17 PowerPoint Presentation Tricks to Make Extra Artistic Slideshows [+ Templates]

Creating an important PowerPoint presentation is a talent that any skilled can profit from. The issue? It’s very easy to get it mistaken. From poor coloration decisions to complicated slides, a foul PowerPoint slideshow can distract from the implausible content material you’re sharing with stakeholders in your group.

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That’s why it’s so vital to learn to create a PowerPoint presentation from the bottom up, beginning together with your slides. Even if you happen to’re aware of PowerPoint, a refresher will show you how to make a extra engaging, skilled slideshow. Let’s get began.

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I like to think about Microsoft PowerPoint as a take a look at of primary skilled abilities. To create a passing presentation, I have to exhibit design abilities, technical literacy, and a way of non-public fashion.

If the presentation has an issue (like an unintended font, a damaged hyperlink, or unreadable textual content), then I’ve most likely failed the take a look at. Even when my spoken presentation is properly rehearsed, a foul visible expertise can damage it for the viewers.

Experience means nothing and not using a good PowerPoint presentation to again it up. For starters, seize your assortment of free PowerPoint templates beneath.

Irrespective of your subject, profitable PowerPoints rely on three predominant elements: your command of PowerPoint’s design instruments, your consideration to presentation processes, and your devotion to constant fashion. Listed here are some easy ideas that will help you begin mastering every of these elements, and remember to take a look at the extra sources on the backside of this submit.

The best way to Make a PowerPoint Presentation

A presentation is made up of a number of slides, let’s delve deeper into PowerPoint’s capabilities.

Getting Began

1. Open PowerPoint and click on ‘New.’

If a web page with templates doesn‘t mechanically open, go to the highest left pane of your display and click on New. In the event you’ve already created a presentation, choose Open then double-click the icon to open the present file.

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2. Select a theme or create your individual.

Microsoft presents built-in themes and coloration variations that will help you design your slides with a cohesive look. To select from these pre-built themes, select the File tab once more, choose New, select one of many choices, and click on Create. There may be additionally an choice to pick a clean presentation if you happen to desire to not add one.

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In any other case, you need to use PowerPoint components, your design sense, and your model’s coloration palette to make your individual “theme.”

Creating PowerPoint Slides

3. Insert a slide.

Insert a brand new slide by clicking on the Dwelling tab after which the New Slide button. Take into account what content material you need to placed on the slide, together with heading, textual content, and imagery.

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Take into account what content material you need to placed on the slide, together with heading, textual content, and imagery.

4. Create quite a lot of slides for various functions.

You don‘t need to current the identical actual slide, solely with totally different content material on it. This could bore your viewers. Be sure that you create a number of variations, accommodating a number of the widespread makes use of for slides. At minimal, you’ll want:

A title slide
An agenda or desk of contents slide
A slide that introduces the speaker
Numerous content material slides (create totally different layouts contemplating what sort of multimedia you will use)

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5. Use the Duplicate Slides function to avoid wasting you time.

There‘s no motive to create these designs over and over. Now that you’ve just a few to attract from, you may merely duplicate them earlier than inputting your content material. Right here’s how to do this:

On the left pane, right-click the thumbnail of the slide you need to duplicate.
Select Duplicate Slide from the pop-up menu.

This can mechanically add a replica of this slide to the presentation. From there, you may customise it to your wants.

6. Add images to your slide

Add pictures by clicking Insert and clicking the Footage icon. Moreover, you may add different components by utilizing options within the Dwelling and Insert tabs on the highest ribbon. Mess around with the structure by dragging components round together with your mouse.

7. Add transitions to your slides (non-obligatory).

Performed properly, transitions can add somewhat little bit of motion and showmanship to your presentation. PowerPoint has a number of transitions in-built so that you can select from.

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To entry them, choose the Transitions tab from the highest ribbon. From there, you may choose a transition for it to preview in your display. To customise it additional, click on Impact Choices and play with the options to seek out one thing that fits your liking. To take away a transition, choose Transitions and click on None.

8. Add animations to your slides (non-obligatory).

Like transitions, animations can add motion, reveal info, and show you how to underscore the factors you need to hit throughout your speech. To animate a component, comply with these steps:

Choose the factor you need animated by clicking on it.
Select Animations from the highest ribbon.
You may have the choice to select from a number of results displayed within the ribbon.
Clicking on one gives you a preview.
To customise the animation, choose Impact Choices.
To take away an animation, click on None within the ribbon.

A number of the methods to customise animations embody:

On Click on
With Earlier
After Earlier
Length
Delay

These describe the way you need the impact to behave, so mess around with them till you discover an impact that fits your liking.

You may even have the choice to maneuver animations round as you edit your slides by clicking on the Animation Pane button, then reordering the animations within the record that pops up.

Ending Up Your Presentation

9. Save your presentation.

Click on File and Save, ensuring to specify which folder or vacation spot you need your PowerPoint to be saved. In the event you’re utilizing your slides for schooling or instructing, it might be helpful to convert your presentation to an internet course.

10. Run your presentation.

It is at all times good to do a trial run to make sure that your slides are arrange correctly and your animations fireplace the best way you count on them to.

To current your PowerPoint, go to the Slide Present tab and click on Play from Begin. The slide will cowl your entire display, blocking out your desktop and PowerPoint software program. That is so your viewers (on this case, you for the trial run) is solely targeted on the visible components of your presentation.

11. Advance the slides.

Whenever you’re completed with one slide and need to present the subsequent in your sequence, click on your mouse in presentation mode. This can advance the slide.

PowerPoint Presentation Ideas

Do not let PowerPoint determine how you utilize PowerPoint.
Create customized slide sizes.
Edit your slide template design.
Write textual content together with your viewers in thoughts.
Be certain your entire objects are correctly aligned.
Use ‘Format Object’ to higher management your objects’ designs.
Make the most of PowerPoint’s shapes.
Create customized shapes.
Crop pictures into customized shapes.
Current web sites inside PowerPoint.
Attempt Utilizing GIFs.
Maintain it easy.
Embed your font information.
Save your slides as JPEGs.
Embed multimedia.
Carry your individual {hardware}.
Use ‘Presenter View.’

PowerPoint Type

1. Don’t let PowerPoint determine how you utilize PowerPoint.

Microsoft wished to offer PowerPoint customers with numerous instruments. However this doesn’t imply you must use all of them. Listed here are some key issues to look out for:

Guarantee that the preset PPT themes complement your wants earlier than you undertake them.
Attempt to get away from utilizing Microsoft Workplace’s default fonts, Calibri and Cambria. Utilizing these two typefaces could make the presentation appear underwhelming.
Professionals ought to by no means use PPT’s motion sounds. (Please think about your viewers above private desire).
PowerPoint makes bulleting automated, however ask your self: Are bullets really acceptable for what that you must do? Typically they’re, however not at all times.
Latest PPT defaults embody a small shadow on all shapes. Take away this shadow if it isn’t really wanted. Additionally, don’t depart shapes of their default blue.

2. Create customized slide sizes.

Whilst you often can get away with the default slide measurement for many shows, you might want to regulate it for bigger shows on weirdly sized shows. If that you must do this, here is how.

Within the top-left nook, select File.
Choose Web page Setup.
Kind the peak and width of the background you would like, and click on OK.
A dialogue field will seem. Click on Scale if you wish to additionally resize your content material, or Don’t Scale if you happen to don’t. We advocate clicking Don’t Scale, then manually adjusting minor structure points.

Tip: You possibly can keep away from a headache with the final step if you happen to resize your slides earlier than you add any objects to them. In any other case, the scale of your objects will change into skewed.

3. Edit your slide template design.

Typically, it is a lot simpler to edit your PowerPoint template earlier than you begin — this fashion, you do not have to design every slide by hand. This is the way you do this.

Choose View within the high navigation.
Click on Grasp.
Within the drop-down, click on Slide Grasp.
Make any modifications you want, then click on Shut Grasp within the high ribbon. All present and future slides in that presentation will use that template.

4. Write textual content together with your viewers in thoughts.

A big a part of a PowerPoint’s content material is textual content. Nice copy could make or break your presentation, so evaluating your written work from just a few totally different angles might make you appear extra persuasive. Maintain the quantity of textual content beneath 6-8 traces (or 30 phrases) at a minimal of measurement 24 pt. Eager about how your textual content is acquired differentiates good presenters from one of the best.

Typography:

Many individuals underestimate the affect of typeface, however selecting the best font is vital — the notion of your font sort might affect your viewers’s impression of you. The best font is a chance to convey constant model character and professionalism.

Some fonts are seen as clear {and professional}, however this doesn’t suggest they’re boring. A typical mistake is considering your font is not “thrilling” sufficient, which could lead on you to decide on a font that distracts out of your general message. We advocate sticking to easy serif and sans-serif fonts. Keep away from script fonts due to potential readability points.

That stated, you may nonetheless use enjoyable and eccentric fonts — moderately. Offsetting a enjoyable font or massive letters with one thing extra skilled can create an interesting presentation.

Above all, ensure you are constant so your presentation seems to be the identical all through every slide. That means, your viewers does not change into distracted by too many disparate fonts. Try this instance from HubSpot’s firm profile templates:

on this presentation template? Obtain it free of charge right here.

5. Be certain your entire objects are correctly aligned.

Having correctly aligned objects in your slide is the important thing to creating it look polished {and professional}. You possibly can manually attempt to line up your pictures … however everyone knows how that sometimes works out. You are making an attempt to verify your entire objects hang around in the midst of your slide, however if you drag them there, it nonetheless does not look fairly proper. Eliminate your guessing recreation and let PowerPoint work its magic with this trick.

Right here’s align a number of objects:

Choose all objects by holding down Shift and clicking on all of them.
Choose Organize within the high choices bar, then select Align or Distribute.
Select the kind of alignment you would like.

Right here’s align objects to the slide:

Choose all objects by holding down Shift and clicking on all of them.
Choose Organize within the high choices bar, then select Align or Distribute.
Choose Align to Slide.
Choose Organize within the high choices bar once more, then select Align or Distribute.
Select the kind of alignment you would like.

PowerPoint Design

6. Use “Format Object” to higher management your objects’ designs.

Format menus permit you to do nice changes that in any other case appear unattainable. To do that, right-click on an object and choose the Format Object choice. Right here, you may fine-tune shadows, alter form measurements, create reflections, and far more. The menu that may pop up seems to be like this:

Though the principle choices will be discovered on PowerPoint’s format toolbars, search for full management within the format window menu. Different examples of choices accessible embody:

Adjusting textual content inside a form.
Making a pure perspective shadow behind an object.
Recoloring images manually and with automated choices.

7. Make the most of PowerPoint’s shapes.

Many customers don’t notice how versatile PowerPoint’s form instruments have change into. Together with the expanded format choices launched by Microsoft, the potential for good design with shapes is available. PowerPoint offers the person with a bunch of nice form choices past the standard rectangle, oval, and rounded rectangle patterns.

In the present day’s shapes embody a extremely purposeful Sensible Shapes operate, which allows you to create diagrams and stream charts very quickly. These instruments are particularly helpful when you think about that PowerPoint is a visible medium. Paragraphing and bullet lists are boring — you need to use shapes to assist categorical your message extra clearly.

8. Create customized shapes.

Whenever you create a form, proper click on and press Edit Factors. By modifying factors, you may create customized shapes that suit your particular want. As an example, you may reshape arrows to suit the scale you want.

Another choice is to mix two shapes collectively. To take action, choose the 2 shapes you’d wish to work with, then click on Form Format within the high ribbon. Faucet Merge Shapes.

You’ll see quite a lot of choices.

Mix creates a customized form that has overlapping parts of the 2 earlier shapes lower out.
Union makes one utterly merged form.
Intersect builds a form of solely the overlapping sections of the 2 earlier shapes.
Subtract cuts out the overlapping portion of 1 form from the opposite.
Fragment will cut up your form into totally different elements relying on the place they overlap.

Through the use of these instruments fairly than making an attempt to edit factors exactly, you may create precisely measured customized shapes.

9. Crop pictures into customized shapes.

Apart from creating customized shapes in your presentation, you may as well use PowerPoint to crop present pictures into new shapes. This is the way you do this:

Click on on the picture and choose Image Format within the choices bar.
Select Crop, then Crop to Form, after which select your required form. Ta-da! Customized-shaped images.

10. Current web sites inside PowerPoint.

Custom says that if you wish to present a web site in a PowerPoint, you must simply create a hyperlink to the web page and immediate a browser to open. For PC customers, there’s a greater choice.

Third social gathering software program that integrates absolutely into PowerPoint’s developer tab can be utilized to embed a web site straight into your PowerPoint utilizing a standard HTML iframe. Top-of-the-line instruments is LiveWeb, a third-party software program which you could set up in your PowerPoint program.

Through the use of LiveWeb, you don’t must interrupt your PowerPoint, and your presentation will stay fluid and pure. Whether or not you embed a complete webpage or only a YouTube video, this could be a high-quality third social gathering enchancment. To put in the add-on, easy head to the LiveWeb web site and comply with the directions.

Sadly, Mac customers don’t have an analogous choice. An excellent second selection is to take screenshots of the web site, hyperlink in by way of a browser, or embed media (equivalent to a YouTube video) by downloading it on to your laptop.

11. Attempt Utilizing GIFs.

GIFs are looped animated pictures used to speak a temper, thought, info, and far more. Customers add GIFs to PowerPoints to be humorous or rapidly demo a course of. It is simple so as to add GIFs to your slides. To take action, merely comply with these steps:

Obtain and save the GIF you need.
Go to the slide you need the GIF on.
Go to the Dwelling tab, and click on both Insert or Image.
From the Image drop-down menu, select Image from File.
Navigate to the place you saved your GIF and choose it. Then, select Insert.
It should play mechanically the second you insert it.

PowerPoint Course of

12. Maintain it easy.

PowerPoint is a wonderful instrument to help your presentation with visible info, graphics, and supplemental factors. Which means that your PowerPoint shouldn’t be your total presentation. Your slides — irrespective of how inventive and exquisite — should not be the star of the present. Maintain your textual content and pictures clear and concise, utilizing them solely to complement your message and authority.

In case your slides have dense and cluttered info, it should each distract your viewers and make it more likely that you’ll lose their consideration. Nothing in your slides needs to be superfluous! Maintain your presentation persuasive by holding it clear. There are just a few methods to do that:

Restrict bullet factors and textual content.
Keep away from paragraphs and lengthy quotes.
Preserve “white area” or “unfavorable area”.
Maintain percentages, graphs, and information tremendous primary.

13. Embed your font information.

One fixed drawback presenters have with PowerPoint is that fonts appear to alter when presenters transfer from one laptop to a different. In actuality, the fonts usually are not altering — the presentation laptop simply doesn’t have the similar font information put in. In the event you’re utilizing a PC and presenting on a PC, then there’s a easy workaround for this challenge.

Right here’s the trick: Whenever you save your PowerPoint file (solely on a PC), you must click on File, then Choices, then open up the Save tab. Then, choose the Embed fonts within the file test field beneath Protect constancy when sharing this presentation. Now, your presentation will hold the font file and your fonts is not going to change if you transfer computer systems.

The macOS PowerPoint model has an analogous operate. To embed your fonts on a Mac, do the next:

Open up your presentation.
On the highest bar, click on PowerPoint, then click on Preferences.
Underneath Output and Sharing, click on Save.
Underneath Font Embedding, click on Embed fonts within the file.

14. Save your slides as a PDF file for backup functions.

In the event you’re nonetheless fearful of your presentation displaying up in a different way when it’s time to current, you must create a PDF model simply in case. This can be a good choice if you happen to’ll be presenting on a special laptop. In the event you additionally run into a problem the place the presenting laptop doesn’t have PowerPoint put in, you may as well use the system viewer to open up the PDF. No laptop computer will ever provide you with bother with this file sort.

The one caveat is that your GIFs, animations, and transitions received’t switch over. However for the reason that PDF will solely work as a backup, not as your main copy, this needs to be okay.

To save lots of your presentation as a PDF file, take the next steps:

Go to File, then click on Save as …
Within the pop-up window, click on File Format.
A drop-down menu will seem. Choose PDF.
Click on Export.

You may also go to File, then Export, then choose PDF from the file format menu.

15. Embed multimedia.

PowerPoint lets you both hyperlink to video/audio information externally or to embed the media straight in your presentation. It is best to embed these information if you happen to can, however if you happen to use a Mac, you can not really embed the video (see notice beneath). For PCs, two nice causes for embedding are:

Embedding lets you play media straight in your presentation. It should look far more skilled than switching between home windows.
Embedding additionally implies that the file stays throughout the PowerPoint presentation, so it ought to play usually with out additional work (besides on a Mac).

Notice: macOS customers of PowerPoint needs to be additional cautious about utilizing multimedia information.

In the event you use PowerPoint for Mac, then you’ll at all times have to deliver the video and/or audio file with you in the identical folder because the PowerPoint presentation. It’s finest to solely insert video or audio information as soon as the presentation and the containing folder have been saved on a transportable drive of their everlasting folder. Additionally, if the presentation will likely be performed on a Home windows laptop, then Mac customers want to verify their multimedia information are in WMV format. This tip will get a bit sophisticated, so if you wish to use PowerPoint successfully, think about using the identical working system for designing and presenting, it doesn’t matter what.

16. Carry your individual {hardware}.

Between working techniques, PowerPoint continues to be a bit jumpy. Even between differing PPT variations, issues can change. One method to repair these issues is to just remember to have the appropriate {hardware} — so simply deliver alongside your individual laptop computer if you’re presenting.

In the event you’re tremendous involved in regards to the totally different techniques you may need to make use of, then add your PowerPoint presentation into Google Slides as a backup choice. Google Slides is a cloud-based presentation software program that may present up the identical means on all working techniques. The one factor you want is an web connection and a browser.

To import your PowerPoint presentation into Google Slides, take the next steps:

Navigate to slides.google.com. Be sure you’re signed in to a Google account, ideally your individual.
Underneath Begin a brand new presentation, click on the empty field with a plus signal. This can open up a clean presentation.
Go to File, then Import slides.
A dialog field will come up. Faucet Add, then click on Choose a file out of your gadget.
Choose your presentation and click on Open.
Choose the slides you’d wish to import. If you wish to import all of them, click on All within the higher right-hand nook of the dialog field.
Click on Import slides.

After I examined this out, Google Slides imported the whole lot completely, together with a form whose factors I had manipulated. This can be a good backup choice to have if you happen to’ll be presenting throughout totally different working techniques.

17. Use Presenter View.

In most presentation conditions, there will likely be each a presenter’s display and the principle projected show to your presentation. PowerPoint has an important instrument referred to as Presenter View, which will be discovered within the Slide Present tab of PowerPoint. Included within the Presenter View is an space for notes, a timer/clock, and a presentation show.

For a lot of presenters, this instrument may also help unify their spoken presentation and their visible support. You by no means need to make the PowerPoint appear to be a stack of notes that you just’re studying off of. Use the Presenter View choice to assist create a extra pure presentation.

Professional Tip: At the beginning of the presentation, you must also hit CTRL + H to make the cursor disappear. Hitting the “A” key will deliver it again if you happen to want it!

Your Subsequent Nice PowerPoint Presentation Begins Right here

With fashion, design, and presentation processes beneath your belt, you are able to do much more with PowerPoint than simply shows to your purchasers. PowerPoint and comparable slide functions are versatile instruments that shouldn’t be forgotten. With an important template, you will be in your method to creating shows that wow your viewers.

Editor’s notice: This submit was initially printed in September 2013 and has been up to date for comprehensiveness.