powerpoint presentation design tips

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9 Tips for Making Beautiful PowerPoint Presentations

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

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 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.

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.

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.

9. Editing PowerPoint Images

Setting appropriate image resolution in powerpoint.

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.

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!

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PowerPoint 101: The Ultimate Guide for Beginners

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

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

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

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

What is PowerPoint?

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

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

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

• PowerPoint Online

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

PowerPoint Main Window

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

PowerPoint Tabs

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

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

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

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

1. Home Tab

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

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

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

2. Insert Tab

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

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

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

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

3. Design Tab

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

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

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

4. Transitions Tab

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

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

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

5. Animations Tab

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

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

6. Slide Show Tab

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

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

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

7. Review Tab

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

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

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

8. View Tab

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

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

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

9. Recording Tab

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

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

10. Help Tab

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

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

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

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

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

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

PowerPoint Feature #1: Crop to Shape

This first PowerPoint feature is simple but effective!

Let's see how to use it:

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

PowerPoint Feature #2: Merge Shapes

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

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

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

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

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

PowerPoint Feature #3: Insert Icons

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

Just follow these steps:

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

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

PowerPoint Feature #4: Insert SmartArt

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

To use it in your slide deck, you must:

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

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

PowerPoint Feature #5: Remove Background

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

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

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

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

PowerPoint Feature #6: Add Speaker Notes

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

Learning how to add speaker notes in PowerPoint is simple:

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

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

PowerPoint Feature #7: PowerPoint Translator

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

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

PowerPoint Feature #8: Screen Recording

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How to download PowerPoint templates for free?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Step 1: Make a draft to structure your presentation

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

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

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

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

Step 2: Create a new document in PowerPoint

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

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

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

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

Step 3: Choose the perfect design for your presentation

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

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

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

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

How do you set a default design in PowerPoint?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How do you customize your slides in PowerPoint?

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

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

Just go to:

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

Step 4: Add all your information to your presentation

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

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

Step 5: Add transitions or animations to your presentation

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

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

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

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

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

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

Step 6: Refine the final details

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

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

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

Step 7: Slideshow your presentation

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

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

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

Now you can present your slides like an expert!

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

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

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

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

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

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iPads Are Now Capable of Formatting External Drives

I put up with messy passwords too long, here's what the cleanup looked like, the microsoft 365 app has a handy new widget, quick links, table of contents, start with a goal, less is more, consider your typeface, make bullet points count, limit the use of transitions, skip text where possible, think in color, take a look from the top down, bonus: start with templates.

Slideshows are an intuitive way to share complex ideas with an audience, although they're dull and frustrating when poorly executed. Here are some tips to make your Microsoft PowerPoint presentations sing while avoiding common pitfalls.

It all starts with identifying what we're trying to achieve with the presentation. Is it informative, a showcase of data in an easy-to-understand medium? Or is it more of a pitch, something meant to persuade and convince an audience and lead them to a particular outcome?

It's here where the majority of these presentations go wrong with the inability to identify the talking points that best support our goal. Always start with a goal in mind: to entertain, to inform, or to share data in a way that's easy to understand. Use facts, figures, and images to support your conclusion while keeping structure in mind (Where are we now and where are we going?).

I've found that it's helpful to start with the ending. Once I know how to end a presentation, I know how best to get to that point. I start by identifying the takeaway---that one nugget that I want to implant before thanking everyone for their time---and I work in reverse to figure out how best to get there.

Your mileage, of course, may vary. But it's always going to be a good idea to put in the time in the beginning stages so that you aren't reworking large portions of the presentation later. And that starts with a defined goal.

A slideshow isn't supposed to include everything. It's an introduction to a topic, one that we can elaborate on with speech. Anything unnecessary is a distraction. It makes the presentation less visually appealing and less interesting, and it makes you look bad as a presenter.

This goes for text as well as images. There's nothing worse, in fact, than a series of slides where the presenter just reads them as they appear. Your audience is capable of reading, and chances are they'll be done with the slide, and browsing Reddit, long before you finish. Avoid putting the literal text on the screen, and your audience will thank you.

Related: How to Burn Your PowerPoint to DVD

Right off the bat, we're just going to come out and say that Papyrus and Comic Sans should be banned from all PowerPoint presentations, permanently. Beyond that, it's worth considering the typeface you're using and what it's saying about you, the presenter, and the presentation itself.

Consider choosing readability over aesthetics, and avoid fancy fonts that could prove to be more of a distraction than anything else. A good presentation needs two fonts: a serif and sans-serif. Use one for the headlines and one for body text, lists, and the like. Keep it simple. Veranda, Helvetica, Arial, and even Times New Roman are safe choices. Stick with the classics and it's hard to botch this one too badly.

There reaches a point where bullet points become less of a visual aid and more of a visual examination.

Bullet points should support the speaker, not overwhelm his audience. The best slides have little or no text at all, in fact. As a presenter, it's our job to talk through complex issues, but that doesn't mean that we need to highlight every talking point.

Instead, think about how you can break up large lists into three or four bullet points. Carefully consider whether you need to use more bullet points, or if you can combine multiple topics into a single point instead. And if you can't, remember that there's no one limiting the number of slides you can have in a presentation. It's always possible to break a list of 12 points down into three pages of four points each.

Animation, when used correctly, is a good idea. It breaks up slow-moving parts of a presentation and adds action to elements that require it. But it should be used judiciously.

Adding a transition that wipes left to right between every slide or that animates each bullet point in a list, for example, starts to grow taxing on those forced to endure the presentation. Viewers get bored quickly, and animations that are meant to highlight specific elements quickly become taxing.

That's not to say that you can't use animations and transitions, just that you need to pick your spots. Aim for no more than a handful of these transitions for each presentation. And use them in spots where they'll add to the demonstration, not detract from it.

Sometimes images tell a better story than text can. And as a presenter, your goal is to describe points in detail without making users do a lot of reading. In these cases, a well-designed visual, like a chart, might better convey the information you're trying to share.

The right image adds visual appeal and serves to break up longer, text-heavy sections of the presentation---but only if you're using the right images. A single high-quality image can make all the difference between a success and a dud when you're driving a specific point home.

When considering text, don't think solely in terms of bullet points and paragraphs. Tables, for example, are often unnecessary. Ask yourself whether you could present the same data in a bar or line chart instead.

Color is interesting. It evokes certain feelings and adds visual appeal to your presentation as a whole. Studies show that color also improves interest, comprehension, and retention. It should be a careful consideration, not an afterthought.

You don't have to be a graphic designer to use color well in a presentation. What I do is look for palettes I like, and then find ways to use them in the presentation. There are a number of tools for this, like Adobe Color , Coolors , and ColorHunt , just to name a few. After finding a palette you enjoy, consider how it works with the presentation you're about to give. Pastels, for example, evoke feelings of freedom and light, so they probably aren't the best choice when you're presenting quarterly earnings that missed the mark.

It's also worth mentioning that you don't need to use every color in the palette. Often, you can get by with just two or three, though you should really think through how they all work together and how readable they'll be when layered. A simple rule of thumb here is that contrast is your friend. Dark colors work well on light backgrounds, and light colors work best on dark backgrounds.

Spend some time in the Slide Sorter before you finish your presentation. By clicking the four squares at the bottom left of the presentation, you can take a look at multiple slides at once and consider how each works together. Alternatively, you can click "View" on the ribbon and select "Slide Sorter."

Are you presenting too much text at once? Move an image in. Could a series of slides benefit from a chart or summary before you move on to another point?

It's here that we have the opportunity to view the presentation from beyond the single-slide viewpoint and think in terms of how each slide fits, or if it fits at all. From this view, you can rearrange slides, add additional ones, or delete them entirely if you find that they don't advance the presentation.

The difference between a good presentation and a bad one is really all about preparation and execution. Those that respect the process and plan carefully---not only the presentation as a whole, but each slide within it---are the ones who will succeed.

This brings me to my last (half) point: When in doubt, just buy a template and use it. You can find these all over the web, though Creative Market and GraphicRiver are probably the two most popular marketplaces for this kind of thing. Not all of us are blessed with the skills needed to design and deliver an effective presentation. And while a pre-made PowerPoint template isn't going to make you a better presenter, it will ease the anxiety of creating a visually appealing slide deck.

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

23 PowerPoint Presentation Tips for Creating Engaging and Interactive Presentations

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• Display one bullet at a time

Avoid unnecessary animations

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

Re-focus the attention on you by fading into blackness

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Best Practice PowerPoint Presentation Tips

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

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

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

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

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

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

Display one sentence at a time

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

Presentation Blunders To Avoid

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

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

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

Only add engaging content that supports your main points

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

“Does this slide help support my main point?”

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

Do not use PowerPoint as a Teleprompter

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

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

Avoid Giving Out Copies of the Presentation

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

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

Tips To Making Your Presentation More Engaging

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

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

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

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

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

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

How To Make Your Presentation More Interactive

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Key Takeaways from one of the best presenters, Steve Jobs

He kept his slides uncluttered and always strove for simplicity.

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

Source: Macworld 2008

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

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

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

He found made the complex sound simple

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Like this article? Please share

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

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

Very great advices!

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

Thank You ?

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5 golden rules of PowerPoint design

april 30, 2024

by Deb Ashby

Wondering how to design the perfect PowerPoint presentation? It's easier than you think–just follow five simple rules to get started:

1. Consider using templates

When building a slide deck, it’s important to maintain consistency throughout. We want to ensure we are using consistent font styles, colors and themes. This can be tricky when designing from scratch, so why not start from a template?

Microsoft Create contains hundreds of pre-made, customizable PowerPoint templates, which means you don’t have to start from scratch and the fonts and colors are already set for you.

Simply choose a template from the gallery, customize it as needed, and you are done!

2. No walls of text

We’ve all seen PowerPoint presentations where slides contain too much text. The human brain struggles to listen and read at the same time. If you are presenting to an audience, keep the text on slides to a minimum.

Consider employing the “5-5-5" rule. No more than 5 lines, no more than 5 words, no more than 5 minutes. Think short and sharp memory joggers instead of rambling paragraphs.

Where possible, consider replacing text with visuals to represent your point. People remember images more than words.

3. Be mindful of colors and fonts

No one wants their audience to leave with a headache after an hour of straining to read slides. We need to ensure that our presentation is easy to read for everyone – even for those in the nosebleed seats at the back! Think about the font you are using. Is it appropriate for the presentation? What about the font size? Can people at the back easily read? What about people with visual impairment? Ensure all text is at least 24pts.

When it comes to color, ensure all slides have good contrast. Dark backgrounds should have light font and vice versa.

4. Use animation sparingly

Animation can really liven up an otherwise flat presentation. However, it should be used thoughtfully and sparingly. Too much of the wrong type of animation with objects flying in and zooming around the screen, while fun, can look confusing and unprofessional.

Animation should be subtle (especially for pitch decks and other formal presentations). With every animation you add, ask yourself, "Is this going to enhance my presentation or distract from it?"

5. Engage your audience

When presenting to an audience, there is usually an awkward time before the presentation begins while the speaker waits for everyone to arrive. During this time, people may start scrolling on their phones or get distracted with work emails, and it can be hard to pull the audience back.

To avoid this issue, work to grab your audience's attention before the presentation even starts. Instead of just having the title slide on the screen, consider creating "kiosk slides." These are a series of slides that contain a combination of interesting things for the audience to look at or engage with. Maybe you have an interesting image? A funny quote or fun facts? Or maybe there is a question you want them to think about prior to the session?

Create these slides and have them automatically cycle round before the presentation starts.

Related topics

Microsoft 365 Life Hacks > Presentations > PowerPoint Tips: Make The Most of Your Presentation

PowerPoint Tips: Make The Most of Your Presentation

Got a presentation coming up but you’re not that familiar with PowerPoint ? We can help you get started with some easy PowerPoint tips and tricks that’ll help you create an impactful presentation , no matter what the occasion.

Our PowerPoint for beginners tips will show you how to:

• Make an outline.
• Choose a theme.
• Find a font.
• Use visuals.
• Not use too much text.
• Limit your color.
• Use a free online “speaker coach”.

Tell your story with captivating presentations

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

Outline your presentation before you start. Don’t spend time making unnecessary slides for your presentation. Create an outline before you start. Not only will this make it easier to put the content on the slides, but it will also let you know how many slides you need to make. Rather than winging it and making slides as you go, use your outline to make your slides efficient and organized . Working without an outline can sometimes lead to jumbled slides with more information than you need.

Choose a theme and template. Not everybody is a graphic designer, so coming up with the perfect slide theme and template can seem hard. Thanks to PowerPoint templates, it isn’t. Find a free online template that gives you the design, layout, color scheme, and aesthetic you want. Be sure to choose something that fits what you’re talking about (e.g. Don’t use a whimsical theme with bright colors and butterflies if you’re presenting a serious topic.)

Find the right font . Knowing which font to use for your presentation isn’t always easy. When it comes to the basics of selecting the best font, follow best-practice recommendations that say an easy-to-read sans-serif font is preferred. Fonts like Arial, Calibri, Helvetica, and others like it make for simple fonts that are easy to read. Although, there are some serif fonts that still look great on PowerPoint and are easy to read on high-resolution screens. When you’re building out the format of your slides, a great way to distinguish the title section from the body text is by using a different font for each or bolding your title font.

Use visuals . Words on a page aren’t nearly as engaging as visuals. Keep your audience’s attention during your presentation by using visuals like graphics, animations, photos, and videos. PowerPoint makes it easy to insert clipart, tables, graphs, and much more by using the features built into the program. You can also include gifs and YouTube videos to up the ante on your presentation.

While it’s great to use fun gifs or YouTube videos to enhance your presentation, don’t go crazy. Eventually, your audience will get tired of looking at a five-second loop on a gif as you speak, and videos don’t always have the impact you want. Videos can be distracting to your audience because they change the pace of your presentation, so it’s a good idea to limit the number of videos you include.

Tip: If you’re going to lay words over a picture, use a colored box with the opacity down around 50% to create more contrast between the image and the words.

Limit your text. Your audience doesn’t want to read; they want to listen to you. Don’t fill your slides with long sentences and complex phrasing. Instead, include only the most important points of what you want to say. The PowerPoint 6×6 rule suggests limiting your slides to six lines with a maximum of six words per line. Following this rule makes for slides that include only the most important points while avoiding information overload. Using bullet points is a great way to stick to the 6×6 rule.

Go easy on the colors. Be careful of the colors you use when making a PowerPoint presentation. Too many bright colors can be hard on the eyes and reduce the contrast between the letters, making them hard to read. It’s generally a good idea to use a black or white font with a color that makes the font pop against the background. Black on white is always easy to read, and white looks great against most solid colors. If you’re not sure how a specific font color looks against a background, sit back in your chair, and try to read it. If it’s hard to read with the font and background you have, it’s a good idea to change one or both.

Use a free online “speaker coach”. Rehearsing in front of a mirror is good, but using free speaker coaching software is even better. Do you say “um” a lot? Are you talking too fast? Did you use a culturally insensitive term? A free digital “coach” with built-in AI will catch all that stuff and more.It’s the best way to assess your strengths and weaknesses and identify areas of growth.

These PowerPoint tips are enough to get you started on your presentation. Soon, you’ll be creating and presenting a beautiful deck.

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12 PowerPoint design tips to make your presentations stand out!

Need on-brand design, fast?

Design Buffs helps B2B marketers unblock design bottlenecks, fix broken processes, and free stretched in-house teams.

PowerPoint continues to be a mainstay in most organisations.

And for good reason! PowerPoint (PPT) presentations can be the secret weapon that turns a simple investment pitch, internal knowledge update, or sales deck into something no one can ignore.

There’s an almost endless number of ways to utilise a PPT presentation. But after decades of “death by PowerPoint”, your audience might be a little wary of watching them.

With that in mind, let’s look at how to create truly engaging presentations with 12 PPT design tips from the experts at Design Buffs .

12 PPT design tips for design-savvy businesses

Resist the allure of the ‘Dissolve’ transition and hold fire on that eighth bullet point. Just because PowerPoint has all the design features and capabilities you could need, that doesn’t mean you need to use them.

Follow these simple but effective PPT design tips, instead, and you’ll be delivering PowerPoint presentations that keep everyone engaged.

PPT Design Tip 1: Use text sparingly

The point of a PowerPoint is to power your presentation. It’s supposed to be a visual tool that supports what you’re saying. So why do so many people insist on packing their slides full of text?

The text you use in your presentation shouldn’t be exactly what you’re saying out loud. Use text to emphasise key points or provide further context to your speech at a glance.

PPT Design Tip 2: Follow the 6x6 rule

One of the most common problems we see on PPT presentations is an overwhelming amount of text — normally accompanied by the presenter reading out the very same words. That’s not what PowerPoint is for.

The rule of thumb for how much text to include per slide is what we call the 6x6 rule.

Slides should have no more than 6 lines of text, with no more than 6 words per line. This helps to reinforce your main points rather than distracting your audience by giving them a novel to read on the screen.

PPT Design Tip 3: Keep your text readable

This may seem like an obvious PPT design tip, but how many times have you been forced to watch a presentation backed with Papyrus and Jokerman fonts? Sure, it can add a little character to your presentation, but it’s far from professional.

Any text that does make it onto your presentation should be an appropriate size and font. We recommend around 32pt, sans serif fonts to ensure it’s easy to read for everyone. Use colour to pick out keywords and limit punctuation (yes, we mean no use (or overuse) of exclamation marks!).

PPT Design Tip 4: Make single points, not paragraphs

If your piece of text takes more than a couple of seconds to read, remove it. Because when your audience is busy reading, they aren’t listening to what you’re saying.

For your message to land, you need to keep your audience’s focus. So instead of paragraphs of text, use simple, single, sentences — and consider a bullet point format.

PPT Design Tip 5: Stick to the natural reading order

Most Western languages read from left to right.

You’re doing it as you skim-read this article right now!

So make sure your PPT design is empathetic to skimmers — put the most important words at the start of the sentence and display titles in a larger font, to the top left of your main text.

PPT Design Tip 6: Keep slide design simple

Pretty is good. Pretty looks appealing. But what makes a PowerPoint great or not is more about graphic design than illustration .

Consistency and clarity are key for a PowerPoint presentation. Create a simple design template and stick to that theme for each slide. This helps your audience to understand your presentation better as they can look in the same areas on each slide to receive information.

PPT Design Tip 7: Avoid too many special effects

PowerPoint is full of really cool features and special effects, but use too many and your impactful presentation quickly turns into a dated 80’s sitcom.

Treat special effects, like transitions and animations, as you would any other component of your slide deck. Use them sparingly — that way, when you do throw out a text fly-in or funky transition, it serves a real purpose.

PPT Design Tip 8: Use high-quality images

It’s time to ditch the clip art. We’ve all seen the built-in, cookie-cutter clip art images a million times by now. Not only are we tired of seeing them, but they offer next-to-no impact at all.

Any images you use in a presentation should be top quality. That means having relevant meaning and high enough resolution . If you’re unsure if an image you want to use will cut it, simply test the slide on the projector. Does it pixelate? If you remove the text from the slide, can the visual still carry the message? It’s better to be safe than sorry!

PPT Design Tip 9: Keep everything relevant

Speaking of relevance… a slideshow should be a tool that supports your main message. It’s a facilitation technique, and the design is not supposed to take centre stage.

As such, everything in your PowerPoint should be relevant to the points you’re trying to make. Each graphic, piece of text, transition and animation should reflect what you’re saying.

This will help keep your audience’s focus.

PPT Design Tip 10: Don’t be afraid of “empty” space

Just like silence in a conversation, too many people rush to fill empty space. In a PPT presentation, this results in a cluttered, confusing chart deck — one that totally detracts from the point you’re trying to make.

Try to leave at least a third of each chart empty. We dare you!

PPT Design Tip 11: Back off the colours

Less is also more when it comes to your colour palette.

Bright colours may grab attention, but too much can overwhelm your audience. And multicoloured text reduces readability, especially at a distance. Stick to dark text on a light background, or light text on a dark background, to ensure maximum readability.

Most companies will have specific design guidelines for their official documentation. This often indicates suitable colours for any B2B communication, including PowerPoint presentations.

PPT Design Tip 12: Speed up loading times with optimised images

Waiting for a slide to load is a sure-fire way of tanking your presentation flow.

Before you know it, you’re trying to fill the gap with small talk or a terrible joke. Not only is this incredibly awkward for everyone involved, but it can undermine your message.

It might be tempting to just drag-and-drop images into your PPT straight from your desktop or the web. But this simple method could also be your downfall, as the slideshow becomes clogged with too high-resolution images and large, heavy file sizes.

We recommend optimising your images to fit the presentation format you will be using. If you’re using an HD Projector, for example, you should compress your images to a HD setting of 330 PPI.

If you’re printing your slideshow to be passed around the audience, compressing the images to 220 PPI does the trick.

Ditch the guesswork and get your PowerPoints up to speed

If any of these PPT design tips flew over your head, don’t panic. Design Buffs offer support to B2B marketing and sales teams, no matter how big or small they may be.

We’ll take responsibility for font sizes, image optimisation and everything else so that you can stand up in front of your audience and get yourself heard .

Get in touch today to find out how .

Design Buffs is a Creative-as-a-Service solution that elevates and brings your brand to life with technology-enabled design solutions that meet the day-to-day needs of B2B teams worldwide.

Design Buffs is the only creative-as-a-subscription solution that tackles the day-to-day design needs of ambitious B2B teams globally, by providing access to creative talent supported by technology and amazing human beings, in an era where high quality design, speed, access, and convenience matters.

50+ PowerPoint Design Tips and Tricks Every Beginner and Expert Should Know

Updated on 14 th July 202 3

What are some smart PowerPoint tips that can help me ace my next presentation?

If a similar query has brought you here, then this would probably be the last guide that you will read. PowerPoint by Microsoft is the most popular tool to create all sorts of presentations. Initially released in 1990, the application has undergone several changes and upgrades in the last 3 decades. Apart from its desktop applications, it is now also available for iOS, Android, and even on the web.

Needless to say, with so many features to offer, it can be a bit overwhelming at times to use PowerPoint. Chances are that there could be numerous PowerPoint design tips and functions that you might not be aware of. Don’t worry! I’m here to help you be a PowerPoint ninja with some of the best tips that both beginners and experts can make the most of.

Without much ado, let’s get to know more about these essential tips in detail!

1. prepare an outline.

Before you start working on PowerPoint, make sure that you have a detailed outline for your presentation. This will not only save your time but would also help you come up with a detailed slideshow. You will not forget about any crucial point and can segregate your content into different slides in advance. You can use any text editor like Word or Google Docs for this.

2. Follow a Minimalistic Approach

Remember, your presentation should work as a visual aid . It should follow you and not the other way round. Most of the experts recommend having a minimalistic approach while drafting a slideshow. It is advisable to go with a standard and basic layout that should not confuse your audience. Also, limit the amount of textual content you use in your slides. Just focus on the crucial points and explain them with your own words rather than the standard content on your slideshow.

3. Pick a Readily Available Layout

To make things easier for you, PowerPoint already provides numerous layouts that you can pick. For instance, if you want to compare two things, then just pick a readily available layout instead of adding a new slide. To view them, just click on the “Layout” option on the toolbar and pick a preferred option to fit your content.

4. Copy Formatting Style

Too many times, while merging documents or copying slides, the overall formatting of the entire document gets distorted. With the help of the format painter, you can maintain a consistent look in your slideshow. The feature will let you copy formatting (not the content) from one place and paste it to another entity. Just select the source object and use the Format Painter feature to copy it. Now, you can double click the objects to apply the new format.

5. Don’t Neglect Your Textual Content

While most of the people focus on images, sounds, and transitions in a presentation, they forget the things they can do with plain textual content. Just select a textbox and visit Shape Format -> Quick Styles from the toolbar. Here, you can see a wide range of styling features available for it. From Word Art to rotations, and custom styles to shape outlines – there are so many things you can do here. Though, make sure that you don’t overdo it and that the formatting should go well with the rest of the content.

6. Work on Background Styles

This is one of the most understated PowerPoint design tips that a lot of people ignore. If you want to add a personal touch to your slideshow, focus on its most important thing first – its background. For this, you can go to the Format Background feature under the Design tab and explore it. Apart from selecting inbuilt background styles, you can also import an image as a background.

Furthermore, you can visit the “Format Background” option to play with the image background and various other features to use solid colors. This includes setting custom transparency, gradient fill, etc.

7. Edit Your Pictures without Any Third-party Tool

Just like any other presentation tool, PowerPoint also lets you include pictures and all kinds of graphics. It also provides tons of editing options to customize these pictures. Once you insert an image, go to its Pictures tool to explore these options. You can set its contrast, brightness, recolor it, and do much more. You will also get options to set frames, alignments, and all other kinds of picture effects.

8. Put Pictures in a Shape

While a lot of people are not aware of these design tips, they will certainly be extremely resourceful. Using PowerPoint, you can align a picture in the form of a shape. Just go to Picture Format>Quick Styles and choose from the available options. There are many options for you to adjust your picture.

9. Create Customized Icons

You might already know that there are tons of third-party sources from where you can access icons for your presentations. You can also go to the Insert > Icons feature from the ribbon to access a wide range of icons for free. Though, if you want, you can create your own icon on PowerPoint as well. Firstly, go to Insert > Shapes to add one or more shapes. Later, select them and go to Shape Format > Merge Shapes and select a preferred option from here to create a unique icon of your choice. 

10. Edit Shapes

If you want, you can also create custom shapes for your presentation. Firstly, insert any shape of your choice from the toolbar and select it. Right-click and go to the “Edit Points” feature. Now, you can set custom points to edit the shape the way you like. You can further change its layout, color, and much more.

11. Align All Graphics

If you have a lot of graphics like images and icons in your slides, then they might clutter your presentation. The quickest way to fix this is by aligning all your graphics together. Since PowerPoint has an inbuilt feature for this, you don’t have to go through any technical jargon to understand it. Just select multiple graphics (by pressing the CTRL key) and go to Shape Format > Align . This will give you different options to align your graphics in a more uniform manner.

12. Combine/Merge/Subtract Multiple Shapes (To Create New Shapes)

Just like creating customized icons, you can come up with new shapes on PowerPoint as well. All you need to do is insert the shapes of your choice to a slide and select them (by using the CTRL key). Once multiple shapes are selected, go to Drawing Tools > Format > Merge Shape . Here, you can intersect, subtract, add, and do so many things to come up with a new shape.

13. Write Circular (Curved) Text Around Any Shape

A lot of people prefer to write their text in a symmetrical way around a circle or any other similar shape. This provides a more uniform visual appeal to the slide and you would get brownie points for the artistic touch too. You might already know that there is no way to insert a curved text box in PowerPoint. Therefore, you can apply some text effects on it to make it circular. Just select your linear text and go to Shape Format > Transform to change it. You can learn more about text formatting in detail in this video.

14. Rotate or Flip a Text Box, Shape, Word Art, or Picture

Just like circular text, there are times when we need to rotate or flip any other textual or visual content to make it look more appealing. This is one of those tips that a lot of people don’t know, yet it would be pretty helpful to many. As of now, PowerPoint allows to rotate or flip text boxes, Word art, pictures, and shapes. To do this, just click on the object and go to the Shape Format tab. From here, click on “Rotate” to get features like Rotate 90 degrees left/right, flip vertical/horizontal, and more options. 

15. Use the New Zoom Feature

This feature is only applicable to the latest version of PowerPoint. Under the Insert > Zoom field, you can see three new zoom features – Summary, Section, and Slide Zoom.

The Summary Zoom feature would provide an entire summary of your slideshow with a dedicated table of contents. With the Section or Slide Zoom, you can just move from one section/slide to another. For instance, you can move from slide 1 to 10 directly without going through slides 2 to 9. 

16. Create Impressive Infographics Like a Pro!

We all know how important infographics and other visual aids are while presenting a complex topic. One of the best tips is related to the SmartArt feature of the tool that helps create impressive infographics on the go. You can go to Insert > SmartArt feature to explore this option. Alternatively, you can just select a piece of information, go to the toolbar, and directly convert it to a SmartArt. You can select the perfect layout for the PowerPoint infographic and later make the needed edits to save time.

17. Change the Text Direction

If you really want to stand out from the crowd, then you need to use the tips & tricks that others don’t know. For instance, the Text Direction feature in PowerPoint is seldom used, but can certainly make your textual content highlight. Simply select a textbox and go to the Text Direction option on the toolbar. From here, you can rotate the text in different angles or just stack it to make it look cool!

18. Generate Random “Lorem ipsum” Text

Lorem Ipsum is a universal placeholder for text that is used in graphics, website designing, and other places. If you also wish to show the placement of the text in your slideshow, then you can use this inbuilt feature. Simply insert any text box or shape to your slide and type “=lorem(x)” (without the quotes). Here, “x” would be replaced by the number of paragraphs you want. For instance, to enter 2 paragraphs, just type =lorem(2) and press enter.

19. Prefer Working with a Master Slide

Most of the experts already know the importance related to a master slide. Consider this as a root slide in your document. Any change that you would make on your master slide would automatically be reflected on the other slides. Therefore, you don’t have to make minor changes on each slide individually. Just access the Master Slide from View Option -> Slide Master and explore its features to save your time in editing.

20. Customize the Slide Size and Orientation

A lot of times, we end up drafting presentations in the wrong orientation or size when we have a restricted screen to work on. Apart from that, if you wish to take a print of your slideshow, then you should also consider this feature. Just go to the “Slide Size” feature under the Design tab. This will let you change the orientation of the slides and even set customized height and width for each slide. In this way, you can set a customized size for your slideshow.

21. Make the Most of Graphs and Charts

Want to include graphs, charts, and other related illustrations in your slideshows? Just go to Insert > Charts and select the diagram that you wish to add. This will also launch an Excel sheet for you to enter your data. The chart would be drawn based on the information you have entered in the Excel sheet.

22. Have a Uniform Text Alignment

Our text is often the most neglected part in presentations. A lot of times, I see people having too much text or when it is cluttered all over. To avoid this, you can follow a uniform alignment in the entire slideshow. For instance, if you have aligned bullets or paragraphs on the left, then follow the same alignment throughout. You can access different kinds of options under the Format toolbar. Apart from the usual left, right, and center, you can also align your text in justified or distributed way. If you have a lot of text placed, then you can divide it into uniform paragraphs too.

23. Consistency is the Key

This is one of the most basic yet useful tip that you should always follow. Make sure that your entire slideshow should follow the same formatting. For example, use the same fonts for title or sub-title in the entire set, have identical bullets, color themes, and so on. If you want, you can pick an inbuilt PowerPoint theme to have a consistent design .

24. Customize the Available Themes

You might already know that PowerPoint offers different themes to save time in editing. Though, a lot of people don’t know that these themes can be further customized by choosing different color options. Just go to the Design tab to explore the available themes on PowerPoint. Afterward, you can just click on the “Colors” option and explore the pre-set color layouts that you can apply on the selected themes.

Apart from that, you can also explore the available fonts and effects that you can implement in the entire theme to maintain consistency.

25. Translate Word or Phrases

You can easily translate any text within PowerPoint. Select the text you want to translate. Go to Review Tab > Translate . Now select the language you wish to translate your current text and it’s done. You can even replace the selected text with translated text by clicking on the Insert Button.

26. Interlink Your Slides with the Action Button

This is one of those PowerPoint design tips that the experts use. A lot of times, we don’t want to follow a linear approach while presenting. You might wish to click on a text or an image to move somewhere else. The best thing about PowerPoint is that it can make any object into an action button.

Just select the object (like a textbox or image) that you wish to link and go to Insert > Action Settings . From here, you can set specific options for a mouse click or mouse hover. You can link it to any other slide in the document or even run any program from here.

27. Create a Slide from an Outline

Most of the people know how to duplicate slides or reuse them. But do you know that you can also create a new slide from an existing outline? Just go to the “New Slide” option and choose to import slides from an outline. This will let you browse a text document (or a Word file) that you can readily use to create a new slide.

28. Use Online Picture/Clip Art (Selectively)

As you know, Microsoft PowerPoint offers a wide range of online pictures (it is called clip art in old versions) that you can include in our documents. Though, most of the time, it is recommended not to use too many vectors in a slide. If you want, you can go to the Insert tab >Pictures -> Online Pictures (Clip Art) and explore the available graphics. Simply select an add-on graphic to the slide and later customize it. Also, you can consider using third-party professional vectors instead of clip arts.

29. Use Transitions Thoughtfully

Microsoft PowerPoint is well-known for the wide range of transitions that it offers. Though, a lot of times, users over-do it, which turns their audience off. Here you must understand that, there is nothing wrong with using no transition at all. If you do, make sure that you stick with a single transition type for the entire slideshow. You can go to the Transitions feature for this and select an appropriate option. Just make sure that you test the transition before giving your final presentation.

30. Use the Automatic Advance Transition Option

If you know there won’t be any interruption in between, then consider using an automatic advance transition option. Under the Transitions tab, you can find the Auto Advance function to set a particular duration for every slide. This could be anything from a second to a few minutes. I would highly recommend practicing your timing in advance several times to ace this feature.

31. Rehearse Your Timing

This PowerPoint trick will help you ace your presentation if you have a limited duration. Under the Slide Show tab, just go to the “Rehearse Timings” feature to explore this. It will let you analyze how much time you spend on a particular slide and the entire presentation. You can also compare it with the auto-advance timing to work on your delivery.

32. Record Your Slideshow

Microsoft PowerPoint also provides a playback option, which lets you record your slideshow. This feature can help you make educational videos and content of all kinds for the web. To access this, just click on the “Record Slide Show” feature under the Slideshow tab. You can also attach your microphone and record your voice with the slideshow.

33. Access Only the Outline

If you are in a rush and don’t want to go through the entire presentation, then just visit the View Tab ->“Outline View” . This will display all the textual content of the document that you can read without any visual aid. If you want, you can just copy this content and paste it in any other document.

34. Embed Audio and Videos

Besides photos, there are numerous other ways to make your slideshows more interesting. If you want, you can add sound and video content to your document. You can go to the Insert tab and select if you wish to insert a sound or a video. This will give you options to browse the available library of Microsoft or go to a location on your system where the media is stored. It will also let you record sound right from PowerPoint that you can later add to your presentation.

35. Place a Video as a Background for Your Slides

Yes, you have read it right! Apart from images, you can set videos as a background for your slides. All you need to do is drag and drop a video on your slide and adjust its size to fit as a background. If the video is short, then you can just go to its Video Tools > Playback and put it on loop. 

36. Embed Fonts in PowerPoint

If you work in an organization or for a client who has their own fonts, then this PowerPoint tip will come handy to you. Ideally, the application lets you embed fonts so that the presentation won’t be affected even when it runs on another system. To access this feature, you can go to File > Options > Save > Preserve Fidelity when sharing this presentation. Make sure that the option for “Embed fonts in the file” is enabled here. This will further give you an option to embed specific or all characters in the file. 

37. Use the B and W Keys while Presenting

This is one of those PowerPoint tricks that would help you present detailed presentations easily. If you want your audience to focus on you rather than the slide, then just press the “B” key (during slideshow). This will black out the screen and your slide won’t be visible. To get it back, just press any other key or use your mouse pointer. Similarly, you can press the “W” key to white-out the entire screen.

38. Try the Morph Transition

If you want to have a true seamless transition between your slides, then you should try the Morph transition feature. Though, you should know that the transition is only available for Office 365 subscribers as of now. To implement it, you need to make sure that both the slides should have at least one common object. The object can be a text box, shape, Word Art, picture, and so on (does not support Charts).

You can just go to the Transitions tab and select “Morph” from here. Later, you can go to Transitions > Effect Options to implement the selected effects on the objects.

39. Draw Using PowerPoint

It might sound surprising, but PowerPoint is equipped with a native feature that you can use to draw all kinds of figures. To access it, just go to the Review tab and click on “Start Inking”. Office 365 users can find the “Draw” option listed here instead. This will give you an option to switch between different kinds of pens, highlights, colors, and much more. You can use any slide as a canvas and can later export the slide as an image (JPEG) to use it with other applications.

40. Customize Your PowerPoint Experience

Not every PowerPoint feature can be accessed from the main toolbar. Sometimes, we need to dig a little deeper. If you want, you can go to the PowerPoint Tab>Preferences> Ribbon & Toolbar to further explore these features. Apart from that, you can also customize the interface from here. Just select the options that you wish to access from the toolbar and get rid of any unimportant feature.

41. Switch the Default Language

As of now, Microsoft PowerPoint supports 100+ languages that you can switch from on its interface. Just go to Tools > Language for this. Though, your system should have the required fonts to support some of these languages. In this way, you can work on an impressive presentation in the language of your choice.

42. Insert Any Other Object

From Bitmaps to Excel sheets and Word documents to PDFs – there are so many other things that you can add to your slides. To get this option, just click on Insert > Object and select the file you wish to add. You can create a new file or browse an existing document. This will embed the file to your slide without actually pasting its content.

43. Capture Screenshots On the Go

This is one of the most resourceful features that I often use even beyond drafting presentations. You can take screenshots of different screens and clip them. Just go to the Insert tab on the toolbar and click on the “Screenshot” option. Here, you can see thumbnails of the available screens. Subsequently, you can also clip a part of the screen with the “Screen Clipping” feature here.

44. Create New Autocorrect Options and Shortcuts

If you are tired of manually correcting certain words, formulae, special symbols, etc., then you should certainly check the Autocorrect Options. This will let you manually create new rules and shortcuts for the Autocorrect feature. To access this, just go to PowerPoint Options > Autocorrect Options . Here, you can enter the desired characters, symbols, words, and even phrases, and what they would be replaced with.

45. Customize the Undo Option

Undo is the inbuilt feature in all the MS Office applications that lets you revoke/retrace an action. By default, most of the applications support undo a maximum of 20 actions that you can easily change. Just go to PowerPoint Options from the File and visit the “Advanced” section. In the latest version, you can find the option at PowerPoint -> Preferences -> Edit .  Here, you can manually change how many times users are allowed to “undo” an action.

46. Use Stock Assets

A lot of people make the common mistake of using the same inbuilt graphics, background pictures, clip art, videos, etc., that are already available in PowerPoint. While they might be easily accessible, chances are that your audience could be used to seeing them. To impress them, you can take the assistance of dedicated stock photos, vectors, fonts, and tons of media content. There are several free stock websites that you can check to include impressive visual content in your slideshow.

47. Invite Collaborators

It is a common misconception that PPT presentations don’t support real-time collaboration (like Google Slides). In fact, Microsoft has provided two different solutions to collaborate with others on a PPT presentation. You can go to your OneDrive account and access the PowerPoint Online feature. This will let you create your presentation on the web and share it with others. Furthermore, Microsoft has also come up with SharePoint to provide dedicated features for web collaboration on MS Office applications.

If you want, you can go through this video tutorial to learn how to upload your presentation on One Drive or use its PowerPoint Online feature.

48. Compress Photos in PowerPoint

Do you have a lot of photos that you need to send? Don’t worry, you don’t have to use any image compression tool for this. Just launch PowerPoint and add the images that you wish to compress. Afterward, just go to File -> “Compress Pictures” option on the toolbar and explore its settings. You can remove corrupted areas of the pictures and set a custom target for the pictures to compress.

49. Save Your Slideshows as Read-only

A lot of times, you wish to share a read-only copy of a presentation. With this trick, you can do the same pretty easily. Choose the “Save As” feature instead of “Save” to get different options to export your file. You can save it as a PDF or XPS file from here or export it as a PowerPoint Show (.PPSX) document. You can even save your document as pictures in JPEG, PNG, or TIFF formats.

50. Secure Your File

If you have any sensitive content on your slideshow, then you need to take some extra measures to protect it. Thankfully, PowerPoint allows you to encrypt the file with a password. Go to File > Password and set the password. The other users can only access the file after verifying its password.

51. Use Add-ins

While PowerPoint has tons of features to offer, sometimes users need to have more control on their documents. In this case, you can explore the “Add-ins” feature. Just go to the PowerPoint Options (or the Insert) tab to enable add-ins. You can also visit the Office Store to explore all kinds of third-party add-ins. Just be sure that you install an add-in from a trusted developer to your application, else it might corrupt your files.

52. Use Professional PowerPoint Templates

A lot of PowerPoint users experience the lack of readily available templates offered by the application. The good news is that there are numerous places where you can get professionally-designed PowerPoint templates . For instance, SketchBubble has a vast collection of well-researched and 100% editable layouts that you can use without any trouble. All these presentations are designed by professionals and are equipped with several features.

Since they are completely editable, you can easily customize them entirely without any prior design experience. From engineering to management and academics to finance – SketchBubble has PPT slides of all kinds.

There you go! After learning these resourceful PowerPoint tips and tricks, you would certainly be able to use the application like a pro. To make it easier for you, I have listed tips keeping both beginners and experienced users in mind. Besides that, there are several other features that you can access. Do you have any expert PowerPoint design tips that you would like to share with our readers? Feel free to let us know about your PPT tricks or tips in the comments below!

Note: The above screenshots are taken on Office 365 – PowerPoint Version 16.29 (MAC). The options may appear different depending on the version you’re using and the size of your screen.

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Ashish Arora

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• Presentations

15 Pro Tips to Design a Good (Vs Bad) PowerPoint (That Doesn't Suck)

Over the years, PowerPoint has gained a bad reputation. There's even a trending hashtag #DeathbyPowerPoint on Twitter and Instagram. Why? There are hundreds of bad PowerPoint presentation examples that went a little like this presentation:

Don't let your next PowerPoint presentation fall victim to one of several missteps. This collection of tips from experts will set you on the right path. Learn how to avoid death by PowerPoint by following the good PowerPoint design tips in this article. 

Good PowerPoint presentations can be a great way to connect with your target audience and improve your bottom line. Bad PowerPoint slides are easier to avoid than you might think.

In this article, we’ll share what makes a bad PowerPoint presentation. You'll also learn why you should avoid making people sit through one at all costs. Then, we'll give you a handful of tips from the presentation pros that'll help you design a good PowerPoint . Best of all, you'll learn how to avoid death by PowerPoint.

What Makes a "Bad" PowerPoint Presentation?

As rude as it might sound, in most cases, PowerPoint isn't the main reason behind a bad presentation. After all, PowerPoint is just a tool. It's used to create great slides, and it's also used to create  bad  PowerPoint slides.

Our Envato authors have designed hundreds of PowerPoint templates. According to their expertise, the main reason for bad PowerPoint presentations is design-related.

Slide design with poor layout that uses fonts and colors that detract from the message on the slide is one of the main reasons why PowerPoint gets such a bad reputation . 

A classic mistake in PowerPoint slideshow design is to include too much information on a single slide. Take a look at this presentation on Lung Cancer  from SlideShare. Not only will you find information overwhelm, but they also decided to add 100 charts on one slide!

A couple of other reasons that lead to bad PowerPoint presentations include:

• a topic that's got nothing to do with your audience’s interest
• failing to make a connection with your audience
• reading directly from the slides

Envato author, Celsius Designs , recommends paying extra attention to the layout and sketching out the presentation on the paper before going into PowerPoint and creating the final presentation. They also suggest studying successful presentations online.

Another team of our Envato authors, AQR Studio , says that every bad presentation they witnessed had the same thing in common:

"...too much text on individual slides and bad layout." 

Their advice is to take a look at presentation templates created by professionals and study them to find common elements that make for an attractive presentation. They also suggest adding in your own style instead of copying someone else’s.

Lastly, don’t forget that nerves and knowing your audience plays an important role in your presentation delivery as well. According to David Beckett , a TEDx speech coach,

“[...]two major reasons for poor presentations: nerves, and not paying enough attention to the audience.”

Now that you know what makes a bad PowerPoint presentation, let’s discuss why you should avoid making your audience sit through it.

Why a Bad PowerPoint Presentation Hurts Your Message

A bad presentation will not only leave a sour taste in your mouth, but it'll also bore your audience. Once your audience gets bored, chances are they'll disengage from the presentation. They'll stop paying attention to what you've got to say (also known sarcastically as death by PowerPoint).

Also, once your audience becomes disengaged, chances are they won’t remember the topic, much less the content of your presentation. If you’re presenting in front of potential business partners or investors, you run the risk of not closing the deal or getting the necessary funding.

Ultimately, a bad presentation will result in a bad impression of your brand and business. Luckily, we’ve gathered the best PowerPoint design tips from the experts that'll help you create good PowerPoint presentations and avoid death by PowerPoint.

15 Tips from Professionals for Creating Good PowerPoint Presentations

No matter how experienced you are, the truth is, bad PowerPoint presentations can happen to anyone. Even successful speech coaches aren’t immune to delivering bad presentations.

Consider this story from Michelle Mazur, speech coach from  Communication Rebel :

“Once I was invited to give a presentation on cultural trends. I worked closely with the meeting planner. In fact, she approved every slide I was going to present. This was an executive-level audience and she wanted the content to be perfect. I researched, I prepped, I practiced, I had great examples.  

Five minutes into my presentation, one executive raised his hand and asked “Are these trends based on quantitative research?” My reply was, “No, they are qualitative cultural trends.” He and half the room tuned out. The presentation flopped. My mistake was basing my whole speech on information from one person. That question killed me and there was no way to save the presentation in the moment...

I recovered. You can too when your presentation sucks. The most important point is: Keep Speaking. Learn from your mistakes and don't let them hold you back.”

As Dr. Mazur says, the good news is that you can recover from a bad presentation and go on to successfully create good PowerPoints that don’t suck. Below, you’ll find 15 tips from the experts that'll help you rock your PowerPoint design and your presentation skills.

1. Graphics for Visual Aid

Bad PowerPoint slides are cluttered, wordy, and boring. They lose sight of the focus of a PowerPoint presentation. Remember, your goal is to present information in clear, understandable ways. By adding graphics for visual aid, you can do exactly that. For example, consider infographics. These are illustrations built to share ideas.

Rather than packing a slide with words to explain a concept, map it out with an infographic. This might be a process flow chart, or a 3D hierarchy diagram. In fact, premium infographic templates from Envato Elements offer thousands of options. Choose one that works well for your topic, then drop in your details.

2. Stick to Readable Fonts

Top examples of bad PowerPoint slides often share something in common: strange fonts . Sure, unique fonts can be fun and amusing. But they don’t have a place in a professional slide deck. It’s bad PowerPoint form to use these fonts.

Instead, you need to choose a clear, stylish font that’s easy to read. Remember, audiences might be reading your slides from the back of a large room.

This doesn’t mean fonts have to be boring. Far from it - and again, Envato Elements is here to help. As a member, you've got access to thousands of custom font designs with unlimited downloads.

Each one will work in your PowerPoint. Avoid becoming an example of bad PowerPoint form and choose a premium custom font today! They look great and help you succeed.

3. Consistency Is Key

The number one tip for your PowerPoint design is to be consistent. This simply refers to using the same fonts and colors throughout your presentation instead of changing them up every other slide.

It’s a good idea to use the same fonts and colors used in the rest of your brand assets. But if you aren’t sure which colors and fonts are a part of your brand identity, you can’t go wrong with keeping it simple.

Speaker and author Hugh Culver is proof that simplicity works:

“A consistent theme pulls together the variety in your images and message, as you move from problem to solution. You could use the baked-in themes supplied in PowerPoint or Keynote – I don’t because I want a simpler, more unique look.

I create a custom theme simply with my titles, a consistent white background, and sometimes with my logo or my client’s logo.”

4. When It Comes to Text, Less Is Always More

As mentioned earlier, too much text will overwhelm your audience. Another downside of using too much text is that your audience will read the content of the slide before you’re done talking about it and then tune you out.

TEDx in-house presentation expert, Aaron Weyenberg , makes an excellent argument for using less text in your PowerPoints:

“With text, less is almost always more. One thing to avoid—slides with a lot of text, especially if it’s a repeat of what you’re saying out loud. It’s like if you give a paper handout in a meeting—everyone’s head goes down and they read, rather than staying heads-up and listening. If there are a lot of words on your slide, you’re asking your audience to split their attention between what they’re reading and what they’re hearing. That’s really hard for a brain to do, and it compromises the effectiveness of both your slide text and your spoken words. If you can’t avoid having text-y slides, try to progressively reveal text (like unveiling bullet points one by one) as you need it.”

5. Use the Presentation as an Aid, Not the Main Tool

Don’t forget that you, the presenter, are the star of the presentation. Your presentation is there to reinforce your ideas and help you sell your point. Take advice from  Seth Godin :

“[...]make slides that reinforce your words, not repeat them. Create slides that demonstrate, with emotional proof, that what you’re saying is true not just accurate.”

6. Use Guides to Make Sure Everything Aligns Properly

PowerPoint experts from Nuts and Bolts Speedtraining firmly believe you should add guides to your slides.

“When creating a template in PowerPoint, add guides around the placeholders of the parent slide layout.

That way if you accidentally made a mistake or if you want to make things easier to align in the normal view, then you can just turn those on again and see where everything is supposed to be placed.”

7. Contrast Always Wins

Bad PowerPoint presentation examples don’t stand out. They’re hard to follow, both in style and delivery. You need your slides to stand out to succeed.

Contrast is your best design bet to do exactly that. By styling with contrast, your key ideas will be instantly recognizable.

They’ll never fade into the background. This keeps your audience focused and engaged. Plus, it looks great. This is crucial to remember.

Your slides go beyond real-time viewing while you’re presenting. They need to be stylish and understandable for later too.

8. Memorize the Concepts & the Scripts

Inc.500 entrepreneur and speaker, Kevin Daum says you should memorize both your presentation content and script. Memorizing your script and the concept also helps in case there are technical difficulties with your presentation.

“Audiences know an amateur the second the notes come out or the presenter looks at the screen as a reminder. This is your material. If you don't own it, you can't expect the audience to respect you as an expert.”

9. Use Relevant Imagery

There is no doubt that images and visual elements can enhance your presentation and make it even more impactful. But those images and other visuals need to be relevant. According to visual communications expert, Curtis Newbold :

“You may, for instance, need to give a presentation on dairy production in your community.[...]What I need to see are images that tell a story about the dying industry and its challenges, and infographics that explain processes for overcoming the hurdles. You need a lot of visual information, yes. But it also needs to be relevant.”

10. One Message Per Slide

Your presentation needs to pique curiosity in your audience and get them interested in the topic. Once you've got their attention, you need to keep it and the best way to do that is to stick to one message per slide.

Professional training and coaching expert David JP Phillips even goes so far to state presenters should focus on one key message per slide and include no more than six objects (or lines) on each.

11. Use Animation Carefully

Animation can certainly make a good PowerPoint design more dynamic, but only when used correctly. Otherwise, it’s a distraction that can ruin the impression of your presentation. Learn from Konrad Schroth , PowerPoint expert:

“Like a lot of other PowerPoint features, animation can be distracting if used badly. However, if used rationally, animation can grab your audience's attention at strategic points, allow you to "chunk" information for better comprehension, and help explain complex systems and relationships. After all, we are "wired" to pay attention to movement.”

Learn the basics of using animation:

12. Pay Attention to the Structure

Your presentation needs to have a good flow. It’s important to include all the necessary elements if you want your presentation to be compelling. More specifically, a good presentation resembles a stage production, according to leadership development and executive coaching expert Jeff Black .

“You have to have all the elements: You’ve got to have a great opening act, you’ve got to have something in the middle to pull it through and you’ve got to have a great curtain’s finale at the end.”

13. Practice Is the Key to Success

Don’t forget to practice, practice, and then practice some more the delivery of your presentation. Nancy Duarte , the author of Resonate , shares this as her best advice for new presenters:

“Nothing worthwhile is easy, and the best communicators aren’t always born that way. Many of them saw the importance of improving their skills and put the work in. It will be work. But if you become a golden communicator, your life is in your hands.”

Learn some valuable tips for practicing your presentation:

14. Build for Online Sharing

Learn about online-focused slide decks, and look at some of the best templates now:

15. Build Presentations to Engage

Examples of bad PowerPoint slides may take many forms. But they all tend to bore an audience. Maybe they’re overloaded with content, hard to understand, or just aren’t interesting. That’s why you should always engage with your audience.

This can take many forms. If nothing else, always include a Q&A slide at the end of your deck. This gives your audience the chance to clarify anything they might’ve missed.

An even better option is to be engaging and interactive throughout. By using a game or quiz, you can make presentations fun! And a happy audience is always a more engaged audience.

Learn more about interactive quiz game PowerPoints with the help of this tutorial:

How to Quickly Customize Good PowerPoint Designs (With Premium Templates)

Want to know the ultimate way to avoid bad PowerPoint slides? Two words: premium templates.

By using a premium Envato Elements PowerPoint template , you can impress any audience. Elements has thousands of stunning options available now.

Premium templates offer stunning styles, unlike free templates. Plus, they save you time thanks to their ease of use. In fact, you can customize one in just five quick steps. Let’s look at how.

Want to follow along and learn more? Download the great Virtually PowerPoint template  from Envato Elements now.

1. Select Your Key Slides

Bad PowerPoint examples are often overloaded with dozens of slides in a row. Even the most fascinating topics will eventually lose an audience if they drag on too long. That’s why you should choose only a few key slides to get your points across.

This is easy with a premium template in PowerPoint. Find the View tab, then click on Slide Sorter. Here, you’ll see a thumbnail for every slide in the deck. You can remove unwanted slides by right-clicking on them and choosing Delete Slide . Once you’re finished, click Normal on the View tab to start editing.

2. Edit Text Features

Words are the backbone of winning PowerPoint decks. And thanks to premium templates, they’re easy to add. Notice how slide layouts have text already in place. To change it out, click into one of the text boxes. Select the contents, then type over them using your keyboard. Repeat throughout your slide deck.

Keep in mind: bad PowerPoint presentation examples are often too wordy. Avoid this by deleting any unwanted text boxes to free up some space on your slides.

3. Explore Font Effects

Once you’ve added text, you can customize it. Go to the Home tab on PowerPoint’s ribbon and find the Font section on the left. Here, you’ll see many buttons and dropdowns.

The dropdowns control the size and style of your font. The buttons drive custom effects like underlines, italics, and more. Click through them and watch your choices apply to the text that you have selected.

4. Customize Photos

Another example of bad PowerPoint technique: a lack of images. Don’t forget to add illustrations at regular intervals. These boost visual interest and keep viewers and readers focused on you.

Premium templates, once again, make this easy. On many slides, you’ll see shaped image placeholders. Browse to a stored image file on your computer, then drag it over your slide.

Drop it into place, and watch PowerPoint import it. Notice it'll scale to fit perfectly. It’s an effortless way to build a good PowerPoint slide.

5. Style Shapes with Color

A bad PowerPoint deck often will lack in color and style. A bland aesthetic is a quick way to lose an audience. That’s why the use of color is so important. And a premium template like Virtually makes creative use of color.

You can also change shape colors in PPT to fit your own style. Click on a shape, then find the Shape Format tab on the ribbon. On it, you’ll see the Shape Fill dropdown color chooser. Explore the countless options and click one to apply it. This is one of the top ways to build a great slide layout with plenty of cool colors. 

Find Even More Good PowerPoint Examples

If you're trying to make a PowerPoint that doesn't suck, you'll want plenty of good PowerPoint examples for inspiration. Here are some good PowerPoint designs to inspire you:

The Top Source for Great PowerPoint Templates (To Build Good Presentations)

Want the best source for great PowerPoint templates? Envato Elements is your answer. For a flat monthly rate, you’ll have access to unlimited downloads of the world’s best PowerPoint templates . These help you make great slides every day. Plus, you’ll find other resources like stock photos, custom fonts, and much more.

Elements is the top creative value today. The unlimited downloads included give you unlimited possibilities. You can try out as many stunning PowerPoint designs as you want to find the one that’s right for you.

Envato Elements helps you build great PowerPoint slides. It avoids the pitfalls of bad PowerPoint designs. That’s because every template is designed by creative experts. You’ll benefit from:

• pre-built text placeholders
• room for images and illustrations
• custom infographics to illustrate data
• unique fonts used throughout
• animated options for smooth transitions

As you can see, Elements templates save you from building bad PowerPoint slides. In moments, you can build amazing layouts that audiences will adore.

Check Out Our Free Online Presentation Guide

Do you want to learn even more about making great PowerPoint presentations? We've got the resource for you! We'll take you through the complete process to get you ready for your next business presentation—from start to finish.

Don't miss our free online presentation guide, The Complete Guide to Making Great Business Presentations . It's chock full of powerful business presentation advice to help you make your next business presentation your best yet.

Avoid Making PowerPoints That Suck By Applying These Pro Tips

Death by PowerPoint is a real thing that can happen to anyone. If you want to make sure that your presentations leave a positive impact, keep these tips in mind. Great content and stellar design pair together to help you avoid bad PowerPoint presentation examples. Follow the PowerPoint design tips and good PowerPoint examples in this article.

If you need a good PowerPoint design template for your presentation, make sure to check out our sites. Grab PowerPoint templates and design away today. Both are sure to help you avoid the curse of bad PowerPoint slides!

Editorial Note: This post has been updated with contributions from Andrew Childress . Andrew  is a freelance instructor for Envato Tuts+.

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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
• Customize colors, fonts and everything else
• 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.

10 Pro PPT Tips: PowerPoint Design Ideas

It’s not difficult to design a PowerPoint presentation. Designing an effective presentation, however, is an entirely different story.

Studies show that 91% of presenters feel more confident when presenting a slideshow with a great design. But, the problem is that 45% of professionals find it difficult to design creative layouts.

A PowerPoint presentation is not just about creating a few slides with bright colors and images. It mainly needs to be able to convey your message more effectively, maintain your audience’s attention, as well as to persuade and convince them.

Designing such a slideshow is not a Herculean task. You just need to know the right tricks.

In this guide, we share some useful PowerPoint tips and PowerPoint design ideas to help you learn how to craft creative slide layouts more easily. Without further ado, let’s get started.

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Use the Built-In Design Ideas Tool

PowerPoint Designer is one of the best built-in tools available in the software that many users are still not aware of. This tool allows you to instantly apply high-quality design layouts to slides with just a few clicks.

You can find the PowerPoint Designer under the Design tab of the software. Simply add some text and an image to a blank slide and the Design Ideas tab on the far-right will start suggesting different design layouts. All you have to do is pick one.

This AI-powered feature in PowerPoint works wonders when you have to quickly put together a slideshow. The only downside is that this tool is only available in the Office 365 version of PowerPoint. If you’re using PowerPoint 2019, using a good template is the best alternative.

Get a Professional Template

Coming up with a great slide layout design is a big responsibility. And it’s probably why it takes over 8 hours for most professionals to design a PowerPoint presentation.

Using a custom PowerPoint template is the easiest way to save hours of time and still design a professional-looking slideshow. You can download pre-made PowerPoint templates from third-party marketplaces and customize them with your own content. You can change the colors, fonts, and add your own images. It’s much easier than having to craft creative slide layouts on your own.

You can find inspiration by browsing our best PowerPoint templates collection.

Pick the Right Color Scheme

According to color psychology , specific colors have the power to evoke emotions in humans and even persuade them to take action.

For example, there’s a reason why Stop signs and For Sale signs use the same Red color. It’s simply hard-wired into our brain to stop and look when something is displayed in this color.

You can also leverage color psychology to design more effective PowerPoint slides. Based on the topic, you can pick colors to evoke the right emotions in your audience.

In order to do this, you need to pick a color palette for your slideshow design and create a consistent design across all slides in the presentation.

Add Custom Fonts

The text you use in each slide is the driving force behind educating and convincing the audience. Needless to say, it’s very important to make sure your titles and descriptions are easily readable and clearly visible in each slide.

Find a great font family for your presentations and avoid using the default system fonts. This will give your slideshow a unique and professional look.

You can check out our best fonts for PowerPoint collection to find a unique font for your designs.

Learn to Use Master Slides

The aptly named Master Slides in PowerPoint is where you can master the art of customizing your slide layouts.

From the View tab, you can find the Slide Master option to open the editor. Here, you can customize the pre-built layouts included in the slide theme you’re currently using.

You can change the colors, fonts, styles and the changes will automatically apply to all of the master slides in the theme. You can even design your own custom slide layouts to quickly add slides to your presentations in the future.

Learning to use Master Slides will make your presentation design process much simpler.

Adopt Design Trends

Fusing design trends into your PPT slide layouts is another great way to make your presentations look creative and relevant.

For example, using pastel colors in PowerPoint slide design is a popular trend these days. You can use such trends to add unique and personalized layouts to your presentations.

Vintage design, Art Deco, dark color themes, and geometric are a few other PPT design trends you can use.

Include Infographics & Charts

Presenting numbers and data is an important part of a PowerPoint slideshow. It’s much more difficult to convince your audience without data to back your claims.

The way you present the data in a presentation is also important. Because if you present them in plain numbers, you’ll have a tough time getting through to the audience.

Instead, visualize your data in a more appealing way. You can do this by using infographics, charts, timelines, and graphs.

You don’t have to hand-craft these visuals. In fact, there are PowerPoint templates that come loaded with editable infographics and charts you can use in your own presentations.

Follow the 10/20/30 Rule

Guy Kawasaki, a popular author, speaker, and entrepreneur, introduced a very simple rule for creating effective PowerPoint presentations called the 10/20/30 rule . It goes like this:

• Use no more than 10 Slides in your presentations
• Present the slides in under 20 Minutes
• Use a 30-Point Font for text

It’s simple and straightforward. The main goal of this strategy is to create short and efficient presentations without filler content.

While these rules are too strict for delivering certain presentations, you can still use them as guidelines to create better slideshows.

Use Illustrations Instead of Stock Images

If you’re tired of seeing the same images in every presentation, blog post, and social media post, keep in mind that your audience is just as tired as you are.

There are many great free stock photo sites with great selections of images. Unfortunately, these images are used by thousands of people all over the web. If you use the same images, the chances are your audience will easily recognize them.

A good alternative you could try in your presentations is to use illustrations. With the right illustrations, you can make each slide look and feel unique. As well as add personality to your presentation.

Illustrations are easy to find. You can download illustration packs from marketplaces like Envato Elements or download them from free sites.

Remember The KISS Principle

KISS , the design principle popularized by the US Navy in 1960 is still relevant today. The idea behind the Keep It Simple, Stupid principle is to encourage designs that are simpler and easier to understand.

Follow this principle when designing your presentations. Instead of filling each slide with long paragraphs of text, use short sentences. Instead of adding lots of images, use just one or two images per slide. Keep It Simple and Straightforward.

Hopefully, these PPT design tips will help you craft better and more effective presentations in the future. Learning new tips and tricks is part of the design process. So keep learning and keep experimenting with new ideas.

Also, check out our complete guide to using PowerPoint templates to learn more about presentation design.

11 Simple Tips to Make Your PowerPoint Presentations More Effective

Written by Jamie Cartwright @cart_writing

After all, the skills needed to create good PowerPoint presentations —strong design, appropriate branding, concise content, well-placed visuals, and proofread copy—are the same skills that make or break a digital marketing campaign. I like to treat Microsoft PowerPoint as a test of basic marketing skills. To create a passing presentation, I need to demonstrate design skills, technical literacy, and a sense of personal style.

If the presentation has a problem (like an unintended font, a broken link, or unreadable text) then I’ve probably failed the test. Even if my spoken presentation is well rehearsed, a bad visual experience can ruin it for the audience. Expertise means nothing without a good presentation to back it up. Strong digital marketing requires a similar kind of attention to multiple forms of communication. Often, we think we need expert designers and writers to present our company in a professional light.

The truth is that PowerPoint enables non-experts to become strong presentation marketers, by providing user-friendly tools with little training needed. All you need is to learn how to let PowerPoint help you. Here are eleven key tips to get started.

No matter your topic, successful PowerPoint shows depend on three main factors: your command of PPT’s design tools , your attention to presentation processes , and your devotion to consistent style . If you can do all three effectively, you’ll find that your PowerPoint presentations won’t be the only pieces of your marketing toolkit improving!

Good style is the hardest and most important skillset to master. It’s more than design; it defines your vision for PowerPoint. Here's how to beef up your styling:

1) Keep a Natural Style

Human eyes aren’t used to seeing brilliant, out-of-this-world visual movement. Good presentations aim to comfort the viewer, not amaze. When you choose an overall style, try to envision your PowerPoint slides as one or many real objects. Imagine canvases, tabletops, landscapes, and shadow boxes. Here is an example of a stylized, blank PowerPoint Slide canvas:

Then, imagine how you would arrange real text within these various media. You don’t need to constrain yourself to two-dimensional space (i.e. surfaces), but just remember, that real people don’t live in outer space… So, don’t take us there unless you need to.

2) Don’t Let PowerPoint Decide How You Use PowerPoint

Microsoft aimed to provide PowerPoint users with a lot of tools. This does not mean you should use them all. For example, professionals should never use PPT’s action sounds (please consider your audience, above personal preference). You should also make sure that preset PPT themes complement your needs before you adopt them. Consider it a mistake if your audience recognizes a PowerPoint theme as a preset. Be creative; don’t be a poser. Here are three key things to look out for:

• PowerPoint makes bulleting automatic, but ask yourself: Are bullets actually appropriate for what you need to do? Sometimes, but not always.
• Recent PPT defaults include a small shadow on all shapes. Remove if not actually needed. Also, don’t leave shapes in their default blue.
• Try to get away from using Microsoft Office’s default fonts, Calibri and Cambria. Using these two typefaces can make the presentation seem underwhelming.

Presentation Process Tips

If you keep good style, then you don’t have to be an expert PPT designer. But you must know how to handle solid presentation process preparation.

3) Embed Your Font Files

One constant problem presenters have with PowerPoint is that fonts seem to change when presenters move from one computer to another. In reality, the fonts are not changing—the presentation computer just doesn’t have the same font files installed. If you’re using a PC and presenting on a PC, then there is a smooth work around for this issue. (When you involve Mac systems, the solution is a bit rougher. See Trick #4.) Here’s the trick. When you save your PowerPoint file (only on a PC), you should click Save Options in the "Save As…" dialog window. Then, select the Embed TrueType fonts check box and press OK. Now, your presentation will keep the font file and your fonts will not change when you move computers (unless you give your presentation on a Mac).

4) Save Your Slides as JPEGs

In PowerPoint for Mac 2011, there is no option to embed fonts within the presentation. Which means that unless you use ubiquitous typefaces like Arial or Tahoma, your PPT is likely going to encounter font changing on different computers.

The most certain way of avoiding this is by saving your final presentation as JPEGs, then inserting these JPEGs onto your slides. If you do not utilize actions in your presentation, then this option works especially well. If you do want action settings, you can also choose save partial portions of your PPT slides as JPEGs and overlay other elements on top.

On a Mac, users can easily drag and drop the JPEGs into PPT with fast load time. The compromising factor here is that if your PPT includes a lot of JPEGs, then the file size will increase, so make sure you can manage!

5) Embed Multimedia

PowerPoint allows you to either link to video/audio files externally or to embed the media directly in your presentation. You should embed these files if you can, but if you use a Mac, you cannot actually embed the video (see note below). For PCs, two great reasons for embedding are:

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

Note : Mac OS users of PowerPoint should be extra careful about using multimedia files.

If you use PowerPoint for Mac, then you always will need to bring the video and/or audio file with you in the same folder as the PowerPoint presentation. It’s best to only insert video or audio files once the presentation and the containing folder have been saved on a portable drive in their permanent folder. Also, if the presentation will be played on a Windows computer, then Mac users need to make sure their multimedia files are in WMV format. This tip gets a bit complicated, so if you want to use PowerPoint effectively, consider using the same operating system, no matter what.

6) Bring Your Own Hardware

Between operating systems, PowerPoint is still a bit jumpy. Even between differing PPT versions, things can change. One way to fix these problems is to make sure that you have the right hardware you need to always use your own portable computer.

7) Use Presenter View

In most presentation situations, there will be both a presenter’s screen and the main projected display for your presentation. PowerPoint has a great tool called Presenter View, which can be found in the Slide Show tab of PowerPoint 2010 (or 2011 for Mac). Included in the Presenter View is an area for notes, a timer/clock, and a presentation display.

For many presenters, this tool can help unify their spoken presentation and their visual aid. You never want to make the PowerPoint seem like a stack of notes that you use a crutch. Use the Presenter View option to help create a more natural presentation:

At the start of the presentation, you should also hit CTRL + H to make the cursor disappear. Hitting the "A" key will bring it back if you need it!

Design Tips

8) utilize the format menus.

Format menus allow you to do fine adjustments that otherwise seem impossible. To do this, right click on an object and select the "Format" option. By doing this, you can fine-tune shadows, adjust shape measurements, create reflections, and much more. Here's the menu that will pop up:

Although the main options can be found on PowerPoint’s format toolbars, look for complete control in the format window menu. Examples include:

• Adjusting text inside a shape.
• Creating a natural perspective shadow behind an object.
• Recoloring photos manually and with automatic options.
• Putting an object in a very precise location when PowerPoint auto-positions an object to align with another object or margin.

9) Use and Change PowerPoint’s Shapes

Many users don’t realize how flexible PowerPoint’s shape tools have become. In combination with the expanded format options released by Microsoft in 2010, the potential for good design with shapes is readily available. Unlike professional design programs like Adobe Creative Suite or Quark, PowerPoint provides the user with a bunch of great shape options, beyond the traditional rectangle, oval, and rounded rectangle patterns.

Today’s shapes include a highly functional Smart Shapes function, which enables you to create diagrams and flow charts in no time. These tools are especially valuable when you consider that PowerPoint is a visual medium. Paragraphing and bullet lists are boring—utilize shapes to help express you message more clearly.

10) Create Custom Shapes

When you create a shape, right-click and press Edit Points. By editing points, you can create custom shapes that fit your specific need. For instance, you can reshape arrows to fit the dimensions you like.

Another option is to combine two shapes together. When selecting two shapes, right-click and go to the Grouping sub-menu to see a variety of options. Combine will create a custom shape that has overlapping portions of the two previous shapes cut out.

Union makes one completely merged shape. Intersect will build a shape of only the overlapping sections of the two previous shapes. Subtract will cut out the overlapping portion of one shape from the other. By using these tools rather than trying to edit points precisely, you can create accurately measured custom shapes.

11) Present Webpages Within PowerPoint

Tradition says that if you want to show a website in a PowerPoint, you should just create link to the page and prompt a browser to open. For PC users, there’s a better option.

Third party software that integrates fully into PowerPoint’s developer tab can used to embed a website directly into your PowerPoint using a normal HTML iframe. One of the best tools is LiveWeb, a third-party software developed independently.

By using LiveWeb, you don’t have to interrupt your PowerPoint, and your presentation will remain fluid and natural. Whether you embed a whole webpage or just a YouTube video, this can be a high-quality third party improvement.

Unfortunately, Mac users don’t have a similar option, so a good second choice is to take screen shots of the website, link in through a browser, or embed media, such as a YouTube video by downloading it to your computer.

With style, design, and presentation processes under your belt, you can do a lot more with PowerPoint than just presentations for your clients. PowerPoint and similar slide applications are flexible tools that should not be forgotten.

For small design jobs not worthy of a graphic designer’s time (e.g. calls-to-action, small web graphics), consider having a free staffer use PowerPoint to do the job. Or if you’re in need of more social media content, try uploading a few good presentations to SlideShare as free resources. With the eleven tips I offer here and a little practice, PowerPoint can be a powerful tool you won’t want to stop using.

Jamie Cartwright is the Inbound Marketing Intern at Weidert Group . A senior at Lawrence University, Jamie studies human communication, anthropology, and social marketing.

Originally published Dec 10, 2013 10:00:00 AM, updated November 07 2023

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Blog Graphic Design 31 Powerpoint Presentation Design Tips, Ideas [with Examples]

31 Powerpoint Presentation Design Tips, Ideas [with Examples]

Written by: Sara McGuire May 03, 2023

What’s worse than sitting through a boring presentation? Being the one to deliver a boring presentation. Presentation templates to the rescue!

Say goodbye to typical, boring PowerPoint slides, too. Instead,  create a presentation that will make a lasting impression with presentation templates like this one to engage your audience:

Just so you know, some of our templates are free and some require a small monthly fee to use. Signing up to Venngage is always free.

In this post, I’ll show you how to create a presentation that will not only grab the attention of your audience but hold onto it as well.

This post will offer tips for creating different types of presentations , including:

• Pitch decks
• Elearning slides
• Class presentations
• Webinar presentations
• Marketing presentations

I’ll also give you design tips to customize our presentation templates.

Click to jump ahead:

• Dedicate each slide to only one topic
• Start with presentation templates
• Don’t overburden your slides with text
• Establish a visual hierarchy on your slides
• Pick a visual motif that runs throughout your presentation templates
• Visualize data using charts and infographics
• Create custom illustrations using icons to help tell stories
• Highlight important information using big, bold colorful text
• Alternate between different slide layouts to keep your audience engaged
• Add a progress tracker to your presentation slides
• Download your presentation as a PDF

The example above shows how you can customize our templates and export them directly to PowerPoint. Click any of the presentation templates on this page, sign up for free and you’ll enter Venngage’s online presentation maker tool. It’s a drag and drop editor that anyone can use.

Design a presentation that engages your audience

Think about the last boring presentation you sat through:

• What did the slides look like?
• Did they have a bland color scheme?
• Were there too many points (or worse, paragraphs) crammed onto one slide?
• Were the charts and diagrams clunky and hard to understand?

When people see the same old boring PowerPoint themes, there’s a good chance they’re going to lose focus.

Rich media, like video, matters more than ever and there’s no better way to stand out than by creating creative and engaging visual content . If you want to really capture your audience’s attention, you need to design creative presentations , like this one:

That means incorporating eye-catching images, effective data visualizations, and bold typography into your slide decks.

This onboarding presentation, for example, strategically uses bright icons and illustrations to make the material more engaging. This is especially important when presenting to new hires, who are likely dealing with information overload on their first day. 

In this particular case, a more visual approach is not necessarily a matter of aesthetic preference, but a decision that can make your presentations more likely to stick. Pro Tip: Venngage has over 40,000 icons and illustrations you can use to spice up your presentations!

Need something more geared towards speaking? Our keynote presentation templates are all the rage.

11 tips to hold your audience’s attention

Many Venngage users have mentioned that they’re always looking for ways to make presentations more engaging. But most of them don’t have any formal design experience.

If you’re in the same boat, don’t worry–this guide is for you. You can also check out this video for all the highlights:

Here are my top tips for designing a presentation with impact:

1. Dedicate each slide to only one topic

Just as it’s important for your slides to not be cluttered, it’s also important for your slides to be cohesive.

Keep each slide focused on just one topic. The topic of each slide should be clearly stated in the slide title.

For example, this presentation template covers different ways to be creative. Each individual slide covers one approach:

This simple, straightforward slide pattern will help the audience follow along without any confusion.

Or take this presentation template that introduces some of this year’s biggest business trends. Rather than listing multiple trends on one slide, each trend is fleshed out in its own slide:

As a presenter, keeping your slide topics organized will help you organize your thoughts as well. Each new slide will signal a new topic.

2. Start with presentation templates

Before jumping into the other tips, let’s set the foundation.

You’ve decided to create something a little more interesting than a standard PowerPoint theme–good on you! But that doesn’t mean you have to start completely from scratch.

Instead, you can give yourself a head start by using creative presentation templates, like this one:

Or this one:

While most PowerPoint themes are fairly limited in how much you can customize them, freeform presentation templates will give you the freedom to alter the design as much as you want.

For example, let’s take this template:

I used Venngage’s My Brand Kit tool to efficiently apply our brand color palette to the Uber template in one click:

There are a ton of creative presentation templates. You can take a look at them in our presentations templates library .

Cool? Now let’s talk presentation design.

3. Don’t overburden your slides with text

Even if you decide to ignore most of the other tips in this guide, don’t skip over this one. This is presentation design 101.

When you flip to a slide covered wall-to-wall with text, there’s a good chance your audience is going to think:

• I don’t want to read all of that.
• This presenter isn’t well-prepared.

In fact, a study published in Business and Professional Communication Quarterly found that anxious presenters tended to use more text on their slides, usually because they used their slides as speaking notes.

Instead of using a bunch of text, look for ways to present information visually charts and infographics .

For example, this slide template uses brief text and some simple icons to summarize the presentation :

This startup pitch deck makes use of evocative images, icons and big text to help present its ideas:

4. Establish a visual hierarchy on your slides

When you flip to a new slide, your audience will be seeing it for the first time. Their eyes are going to naturally be drawn whatever the focal point on the page is.

The focal point is the most dominant area on your slide–the point that draws the most attention.

You can create a hierarchy of information on your slide by making the most important information the focal point of your slide. In most cases, the focal point will be the slide title, or a particular visual, or an important phrase or number.

There are a few ways you can create a visual hierarchy on your slides.

You can bold important phrases, like the word “Facebook” in this slide:

Icons also help to establish a reading order. They draw your eye from point to point. Placing icons beside headers and important points will make them stand out from the other information on the slide.

Icons can also be used to indicate where a new point begins:

Color selection can also be used to establish a visual hierarchy. Take a look at how the colorful blocks in this slide help to make the slide titles pop:

Your eyes are drawn first to the title text, then to the supporting information beside it.

5. Pick a visual motif that runs throughout your presentation templates

You can use visuals to pull your presentation design together and make it cohesive. Picking a visual motif will allow you to use consistent visuals throughout your presentation.

A visual motif is a repeated pattern, design, or image. In your presentation design, a motif can take many forms.

When it comes to infographic color selection , one of the simplest approaches is to use a consistent color motif (or color scheme). That could mean using one or two colors for all of your headers, background and borders.

For example, this presentation template uses two shades of purple for a modern design:

But combining different colors and patterns can also make for a more interesting design. For example, this presentation template uses a blue stripe motif to link the slides together visually:

You could also use a recurring shape or image, like the circle image frames in this presentation template:

Or you could use a motif that reflects the theme of your presentation. For example, this presentation template uses a recurring cloud motif throughout the presentation to reflect the “dream” theme of the brand:

This is a case where starting with a presentation template can really come in handy, because the template will already have a motif. Look for presentation templates with a motif that fits your topic and brand.

6. Visualize data using charts and infographics

Replacing text with visuals is one of the best ways to prevent your slide design from becoming cluttered. Charts and infographics present information in an engaging, digestible way.

I won’t go into too much detail here about what types of charts you should use for what data. We’ve got an in-depth guide to picking charts for that.

But I’ll give you a few ideas for some types of charts and infographics that work well in presentations.

Related : How to Make Better Infographics for PowerPoint

If you want to visualize steps in a process, the history of something, or a roadmap, use a timeline.

This slide template uses a simple timeline with complementary icons to emphasize each date:

To compare amounts or sizes, a bubble chart can help drive the point home:

Learn how to customize this template:

To create an infographic for geographic and demographic information , a map can make a big impact on your audience:

A classic pie chart or bar graph should be easily understood by your audience, provided you’re following  chart best practices .

This presentation template uses a bar graph, a pie chart and a line graph to show different metrics:

If you can, mix up the types of data visualizations you use. This will help prevent your audience from getting bored.

Those are just a few different ways you can use charts to visualize. For more ideas, check out our guide to picking the best charts for your data .

7. Create custom illustrations using icons to help tell stories

Custom illustrations are one of this year’s  biggest graphic design trends . They’re fun, quirky, and more exciting than a boring old stock photo.

Creating your own illustrations for social media graphics might seem like a costly and time-consuming undertaking. And it can be. But I’m going to offer you a hack:

Use icons to create illustrations.

You can arrange icons together to create a scene–like the pieces of a puzzle. (Venngage offers over 40,000 icons, so finding an image shouldn’t be too hard!) 

For example, this real estate presentation template uses icons to illustrate each real estate hack:

When picking ico ns or symbols for your illustrations , make sure that the icon style you use is consistent. For example, this presentation template uses line art icons for a scribbly youthful look:

For more ideas, read our guide to creating icon illustrations .

8. Highlight important information using big, bold colorful text

Returning to the idea or focal points on your slide: emphasize a key number or phrase when creating a persuasive presentation using big, bold text in a contrasting color.

This will communicate to your audience that if they take away one thing from your slide, it should be that piece of information.

For example, this presentation template uses bright colored font in several sizes larger than the rest of the text to emphasize important numbers on each slide:

But you could also pick one color to emphasize key information with. That way, your audience will catch on to the pattern and look for that color in upcoming slides.

Take a look at how this presentation uses teal to contrast with the other text and emphasize information:

9. Alternate between different slide layouts to keep your audience engaged

You may be tempted to use the same slide layout throughout your entire presentation–either for consistency or because you’re not sure how else to design your slide.

The problem is, using the same slide layout over and over again won’t do much to excite your audience.

There are other ways you can create consistency throughout your presentation, while also using different slide layouts–like through a visual motif.

For example, this presentation template uses five different slide layouts. The consistent color scheme, image style and font style pull the presentation together.

To come up with different slide layouts, try dividing your slide into columns. This can make it easier to arrange the elements in your slide.

This can make it easier to arrange the elements in your slide.

10. Add a progress tracker to your presentation slides

Creating a sense of forward movement will help keep your audience engaged.

Similar to how you would put the chapter title at the top of the pages in a book, you can track the progress of your presentations in your slides. This will let your audience know what stage you’re at in your presentation. Your audience will also be able to refer to the sections in your presentation more easily afterward.

That said, pacing your presentation thoughtfully with well-designed presentation slides also adds brownie points to your presentation. Check out the top qualities of awesome presentations and learn all about how to make a good presentation to help you nail that captivating delivery.

A simple progress bar at the bottom of your slide shouldn’t distract too much from the rest of your information.

11. Download your presentation as a PDF

It’s common for audience members to request a copy of your presentation for their reference. Make sharing your presentation easy by exporting it as a PDF or zipped file.

Now that you’re equipped with some fundamentals of presentation design, the best way to learn is by doing. It’s also the perfect time to upgrade your presentation skills  while you’re thinking about it too!

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to leave a comment below.

More presentation templates and design guides:

• 120+ Best Presentation Ideas, Design Tips & Examples  (+ Presentation Templates!)
• 12 Business Pitch Deck Templates and Design Best Practices to Impress Investors
• 5 Foolproof Presentation Layout Ideas  (+ Presentation Templates!)
• How to Get Featured on the Front Page of SlideShare [Infographic]
• What Is A Webinar & How Do They Work? [Beginners Guide]

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Top 6 PowerPoint Tips and Tricks for Creating Effective Presentations in 2024 - INK PPT

PresentationPanda.com is now proudly owned by INK PPT. We aim to enrich and expand upon the valuable content previously provided by PresentationPanda.com. This blog will deliver even deeper insights, comprehensive guides, and innovative strategies to elevate your presentations to new heights.

TL;DR: Creating effective PowerPoint presentations in 2024 involves using engaging visuals and multimedia, embracing minimalism, leveraging AI and smart features, and incorporating interactive elements. Use high-quality images, infographics, and videos to enhance your slides. Keep slides clear and concise, utilize white space, and maintain font and color consistency. Take advantage of PowerPoint's Designer tool, SmartArt, and AI-powered suggestions for a polished look. Add interactivity with hyperlinks, live polls, quizzes, and interactive charts, and use subtle animations to keep your audience engaged. These strategies will help you deliver impactful and memorable presentations.

Let’s begin.

In today's fast-paced world, delivering engaging presentations is more crucial than ever. PowerPoint remains a go-to tool for professionals across various fields. However, creating a memorable and effective presentation involves more than just compiling slides. This blog will provide you with top PowerPoint presentation tips, focusing on design, animation, and topic selection to make your presentations stand out in 2024.

1. Use Engaging Visuals and Multimedia

Visual content is a powerful way to capture and retain your audience's attention. Effective use of visuals can transform a mundane presentation into an engaging experience. Here are some essential PowerPoint design tips to help you utilize visuals effectively:

• ‍ High-Quality Images The use of high-quality images can significantly enhance the impact of your presentation. Avoid using generic stock images that might detract from your message. Instead, opt for high-resolution photos that are directly relevant to your content. Websites like Unsplash and Pexels provide a variety of free, high-quality images that can add visual appeal to your slides. These images not only make your presentation look professional but also help convey your message more effectively by creating a visual connection with your audience.
• Infographics Infographics are an excellent way to present complex data in a visually appealing and easily understandable format. They can transform dense information into a clear and engaging narrative. Tools like Canva and Piktochart are user-friendly and can help you create custom infographics that complement your PowerPoint presentation topics . By incorporating infographics, you can make statistics and data-driven insights more accessible and engaging for your audience, ensuring that your key points are easily understood and remembered.
• ‍ Videos Integrating videos into your presentation can break the monotony of text-heavy slides and provide a dynamic element to your content. Videos can illustrate points more vividly and keep your audience engaged. However, it’s essential to ensure that the videos you include are short, relevant, and directly related to your content. Embedding videos from platforms like YouTube or Vimeo is straightforward and can enhance your message by providing a visual and auditory stimulus that reinforces your points. ‍
• PowerPoint Animation Tricks Animations can bring your presentations to life by adding movement and dynamism to your slides. When used correctly, PowerPoint animation tricks can make your content more engaging and help highlight key points. For instance, subtle animations can draw attention to important elements without distracting from the overall message. Techniques such as fade-ins, zooms, and motion paths can guide your audience's focus and create a more interactive experience. However, it's crucial to use animations sparingly and purposefully. Overusing animations can overwhelm your audience and detract from your content. Aim for a balance where animations enhance rather than dominate your presentation. Incorporating these PowerPoint presentation tips related to visuals and multimedia will not only make your presentations more engaging but also more memorable. By using high-quality images, custom infographics, relevant videos, and thoughtful animations, you can create a visually stimulating presentation that holds your audience's attention and effectively communicates your message. Remember, the goal is to use these elements to complement and reinforce your content, creating a cohesive and compelling narrative that resonates with your audience. As you prepare for your next presentation, consider these strategies to elevate your slides and make a lasting impression.

2. Embrace Minimalism

A cluttered slide can overwhelm your audience and dilute your message. Embracing minimalism is one of the most essential PowerPoint presentation tips for creating effective and impactful presentations.

• ‍ Clear and Concise Slides Each slide should focus on one main idea. Keeping your slides clear and concise ensures that your audience can easily follow along without getting lost in excessive details. Use bullet points to break down information into digestible pieces. Bullet points can highlight the key aspects of your message, making it easier for your audience to grasp the main points quickly. By focusing on one idea per slide, you can maintain clarity and keep your audience engaged.
• ‍ White Space White space, also known as negative space, is the empty area around your content. It helps to reduce clutter and improves readability. Don’t be afraid to leave parts of your slide empty; white space can make your content stand out more and give your audience’s eyes a place to rest. Effective use of white space ensures that your slides are not overcrowded, making your presentation more aesthetically pleasing and easier to follow. ‍
• Font and Color Consistency Maintaining font and color consistency throughout your presentation is crucial for a professional and cohesive look. Use a consistent font for headings, subheadings, and body text. Stick to two or three colors that align with your branding to create a unified visual theme. Consistent fonts and colors make your presentation look polished and help in establishing a visual hierarchy, guiding your audience’s attention to the most important elements of your slides. ‍
• Simple Backgrounds Avoid busy backgrounds that can distract from your content. Opt for simple backgrounds, such as solid colors or subtle gradients, to keep the focus on your message. A clean and straightforward background helps your text and visuals stand out, ensuring that your audience remains focused on the key points of your presentation. Simple backgrounds are not only visually appealing but also contribute to a minimalist design that enhances the overall effectiveness of your slides.

3. Leverage AI and Smart Features

PowerPoint 2024 comes equipped with advanced AI and smart features that can significantly enhance your presentations. Leveraging these tools can save you time and ensure your slides look polished and professional.

• ‍ Designer Tool PowerPoint’s Designer tool provides layout suggestions based on your content. This feature can help you create visually appealing slides quickly. As you add text and images, the Designer tool suggests various design ideas, allowing you to choose layouts that best suit your content. This not only saves time but also ensures that your slides have a professional and cohesive appearance. ‍
• SmartArt SmartArt allows you to convert text into visually appealing graphics. Use SmartArt for lists, processes, or hierarchical information to make your content more engaging. By transforming bullet points into graphics, SmartArt helps in presenting complex information in a more digestible and visually appealing format. This feature can make your data more accessible and engaging for your audience. ‍
• AI-Powered Suggestions AI-powered suggestions in PowerPoint can help you improve your content by suggesting edits and enhancements. These suggestions can refine your message, ensuring clarity and coherence. AI can recommend changes to your text, such as rephrasing sentences for better readability or highlighting areas that might need additional emphasis. By incorporating AI-powered suggestions, you can enhance the overall quality of your presentation and ensure that your message is clear and compelling.

4. Incorporate Interactive Elements

Interactive elements can transform a passive audience into active participants, making your presentation more engaging and memorable. Here are some PowerPoint design tips to make your presentations more interactive:

• ‍ Hyperlinks Use hyperlinks to navigate between slides non-linearly. This approach is particularly useful for Q&A sessions or when you need to jump to different sections based on audience questions. Hyperlinks can also be used to link to external resources, providing additional information and context. By allowing flexibility in navigation, hyperlinks can make your presentation more dynamic and responsive to your audience’s needs. ‍
• Polls and Quizzes Incorporate live polls and quizzes to engage your audience. Tools like Mentimeter and Slido can be integrated with PowerPoint to gather real-time feedback and keep your audience involved. Polls and quizzes can break the monotony of a lecture-style presentation and encourage active participation. They can also provide valuable insights and feedback, helping you gauge audience understanding and interest. ‍
• Interactive Charts Interactive charts can be manipulated during the presentation to show different data views. This interactivity can make your data analysis more engaging and accessible. By allowing your audience to explore different aspects of the data, interactive charts can enhance understanding and foster a deeper connection with the content. This feature is particularly useful for presentations that involve complex data sets or require detailed analysis. ‍
• PowerPoint Animation Tricks for Interaction Use animations to reveal information step-by-step. This technique can help maintain suspense and keep your audience engaged. Animations can be used to introduce bullet points, highlight key elements, or illustrate processes in a dynamic way. By revealing information gradually, you can guide your audience through your presentation, ensuring that they stay focused and interested in your message.

By embracing these PowerPoint presentation tips and incorporating interactive elements, you can create presentations that are not only visually appealing but also highly engaging and effective. These strategies will help you connect with your audience, deliver your message more effectively, and leave a lasting impression.

5. Consistency is Key

Maintaining a consistent design is crucial for creating a professional PowerPoint presentation. Here’s how to ensure consistency:

• ‍ Templates Using templates can help you maintain a consistent design throughout your presentation. PowerPoint offers a variety of templates, or you can create custom templates that align with your branding. ‍
• Style Guides Develop a style guide that outlines the fonts, colors, and layouts to be used in your presentations. This guide can ensure that all your presentations have a uniform look. ‍
• Slide Masters Slide Masters allow you to make universal changes to your slides. For example, you can update the font or color scheme across all slides by modifying the Slide Master.

6. Practice Effective Delivery

The best-designed slides will fall flat if not delivered effectively. Here are some PowerPoint presentation tips for a compelling delivery:

• ‍ Rehearse Practice your presentation multiple times to ensure smooth delivery. Rehearsing can help you become familiar with your slides and improve your timing. ‍
• Presenter View PowerPoint’s Presenter View allows you to see your notes and upcoming slides while your audience only sees the current slide. This feature can help you stay organized and maintain a natural flow. ‍
• Pacing and Intonation Pay attention to your pacing and intonation. Speak clearly and at a moderate pace. Use variations in your voice to emphasize key points and keep your audience engaged. ‍
• Body Language Your body language can significantly impact your presentation. Maintain eye contact, use gestures to emphasize points, and avoid distracting movements.

PowerPoint Presentation Topics for 2024

Choosing the right topic is crucial for an engaging presentation. Here are some trending PowerPoint presentation topics for 2024:

• ‍ Technological Innovations Presentations on the latest technological advancements, such as AI, blockchain, and quantum computing, can capture the interest of tech-savvy audiences. ‍
• Sustainability and Green Initiatives With growing awareness of environmental issues, topics on sustainability, renewable energy, and green initiatives are highly relevant.
• ‍ Mental Health and Wellness Discussions on mental health, wellness practices, and work-life balance are increasingly important in today’s fast-paced world.
• Diversity and Inclusion Presentations on diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace can resonate with audiences focused on social change and organizational improvement.
• Future of Work Explore how remote work, gig economy, and automation are shaping the future of work. This topic is particularly relevant for business professionals.
• Personal Development Topics on personal growth, such as time management, leadership skills, and productivity hacks, are always popular.

Additional PowerPoint Design Tips for 2024

To make your presentations even more effective, consider these additional PowerPoint design tips:

• ‍ Use High-Contrast Colors High-contrast colors can make your text and visuals stand out, ensuring readability. However, ensure the colors complement each other and are not jarring to the eyes.
• Optimize for Different Devices Ensure your presentation looks good on different devices, including projectors, laptops, and tablets. Test your slides on various screen sizes to ensure they are readable and visually appealing.
• Utilize Custom Fonts Custom fonts can add a unique touch to your presentation. However, make sure the fonts are legible and available on the devices you’ll be using for the presentation.
• Incorporate Branding Elements Incorporate your company’s branding elements, such as logos, color schemes, and fonts, to make your presentation look professional and aligned with your brand identity.
• Consistent Iconography Use a consistent style for icons throughout your presentation. Icons can help break up text and make your slides more visually appealing.

PowerPoint Animation Tricks for 2024

Animations can bring your presentations to life when used correctly. Here are some PowerPoint animation tricks to consider:

• Entrance and Exit Animations Use entrance and exit animations to introduce and remove elements from your slides. This technique can help guide your audience’s focus and maintain their interest.
• Motion Paths Motion paths allow you to animate objects along a specific path. This trick can be used to create dynamic visual stories or emphasize key points.
• Trigger Animations Trigger animations activate when you click a specific object. Use this feature to reveal information interactively or create engaging quizzes and polls.
• Morph Transition The Morph transition creates a seamless animation between slides, making your presentation look more polished and professional.
• Animating Text Animating text can help emphasise important points. Use effects like fade, zoom, or bounce to draw attention to key information.

Creating effective and engaging presentations in 2024 requires a combination of strong design, interactive elements, and effective delivery. By following these PowerPoint presentation tips, you can ensure your presentations are not only visually appealing but also impactful. Remember to leverage AI and smart features, incorporate high-quality visuals, and maintain a consistent design to keep your audience engaged.

Whether you're presenting on technological innovations, sustainability, or personal development, these tips will help you create presentations that stand out. Stay updated with the latest PowerPoint features and continuously refine your skills to deliver compelling presentations that leave a lasting impression.

By applying these strategies and continuously improving your presentation skills , you can make every presentation an opportunity to impress and influence your audience. Happy presenting!

Keywords Used

• PowerPoint presentation tips
• Engaging presentations
• PowerPoint design tips
• PowerPoint presentation topics
• PowerPoint animation tricks

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Ready to elevate your PowerPoint presentations in 2024? Start implementing these tips today and transform your slides into powerful communication tools! At INK PPT, we specialize in creating professional and engaging presentations tailored to your needs. Contact us to learn more about our services and how we can help you deliver your message with impact.

We’d love to hear from you! Please take a moment to answer a few questions:

• Selecting the right visuals
• Maintaining slide consistency
• Incorporating animations
• Adding interactivity
• AI-powered suggestions
• Designer tool
• SmartArt graphics
• Interactive elements
• Other (please specify)

Submit your answers and let us help you take your presentations to the next level!

Thanks for checking out our blog! If it resonated with you, please feel free to share it with others. 

Want more blogs, Check out these additional blogs you may find interesting:

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Ankit Chauhan - Your Business Pathfinder

A seasoned professional with a diverse business background. I've worked in roles spanning consulting, partnership development, social media strategies, and B2B lead generation. My career journey has spanned various industries, and I'm all about delivering measurable results.

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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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20 Marketing PowerPoint Templates: Best PPTs to Present Your Plans in 2024

Here are the best marketing PowerPoint templates from Envato Elements. Present your strategies with professional marketing PPT templates today!

Do you have an upcoming marketing presentation to make in PowerPoint?

Need to showcase your latest social media campaign, present fresh content marketing ideas, or show how your results are stacking up with a great PPT marketing presentation?

The right PowerPoint templates for marketing will save you a ton of time. Also, they’ll give you a wide selection of slides to make your next presentation deck.

Here are 25+ of the best marketing PowerPoint templates from Envato Elements. They’re packed with features, including marketing layouts and digital marketing presentation examples.

Jump in and find the marketing PPT templates that fit your presentation!

Top 5+ PPT Templates for Marketing (New Presentations on Envato Elements for 2024)

Here are the top strategic marketing presentation PowerPoint templates. Get great marketing layouts and unique slide designs for presenting your ideas.

These marketing PPT templates are trending on Envato Elements in 2024:

1. Marketing Plan PPT Template

If you need a PowerPoint template for your marketing plan presentation, this professional set has what you’re looking for. Showcase your marketing strategy and highlight your data with compelling infographics. Use it to make your marketing ideas stand out.

2. Social Media Trends: PowerPoint Template Design

If you’re looking to make a marketing presentation, this PowerPoint template is a quick starting point. It’s got a well-designed framework with plenty of options. This top PPT for marketing features:

• 100 unique slides
• digital research trends slide
• beautiful graphics and charts
• drag-and-drop editing
• slide transitions

3. Digital Marketing Strategy PowerPoint Plan Template

This digital marketing plan presentation template is great for putting together a strong marketing plan presentation. It features:

• 40+ unique PPT slides for each theme
• two pre-made marketing presentation example themes
• professional handmade infographics
• fully editable, modern graphics
• object and slide transition animation

This strategic marketing PPT template comes with everything you need.

4. Content Marketing Presentation Design

Content marketing is a popular and growing marketing strategy. Great content will continue to be the cornerstone of digital marketing if you work in a digital agency, social media service, or SEO company. It features:

• 16:9 and 4:3 screen size
• 10 PPTX files
• 10 color schemes
• 120+ unique slides for each scheme
• editable vector images and icons

5. Connect Marketing Communication PowerPoint Template

Your marketing ideas deserve to be heard. Most of all, you want your message to connect with your audience. Make that connection you need to deliver a persuasive message.

The Connect marketing PowerPoint template is designed to do it. It comes with 700+ professional slides, with compelling designs and easy-to-edit features.

6. Social Media Pro PowerPoint PPT Plan Template

Are you looking for a modern social media presentation template? Social Media Pro is packed with slides that’ll help you create a great marketing presentation. Some features include:

• four color schemes
• over 35 unique marketing PPT slide designs
• colorful infographics
• stylish social media illustrations
• device mockups included

7. The Digital Agency PowerPoint Template

This is a marketing PowerPoint template with plenty of the professional features you’d expect in a premium design. Grab it now from Envato Elements. Make use of the social media elements, infographics, and modern slide designs.

• fully editable in PowerPoint (shapes, icons, mockup, etc.)
• 16:9 screen layouts (full HD)
• slide transition animations
• drag and drop to change images
• 70+ unique slides for each theme

8. Socialina Social Media Marketing PowerPoint Template

The Socialina template is a great choice if you want to design a social media marketing plan and give a presentation. The template has a modern design that’s easy to customize. Find:

• 30 unique slides
• fully resizable and customizable graphics
• based on master slides
• 16:9 aspect ratio

9. Clean Marketing PowerPoint Presentation Template

Clean Marketing is a great choice if you like a clean, minimalist design. The template has drag-and-drop image placeholders. Easily change the color scheme to match your own branding. The template was designed in a 16:9 aspect ratio, and it comes with 465 unique slides and custom vector icons.

10. Marketing Firm Presentation Template

This marketing firm template is a great choice for designing high-quality presentations. The clean layout and graphics are easy to tailor to your needs. Take advantage of great features like:

• 1920 x 1080 full HD resolution
• animations and transitions included
• help guide included
• uses free fonts

11. Dotter Modern Business Presentation Template

When you’re choosing a PPT for marketing, it’s a great idea to get a flexible template. That’s where Dotter really shines. It’s a modern marketing PowerPoint template with great features:

• 200 unique slide designs
• 30 color schemes
• vector icons
• built with master slides

12. Green Business Plan PowerPoint Template

The Green Business Plan template has everything you need to develop your marketing PowerPoint plan. It includes drag-and-drop slides that are a breeze to update with your imagery.

Key features include:

• 25 editable pages
• free fonts used
• easy drag-and-drop picture editing

13. Business Plan PowerPoint Presentation Template

This marketing plan PPT is the perfect starting point for a modern marketing plan. Fill in the 30 unique slides with your own ideas, and you’ll have a marketing plan in less time than ever.

14. Digital Marketing Company PowerPoint PPT Template

The Digital Marketing Company template has all the elements to make your marketing presentation quickly. This marketing PPT template features:

• 30+ unique slides
• custom design
• editable layout
• master pages

15. Pro Marketing Plan PPT PowerPoint Presentation Template

This is a comprehensive marketing PowerPoint template. Not only can you use it to present your go-to-market plan, but it also has slides for a wide mix of marketing needs. It includes marketing plan example slides for PowerPoint to showcase these features:

• 56 clean, simple, and creative slides
• two aspect ratios (4:3 and 16:9)
• 102 color themes included
• one click to change the colors
• free ronts and Icons

16. Digital Marketing Business Strategy PPT Presentation

Impress your audience with an awesome marketing presentation. This digital marketing PowerPoint template has stylish slides and features:

• resizable and editable graphics
• uses free web fonts
• 16:9 wide-screen ratio
• vector icon included

17. Most Marketing PowerPoint Template Set

Are you ready to make a great marketing presentation template? Put this powerful set of 20 unique slides to work for you. This is one of the best marketing plan PPTs. It’s got all the creative elements you need, from stylish infographics to bright vector graphics and pixel-perfect illustrations.

18. Sersi Marketing Modern PowerPoint Template

Skip the marketing PowerPoint templates you might find for free online that often have dull designs. Instead, think big and bold with this fresh marketing PowerPoint template, which features:

• 20 unique slide layouts
• clean, modern, multi-purpose design that can be used for any type of presentation
• strong focus on typography and usability
• picture placeholders

19. Company Toolbox Strategy Template PPT

With this set of marketing slide designs, you can create powerful marketing plans. Customize it with slides to showcase your market growth, competitor analysis, marketing strategy PowerPoint PPT designs, and more.

• modern, minimalist design

20. Fabulum: Template for PowerPoint Presentations

Why use a free marketing plan PowerPoint template? You don’t want a dated and dull design, which is what free PPTs often look like. Instead, grab this comprehensive Marketing Kit PowerPoint template.

• 180 unique slide designs
• custom graphics
• well-balanced designs
• easy-to-edit elements

Envato Elements (Design Without Limits)

Envato Elements has a single compelling (all-inclusive) offer:

Sign up for Envato Elements, and you get access to thousands of graphics and templates (with unlimited use). Get great web themes, cool marketing presentation templates , pre-made video files, and more—all for one low price .

Get unlimited downloads from a massive digital warehouse of creative assets.

How to Quickly Customize PowerPoint Marketing PPT Slide Designs

A PowerPoint marketing plan is a must for sharing your vision. Thanks to pre-built professional marketing plan PowerPoint templates, you can create presentations easily. Let’s look at three marketing presentation examples.

Marketing plans should be visual. Anyone who’s suffered through long presentations understands the importance of diverse slide content.

Elements like images, charts, and infographics help to break up the monotony of a slide deck. They’re also key to explaining complex concepts and presenting data in style.

In this section, we’ll use Marketing Plan Volume 2 , a multipurpose marketing presentation template from Envato Elements.

1. The Intro Slide

Let’s begin by customizing a simple image-and-text slide. This one’s near the beginning of the presentation, so it’s well placed to introduce your team and roll out your marketing plan slogan.

When your audience knows your motivation, they’re more likely to engage, understand, and follow along.

The placeholders in this marketing plan presentation template make this a breeze. For text, simply click to select it, and then type over it with your own words. Freely adjust the font size and styling up on PowerPoint’s ribbon. Then, add your own photo.

2. The Charts and Graphs Slide

Charts are the best way to illustrate numerical data, and thanks to PowerPoint, they can be created and edited in seconds. This slide includes a pre-built column chart with data already included.

Naturally, you’ll need to customize it with your own numbers. To do that, right-click on one of the bars and then select Edit Data . PowerPoint will launch an embedded Excel spreadsheet right inside the app. There, you can type in your own data, and the chart will scale and resize automatically with every change you make.

Customize charts and graphs by right-clicking on the object and choosing Edit Data .

3. Device Mockups

Device mockups help you showcase your website or app. You can find mockups for smartwatches, phones, computers, tablets, and more.

As you can see, this mockup slide focuses on a smartphone. The centerpiece is the mockup itself, the 3D representation of the device. Beside it, you can see plenty of text placeholders, in which you can provide details about the app or website. Mockups can be a crucial element when designing your marketing plan template PPT.

To customize a mockup slide, you’ll first need to capture a screenshot on a real device. Transfer it to your computer and then add it to the mockup. Click on the image placeholder inside the phone screen, browse to your screenshot, and click on Insert . PowerPoint will import the image, scaling it automatically to fit into the mockup. From there, add your text to create a compelling marketing PPT slide.

Thanks to Envato Elements, building a marketing PowerPoint template has never been easier. Your slide deck will be at the forefront of professional design, and you won’t need any editing skills to get there. Use one of these marketing plan presentation templates and gain more time to build a visionary plan.

Inspiration: 5 Top PowerPoint (PPT) Marketing Plan Presentation Slide Designs for 2024

It’s true that every marketing PowerPoint plan is going to differ, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t find common elements that work well for every marketing plan. Borrowing from the best ideas is a great reason to use PPT for marketing templates that already have ideas for you.

Let’s look at five types of slides that you’ll find in many marketing PowerPoint templates. We’ll use example templates from Envato Elements. Consider using these when you’re building your marketing plan.

1. Mission Slide

A mission is that core idea that drives what you do. It’s a great litmus test when you’ve got a new idea to measure your tactics against that mission. Does what you’re doing fit with your mission? That’s the question all businesses should constantly ask themselves.

So why not use a mission slide in your next marketing plan PowerPoint to capture that single idea? It creates an understanding of your goal with your audience and collaborators.

2. The SWOT Slide

Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats: they exist for every business, and knowing them is crucial. That’s why they’re condensed into a key idea and common approach called a SWOT.

You’ll find a SWOT analysis slide in many PPT marketing templates. Use a SWOT and fill it out to show proper consideration of each force in your business.

3. The Team Slide

No matter what type of presentation you’re building, showing off the team behind the work is a good idea. A team slide can make your co-workers feel celebrated and recognized, and it also builds familiarity with your audience.

Almost all of the marketing PowerPoint templates we’ve featured in this roundup will include a team slide. Use one of them in your marketing PowerPoint plan to “put a name to a face” for your audience.

4. The Map Slide

Most marketing plans need to include a geographic consideration. That might mean showing trends or specific plans that’ll help you reach targeted audiences.

You can use a map slide to do just that. Bringing specific geographic areas and statistics to life will help communicate your specific, targeted plans. In the best marketing PowerPoint templates like the example below, you can see how to use a map slide.

5. The Infographic Slide

Infographics can help you explain a process. Instead of just listing the steps in a process, use an infographic to make it highly visual.

Your business plan should include some tactical plans. These are the specific steps it takes to execute the marketing plan. Those are best shown with infographics that illustrate ideas easily.

5 Quick PowerPoint Marketing Presentation Tips

Designing a great PPT marketing presentation takes not only strong ideas, but also refining them and putting those ideas into the best visual slides that tell a compelling story.

Your aim is to make your points resonate with your audience and deliver key takeaways that fit your marketing presentation goals. In this section, we’ll go through a few quick tips to help you do that.

1. Focus Your PPT Marketing Message

Take your marketing topic and simplify it. Hone it down to connect with your audience boldly.

Your goal is to get into the head of your audience. Think about how your topic will resonate with them. What question, statistic, or quick point could grab their attention right away?

A good example of quick audience engagement is the question, “What’s the purpose of this email?” from the SlideShare presentation Email Marketing 101: Strategy , by SendGrid . This is then followed by another question: “Or rather, what do you want your recipients to do?”

These questions help draw the audience into your presentation topic, before they show potential purposes of email campaigns. Questions are a great way to lead your audience to a clear point.

After you’ve got them hooked into your topic, look to hold that attention throughout your marketing presentation, before you end strong.

2. Use the Right Presentation Slides

There are many types of presentation slides, including those set up to showcase your team, products, roadmaps, timelines, market strategies, and more. It’s helpful to choose a marketing PowerPoint template that has the slide designs you need for your presentation.

For example, use the Marketing Plan PowerPoint Design if you’ve got fresh marketing ideas, strategies, or plans to showcase. On the other hand, if you’ve got a more narrow focus like social media to present on, then the Social Media Pro theme would be a good choice.

Not only is it important to use the right slide designs, but you also want to use high-quality images and graphics to showcase your marketing ideas. Whether you need a photo for just the right visual metaphor or to blur stylishly in the background, you can find a bevy of royalty-free photos and professional graphics on Envato Elements.

3. Use Evidence to Prove Your Points

Whether from case studies, quality marketing studies, or your own research, real marketing data speaks to an audience better than generalizations or assumptions.

While your logic and ideas can carry quite a bit of your presentation, showcasing a few key numbers inside easy-to-understand infographics will make your points more credible.

Use a marketing PowerPoint template that comes with great infographic slides. With the right data slide designs, your audience will understand your points with more clarity and exacting depth.

4. Provide Clear, Actionable Takeaways

Great presentations tell a story that puts the spotlight on solving problems. They clarify with examples, but that information needs to make clear points that the audience can make use of.

Provide takeaways throughout each section of your presentations—especially in your conclusion. You want your audience to be driven to take notes and recall your takeaways, so they can put your ideas into action.

There are some takeaways in the SlideShare 5 Storytelling Lessons From Superhero Stories , by HighSpark . The presentation makes this quite literal by titling them as such, as shown below:

That way, the audience can easily recall the key storytelling points of this presentation, such as connecting with shared desires, identifying common villains, demonstrating solutions to problems in stories, and more.

5. Format for Live vs. Distributed Release

Before you jump into designing slides, be sure to consider: how will you use the presentation deck you’re making? Your presentation format will differ when giving a live presentation versus one that’ll be distributed.

In the live presentation case, you’ll want your slides to be concise and support what you’ll be saying. Your visuals need to complement and highlight your key talking points. You can use impactful visuals, but it’s often best to keep text short and your points bold.

Your presentation needs to take a different approach when you’re making it for digital or online distribution. For example, if you’re designing a marketing presentation to be emailed to your team, or if you’ll be uploading your deck to SlideShare, then each slide in your presentation needs to communicate your point fully, much like a PDF document would.

Common PowerPoint Questions Answered (FAQ)

PowerPoint is a powerful program that can be used for many different designs and presentations. As such, it’s common to have questions about it. We’ve compiled the most common PowerPoint questions below along with answers:

1. Are PowerPoint Templates Customizable?

Yes, all the PowerPoint templates can be customized to use your preferred colors, fonts, and images. You can also customize the background of each slide.

2. Can I Add Animations to My Slides?

To add a bit more visual appeal to your presentation or to make it stand out, you can certainly add animations to each slide, as well as slide transitions.

3. How Many Slides Should I Use?

The answer to that question entirely depends on the type of presentation you’re giving, the breadth of information you want to cover, and the planned length of your presentation.

4. Can I Use a Custom Background for My Slides?

Yes, you can design a background for your slides in a program like Photoshop and easily add it to your presentation.

5. Does PowerPoint Support 3D Shapes?

Yes, it does. 3D elements can add an extra bit of interest to your presentation.

Download Our eBook on Making Great Presentations (Free PDF)

Need more help? We provide a helpful eBook that’ll walk you through the complete presentation process. Learn how to write your presentation, design it like a pro, and prepare it to present powerfully.

Grab our eBook: The Complete Guide to Making Great Presentations . It’s available for FREE with a subscription to the Tuts+ Business Newsletter.

Design Your Next Marketing PPT Presentation Right in 2024

There are so many types of great digital marketing decks, advertising presentation designs, and sales PowerPoint templates on Envato Elements.

Grab the best marketing PPT templates for numerous uses, such as decks with designs for:

• digital marketing strategy
• digital marketing proposal PPT PowerPoint templates
• social media PowerPoint templates
• go to market strategy templates
• PowerPoint product marketing PPT presentations
• marketing campaign presentation designs
• brand plan templates
• marketing management PowerPoint presentations
• integrated marketing communication plan PowerPoint
• market analysis and proposal PPT templates

Whatever your marketing presentation needs are, we’ve got you covered! Don’t make the mistake of relying on a marketing PowerPoint template you find for free. Free templates are often more trouble than they’re worth.

If you need regular access to lots of PowerPoint marketing templates , then head over to Envato Elements . For a single monthly fee, download unlimited assets. You get a full assortment of presentation templates, website designs, creative assets, and more.

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The Ultimate Guide to Copy Slide Backgrounds in PowerPoint

Learn how to effortlessly copy PowerPoint slide backgrounds & tackle common issues. Enhance presentations with seamless design... read more

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Slide backgrounds are the unsung heroes that bring your PowerPoint presentations to life. They help set the tone, engage the audience, and make your content pop. Consider them your canvas; with the right choice, they can elevate your presentation to new heights, drawing the audience’s focus to key points while also providing an aesthetic appeal that reflects professionalism.

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Key Takeaways

• To copy slide backgrounds in PowerPoint , you can right-click on the desired slide with the background you want to copy in the slides pane, select “Duplicate Slide”, and then use the copy as a new slide with the same background.
• Another method is to right-click on the background of a slide and select “Format Background”, and then choose to use a picture or texture fill, where you can insert an image from your computer or other sources as a background for a new slide.
• For a more precise duplication, you can use the “Format Painter” tool: select the slide with the desired background, click on the “Home” tab, choose “Format Painter”, and then click on the slide(s) where you want to apply the same background style.

The Challenge of Consistent Design Across Presentations

Achieving consistency across presentations can feel like a juggling act. You might wonder how to keep the design uniform when jumping between multiple templates, especially when each one comes with its own default background. It’s about striking a balance between recognizable branding and the uniqueness of each presentation’s content. When consistency in design falls short, it can lead to confusion, a less impactful message, and a diminished professional image.

Table of Contents

Preparing to Copy Slide Backgrounds

Understanding the slide master view.

The Slide Master view is your control center for designing a truly coherent PowerPoint presentation. Here, you’re stepping behind the scenes to manipulate the core aspects that dictate how your slides look and feel. By entering this mode, you gain the power to customize fonts, color schemes, and placeholder positions across all slides, ensuring consistency and saving you from the tedium of making changes to individual slides.

Identifying the Background Elements to Copy

When you’re ready to harmonize your presentation’s aesthetic, identifying the elements of your slide background to copy is crucial. Take a close look at your source slide . What makes it stand out? Is it a unique color gradient, a company logo, a watermark, or perhaps a specific texture or image? Pinpoint these components so you can replicate them accurately in your target presentation. This attention to detail will ensure the backgrounds you copy not only look good but also serve their purpose of complementing your presentation’s content.

Step-by-Step Process for Copying Backgrounds

Transferring backgrounds to target presentation.

Advanced Techniques and Tips

Utilizing high-quality images for backgrounds.

For a professionally polished look, you can’t beat high-quality images for your slide backgrounds. Always choose images that are high resolution to avoid any blurriness when projected onto a big screen. You’re aiming for crisp, visually appealing pictures that add depth to your presentation without overwhelming the content. Remember, the image should support your message, not distract from it.

Using Templates for a Uniform Look and Feel

Templates are the friends you can rely on for a uniform look and feel across your presentations. They come preset with background designs, fonts, and layouts, so all you need to do is plug in your content, and you’re assured of a consistent style that resonates with your brand or message. Investing in well-designed templates can save you tons of time and give all your work that signature look that audiences will start to recognize and trust.

Maintaining the Originality of Your Slides

Adding personal touches to copied backgrounds.

While copying backgrounds can streamline your design process, adding personal touches ensures your presentation doesn’t feel cookie-cutter. You might adjust the transparency of an image for subtlety, layer shapes for depth, or sprinkle in icons that align with your topic. Experiment with fonts and colors for text emphasis, or insert a relevant quote to humanize the slide. These nuanced additions help your presentation stand apart while still maintaining design consistency.

When to Opt for Customization Over Duplication

Duplication is efficient, but customization is key when your message demands distinctiveness. It’s a fine line to walk—you want to preserve your overall branding while also giving each presentation its unique flair. Choose customization when addressing different audiences, when you want to emphasize a specific point, or when the subject matter is unique. Custom slides can give a fresh and tailored perspective that keeps your audience engaged and conveys that you’ve crafted your message just for them.

FAQ Section

How can i copy a background from one slide to another without using the slide master.

How do I extract the background of a PowerPoint presentation?

What should I do if the copied background does not display correctly on the new slide?

If the background isn’t displaying correctly, check the format and size of the background image to ensure it matches your slide dimensions. Adjust the image using ‘Format Background’ settings, aligning it properly. Alternatively, confirm compatibility issues between different PowerPoint versions and resolve them for proper display.

John Michaloudis

John Michaloudis is a former accountant and finance analyst at General Electric, a Microsoft MVP since 2020, an Amazon #1 bestselling author of 4 Microsoft Excel books and teacher of Microsoft Excel & Office over at his flagship Academy Online Course .

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