to the "Transitions" tab, uncheck "On Mouse Click", and then check "After" and set it to 20 seconds.

Now, when you present, the slides should advance automatically after 20 seconds.

If you like using Google Slides instead, then unfortunately you can't set slides to 20-second intervals. If you go to File>Share>Publish to the web, then none of the increments available are for 20 seconds.

However, if you download your Slides presentation as a PowerPoint file, you can just use the above method.

When Not to Use the PechaKucha Format

While I personally love PechaKucha as an approach to creating presentations, it's obviously not suitable for every type of presentation. Any presentation that requires the audience to process lots of information can't work, for example. If you absolutely need a bunch of graphs and tables, then do a traditional presentation.

Likewise, if you need to present lots of concepts, or do a very deep dive, a PechaKucha probably won't work well for you. That being said, nothing stops you from doing a series of PechaKucha-inspired slides that run for longer than 20 slides. It's still worth preserving some of that PechaKucha philosophy in your individual slides if you can't use it with your overall length.

Finally, my main tip for anyone making a PechaKucha is to avoid text on your slides as much as possible. Make each slide an illustration, and let you spoken script fill in the blanks for the audience. Dense slides with lots of text are bad even in a regular presentation, but they are anathema for a PechaKucha.

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25 Beautiful PPT Templates for an Attractive PowerPoint Presentation (2023)

Beautiful PowerPoint templates are the top way to stand out in 2023. Whether you’re presenting to a crowd or sharing your beautiful slides online, it’s time to think differently. The focus is on you to create compelling and beautiful PowerPoint PPT slides .

But you don’t have to do all the hard work! Add style with stunning and beautiful presentation templates and watch your content come to life.

In this article, you'll learn how to make a PowerPoint presentation attractive . We'll also check out templates and nice PowerPoint slides from Envato Elements.

Templates on Envato Elements (With Unlimited Use)

You can find hundreds of  beautiful PowerPoint templates on Envato Elements with a great offer. Download as many as you want for a single monthly fee.

All the beautiful PowerPoint presentation templates from Envato Elements include awesome slideshow options. They're packed with attractive PPT slides and nice PPT backgrounds.

Explore Beautiful PowerPoint Templates

So why use professional, attractive PowerPoint templates in 2023 instead of free downloads?

• They’re built by talented creatives. Too busy to build your own layouts? Turn to custom-made beautiful PowerPoint PPT templates.
• They’re easy to use. With professional pre-built beautiful PPT templates, all you've got to do is drop in your own content. You don't even have to learn how to make a pretty PowerPoint.
• They’re superior to built-in designs. PowerPoint includes a series of designs. But professional options are much more robust and look far more advanced.

Remember: Envato Elements is an all-you-can-download resource available for a low monthly fee. You’ll gain access to amazing and attractive templates for PPT , photos, fonts, audio, and more. So, get started today and turn to Elements for PowerPoint presentation design inspiration.

5 Beautiful PowerPoint Templates from Envato Elements

Let’s explore some of 2023’s most beautiful PowerPoint templates from Envato Elements. These are five of the best, and you can find many more right here:

1. Classy - Attractive PPT Template

This beautiful PPT background for PowerPoint is very Classy. It's an attractive PowerPoint presentation designed for all things beauty. I personally love the included color scheme. Even though it's customizable, you can't go wrong with the forest green shown here. It comes with 30 nice PowerPoint slides to choose from, the creative choices are all yours.

2. Makeit - Beautiful PowerPoint Presentation Template

Bold flashes of color and the inspired use of contrast are the hallmarks of this beautiful PowerPoint presentation template. It’s designed to promote any products and services that you offer. But marketing isn’t the only mission of this beautiful presentation. Choose from 40+ nice PowerPoint slides, introduce your content, and make each one your own.

3. Anerio - Fashionable, Attractive Presentation Slides

With 30 designs and custom graphics, these beautiful slides project confidence. One of the best elegant PowerPoint templates available for 2023, it embraces the theory of “less is more.” Text and images fly off the nice PowerPoint slides, offset against pale backdrops. Use this one to jumpstart the creation of an attractive presentation slide deck.

4. Advance - Beautiful PowerPoint Lookbook

Sometimes you need to wow an audience with vibrant color. Try out these beautiful PowerPoint slides to do just that. Whether you’re making your personal portfolio or pitching a new business, Advance-Lookbook is ready to help. These flashy features usually aren't available in free attractive PowerPoint PPT templates.

5. Simphony - Attractive PowerPoint Presentation Template

You don’t have to change beautiful PowerPoint presentation templates to mix up the look and feel. Instead, turn to one like Simphony. It has over 20 color themes built in. All it takes is a few clicks to swap one for another. Instantly, you can alter the entire mood of your attractive PPT slides. Best of all: you won’t have to move a single piece of content!

6. WHITE BEAUTY - Beautiful Slides for PowerPoint

This is an easy choice for a list of the most beautiful PowerPoint templates. Its beautiful slides are minimalist but full of gorgeous shapes and graphics at the same time. Pair this beauty with your inspiring message and create a stunning and beautiful presentation for 2023.

7. Chantella - Beautiful PowerPoint Template

The earthy and quiet color palette of Chantella adds to its beauty. This makes it the perfect option for creating a pretty PowerPoint presentation. Not only is the template beautiful, but it also has all the elements to fit your design needs ideally. Don't feel limited, and build whatever you want to build with these attractive slides for PPT.

8. Nayyara - Attractive PowerPoint Template for Beauty Services

If the beauty is in the eye of the beholder, then we can all agree that this soft PowerPoint template is beautiful. The classic and ornate font, coupled with the lovely color palette, will help you put together a dreamy PowerPoint presentation.

Grab this attractive PowerPoint template to elevate your presentation.

9. ROSE BEAUTY - Attractive Slides for PPT

Talk about stunning graphics! The pops of color against a white background make this template an eye-catcher. This makes it the ultimate presentation template for marketing endeavors or any other line of work that requires sleek content blocks and unique, attractive slides for PPT.

10. Qoreo - Beautiful PowerPoint Slides for Businesses

Creating a stunning presentation from the ground up can be an uphill task. But, with the Qoreo beautiful presentation template, you'll have a leg up on the process! Just look at the colors, typography, and visual elements. They are a gorgeous combination to use for your presentations. It's what you need in your beautiful PowerPoint slides for businesses.

11. Beauty Flowy - Slides for a Beautiful PowerPoint Presentation

150+ total slides, premade colors, handcrafted design, and pixel-perfect illustrations. These are only a fraction of the features you'll get if you download this beautiful PowerPoint presentation template. Astonish the crowd with how functional and beautiful your design is with Beauty Flow.

12. Karina - Attractive PowerPoint Template

Neutral colors can be beautiful. And there's no greater testament to that than the Karina attractive PowerPoint template. But it's more than meets the eye. It has 30 unique slides, drag-and-drop features, resizeable and editable graphics, and much more.

13. Freshness Modern - Beautiful PowerPoint Template

This beautiful PowerPoint template is the true representation of fresh. Show your outdoorsy and green side with its attractive PPT slides. You can customize them easily to breathe life and visual interest into your presentation. Download it today and work with one of the most beautiful PowerPoint templates on the market.

14. Yolanda – Attractive PPT Slides

Beautiful can mean dainty and sweet. Explore this side of the aesthetic spectrum with the Yolanda PowerPoint Template. The best part is that it can be very versatile. Use its attractive PPT slides for your creative agencies, personal portfolios, product showcases, or other related areas.

15. Aizel - Beautiful PPT Template

Wonder no more about how to make a pretty PowerPoint presentation. Meet Aizel. It has a sophisticated and ethereal beauty both inside and out. Its clean design and minimalist look make it the perfect blank canvas for all your projects. Impress your clients, audience, investors, and whomever else with this nice PPT template.

16. Luminate - Attractive PPT Template for Fashion and Beauty

You'll illuminate the room if you bring out this attractive PPT template in your presentation. Customize it to your liking to make a stunning presentation. You can showcase your finances, company, fashion blog, top-quality products, technology business, and more. 

17. WindWard - Beautiful PowerPoint Template

Do you like black-and-white presentations? If you do and you're searching for a good-looking option, go for WindWard. Hands down, the most beautiful PowerPoint template in black and white. With more than 80 unique slides and beautiful project galleries, who wouldn't want this beautiful one?

18. Mirage - Attractive Presentation Slides

No, you're not looking at an optical illusion. It is that beautiful. This is Mirage with attractive presentation slides. It's clean and elegant. The black, gray, and golden tones give it an art-deco look. Creative infographics, mind maps, awesome icons, and the 100 unique slides give it the extra oomph your presentations need.

19. Minimal Maska - Beautiful Slides for Beautiful Presentations

This is a minimal and clean, attractive PowerPoint template in a grayscale. This means you can do absolutely anything with it. Its versatility is what makes it beautiful. Get ready to make an impactful and modern presentation with help from this awesome attractive template for PPT.

20. Arsanty - Attractive Slides for PPT

Subtle color blocking? Yes! Elegant and modern? Yes! Versatile and interesting? Yes! You can turn this amazing PowerPoint template into whatever you want. But whatever you need it for, you can bet that the result will be beautiful with its attractive slides for PPT. 

21. ARTILA - Attractive Presentation Slides

Even though its design is fairly simple, it's unforgettable. Artila has a sophisticated look and feel. It's easy on the eyes and ready to spread your message accurately. Download these attractive presentation slides and experience their full power. It's the definite answer to the question, "how to make a PowerPoint presentation attractive."

22. Fashion - Beautiful Slides for PowerPoint

Are you starting a high-fashion business, brand, or product? If you are, pair your message with these fashionable, beautiful slides for PowerPoint. You'll create a striking presentation. Its professional design, eye-catching fonts, and Avant-guard styling will make the statement you need.

23. Bohement - Attractive Slides for PPT

It's the details on this one. Take a look at the borders, text arrangement, and smart use of color. The Bohement pays attention to the small things that make a PowerPoint template great. Better yet? You don't need any special skills or software knowledge to make these attractive slides for PPT your own.

24. Princess - Beautiful PowerPoint Slides

A quick look, and you'll see why this is one of the most beautiful PowerPoint template designs for 2023. You'll get a sleek and thoughtful design on every slide. You can also edit the beautiful PowerPoint slides to include your own photos, text, brand, and message.

25. Arcobaleno - Attractive PPT Template for a Beautiful Presentation

A gorgeous combination of watercolors comes in to end this list of the most beautiful PowerPoint templates with a bang! Arcobaleno perfectly mixes an explosion of colors with an ethereal feel. This will make your sophisticated and exciting PowerPoint presentation stand out. Take advantage of this attractive PPT template to create a beautiful presentation.

How to Make Beautiful PowerPoint Presentations Quickly

Templates are a major advance when you're building a nice PPT. Make no mistake, either. They're flexible to  your  content and style. 

In this section, you'll learn how to make a beautiful PowerPoint presentation with customizations. We'll work with the premium Makeit PowerPoint template to create attractive PPT slides.

Three slides, three steps. That's all it takes to learn how to make a beautiful PPT presentation. Let's learn more:

1. The Mobile App Slide

Building an app? It helps to show it in action so that potential users can imagine using it. Let's customize slide 30 to do that in three steps:

• Add a device screenshot . Grab an image of your app in action on your device, then transfer it to your computer. Click on the image placeholder icon and browse to the file.
• Add a title . Type over "App Project Sample" with a quick summary that suits your slide.
• Add slide details . There are four text boxes that you can use to describe the unique value of your app. Use each one to describe what you bring to the table.

2. The Chart Slide

Charts and graphs tell a story. Our template includes several beautiful slides that tell data stories. Let's customize slide 35 with three tweaks:

• Update data . Right-click on the chart and choose  Edit Data.  You'll see an embedded Excel window pop up. 
• Add your title and text . Type over Chart Sample and the text box below it. Then, resize text to make good use of the slide space.
• Customize the icon boxes . I love the icons in this beautiful presentation template. Use them to your advantage by typing over the three boxes with icon-driven values.

3. The Contact Slide

On any tutorial about how to make a PowerPoint presentation attractive you'll find that contact details matter! They're the best way to show the audience that you're interested in continuing the conversation. Slide 44 is perfect for the purpose:

• Add an image . Add a friendly photo of a founder or customer service rep. Click on the image icon, then browse to a photo to update the slide.
• Slide title . Type over it with a personalized greeting for your company.
• Add contact details . Make sure to type over the phone number, address, and email with  your  details.

5 Design & Style Tips for Beautiful PowerPoint Presentations

Once you’ve chosen your beautiful PowerPoint presentation template, there are a few tips to keep in mind when building your slides. By using these tips, you can stand out from the crowd and ensure audiences engage with your content.

1. Be Bright and Bold in Your Nice PPT

Audience eyes are drawn to bright, bold designs. Use contrast to offset individual content blocks. Designs like this are also more readable, which helps when you’re presenting in a large room.

2. Be Brief in Your Beautiful PPT Templates

When designing and styling your slides, don’t forget to consider audience attention spans. Presentations that go on too long aren’t favorably received. Brevity is key to keep viewers focused and interested in your main points.

Edit your slide designs to include fewer elements using the template below:

3. Illustrate Your Data to Create an Attractive PowerPoint Presentation

Nothing is duller than talking over numbers. Instead, bring them to life with charts and infographics. Beautiful presentations don’t just include words and images. They also deliver stunning data visualizations that make tough concepts understandable.

Want to learn more about using charts and graphs to show your data? Use the tutorial below to learn how to make a pretty PowerPoint with the right information:

4. Add Even More Imagery in Your Attractive Templates for PPT

I'll make a bold statement: the best way to create nice PPT slides is to add more images. Audiences love visuals, and Envato Elements give you unlimited stock photo access .

If you're learning how to make a beautiful PowerPoint presentation, don't forget this tip! A good image can tie a slide together and illustrate points visually.

Learn to master the art of working with images and how to make a PowerPoint presentation attractive with this tutorial:

5. Incorporate Your Branding in All Your Nice PPT Templates

Branding includes your color scheme, logo, and more. When you start with an attractive template for PPT, you'll need to take a few steps to match the pre-made design to your color scheme.

To re-color a PPT template, click on a shape. Then, choose the  Format  option on the ribbon. Choose a new color on the  Shape Fill  drop-down to change the active shape's color. Take this step a few times and your PowerPoint will match your brand.

5 Beautiful PowerPoint PPT Slide Design Trends for 2023

Want to know how to make PowerPoint presentation attractive? Want to create stunning presentations and add only the most up to date PowerPoint design trends for 2023? I've collected a list of five of the most impactful designs for an attractive PowerPoint presentation:

1. Minimalist Approach

One of the most popular trends for beautiful PowerPoint slides is taking the minimalist approach. Having a few well-defined elements one each slide creates a modern and fresh look. The spacing of the elements also plays a role in the minimalist style. Each element is comfortably spaced and gives the designed a polished look.

2. Classic Black & White

The classic black and white theme is timeless. If you're looking to make a statement with your PowerPoint presentation, an all black and white color scheme can really help. Also, including a touch of color in your images can really help your beautiful presentation pop. 

3. Overlayed Colors

Overlaying a solid color over your slide and turning down the opacity works wonders for you slides. It adds a more polished look and lets you show off your brand's colors. Using one or two colors per slide works well for one presentation. 

4. Include Skill Bars

One common trend that's become very popular is the use of skill bars. These skill bars can show an employee's expertise in a specific field. Or use them to show the progress of a particular project. Regardless of what role they play in your beautiful presentation, they'll make for a visually appealing element that your audience will love. 

5. Visually Appealing Charts & Graphs

Charts and graphs are another design trend that's stood the test of time. Include a wide range of colored charts and graphs to make any presentation more interesting. Charts also give you a chance to give a more detailed explanation to your audience to help them better understand what your project is about. 

Next, let's go over even more PowerPoint templates that you can download right now!

Download More PowerPoint Templates Today!

We've looked at over 20 attractive PPT templates in this article. But have you still not found the perfect one for your next project? Don't worry! We've got you covered! There are plenty of other best-selling templates that you can check out in the articles below:

Now that we've covered the best templates for Elements, let's now have a look at which option is best for you.

5 Benefits of Using the Most Beautiful PowerPoint Templates With Pro Designs

Elements has some of the most beautiful PowerPoint presentation templates on the web for 2023. But why should you choose their attractive PPT templates from all the rest available? And what are the advantages of using them? Find out the answer to these questions here:

• They’ll be more beautiful. If you’re concerned with your presentations’ aesthetics and beauty, you need to go for a professionally designed template. Just look at the list above. The attention to detail makes the key elements stunning.
• They’ll speak highly of you. Not only is it important to think about how your presentation will look. You should think about how you’ll look, too. With a professional and attractive template for PPT, you’ll portray that you’re a professional, too.
• You’ll control your image. Representing your brand accurate is crucial. Luckily, with a well-designed beautiful PowerPoint template, you’ll rest assured that you can control and customize the presentation to your liking.
• You’ll stand out. Trying to make your voice heard while using a free, common PowerPoint template can be tough. With a beautiful PPT template that has a unique design, the visuals alone will help you shine.
• You’ll feel confident. Finally, knowing that you have a gorgeous presentation can help you stand tall and spread your message with a lot more confidence. You have the look, the content, and now you just need to share it.

Benefits of Envato Elements (The Power of Unlimited Use)

You'll be hard-pressed to find more beautiful PowerPoint templates than the ones in Envato Elements. If that weren't enough, you can also find a ton of high-quality designs and assets for your creative projects. Templates, photos, videos, logos, graphics, you name it!

Subscribe to Envato Elements and get every top asset you could ever need and more. The best part? It's all for a low monthly fee!

Common PowerPoint Template Questions Answered (FAQ)

Are you still learning how to make a beautiful PowerPoint presentation? Have no fear, we've got you covered. Let's help you tackle five questions I bet you're asking as a beginner:

1. What's the Best Way to Show Data in PowerPoint?

If you want to build nice slides, don't clutter them with too much data shown in tables.

Instead, opt to build charts and graphs. They show data but make it easy to read. Learn how to use those features and use the templates below: 

2. How Do You Create Backgrounds for PowerPoint?

Many users who want to learn how to make a beautiful PowerPoint presentation with great graphics. And if you already know an app like Photoshop, you can bring the two tools together with a few settings.

Learn how to pair Photoshop and PowerPoint to create perfectly sized backgrounds below:

3. What's a Good Way to End Your Presentation?

Rookie presenters too often default to saying "thank you" to wrap up a presentation. Simple slides like this aren't a step to take to make a beautiful PowerPoint presentation.

If you want more ideas to conclude your presentation, we've got you covered:

4. How Can You Track Changes by Others in PowerPoint

Want to make your nice slides nicer? You need to ask for a bit of collaboration. That's much easier when you keep good track of the changes they've made to your presentation.

Using PowerPoint's built-in  track changes  feature makes it much easier. Learn how to do just that with the help of this article:

5. Does PowerPoint Support 3D Designs?

Maybe you want to see some design depth in your presentation. Flat graphics just don't do your content justice. Luckily, with the help of templates, PowerPoint allows for pseudo-3D designs.

Want to learn how to make a beautiful PowerPoint presentation with 3D pyramids and shapes? Check out our tutorial:

Learn More About PowerPoint

Do you still need to know how to make PowerPoint presentation attractive? The templates and tips above are more than enough to help you create a professional PowerPoint presentation. But you'll still need to know the basics of how to use the PowerPoint software. 

For starters, check out this in-depth guide on how to use the software. You can check out our other tutorials on learning the basics of Microsoft PowerPoint: 

Build Beautiful PowerPoint Presentations in 2023

We’ve looked at 25 beautiful template options, learned some fundamental design tips, and discovered how to make a pretty PowerPoint. Now it’s time for you to get started building amazing PowerPoint presentations with these stunning templates. 

Be sure to check out Envato Elements to find your very own stunning PowerPoint templates . And then, it’s as easy as dropping in your own content. Beautiful presentations win any time—go build one today!

Editorial Note: This post has been updated with contributions from Andrew Childress , Daniel Strongin , Nathan Umoh , and Dacia Egurrola . Andrew and Daniel are freelance instructors with Envato Tuts+. Nathan and Dacia are a staff writers for Envato Tuts+ .

How to Find & Replace Text in PowerPoint?

Table of Contents

Putting together a long presentation can make it tricky to find and update specific words or phrases. Luckily, PowerPoint has a handy tool called Find and Replace.

This feature lets you search through your entire presentation for any text you want to change, saving you a lot of time and effort compared to editing things by hand. It’s especially helpful for presentations with a lot of content or when you need to fix typos without going through every single slide.

In this blog, we are taking a closer look at how to find and replace text in PowerPoint. Without waiting further, let’s jump right into it.

How to Find Text in PowerPoint?

• Click the “Find” button on the Home tab.
• Or, press Ctrl + F on a PC keyboard or Command + F on a Mac keyboard (it’s a shortcut!).
• Tell PowerPoint What to Search For. In the little window that pops up, type the exact text you’re looking for in the box labeled “Find what.”
• Look for the Text. Click the button that says “Find Next.” This will jump to the first instance of the text you typed.
• Keep Searching (optional). There might be more than one spot where that text appears. If you need to find them all, just keep clicking “Find Next” until you’re done searching.

How to Replace Text in PowerPoint?

Need to update some text in your PowerPoint presentation? Here’s are some instructions to help you out.

• Click the button labeled “Replace”.
• In the box titled “Find what”, type the word or phrase you want to change.
• Next to it, in the “Replace with” box, enter the new word or phrase you want to in its place.
• If there are any specific search options you need (like matching whole words only), you can choose them here.
• Click “Find Next” to see the first instance of the text you want to replace.
• Click “Replace” to update just that one instance.
• Click “Replace All” to update every single instance of the text at once.

Closing Thoughts

The Find and Replace tool in PowerPoint is a handy feature for quickly making edits to your presentations. It works across all versions of PowerPoint, whether you’re using it online, on your desktop, or even on your mobile device. While it can’t search within images or videos, it’s a great way to locate and update text throughout your slides. Hopefully, this blog post has helped you learn more about this useful tool!

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Frequently Asked Questions

1. is it possible to replace text in all slides at once.

Yes, you can replace text in all slides at once by selecting “Replace All” after finding the text.

2. What should I do if I can’t find the text I’m looking for?

If you can’t find the text you’re looking for, try adjusting your search options or checking for typos in your search query.

3. Can I find and replace text within text boxes, shapes, and other objects?

Yes, you can find and replace text within text boxes, shapes, and other objects in PowerPoint.

4. Will using find and replace affect formatting, such as font styles and sizes?

Using find and replace typically doesn’t affect formatting, but it’s always a good idea to double-check your slides afterward.

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Jack Graham

Choosing action over apathy.

As we wind down the series “Choices,” Pastor Jack Graham takes us to the 29th chapter of Proverbs for the message “Choosing Action Over Apathy.” He points out three virtues that help us move from mediocrity to greatness, from apathy to action. 

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About PowerPoint

About jack graham.

Dr. Jack Graham serves as Senior Pastor of Prestonwood Baptist Church, one of the nation’s largest, most dynamic congregations.

When Dr. Graham came to Prestonwood in 1989, the 8,000-member congregation responded enthusiastically to his straightforward message and powerful preaching style.

Now thriving with more than 57,000 members, Prestonwood continues to grow, reaching throughout the North Texas region. In 2006, the church launched a second location, the North Campus, in a burgeoning area 20 miles north of the Plano Campus. Prestonwood also has a flourishing Spanish-language ministry, Prestonwood en Español, which includes members from more than 20 nations. And Prestonwood.Live, the online community, draws worshippers from all over the world. Dr. Graham is a noted author of numerous books, including the latest Reignite: Fresh Focus for an Enduring Faith. In this deeply personal book, Dr. Graham shares lessons he learned in the midst of crisis – offering insight on how to focus on Jesus even in the darkest days.

Other books include A Man of God: Essential Priorities for Every Man’s Life; Unseen: Angels, Satan, Heaven, Hell and Winning the Battle for Eternity; Angels: Who They Are, What They Do and Why It Matters; Powering Up: The Fulfillment and Fruit of a God-Fueled Life; and Courageous Parenting, written with his wife, Deb.

His passionate, biblical teaching is also seen and heard across the country and throughout the world on PowerPoint Ministries. Through broadcasts, online sermons and e-mail messages, Dr. Graham addresses relevant, everyday issues that are prevalent in our culture and strike a chord with audiences worldwide.

In October 2022, the Bible in a Year with Jack Graham podcast was launched in partnership with iHeartPodcasts and Pray.com, with a cinematic feel that brings the Bible to life. Within the first week of its release, the podcast reached the top spot on the Spotify religion list, and it has now surpassed 30 million downloads.

Dr. Graham has served as Honorary Chairman of the National Day of Prayer and has helped lead various national prayer initiatives. He served as President of the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant denomination in the country with more than 14 million members.

He and Deb have three married children and eight grandchildren.

Contact PowerPoint with Jack Graham