powerpoint presentation tricks and tips

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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17 PowerPoint Presentation Tips From Pro Presenters [+ Templates]

Published: April 26, 2024

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

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

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

Table of Contents

How to Make a PowerPoint Presentation

Powerpoint presentation tips.

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

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

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

Getting Started

1. open powerpoint and click ‘new.’.

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

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Creating PowerPoint Slides

3. insert a slide..

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

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

11. Try Using GIFs.

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15. Embed multimedia.

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

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

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

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

16. Bring your own hardware.

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

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

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

To import your PowerPoint presentation into Google Slides:

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

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

17. Use Presenter View.

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

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

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

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

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

Your Next Great PowerPoint Presentation Starts Here

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

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

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

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

Don't forget to share this post!

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

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

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

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

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

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Third-Party PowerPoint Templates

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

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

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

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

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

Use ChatGPT to Write the Slides

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

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

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

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

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

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

Experiment With Color Schemes

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

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

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

Contrast Is Key

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

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

Take Advantage of Add-Ins

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

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

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

Add QR Codes In Slides

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

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

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

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

Design Cool Image & Text Masks

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

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

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

Instantly Remove Image Backgrounds

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

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

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

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

Design Posters & Flyers

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

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

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

Export to Video & PDF

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

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

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

In Conclusion

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

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

How-To Geek

8 tips to make the best powerpoint presentations.

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Are home theater pcs still worth it, proton vpn now supports wireguard on linux, 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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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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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

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Top 15 PowerPoint Tips and Tricks for Engaging Presentations

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Unleash Your Inner Slide Jedi!

PowerPoint is a powerful and the most trusted tool for creating presentations and visual aids that can help you effectively communicate your message. However, it's essential to prevent common hitches that can lower the impact of your presentation. In this blog post, we will share 15 best PowerPoint tips and tricks to help you create engaging and effective presentations that captivate your audience from start to finish. 

Top15 Powerpoint Tips and Tricks

A good PowerPoint presentation is really important because it serves as a visual aid that enhances the significance of your message. It provides a platform for organising and presenting information in a clear, concise, and engaging manner. 

1. Keep it Simple and Concise

One of the most crucial PowerPoint tips is to keep your slides simple and uncluttered. The main aim here is to deliver a message as easily as possible. Do not insert a lot of content, especially long paragraphs. Minimalistic content Simplicity allows your audience to focus on your key message without distractions. Keep pointers or short phrases to highlight your main points, keeping the text concise and easily readable.

2. Use High-Quality Visuals 

Another helpful Powerpoint tips and tricks is to focus on the visuals. Apart from content, there should also be a visual theme throughout the presentation in order to keep it captivating. There are several enticing templates available on Microsoft PowerPoint. Making use of the 'Arrange' feature ensures the proper alignment of objects. Avoid generic stock images that don't add value to your content. 

3. Know Your Audience 

This is one of the most important PowerPoint presentation tips. It is important to resonate with your audience, and in order for that to happen, curate your presentation according to the audience's knowledge of the subject. Meaning prepare your presentation according to the subject knowledge base inherited by the audience. Do not go all rocket science with a topic for a beginner-level audience. Customise it to be more engaging and intriguing. 

4. Emphasise Key Points with Infographics

One of the cool PowerPoint tricks is the glory of infographics. The addition of infographics is a useful way to illustrate complex information in a visually attractive and easy-to-understand form. Utilise charts, graphs, and diagrams to showcase data, statistics, or processes. Infographics make your content more engaging and memorable, enabling your audience to grasp information quickly.

5. Embed Your Fonts

An informative PowerPoint tip is to embed fonts that are downloaded from a third-party source. The simple reason behind this is PowerPoint tends to replace foreign fonts with default fonts if not downloaded. This will completely change the layout of your presentation. To embed fonts, go to Files<Options<Save<Preserve Fidelity when sharing this presentation<Embed fonts in the file.

6. Track Changes

Following our list of PowerPoint tips and tricks is the track changes feature. Turning on the Track Changes features ensures a smooth collaboration among team members. It is a way to keep a record of all activities that occurred on the slides. One can also leave comments alongside slides for their teammates to make edits for a perfect presentation. 

7. Choose Suitable Slide Transitions

One of the best PowerPoint presentation tips is to use smooth transitions between slides. One can use transitions to create seamless and professional transitions that guide your audience's attention. It is completely up to the user to manage the slide transition, but using too many can create distraction. You may more effectively manage the amount of information you provide to your audience at once by employing a couple for each slide. Explore our blog on Google slide hacks to help you create impactful and memorable presentations that captivate your audience.

8. Optimise Font Choices and Consistency

The choice of font has a big impact on how readable and visually appealing your presentation is overall. Select readable typefaces that are easy to see at a distance. To guarantee a unified and professional appearance, stick to a font scheme of no more than two or three throughout your presentation. One of the most basic yet powerful PowerPoint tips.

9. Leverage Color Contrast 

In order to ensure readability and visual impact, colour contrast is crucial. Choose contrasting colours for the backdrop and text to make the content easy to read. Refrain from employing eye-straining colours that clash or are extremely bright. A carefully considered colour scheme improves the overall appearance and aids in efficiently communicating your message. Isn't it among the cool PowerPoint tricks? 

10. Make the Presentation More Convenient

Next on our list of PowerPoint tips and tricks is convenience. The convenience PowerPoint provides is that one can easily convert the Berenstain into a PDF document. Professionals who are unable to attend your event in person may occasionally express interest in your presentation. Next, you can send the files by email or post this PDF for download on a website. Additionally, you may export your presentation as a video that viewers can see whenever it's convenient for them.

11. Incorporate Audio and Video

Your presentation's degree of engagement can be raised by including audio and video components. As one of the creative PowerPoint tips and tricks, one can make smart use of them to support writing or offer instances from real-world situations. On the other hand, pay attention to file sizes and make sure the video and audio are excellent and pertinent to your subject.

12. Rehearse and Time Your Presentation

Perfectionism is attained with practice. Practice your presentation several times to make sure you deliver it smoothly and on schedule. Despite being one of the common PowerPoint presentation tips, maintaining your audience's interest and making sure you cover all the important issues without rushing are dependent on timing. Explore more by pondering our blog on PowerPoint presentation tips to get your aims and ideas across to the audience smoothly.

13. Utilise Speaker Notes

Speaker notes are an invaluable tool to help you stay on track during your presentation. They act as a script or outline, reminding you of key points, transitions, and supporting details. Utilise speaker notes to maintain a confident and organised delivery, ensuring you cover all essential aspects of your presentation.

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14. Utilise a Remote Control

If at all feasible, move your slides forward with a remote control. This gives you the freedom to walk about, interact with the audience, and keep eye contact. Using a remote control gives your presentation a more dynamic and engaging delivery overall. Isn't it one of the cool PowerPoint tricks?

15. Seek Feedback for Continuous Improvement

One of the most important PowerPoint tips and tricks is not to be hesitant to ask for criticism of your presentation. Feedback offers insightful viewpoints and useful insights that assist you in identifying areas that require further development and improvement. Accept helpful criticism to improve your presenting abilities and produce future presentations that are even more captivating and powerful.

Incorporating these 15 best PowerPoint tips and tricks will empower you to create engaging and effective presentations that captivate your audience. By keeping your slides simple, utilising high-quality visuals, and maintaining a consistent design, you can deliver a memorable presentation that effectively communicates your message. Lastly, explore our webstory on the top 8 presentation tools for students to get introduced to some life-changing presentation tools that will boost your creativity and imagination.

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PowerPoint Tips, Tricks, and Hacks from 29 Experts

Bryan Jones

• eLearning Development , Posts , PowerPoint

PowerPoint is an extremely powerful tool when used correctly.

But when you’re new to it, it can feel like it’s just blank screens and bullet points.

It can take years (or decades) to fully master it.

But I decided to save you some time…

I asked the world’s leading PowerPoint experts the following question:

What’s your single best PowerPoint tip, trick, or hack?

Below you’ll see responses from some amazing PowerPoint gurus, including: top authors, speakers, instructors, bloggers, and even a handful of PowerPoint MVPs and Microsoft employees!

Enjoy the full tutorials by scrolling below or jump to these sections:

Summary | Presentation Approach |  Design | Shortcuts |  Delivery |  Setup | Beyond Presentations

PowerPoint Presentation Approach Tips

1. Use the Tell ‘n Show method: a headline with a single point and media to support it

To get your audience to understand and remember what you say, use the Tell ‘n’ Show(SM) method. Use the slide title to tell your point–what you want them to remember. For example, write “3rd quarter sales rose 5% over last year” instead of just “3rd quarter sales.” Then use the rest of the slide to show your point with an image, animation, graph, or diagram. Research has shown the students who see slides done like this do better on tests and similarly, your audience will “get” your point more quickly and easily. They’ll be more engaged, too.

Ellen Finkelstein  is the President & Owner of Ellen Finkelstein, Inc. She is one of only 12 Microsoft designated PowerPoint MVPs in the United States and is the author of one of the most popular PowerPoint blogs on the web.

2. Don’t open PPT until you have a clear message

Don’t launch PowerPoint until you have a clear message. Many people launch PowerPoint, think what they want to present, add slides, then think again, and add slides again. To compare with an analogy, they are on a fun journey, driving their car, stopping wherever they want, and then driving to wherever they fancy. It’s good to have an amazing journey–but a journey without a destination will get you nowhere. Continuing this analogy, a “clear message” is the destination where you want to go, and you want to take your audience along with you. So make sure you have a message before you begin creating your slides.

Geetesh Bajaj is the Owner of Indezine.com . He is a PowerPoint MVP and the author of the Indezine blog, one of the most visited PowerPoint and presentation websites.

3. Start with the end-scenario in mind

As a designer, I recommend you think more about the end scenario than the beginning. Practical considerations – is this a printout, email attachment, onscreen presentation, interactive discussion tool or combination of those? Where will it be seen – in a stadium, boardroom, café, at their desk? Then consider the conceptual considerations – who is your audience and what do they currently think about your topic? What would you like to change in that thinking? Based on what you know about them, how can you change that thinking? Write those things down, then build your presentation with that at the forefront.

Tom Howell is the Agency Director at Synapsis Creative. He was recently designated a PowerPoint MVP by Microsoft. His presentation blog  is a must-read for anyone looking to improve their presentation design.

4. Tease the audience by revealing info in parts

Do you struggle to hold your participant’s attention – especially when your training topic is dull and boring? There’s a secret technique I use that works like a charm every time. It is… “Tease your audience by revealing your information in parts” Let me give you an example… Want to present a Framework? Present just the skeletal structure first. Explain the context. Then reveal the first step. Explain. Then reveal the next step and so on. Your audience can’t take their eyes off, till you finish your explanation. Why does this work so well? Studies have shown that as humans – we experience ‘tension’ when we leave things incomplete. We feel subconsciously compelled to pay attention to the task till we see it finished. It’s called the ‘Zeigarnik effect’. Try it in your next presentation. All you need is to apply a simple custom animation to your visuals – to reveal information in stages.

Ramgopal is the Director and Co-Owner of PrezoTraining . He also runs a popular YouTube Channel focusing on PowerPoint .

5. Don’t open PowerPoint first. Instead, sketch on a notepad

The first step on PowerPoint is…don’t open PowerPoint. Sketch out your presentation on a notepad (regular or digital) and plan out the whole thing. Then rewrite, numbering and ordering your thoughts. That’s your slide order.

Doug Thomas  is a Video and Webinar Creator at Microsoft. He has created and appeared in over 250 videos at office.com.

PowerPoint Design Tips

6. Use transparent overlays on images for text contrast

My favorite trick to do in PowerPoint is to create transparent overlays over slides, videos, photographs in PowerPoint! First, you create a rectangle to cover up the slide > Then you set it to a solid color or a gradient > You right click, set the transparency of each color to around 20% or any value you like depending on the project > and there you have it! You can dim photos, create duo-tone overlays, darken, brighten, add exposure, add a vignette or do pretty much anything regarding colors with this type of object! Best part is – you can freely copy it between slides or even separate PowerPoints! Awesome to know about and use 🙂

Andrzej Pach is an Online Instructor for Udemy  & Skillshare. He also hosts one of the most popular YouTube channels  to focus on PowerPoint with over 2 million views and 19,000 subscribers.

7. Go big with visuals. Bleed photos and videos to the edge

Go big with your visuals. My top tip to presentation designers of all levels is a simple, elegant, and often overlooked technique: bleed your inserted photographs and videos all the way to the edges. Insert your image. Scale (don’t stretch!) and crop appropriately. If next is necessary, set it in a semi-transparent shape with sufficient contrast against the text color. Think about some of the best presentations you’ve ever seen. Think also about your favorite movies and TV shows. Their images take up all available screen space. Yours can too.

Tony Ramos is the Director of the Presentation Guild  and the Owner of TonyRamos.com. He was the first blogger on the internet to cover PowerPoint topics. Tony is an expert designer and producer of PowerPoint presentations and proposal graphics.

8. Create quick native PPT icons using your subtract and combine tools

Create quick native PPT icons using your subtract and combine tools.

Bethany Auck is the Founder and Creative Director of SlideRabbit . As a presentation and communication specialist, she helps clients build high quality presentations, from basic slide design to complex animations and infographics.

9. Structure clean layouts by using a grid system on slide masters

Keep your layouts clean and well-structured by implementing a grid system with guides on the pasteboard of your master slide.

Stephy Lewis is a Senior Designer for Aerotek and a Director of the Presentation Guild . She is a top visual designer of presentations and websites.

10. Find a beautiful, fresh font pair. One for headers and one for body

When I create PowerPoint tutorials on YouTube I am always thinking about techniques that would be really simple to implement and yet would have the biggest positive impact. So if you have 2 minutes to transform your presentation from good to awesome, I would suggest looking at your fonts. Find a beautiful, fresh looking font pair (one font for the headers and one for the body) and you can instantly change how your presentation feels and looks like. I am planning to do a video soon on this topic, so please visit my YouTube channel in the near future, if you are interested in awesome font pairs for your ppt 🙂 Good luck everyone!

One Skill (aka Kasparas Tolkusinas) is the CEO of One Skill PowerPoint Tutorials. He hosts one of the most popular PowerPoint YouTube channels , with over one million views and 14,000+ subscribers.

11. Create an arrow with broken SmartArt

I have an easy favorite that I often use. You know the arrow type that looks like a Nike Swoosh logo? The ones that start at a point then become thicker as they softly curve up or down? I have an easy hack that uses broken SmartArt to create such an arrow. Of course, if you have the newest version of PowerPoint (2016/Office 365), you can insert this arrow style as an icon, but it’s not easily editable (other than to recolor). Do this instead: 1) Insert > SmartArt > Process > Upward Arrow (or Descending Process) | 2) Ungroup | 3) Ungroup again | 4) Delete all extra shapes and text boxes, leaving only the arrow. You’re left with an adjustable arrow that allows you to use the yellow handles to change the swoosh width and arrow head size. Rotate, Flip Vertical, Flip Horizontal, or resize to further customize.

Sandra Johnson is the Owner and Chief Presentation Officer at Presentation Wiz  and is Vice President of the Presentation Guild. She has also been designated only 1 of 12 Microsoft PowerPoint MVPs in the United States.

PowerPoint Shortcuts, Tricks, and Hacks

12. Power-crop photos with SmartArt

The favorite hack is Power Cropping a bunch of photos in seconds. (1) In PowerPoint select a bunch of odd sized (or shaped) photos (2) Navigate to the Picture Tools Format Tab (3) Open up the Picture Layout drop down (4) Select a SmartArt layout (Bending Picture Semi-Transparent Text is my favorite) (5) CTRL+SHIFT+G to ungroup the graphic twice. It’s a great little PowerPoint hack that not a lot of people know about.

Taylor Croonquist is the Co-Founder of NutsAndBoltsSpeedTraining.com . He is the guru of time-saving PowerPoint tips. If you want to be blown away by how fast someone can whip a PPT into shape, check out his blog or videos.

13. Use Ctrl + arrow keys to nudge objects on the screen

Here’s a quick and easy one I share in my PowerPoint for eLearning 101 classes: Want to move something just a smidge using the arrow keys? You may notice that it’s hard to get to juuuuust the right spot using the arrow keys. Try holding down the [Control] key with the arrow keys and watch as your slide objects move by just a pixel at a time.

AJ Walther  is the Chief Creative Officer at IconLogic. She is also the instructor for several PowerPoint courses: PowerPoint for eLearning 101  and 201 , and the author of 2 PowerPoint books.

14. Use SmartArt to break bullet points into text boxes

Use SmartArt as a tool to eliminate bullet points and “chunk” your information out visually. Select your text box of bullet points and either right-click or choose from the Home tab “Convert to SmartArt.” Select a SmartArt graphic that contains horizontal boxes. Select the newly created SmartArt containing your text, right-click and ungroup it twice, giving you text in rectangles. Now, delete any extraneous SmartArt items (i.e. arrows) and format the boxes however you like. Voila, you have magically turned a page of bullet points into visual chunks—much easier to read!

Nolan Haims is the Principal of Nolan Haims Creative. He leads a team of visual design professionals dedicated to all types of visual communication. Nolan blogs at Present Your Story  and hosts the popular Presentation Podcast.

15. Create “smoky letters” with PPT’s new Morph transition

Magic Smoky Letters! I recently went on a crazy experimentation spree (channeling my inner mad scientist!) with the Morph transition and discovered this bizarre but very cool “smoky letters” trick. Let’s say, for instance, that you want the word TEXT to come out as smoke from a chimney (or fireplace, tailpipe, cigar, teapot, magic lamp, etc.).  You first put a picture of the chimney on your slide.  Next, you create smoke “seeds” by inserting a rectangle and editing one of the points (Format – Shape – Edit Points) – then making 4 copies of this rectangle (one for each letter in TEXT).  Make these “seeds” tiny and transparent, then place on top of the chimney (where you want the smoke to come out). Next, duplicate the slide and on this new slide, delete the “seeds” on the chimney.  Then, vectorize the word TEXT (by writing it in a text box, putting it on top of a colored rectangle, selecting both objects and going to Merge Shapes – Fragment and deleting the stuff around TEXT). Finally, add a Morph transition to the second slide, and you’re done! Simply view in presentation mode and prepare for your jaw to drop… check out this trick with more details and examples here .

Lia (aka “P-Spice”) is a management consultant with a passion for making presentations more innovative and “spicy.” She hosts a popular YouTube channel on PowerPoint with over 4 million views and 36,000+ subscribers focused on creative animation and design tricks. She is also the author of the Spicy Presentations blog .

16. Convert text to an image if the custom font might not be installed.

One of my favorite frustration-busters involves a work-around when I know my client won’t have a custom font installed. For example, if the slide would benefit from a gorgeous script as an accent element, I will turn that piece of text into an image. I do this by selecting the font as an object, copying it and then pasting it as a picture (either right click to paste or use the paste button in the Home menu). Now I know the “text” will display as designed on any computer.

Lori Chollar is the Co-Founder of TLC Creative Services, Inc .

PowerPoint Presentation Delivery Tips

17. Use the notes panel for detailed printed notes

I’m a College Professor and use PowerPoint for Lecture notes. Many students want detailed lecture notes, but get bored quickly reading mountains of text on a slide. So I use the “Notes Pages” panel for detail while keeping the slides simple – I urge students to read the notes which may contain more information than given in a lecture. If printing out the slides, it is essential to use “Notes Pages” print layout option.

Dr Eugene O’Loughlin  is a Lecturer in Computing at the National College of Ireland. He also hosts one of the most popular YouTube channels that covers PowerPoint topics and has over 12 million views and 26k+ subscribers.

18. Leverage “Presenter View” and “sections” when there are multiple presenters

Increase the power of Presenter View with PowerPoint Sections. Sections are used to organize slides within a presentation by grouping slides and giving each group a name. In addition, Presenter View leverages these Sections that can be seen in Presenter View’s Grid Layout. When running a presentation with multiple presenters, or an awards show with multiple award categories, I add lots of PowerPoint sections. The ability to minimize live-show stress and find the correct section to jump to is amazing!

Troy Chollar is the Co-Founder of TLC Creative Services, Inc. He is also a Microsoft designated PowerPoint MVP, PowerPoint blogger , and host the popular Presentation Podcast.

19. Use “triggers” to create interactive presentations

Create interactive presentations with triggers to start animations through hot spots on a slide. You can reveal specific parts of a diagram, make something change color by clicking it, or give people multiple choice questions and have the correct answer pop-up. It takes seconds to do and works brilliantly, particularly with visual slides. Right click on any animation, choose Timing, then Triggers in the pop-up window, and choose which object you click to start (trigger) the animation. You can have multiple triggers on one slide and multiple animations triggered by the same object. It makes really compelling and effective presentations.

Richard Goring is the Director at BrightCarbon. He creates compelling and persuasive presentations using visuals and diagrams. Richard also blogs at the Bright Carbon blog and has a post on this trigger technique  mentioned above.

20. Use a formatted “Notes” page for presentation handouts.

I open the most eyes when I discuss how to use the Notes page to create handouts that are contained within the same PPTX file as the slides. Most people have never spent even a second in the Notes master so they never knew you could globally reformat the Notes pages to allow them to better accommodate the creation of handout pages.

Rick Altman is the Director of R. Altman and Associates and the Conference Host of The Presentation Summit . If you looking to create PowerPoints that don’t suck, he literally wrote the book on it.

PowerPoint software and hardware setup tips

21. add “align” to your quick access toolbar.

Tired of eyeballing that slide to see if all the objects are all even or in the same grid? That is why my favorite tip is to make Align one of your favorites on your QAT. Imagine a slide that might introduce three speakers’ headshots and captions but they are not aligned or equidistant from each other. Let’s fix it. Select all three objects – click on the first object, then press and hold CTRL when you click on the others.  You can also use SHIFT and your mouse to draw a box over what you want to align – I call it a “Lasso”. To arrange the three headshots, click on the Format Tab in the Picture tools, you will see an option to align objects. You can choose to center objects horizontally, vertically or to a box of text. You do the same when working with shapes, text boxes, SmartArt graphics, and WordArt by selecting Format in the Drawing Tools. The result:  your objects snap to the grid and the smart guide lines that appear on your slide will help confirm it.

Sharyn Fitzpatrick is the Editor of PresentationXpert  and the Chief Marketing, Communications, and Webinar Guru at Marcom Gurus. She also lives in my home town (Los Altos), is a raving Penn State fan, and a former competitive swimmer!

22. Customize your “quick access” toolbar with frequently used buttons

I don’t have a ton of keyboard shortcuts in PowerPoint, but I do customize my toolbar. When I do that (right-click on the toolbar at the very top of the window), I can add any button I want, especially the alignment buttons, which makes life a lot easier when you’re working with different slide objects such as text, images, and graphs. In Excel, my favorite keyboard shortcut is CTRL+1 (CMD+1 on Macs), which will bring you to the Format menu. And it works for everything–cells, line charts, bar charts, axis labels, gridlines, whatever you need.

Jonathan Schwabish is the Founder at PolicyViz.com  and a Senior Fellow at the Urban Institute. He is well known in the presentation community for his presentation book Better Presentations and his expertise in data visualization.

23. Name screen elements on the “Selection Pane” for easy design layering and more

The Selection Pane is one of PowerPoint’s best kept secrets. By default, it’s hidden in the “Select” menu on the “Home” tab. I add it to my Quick Access Toolbar and keep the Selection Pane open anytime I’m working in PowerPoint. Once open, you can name all the objects on the screen. This really helps when you’re trying to change the layering order of the objects, add animations, and more. You can also hide objects by clicking the “eye” icon next to each object. That’s really helpful for revealing objects beneath that layer. Without the selection pane, both layering and animations are next to impossible.

Bryan Jones is the Founder and President of eLearningArt. He runs a stock photo and template site to help people build better presentations and graphics. He also blogs frequently about eLearning, PowerPoint, and presentations .

24. In a dark working environment, change the default interface for more contrast

When I’m working in a dark environment (at night in my office, backstage at a conference, etc.), I find it extremely helpful to change PowerPoint’s interface from the bright white and orange to black or at least dark grey. To do this, click File, then Account, then select Black or Dark Grey from the Office Theme dropdown. Note that _these_ Office Themes control your interface elements such as the Ribbon and the workspace; they aren’t the same Office Themes that you may think of when we talk about PowerPoint templates and themes. (Thanks for naming everything the same, Microsoft!)

Echo Swinford is a PowerPoint Corporate Presentation and Template Expert at Echosvoice . She is designated as 1 of only 12 Microsoft PowerPoint MVPs in the United States. Echo also authored a book on building PowerPoint templates and is the President of the Presentation Guild .

25. Get a good external mouse. One with a scroll wheel can zoom in and out

A comfortable external mouse is a must-have for quick toolbar navigation and graphics editing. Make your work even speedier by choosing a mouse with a scroll wheel. In PowerPoint, hold the Ctrl/Command key and scroll forward or backward to change the Zoom level. Go from big picture to the smallest details in an instant.

Julie Terberg  is a Presentation Expert, Visual Communicator at Terberg design. She is a designated Microsoft PowerPoint MVP, author of a book on creating PowerPoint templates, and is the Art Director for the Presentation Guild.

Think beyond PowerPoint presentations

26. think of ppt as a tool beyond liner presentations.

Strangely enough, my best tip/hack is to start seeing PowerPoint as a tool that can do much more than linear presentations. Here are a few examples: 1) Produce better visuals & handouts at the same time by moving text to the notes pane, and design your Notes Master so it has your corporate colors and logo 2) Use PowerPoint’s screen capture tool (PPT2010 and up), or screen recording tool (PPT2013 and up) to create quick tutorials without needing other software 3) Get to know the drawing/shape tools to create your custom graphics and save them as images.

Chantal Bossé  is the Owner of CHABOS, Inc. where she helps clients, such as TEDx speakers, maximize their presentation impact. She is also a designated Microsoft PowerPoint MVP.

27. Export to video and PDF to make content portable and reach a wider audience.

Exporting to video and PDF is a quick and easy way to make your content much more portable and mobile-friendly to reach a wider audience. The PDF option allows you to totally rethink your documents and make the switch to interactive “e-books”. The video option gives you a super flexible MP4 video file that you can use virtually anywhere. To see an example of each, visit this tutorial .

Mike Taylor  is a Learning Technologist at Mindset Digital, as well as a former Community Manager at Articulate He is also a frequent speaker and popular blogger.

28. Hyperlink between slides to create a non-linear experience

Hyperlinking: Many who build eLearning with PowerPoint rely too much on the default linear slide 1- slide 2 -next-next-next setup. Learning to hyperlink across slide decks enables you to build interesting interactions like branching simulations and quizzes with scaffolded feedback. It takes patience and thinking through but isn’t technically difficult. Another tip: Figure out how to do the planning/layout the way that works best for you: I like to use Post-It notes I can move around. Others like to draw it out, and still others use the PPT flowcharting tools.

Jane Bozarth  is an E-Learning Coordinator for the State of North Carolina. She is the author of several popular books, including Better Than Bullet Points: Creating Engaging e-Learning with PowerPoint.

29. Build clickable prototypes and hyperlink from any object to other slides

Creating prototypes is tough, right? Difficult software, expensive too. But wait… Do you realize that PowerPoint can be used to build prototypes? One of the coolest and simplest features that you’ll find in PowerPoint is the ability to put hyperlinks on any object on your slide and have it link to other slides. This way you can mock up any kind of e-learning, interactive job aid, software simulation or app you’d like and  get a real feel of how it would work. Just create the screens you need for your prototype, add clickable areas (transparent shapes are great for that!) and voila!

Jeff Kortenbosch  is a Performance Consultant at Bright Alley. He’s a PowerPoint guru and has a series of YouTube videos where he teaches users how to draw in PowerPoint.

29 PowerPoint Tips, Tricks, and Hacks Summarized

• Use the Tell ‘n Show method: a headline with a single point and media to support it | Ellen Finkelstein
• Don’t open PPT until you have a clear message | Geetesh Bajaj
• Start with the end-scenario in mind | Tom Howell
• Tease the audience by revealing info in parts | Ramgopal
• Don’t open PowerPoint first. Instead, sketch on a notepad | Doug Thomas
• Use transparent overlays on images for text contrast | Andrzej Pach
• Go big with visuals. Bleed photos and videos to the edge | Tony Ramos
• Create quick native PPT icons using your subtract and combine tool. | Bethany Auck
• Structure clean layouts by using a grid system on slide master. | Stephy Lewis
• Find a beautiful, fresh font pair. One for headers and one for bod. | One Skill
• Create an arrow with broken SmartArt | Sandra Johnson
• Power-crop photos with SmartArt | Taylor Croonquist
• Use Ctrl + arrow keys to nudge objects on the screen | AJ Walther
• Use SmartArt to break bullet points into text boxes | Nolan Haims
• Create “smoky letters” with PPT’s new Morph transition | Lia (P-Spice)
• Convert text to an image if the custom font might not be installed | Lori Chollar
• Use the notes panel for detailed printed notes | Dr Eugene O’Loughlin
• Leverage “Presenter View” and “sections” when there are multiple presenters | Troy Chollar
• Use “triggers” to create interactive presentations | Richard Goring
• Use a formatted “Notes” page for presentation handout.  | Rick Altman

PowerPoint Software and Hardware Setup Tips

• Add “align” to your Quick Access Toolbar | Sharyn Fitzpatrick
• Customize your “quick access” toolbar with frequently used buttons  | Jon Schwabish
• Name screen elements on the “Selection Pane” for easy design layering and more | Bryan Jones
• In a dark working environment, change the default interface for more contrast | Echo Swinford
• Get a good external mouse. One with a scroll wheel can zoom in and out | Julie Terberg

Think Beyond PowerPoint Presentations

• Think of PPT as a tool beyond liner presentations | Chantal Bossé
• Export to video and PDF to make content portable and reach a wider audience | Mike Taylor
• Hyperlink between slides to create a non-linear experience | Jane Bozarth
• Build clickable prototypes and hyperlink from any object to other slides | Jeff Kortenbosch

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28 Great PowerPoint Presentation Tips

A comprehensive list of PowerPoint presentation tips and tricks.

Microsoft PowerPoint has been around since 1987 and is by far the most popular presentation tool on the market but many people still struggle to give effective presentations. PowerPoint is often blamed but often this is really a case of a poor workman blaming his tools.

Audience polling tools like our ParticiPoll system can add an extra dimension to presentations but what about all the other things that make for a great presentation?

Here is our list of tips and techniques to help you deliver a fantastic presentation. Let us know if you can think of any others we should add!

New:  We now have a handy tool where you can upload and “ Analyse My Presentation ” to get live feedback on you PowerPoint presentation file, just follow the link.

Creating Your Presentation

Follow the 10-20-30 rule.

Guy Kawasaki wrote that a presentation “should have ten slides, last no more than twenty minutes, and contain no font smaller than thirty points”. He was talking about pitching to investors but this is fairly solid advice for any presentation. You might need to over-run the 20 minute rule in some circumstances (e.g. a university lecture) but could the additional time be better used for questions and answers?

Start With A Summary

Summarising your presentation in a single slide at the beginning gives your audience a clear idea of what they’re going to learn and stimulates anticipation of the whole story. It’s also a good discipline for you as a presenter to help keep you keep the topic succinct. If you can’t summarise your presentation topic in 10-15 words, then it’s probably too long or too vague. Think of is an ‘elevator pitch’, a synopsis of a book or an abstract for a scientific paper.

Tell A Story

Human beings have used stories to impart information since the dawn of time and it’s still a great way to communicate. Even if you have to deliver a long series of facts, remember that it’s the underlying meaning or outcome of those facts that will strike home.  This doesn’t mean you should start your presentation with “Once upon a time”, just that you should build it in such a way that the chronology of the topic is clear.  Can you think of plot twists or hooks that can be shared along the way to keep them interested? You might find writing an initial ‘script’ away from PowerPoint helpful before you go diving into slides.

See It From The Audience’s Perspective

Getting the tone and content of your presentation right starts with being honest about what they really want to hear and what they can realistically absorb. If you really care about your audience, you have to be an advocate for their learning needs not your own agenda. If that means simplifying your content or recapping previous presentations then so be it. It’s better than losing them completley or being “that presenter” who was too difficult to understand or didn’t recognise who he/she was speaking to.

Present What You Know And Care About

Most lower-quality presentations are a symptom of the presenter not really wanting to be there. A rookie presenter who knows their subject or is really passionate can be better than a pro who isn’t bothered. Just look at Elon Musk – his presentation style is notoriously haphazard but he is incredibly exciting and comes across as completely authentic. The very best presenters know their subject so well that they don’t even need notes or slides. If you don’t know or don’t care then don’t present – find someone else!

Avoid Too Much Text

Using too much text is one of the most common presenting mistakes. Presenters often feel they need to include everything in their slides. This often manifests itself in over-use of bullet point lists, paragraphs of text and tiny font sizes. A couple of sentences per slide and no more is the ideal and remember that the audience came to hear you speak not read. A good test on the day is to see whether they audience are mostly looking at you or the slides – if its the latter then you’ve put too much content in!

A picture tells a thousand words and good images are far better than tons of text. Don’t use cheesy stock imagery though – that’s a real turn off. Choose pictures that directly illustrate or support what you’re saying or set the tone of the slide. In the right setting, a bit of humour can cheer the audience up and keep them engaged too (there are loads of great Internet meme graphics you can use or adapt.) Videos can work well too but its best to keep to shorter snippet videos rather than diverting half your presentation slot to something pre-recorded.

Customise Your Template

Far too many presenters stick to the standard blank PowerPoint template. PowerPoint comes with lots of other template and font choices to improve appearance.  It’s also really easy to create your own custom PowerPoint templace with your own logo, font, etc.

Don’t Over-Use Animations

Subtle slide-ins or fade-ins of the next slide can add a bit of style to a presentation but sliding-in every last bulletpoint becomes irritating on a longer presentation. Keep it simple!

Present Data Clearly

It can be tempting to chuck in a spreadsheet of raw data and try to explain it figure-by-figure but a chart or graph will highlight the significance of your data far better. Be sure to pick the right sort of chart for your data. Typically you would use a histogram to compare quantities, a pie chart for percentages and a line chart to show change over time.

Use the Slide Sorter

Inspirational ideas for slide content don’t always come out in a sensible order for the presentation itself. Once you’ve written your main slides use the slide sorter (View Menu > Slide Sorter) to put the slides in an order that fits the overall story of your presentation. Audience retention is improved by having sub-topic chunks within your presentation so try to bring slides together in mini-segments.

Avoid Death By PowerPoint

Death by PowerPoint is a phrase used to describe a multitude of sins. In almost every case it’s the presenter who is at fault not PowerPoint. The most common cause is making the slide deck the focus rather than the presenter. If you don’t want to be there and could just as easily email your slides to your audience, then do that and spare everyone.

Preparation For The Event

You’ve probably put hours or even days into getting your presentation content right so don’t spoil it by not preparing on the day. Ideally you should run through your slides in the same room and on the same device that you will be using on the day. This will avoid local technical issues (e.g. lack of Internet connection, poor slide projection, lack of sound, wrong presentation software, etc.) Be sure to turn off your screen saver too! There are many technical facing comes when we deal with technology. To get knowledge about resolve these technical issues fastly and effectively click here .

Practicing in front of a mirror isn’t the same as doing it in front of an audience and it might make you more self-conscious. Start your presentation training with small, friendly audiences and speak about something you’re totally familiar with. Then you can work your way up to larger audiences and more tricky topics.

Coping With Nerves

Imagine the audience naked! If you’re new to public speaking or are speaking to a new crowd, it can be pretty nerve-wracking. Turn this on its head be imagining the front row are all naked and desperately self-conscious!

Speak Slowly

It’s tempting to think that you need to divulge as much information as possible but talking too fast is really hard for audiences to digest. Watch a TV newscaster and see how the speak slowly with lots of pauses. It’s definitely a case of “less is more” and you’ll be amazed how much better the audience absorb stuff. The breathing space will also give you more brain ‘CPU time’ to gauge audience reactions and respond accordingly. Speaking too fast is a common trait of nervous speakers but ironically, slowing down will give you more time to relax and give your presentation more gravitas.

Keep To A Schedule

Presentations that over-run are hard work for the audience and a nightmare for event organisers. Keep an eye on the clock, try to avoid labouring points and don’t be afraid to skim less critical slides if you are running out of time. There’s nothing wrong with ending a little earlier than expected and it can give you an opportunity for an impromptu Q&A session.

If You Get Stuck

If you get stuck half way through a presentation or someone asks you a difficult question, don’t be afraid of taking a pause. It’s OK to buy time with “let me think about that” or “that’s a great question!”. At times like this it can help to go back to your presenation synopsis and use that to get you back on track.

Make Eye Contact

It’s very easy to end up staring at the one person on the front row who seem to be smiling at you but focussing on just one person or just staring into space makes the main audience feel like you’re not interested in them. With a small audience, be sure to move eye contact from person to person without fixating on any particular individual. If you have a larger audience, try scanning your attention from left-to-centre-to-right and back again focussing on random individuals each time. Don’t forget the people right at the back too!

Don’t Read From Your Slides

People don’t come to conferences or lectures to read stuff – they want to hear a human being (that’s you!) engage with them. It’s OK to use slide content as a cue occasionally but reading from the screen with your back to the audience is both lazy and boring to watch. If you need additional cues and are using a projector screen then use the Notes feature in PowerPoint – you can get the notes displayed only to you on your computer (Slides > User Presenter View) whilst the audience see only the main slide content on the screen.

Project Your Voice

It might sound obvious but you need to be heard! That doesn’t mean you need to shout, just that you should speak slowly using your lungs. Even if you have the benefit of amplification, you still need to make sure you’re speaking at a consistent volume near to the mic. With an informal audience, you can do your own little sound-check by asking if the people at the back can hear you.

Correct Microphone Use

Most handheld or podium mics need to be held a few centimetres away from your mouth. Speak across the top of the mic rather than directly into it otherwise you’ll hear loud thumps whenever you speak percussive syllables. Clip-on Lavalier mics that you attach to your lapel or collar can help you speak more naturally but try not to turn your head too much as you may end up speaking too far away from the mic. In all cases, speak with your normal voice (unless you’re a singer or performer!) and don’t drop the mic unless you’ve really had the last word!

Use Your Hands And Body

Body language is big part of communication but you don’t have to be a trained orator to get it right (and many politicians and TV personalities use wildly unnatural and contrived gestures anyway). It’s a classic case of “be yourself” – do use your hands, gestures and facial expressions to accentuate what you’re saying but don’t do anything that feels unnatural. If you’re a relatively reserved, non-animated person that’s OK – maybe you’re better at verbal wit or pithy comments? If you’re not into waving your hands then try gripping the outer edges of the lectern or walking around the stage as an alternative. If you’re worried about it then get a friend or colleague to sit in the audience and give you feedback after a presentation.

Ask Great Questions

Asking Socratic questions is a great way of engaging audience members brains and get them thinking ahead. They can often make great slide headings too. If your presentation schedule and environment allows, putting these questions directly to the audience can really liven up the talk. Try asking interesting questions that the whole audience can answer together using a show of hands or shout-outs. If it’s a sensitive subject then try using an anonymous feedback tool like ParticiPoll .

Avoid Classroom Chicken

Don’t ask the audience questions they don’t want to answer. “Is everyone having fun?”, “Who has done their homework?” or “would anyone like to put their hand up and tell me X?” will most likely be replied with whispered “Nos” or deathly silence. Disingaged audiences can often play a game of chicken with you or a game with Pro-Skins boosts, holding out on responses until the very last moment (or not at all!).

Hold A Q&A

If time permits, giving your audience an opportunity to ask questions either at the end or during the presentation is always a good idea. You often end up finding out what they really wanted to hear from you and this can be fed back into any future repeat of the presentation.

Share Your Slides

Sharing your slides with your audience after the presentation is a great way to help them recall the content of your presentation. It’s also a great way to encourage engagement after the event so don’t forget to include the date, time and title of the presentation as well as your contact details.

At the beginning of the presentation, be sure to tell them that you’ll be making the slides available so they don’t feel the need to spend too much time taking notes instead of watching you. Don’t share your slides or hand-out printed copies of your slides before the presentation otherwise you’ll spoil the show and give people an excuse to leave without watching.

Interact With The Audience

To “lecture” has become a dirty word implying presenting in a reprimanding or condescending manner. It also implies a one-way street whereas audiences love to give feedback, ask questions and steer the presention to suit their needs.

A traditional ‘show of hands’ can work but it tends to favour the know-it-alls and attention-seekers and allows audience members’ groupthink to sway the responses. Its also innappropriate for sensitive subjects where the audience may not feel confortable expressing themselves.

Polling and feedback systems like ParticiPoll  ( try it now for free!) are a great way of adding interaction into your existing presentations without too much setup hassle. They’re a great way to grab the audience’s attention (especially if they’re fiddling with their phones) and help you find out what they think.

These are the great ways to represent your presentation effectively. With these tips  you make a experts of handling presentation. Are you a presentation specialist? Find your job on Jooble .

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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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• Financial Consultants
• Market Sizing Experts
• Market Research Analysts
• Equity Research Analysts
• Valuation Specialists
• Fundraising Consultants
• Financial Forecasting Experts
• Investment Bankers

Advanced PowerPoint Presentation Tips and Hacks

Many have a love-hate relationship with Microsoft’s PowerPoint. While super flexible, the tool can also be manual, tedious, and all-consuming, especially for the uninitiated. Authored by a former management consultant and finance expert, this article will help every user—from the beginner to the advanced operator—smooth out some of their points of friction and become an expert-level user of the application.

By Melissa Lin

Melissa has worked in ECM, tech startups, and management consulting, advising Fortune 500 companies across multiple sectors.

Key Highlights

• Keep Your Presentations Simple: Minimize cluttered, distracting slide-decks that are overly saturated with content; they will lose or confuse your audience more often than not.
• Seek to Communicate One Takeaway per Slide: Streamline your message and its supporting content to one key takeaway per slide. Much more tends to reduce engagement, comprehension, and retention by your audience (think "diminishing economies of content").
• Leverage Illustrations in Place of Text: Prose-heavy presentations tend to induce content fatigue, which again induces a loss of engagement on the part of your audience. Relevant, high-quality images have proven themselves useful in maintaining engagement, especially for longer presentations.
• Understand That Formatting Is King: Clean, simple and consistent formatting, complete with discernible themes, colors, fonts, shapes and sizes perform wonders where creating a polished, professional, and finished product is concerned.
• Customize Your Quick Access Toolbar: The Quick Access Toolbar (QAT) is a customizable toolbar that sits above the PowerPoint ribbon, and where one can add frequently used commands. Effective use of the toolbar is a PowerPoint trick that eases friction for power users and saves hours in the long run.
• Use PowerPoint Shortcuts in Place of Your Mouse: Understand the functions that you use most frequently and memorize their keyboard shortcuts. This PowerPoint hack will cut hours of manual work from your PowerPoint experience.
• Create Your Own Go-to Templates: Using the "Slide Master" view in PowerPoint, you can create personal, pre-formatted, and pre-fabricated templates, complete with font choices, font sizes, color schemes, and more, that will minimize your formatting load in the "polishing" phase of your presentation.
• Work alongside you as a thought partner to design, create, and deliver a polished and professional PowerPoint presentation/pitch ahead of your meeting.
• Draft and clean up the content (literary) that will be featured in your slide deck, including your personal speaking points and audience takeaways.
• Create the financials, models, infographics, and outputs that will be featured in your slide deck.
• Assist you with dry-runs, rehearsals, and other preparation assistance ahead of the presentation date, with expert feedback and tips regarding performance.

Love It or Hate It…

Love it or hate it, PowerPoint is ubiquitous when it comes to formal presentations. Perhaps you are pitching a new proposal. Or perhaps you’ve spent weeks number-crunching or conducting intensive research and it’s time to communicate your findings to the relevant stakeholders. Whatever your purpose, PowerPoint is arguably one of the most important components of your success.

When I was a management consultant I lived in Microsoft Excel and PowerPoint, toggling between the two programs every day. I loved that PowerPoint’s flexibility allowed me to illuminate and transform data into a story—a story of financials, an industry’s growth trajectory, or recommendations for restructuring a business process. However, especially as I was just starting out, this flexibility often proved to be a double-edged sword. It was frustrating how tedious slide design could be, and how long it took to aesthetically perfect a slide. I often found myself choosing between effective slides that took hours to create and a more basic deck that was quick to produce but less effective in communicating the data and the message. It wasn’t until I mastered some essential PowerPoint tips and tricks that I no longer experienced this dilemma.

This article showcases a selection of advanced PowerPoint hacks and presentation tips and tricks that will enable you to use the tool with ease. It will hopefully also prevent you from sacrificing effective messaging in an effort to save time. While many PowerPoint articles provide qualitative advice around effectively delivering a message, this piece focuses on the technical components of how to make an advanced PowerPoint presentation. It utilizes functionalities and commands in Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2016 and 365 for PC. Let’s get started.

The Basics of Creating Effective PowerPoint Presentations

Though this article is designed for users with more advanced PowerPoint skills, it may be useful to kick off with a refresher of some basic do’s and don’ts for creating effective PowerPoint presentations. Subsequently, we may then delve into some of the nitty-gritty of PowerPoint’s more advanced features. Throughout my career, the following four rules have served me well:

Rule 1 - Keep Your Deck as Simple as Possible: Likely the most important PowerPoint rule, “less is always more” with great presentations. Avoid clutter; minimize flashy, complex slides with distracting clipart in motion; and always focus on delivering a clear and succinct message.

Rule 2 - Keep Each Slide to Just One Key Takeaway: Resist the temptation to throw the kitchen sink at your audience, in general, but especially on a per-slide basis. You will hold your audience’s attention far more easily and leave them with more tangible, digestible takeaways simply by limiting the scope of your content to just one key point per slide.

Rule 3 - Use Simple, High-Quality Graphics Often and in Place of Words: As an addendum to Rule 1, too many words on a page tend to be both tedious and a bore for your audience, often resulting in a loss of focus, or “content fatigue,” during your presentation. GIFs, graphs, charts, and other informative and relevant illustrations tend to be great ways to break up tedium and add dimension to your flow.

Rule 4 - Clean and Simple Formatting Will Take You Far: Clean bullet points, consistent color themes, soft font styles, and legible font sizes all go the distance in leaving a great, professional impression on your audience as you present a polished finished product. Calibri (font), in metallic grey (primary color), punctuated by sky-blues (secondary color) have worked wonders for me over my career. Feel free to adopt them.

Customizing the Quick Access Toolbar

The first step to becoming a PowerPoint expert is building your Quick Access Toolbar. It’s a customizable toolbar sitting above the ribbon, where you can add your favorite and most frequently used commands. Invest five minutes to set it up, and you won’t regret it—it’ll pay dividends each time you use PowerPoint thereafter. Here’s a quick lay of the land before we delve into the logistics:

To customize your toolbar’s functionality and ordering according to your preference, simply click the white downwards-facing arrow above your ribbon. Then click “More Commands” → Choose Commands from “All Commands” → Select and add your favorite commands. If you want to remove any commands, simply select the command and hit “Remove.”

My “must-haves” for the ultimate quick access toolbar (QAT):

Align: The alignment tool is hands-down my favorite tool in PowerPoint. Bypass the futile, manual effort and instead highlight the shapes you want to align, and choose which direction to align them. You can align objects to the middle, right, left, top, and bottom of each other. Keep in mind that the positions of the objects are all relative to each other.

If you want to use this tool outside of your QAT: Highlight your desired objects → Format tab in the ribbon → Click Align → Select your preferred alignment direction → The objects will be aligned.

Distribute: If you have multiple objects or shapes that you want to make equidistant from each other, this tool will be your new best friend. Before distributing objects, it’s best to first align them. Then, to distribute, simply highlight the objects you want to distribute, and select “distribute horizontally” or “distribute vertically.”

If you want to use this tool outside of your QAT: Highlight your desired objects → Format tab in the ribbon → Click Align → Select Distribute Horizontally or Distribute Vertically → The objects will be distributed.

Format painter: Allows you to copy the formatting from one object and apply it to another one. It is essentially copying and pasting , but for formatting and not content.

• One click on format painter: Applies the formatting from the original object to the next object you select/click on.
• Two clicks on format painter: Locks in the format painter. After double-clicking, any object you select will convert to the formatting of the first object. To unlock format painter, click on any white space on the slide (not an object).

If you want to use this tool outside of your QAT: Select the object you want to mimic → Click Format Painter once or twice in the Home tab in the ribbon → Click on the object you want to change → The formatting changes will be applied.

Rotate: As the name implies, this feature enables you to rotate objects, in increments of 90 or 180 degrees. You can rotate a text box, shape, WordArt, or picture. This includes rotations to the right 90 degrees, to the left 90 degrees, vertically, and horizontally.

If you want to use this tool outside of your QAT: Highlight your desired object(s) → Format tab in the ribbon → Click Rotate → Select your preferred rotation option → The objects will be rotated.

Life-changing PowerPoint Keyboard Shortcuts

You might think I’m exaggerating, but once you realize you don’t have to manually perform these actions, you won’t look back. Generally, utilizing PowerPoint does not require memorizing as many hot keys as Excel does , but there are a few that you should be aware of.

Easily change the order and indent level of bulleted text in text boxes:

• Change the order of bulleted text in text boxes: ALT + SHIFT + Up/Down Arrow Key
• Change the indent level of bulleted text in text boxes: ALT + SHIFT + Right/Left Arrow Key

Resize an object while keeping them regular and in proportion:

• Hold SHIFT while you’re resizing an object with your pointer/mouse

Micro-nudges (small nudges for your objects):

• Select the object and hold CTRL + Up/Down/Right/Left Arrow Key to move it

Duplicate your shape or object without copy & paste:

• CTRL + Drag the shape with your pointer/mouse

Ensure that your lines are actually straight:

• For vertical lines: Insert the shape → Right click → Format Shape → Size & Properties → Set “Height” to “0” → Perfectly straight line
• For horizontal lines: Insert the shape → Right click → Format Shape → Size & Properties → Set “Width” to “0” → Perfectly straight line

Transform a number into a footnote superscript:

• Type in the number of the footnote (e.g., 1, 2, 3) → Highlight the number → Hold CTRL + SHIFT + the equal sign (=) → Your number will now be a footnote superscript

Adjust the case of your text by toggling between text cases (lowercase, title case and all caps):

• Highlight the desired words and use the SHIFT + F3 shortcut. Each time you hit F3, the highlighted text will change to all lowercase, all caps, or title-style where only the first letter of a word is capitalized.

PowerPoint Design Tips for Common, Frustrating Situations

If you’ve worked in PowerPoint consistently, you’ve likely encountered the following conundrums. Instead of spending an unnecessary 15-30 minutes Googling the issue for a workaround, here’s how to navigate the situation every time:

How to convert text to SmartArt

Example Situation: I’ve got a list of boring bullets and I need inspiration to make them more polished.

Solution: Leverage the “Convert to SmartArt” tool.

Select the text box with the bullets → Under “Home” in the ribbon, Select “Convert to SmartArt” → Hover over different SmartArt options to see your bullets transformed → Select whichever SmartArt strikes your fancy, and continue to edit from there

How to Resize Multiple Objects/Shapes at Once

Example Situation: I used multiple shapes/images in the slide and I want to change their collective size without messing up the proportions.

First, group all the objects together. To group, highlight all objects and either right click → Group, or highlight and hit ALT + G.

Then, adjust the size with your mouse while holding SHIFT to keep the proportion. This will help you resize and fit multiple objects without distorting the original proportions and shapes.

How to Identify and Match Exact Colors

Example Situation: You need to utilize a specific, custom color but you can’t seem to find it in the color palette.

Solution: The eyedropper tool quickly identifies the exact color you are looking to match, and applies it to the text or object you are trying to change. While format painter can be helpful for applying the exact same formatting (size, coloring, etc.) from one object to another, sometimes you might only be looking to apply the same color. In these cases, the eyedropper tool is very helpful.

A common use case for this tool is for pitch decks. If you are looking to match the theme of the deck to the potential client/partner’s logo, the eyedropper tool can prove invaluable.

• Select the text box you want to change → Click on the coloring format → Select the eyedropper tool → Using the eyedropper tool, hover over the color you want to mimic → When the color’s identification appears, click the color you want

How to Leverage Arrows with Elbow Connectors

Example Situation: I’m trying to draw arrows from one shape to another, but the arrows are crooked and look unprofessional.

Solution: Use the arrows with an elbow connector (90-degree angles). They automatically snap to the center of an object and can be formatted in different colors and sizes. These are especially helpful when building organizational charts.

• Go to the Insert ribbon → Insert a shape → Under the “Lines” category, select the arrows with elbow connectors → Once selected, use the arrow to connect the center of one shape to the center of another shape → Repeat until completion

How to Fit Text into a Shape

Example Situation: I’m typing a text label into a shape, but the text doesn’t fit and breaks the word into two lines.

Solution: There are two ways to go about it:

• Option 1: Right-click the shape → “format the shape” → Change the text margins to “0” from the left, and “0” from the right. Nine times out of ten, this will solve your issue.
• Option 2: Forget about dealing with the original shape. Instead, insert a text box over the original shape (text box should use a transparent background) and type directly into the text box. The text will show up over the shape, but nobody will know it was a manual workaround.

How to Remove the Background of a Picture

Example Situation: I used an image from the web in a slide and I want to change the background image color but can’t figure out how to do it.

Solution: This technique is most effective when used on images with high contrast.

• First, you must remove the original background color of the image. Click on the image you want to change → Select the “Format” tab in the ribbon → Click “Remove Background” → Fix any portions that were not perfectly removed → Click outside the image when you’re ready
• Next, you will want to add in the new background color of the image. As you can see, the perfect execution of this does require a steady hand (that I clearly do not quite have). Still, it’s a helpful trick to have in your back pocket.

How to Convert a Table to Text Boxes

Example Situation: You want to convert a datatable into different formatting on another slide, but you don’t want to manually type the numbers in and risk a mistake.

Solution: Break your table into multiple text boxes and objects, which saves you the trouble of retyping the data and will be easier to manipulate

• Copy the entire table → Paste special (paste as picture enhanced metafile) → Ungroup it → Answer “yes” to the dialog box → Ungroup it again → Answer “yes” again.
• Voila, now your table has been broken into text boxes and shapes. You can now copy and paste the data you need into another slide and re-format as you like.

How to Make a Table’s Rows or Columns the Same Size

Example Situation: You’ve created and filled a table with data, but the size of some rows or columns do not match the others. Your OCD starts to kick in but you can’t figure out how to get them to match perfectly.

Solution: Use the “Distribute Rows” and “Distribute Columns” tools.

• Select the entire data table → “Layout” tab in the Ribbon → Click “Distribute Rows” and “Distribute columns.”

Other PowerPoint Features and Best Practices

Create custom deck templates using Slide Master, which can be found under the “View” tab in the ribbon. Slide Master allows you to quickly modify the slide design in your presentation. You can either customize the slide master, which will affect every slide in the presentation, or you can modify individual slide layouts, which will change any slides using those layouts.

Rely less on your eyesight when moving objects around with the Guides or Gridlines view. First, you should adjust your settings to utilize the “Snap-to-Grid” function. Here’s how to do so: “View” tab → Click on the “Grid Settings” next to the word “Show” → Enable “Snap objects to grid. If you’d like to view the actual guides or gridlines, you can select these options under the “View” tab in the ribbon; they can easily be turned on and off. Please note that you can move guides around, while gridlines are set.

Link a chart from your Excel workbook to your PowerPoint presentation to enable dynamic updating of numbers.

• When your chart is ready in Excel, copy the chart → Toggle to PowerPoint → In the “Home” tab in the ribbon, click “Paste” → Select “Paste Special” → Select “Paste Link” and “Microsoft Excel Chart Object” → Now when you update the numbers in Excel, the chart in PowerPoint will update dynamically. This feature works best when both programs are open in tandem.
• If you close the Excel document and then update the figures in the table, remember to go back to your PowerPoint chart, right-click the chart, and select “Update link” to ensure that the data is refreshed.

On busy slides crowded with data, visually highlight your main takeaway at the bottom. A rectangular box (as shown below) is common.

Remember to include keys with your graphs and charts to help orient your audience.

Slide Templates and Presentation Graphics for Common Concepts

Have you ever felt déjà vu when designing a new PowerPoint deck? It’s probably because we often create new slides to convey similar concepts, even if the content is different—be it a process, progress, or an organizational chart. At the end of the day, it makes sense to reuse a slide structure even if the actual content refreshes. To communicate these common concepts, many of the largest consulting firms repeatedly utilize the following slide components:

Project Schedule: Gantt Chart

Organizational Structure: Organizational chart

Process: Arrows leading into one another

Indicating the degree to which a particular item meets a criterion: Harvey Balls

Final Thoughts

Thus, As I began, so shall I finish. PowerPoint presentations don’t have to be painful. Like most personal and professional skills, practice, consistency, and attention will get you most of the way there. Once you become familiar with the application as a powerful productivity and storytelling tool, gain comfort with its nuances and logic/flow, and, dare I say, begin to leverage this article as a how-to companion, you might actually find yourself beginning to enjoy building PowerPoint presentations as you transition toward mastering them.

In the interim, if you are interested in reviewing some top consulting presentations that put a lot of my content into practice, feel free to browse 30 McKinsey presentations and a mix of Mckinsey, Boston Consulting Group and The Parthenon Group decks .

With that, happy building!

Understanding the basics

How do i customize the quick access toolbar in powerpoint.

• Click the white downward-facing arrow above your ribbon; 2. Click “More Commands”; 3. Choose Commands from “All Commands”; 4. Select and add your favorite commands; 5. If you want to remove any commands, simply select the command and hit “Remove.”

What makes for an effective PowerPoint presentation?

Adhere to the following: (1) Err toward simplicity, in message and illustration; (2) Limit the use of prose (bullets are more succinct); (3) Use high-quality illustrations in place of text; (4) Use video or audio; and (5) Be sure you have a clear objective, point, and/or use-case for the end output.

How do I link an Excel chart to PowerPoint?

• Copy your Excel chart; 2. In PowerPoint’s “Home” tab, click “Paste”; 3. Select “Paste Special”; 4. Select “Paste Link” and “Microsoft Excel Chart Object” → The numbers are dynamic; 5. If you close Excel and then update the raw data, right click the PowerPoint chart, and select “Update link” to refresh the data.
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15 PowerPoint Tips & Tricks To Improve Your Presentations

Creating a presentation in PowerPoint will be significantly easier if you know a few tips and tricks. We’ve shown you how to change the size of your slides, insert a PDF , add music , and how to make your PowerPoint more engaging. 

Whether you’re brand new to creating PowerPoint presentations or you’re a pro, you can improve further by incorporating new PowerPoint design ideas. 

1. How to Lock an Image in PowerPoint

Locking an image in a PowerPoint presentation will prevent the image’s proportions or aspect ratio from getting distorted or out of scale.

To lock an image in PowerPoint, follow the steps below:

• Right-click on the image and select Size and Position .

• Check the box labeled Lock aspect ratio .

It’s also possible to lock an image or object so it cannot be resized or moved around the slide at all. This feature may be missing from most PowerPoint desktop versions. You might be able to right-click on an image, shape, or object and select Lock .

If you don’t see that option, one workaround is to place objects into the master slide. To learn how, read how to edit master slides in PowerPoint . 

2. Loop a Slideshow in PowerPoint

If you plan on continuously running a PowerPoint slide show, you can set the slideshow to loop instead of having to restart it manually.

• Open the PowerPoint you want to loop.
• Select the Slide Show tab.
• Select the Set Up Slide Show button.

• Check the box labeled Loop continuously until ‘Esc.’

• Select the OK button.

You’ll need to press the Esc key to end the looped PowerPoint presentation. Clicking on the final slide in your deck or pressing the right arrow key on your keyboard will cause the slideshow to restart.

3. How to Reduce the Size of a PowerPoint

PowerPoint files can become large if you’ve inserted high-resolution images or media files. We’ve got a few PowerPoint tips and tricks that can help reduce the size of your PowerPoint file.

• Embed only the font characters used in your presentation by selecting File > Options > Save in the menu on the left.

• If you’ve chosen to embed fonts in the file, select the Embed only the characters used in the presentation option.

• Select File > Options > Advanced .
• Under Image Size and Quality , check the box labeled Discard editing data .
• To further reduce the size of your PowerPoint, uncheck the box labeled Do not compress images in file and opt for a lower default resolution for your images.

• In the Picture Format tab, select the Compress Pictures button. You can choose whether to apply compression options to all images or only the picture you’ve chosen.
• Check the box labeled Delete cropped areas of pictures , and select Use default resolution . Press OK .

By reducing the size of your PowerPoint file, you’ll make the file easier to store and email.

4. How to Add and Print PowerPoint Notes

Add speaker notes to help the presenter remember what to say during the presentation by selecting the Notes button at the bottom of the PowerPoint. Type a script or just a few notes as reminders.

To print the presentation with the notes, select Notes Pages in the Settings section of the Print dialog box.

5. How to Edit PowerPoint Backgrounds

To add, remove, or edit a background graphic from your slides using the PowerPoint desktop app, you’ll need to select Slide Master from the View menu. Then, on the left, select the slide master or one of the layouts that appears below it: Right-click and select Format Background . Check a box labeled Hide background graphics .

If you’re using PowerPoint in a browser, you might have noticed there is no slide master. When you use the online version, you can directly add, remove, or edit any graphics that appear on a slide.

6. How to Link to Another Slide in the Presentation

Linking to another slide in the same presentation can be helpful if you anticipate the need to skip part of your presentation due to time constraints or refer back to a previous slide. It is as simple as adding a hyperlink.

• Select the text, image, or shape you want to use as a link.
• Select Insert > Link or right-click and select Hyperlink .
• In the Insert Hyperlink dialog box, under Link to , select Place in This Document .

• Choose which slide you want to link to and press the OK button.

7. Stay Consistent by Using the Format Painter

Consistency is a hallmark of a well-designed PowerPoint presentation. For example, slide headings should have the same color, font, and font size throughout the deck. Using the format painter makes standardizing all the headings and element labels in your presentation quick and easy.

• Select the content that has the formatting you like.
• In the Home tab, select the Format Painter .
• Next, select something else, and the formatting of the first element will automatically be applied.

Simple. To apply formatting to multiple elements, double-click the Format Painter and repeat step #3 above until you’ve applied the formatting to all the elements you want. Press the Esc key to stop using the Format Painter.

8. Look Smart with SmartArt

PowerPoint’s built-in SmartArt feature will help take your presentations to the next level. With SmartArt, you can convert plain, boring text to engaging graphics.

• Select the text you want to convert into a graphic.
• On the Home tab, select Convert to SmartArt .

• Select the option you like the most. As you move your mouse over the different options, you’ll see what your text looks like converted to that SmartArt option.
• If you’d like a SmartArt option that allows you to add pictures, select More SmartArt Graphics .
• In the menu on the left, select Picture .

• Select the option you like best.
• To add an image, select an image icon in a SmartArt element and choose whether to insert an image from a file on your computer or from an online source like Bing.

The SmartArt gallery has dozens of options to choose from. One of them is bound to make your slide more engaging.

9. Align Your Objects

You’ve used the Format Painter to ensure your formatting is consistent throughout your presentation. While you’re at it, make sure all your objects are perfectly aligned using PowerPoint’s Align tool.

• Select the objects you want to align by holding down Shift as you select each object.
• In the Format tab, select Align .
• Choose how you want the selected object to align.

• To distribute three or more objects evenly, select the objects, and then select Align and either Distribute Horizontally or Distribute Vertically .

Being intentional about how objects on your slides are aligned goes a long way to making a professional-looking presentation.

10. How to Use Picture Layout

When you’re working with a slide with one or more images, try using PowerPoint’s built-in Picture Layout tool. It’s SmartArt for images.

• Select all the images on the slide (hold down Shift to select multiple images).
• In the Picture Tools menu, select Format > Picture Layout .

• Mouse over the options to find the Picture Layout you like best, and select it.

If you decide you don’t want to use a Picture Layout, you can convert your images back to Shapes by selecting Design > Convert > Convert to Shapes .

11. Be Sparing with the Slide Transitions

Once you discover that you can add animations between slides, you might be tempted to try them all. However, you should remember the cardinal rule of PowerPoint presentations: less is more. If you absolutely must use a transition, stick to the simple ones like Cut and Fade .

• Select a slide.
• From the Transitions tab, select a transition.

• Select Effect Options if it’s available to choose additional settings for the transition.

• Select Preview to see the transition in action.

12. Use Animations Wisely

While you’re toning down your slide transitions, make sure you’re using animations judiciously, too. Animating text or objects on a slide can help the flow of your presentation, but too many animations can be distracting. Be discerning about when and where you use them.

To add animations and effects:

• Select the text or object you want to animate.
• On the Animations tab, select an animation.

• Next, select Effect Options to choose an effect. Note, the Effect Options will be different depending on which animation you have selected.

You can select different ways to start the animations. In the Timing section of the Animations tab, choose when to start the animation.

• On click . This option will start the animation when you click the slide.
• With previous . Choose this option if you want the animation to play at the same time as the previous animation in the sequence.
• After previous . The animation will begin immediately after the prior one concludes.
• Duration . This option allows you to make an effect last longer or shorter.
• Delay . Add some time before an effect begins.

To change the order your animations play:

• Select an animation marker on a slide (or toggle on the Animation Pane by selecting it in the Advanced Animation section of the Animation tab and select an animation in the list.)

• In the Timing section of the Animation tab, select either Move Earlier or Move Later .

To add an animation to a group of objects:

• Press Ctrl and select multiple objects.
• Select Format > Group > Group to create a group.
• Choose an animation from the Animations tab.

If you use them the right way, animations can make your presentation clearer and easier for viewers to understand.

13. K.I.S.S.

PowerPoint slides are most effective when they’re simple. When you include only the most important information on your slides, you make it easier for people to digest and remember your message. You can always say more about the topic, but don’t pack the slide with more content than you need. After all, your audience should be listening more than reading.

14. Seek Out High Quality Templates, Images, and Graphics

When you keep it simple, that means using images and graphics that look good. We’ve rounded up some great stock photo sites and places to get beautiful PowerPoint templates .

15. Export the Presentation as a Video

When you’re happy with your presentation, export it as a video:

• Select File > Export .

• Choose Create a video .

• Select the quality of the video and whether to use recorded timings and narrations.

• Set the duration of each slide.
• Select the Create Video button.
• Navigate to the folder where you want to save the video file.
• Select the Save button.

By implementing these tips and tricks, you’ll take your presentations to the next level!

However, perhaps despite all the tips and tricks you’ve learned, you’ve decided to swear off the software entirely. So many PowerPoint presentations have put audience members to sleep that we now have a term for it: “death by PowerPoint.” In that case, say goodbye to Powerpoint, and check out these seven alternatives to PowerPoint that you can use online. 

Maggie Marystone is a freelance technology writer, human rights worker, and storyteller based in Chicago. Read Maggie's Full Bio

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Top 25 Microsoft PowerPoint Tips and Tricks You Need to Know

Microsoft PowerPoint is a very useful tool to help with a presentation.  It provides a high impact medium to help you get the main thrust of your presentation across to your audience.

A presentation consists of a number of slides, showing information about each topic that you are talking about.  This gives structure to your presentation, and it also acts as a prompter to remind you of what you should be talking about, so that you do not miss off a topic.

The slides can be easily printed out to give to the audience as handouts.  The audience may easily forget various topics, and a handout of the slides enables them to refer back afterwards.

These points cover not only ways to do things when setting up your presentation, but also general information to help get your points across. The first four tips are all about how to make your presentation amenable to your audience, whereas the rest are to do with creating your slides.

Do Not Put Too Much Information on a Slide

A common mistake that is made is that too much information is placed on a slide. 

The audience will be too busy trying to read it all and will not concentrate on what you are saying. 

The other problem here is that the more information that you put onto a slide, the smaller the font point size that you have to use. Even when shown onto a big screen, small text can be very hard to read, especially for people sitting at the back.

The slide should show a skeleton of information which you can then talk around and elaborate on.

Turn your slide into bullet points , and use animations to make each point appear one by one. This way, the audience cannot ‘read ahead’ and lose focus on what you are saying.

Choose Your Color Scheme Carefully

The color and format of each slide is very important.  Each slide needs to be consistent in design, otherwise the presentation will end up looking like a hotchpotch of material.

Do not overdo the colors on each slide.  A blaze of color might look magnificent, but it is extremely distracting to the audience.

Make sure that the text on a slide is readable, even from a distance.  Make sure that someone sitting in the back row can read it.

Choose the text color with sufficient contrast so that it stands out from the background.  White lettering on a gray background does not work!  Black text on a white background may seem boring, but the task is to get your message across.

Position Yourself Facing The Audience

PowerPoint presentations are usually done on a laptop, with output going to a large screen.

Use the F3 key (depending on laptop) to display the presentation both on the big external screen and the laptop screen. You can also use Windows Key + P to do this.

When giving your presentation, you can then sit to one side of the big screen with your back to it with the laptop in front of you.

You can keep your focus on the audience without having to keep turning round to see what the big screen is showing and where you are in the presentation. 

If an audience member asks a question, you can easily answer it without having to lose eye contact with the questioner.

Always do a Complete Rehearsal Before Hand

As in any presentation, it is important to run through your presentation in the environment that you will be using to make sure that nothing will go wrong. 

If possible, use your colleagues to form a sample audience, and get them to sit as far away as possible, so they can highlight anything that is not getting through to them. Another pair of eyes is always useful!

With a presentation, you only get one chance to run it, so you need to ensure that everything is right first time.

Having a rehearsal also helps you see how the presentation works and gets you into a rhythm of working with each slide. 

You may also have a time constraint on how long the presentation should run, and this will give you the chance to edit if you look like over running.

Use PowerPoint Templates

PowerPoint has a number of stock templates which can be used as the basis for your presentation. These have already been prepared to show your text in the best possible way.

To access the templates, click on File to go backstage, and then click on New in left-hand pane of the screen.

You can select templates in various categories by clicking on the individual words in the Suggested Searches

Use Animations to Display Text as Needed

If a slide appears in your presentation which has several points already on it, the audience is in danger of reading ahead of you, and missing out on what you are saying about each point.

You can keep the text hidden until you click the mouse, and then it will magically slide onto the slide, keeping pace with your dialogue.

To animate text, select the text to be animated first of all.

Click on Animations in the ribbon and then select how you want to see your text appear on screen using the Animation group. 

The Effect Options icon gives you extra choices as to how you want to see the text appear. For example, you can have text appear from the top or the bottom.

Move Backwards in a Presentation

When you are doing a presentation and clicking the mouse to bring on each slide or animation, you can easily click twice by mistake, and your presentation moves forward before you have had time to talk about the slide.

This is very easily done, particularly if you are nervous about presenting.

This can be embarrassing, but it can easily be remedied. Simply press SHIFT + P and this will take you back one step.  Hopefully, the audience will not notice what has happened!

You may also need to go back to a slide if an audience member asks a question that relates to a previous slide.

Print Presentation with Space for Note Taking

You can print out all the slides in your presentation by pressing CTRL + P . This will give you options for printing, and you can print multiple copies.

This is ideal for distributing handouts to your audience.  They may wish to manually add notes to each slide, or just use it as a reminder.

Choose the 3 slides per page option to give people space to take their own notes.

See all Slide Show Shortcut Keys

When the presentation is running, press F1 and a pop-up window will be displayed showing shortcut keys to control the appearance of the presentation.

Draw on Your Slides While Presenting

You might need to highlight or emphasize a point during a presentation which you had not anticipated when preparing your slides.

Luckily can draw on your slides during a presentation by pressing CTRL + P . This will change the cursor to a pen dot (not to be confused with the printing shortcut tip).

Insert a Chart

Charts are a very good way of conveying information quickly, and they can be made to look interesting with different chart types and colors.

Charts can be copied directly from Excel and pasted onto a slide. 

Interestingly, the chart is a linked object, and will be automatically updated when the host Excel chart data changes. However, this could lead to problems if the host Excel file is deleted or is moved to another location.

You can also insert a chart into a slide by selecting Insert on the ribbon, and then clicking on the Chart icon in the Illustrations group.  This will display a pop-up window which will allow you to select the chart type.

The chart will then be displayed on the slide and an Excel spreadsheet style grid is also shown.  You can paste data into the grid from other sources, such as an Excel spreadsheet, or you can enter it manually.

The highlighted area in the data grid represents the chart data area.  This is automatically filled with sample data, but you can use it like a spreadsheet to add your own data.

Use the Shift Key When Inserting Shapes

When inserting a shape (such as a line, a square, or a circle) onto a slide, it can end up being not quite how you want to see it. For example, your line could end up not quite straight, or your circle could end up as an oval.

When you insert a shape and you go to draw the shape on the slide, hold down the SHIFT key and then draw it.  This will produce a straight line, or a perfect circle.

Use Transitions

You can create some very spectacular special effects when the presentation moves to the next slide by using Transitions .

You can make an object like a shape, picture or text change to a different size or shape, but to do it as if it appears to be squashed into the new shape.

This requires several steps to set this up:

• Create two new blank slides
• On the first slide insert a shape ( Insert on the ribbon and then Shape in the Illustrations group).  Choose a rectangle or a trapezium or any other shape that you wish to use.
• On the Home tab of the ribbon, click on the Select icon in the Editing group, and click on Selection Pane in the drop-down window that appears.
• A pane will appear on the right-hand side of the screen showing your new shape.  Double click on the shape name and edit it to !!Shape . The name must have two exclamation marks at the start of it.
• On the second blank slide, repeat the process of inserting a new shape and renaming it.  Edit the name to !!Shape using exactly the same name as for the shape on the first slide.
• Click on the new shape on the second slide and select the Transitions tab from the ribbon. Select the Morph icon in the Transition to This Slide group.
• Run the presentation. You will see that when you move from slide 1 to slide 2, your first shape transforms to the second shape in stages.

This is a very amazing effect, and is bound to help keep your audience interested.

Insert a Picture

You can easily insert a picture onto a slide.  This could be a picture of a company building or product. It could also be a company logo, which would provide a corporate identity throughout the presentation.

Select the Insert tab on the ribbon and then choose Pictures in the Images group. Select Online Pictures in the drop-down. If you want to inset a picture from your PC, select This Device in the drop-down and a file browser will be displayed.

This will display all the types of pictures found, such as planes, animals, etc. Click on your type and then select a picture from the subsequent display.

Images found online might be copyrighted and you might not have the right to use them. Use the Stock Images option when inserting an image to use royalty free images provided by Microsoft.

The picture will then appear on your slide in rectangular format.

You can change the shape of the picture by using the Crop feature.

Click on the picture and you will be in the Format tab of the ribbon. Click on the Crop icon in the Size group and click on the Size to Shape option in the drop-down.

This will display a pop-up menu of shapes. Click on the required shape like a circle, and your picture will now appear as an oval.

Remove the Background from a Picture

This is a very handy function which will allow you to remove the background from a picture and just leave the main object.

This process has several steps to it:

• Create a new blank slide
• Insert a picture as detailed in tip 13 above
• Click on the Picture Format tab in the ribbon and click on Remove Background on the far left of the ribbon
• This will remove most of the background, but some may still be there
• Click on Mark Areas to be Removed in the ribbon. The cursor will change to a pen
• Use the pen to mark further areas to be removed
• However careful you are, some areas may be removed that you want to keep. If this happens, click on Mark Areas to Keep in the ribbon, and use the pen cursor to define the removed part of the image.  This will then be re-instated.

A big advantage of this methodology is that you can copy and paste your new image into another application.

Record Audio

You can add an audio commentary on to your slides.  This would be helpful if the presentation is not being given to a general audience, but is being individually distributed to audience members by email.

Click on Insert tab in the ribbon, and then click on Audio in the Media group of the ribbon. Select Record Audio from the drop-down list.

A pop-up window will appear. Click on the red record button and speak your message. Click on the blue square to stop the recording.

Click OK , and an audio logo will appear on your slide in the middle of the slide.  You can select the audio logo and drag it to a different place on the slide if you wish to make it less obtrusive.

When the slide is played, recipients will hear your message.

Insert a Video Clip

You can add a video clip to a slide. This could be a short message from the CEO, or an endorsement from a satisfied customer.

Click on the Insert tab in the ribbon and click on Video in the Media group of the ribbon. Select Video on My PC from the drop-down list.  This will display a file browser which will allow selection of a huge number of video file types.

Select a file and click OK . The video will be added to the slide and will automatically play when the slide is presented.

Layering Objects

As objects such as shapes, pictures, or text are added to a slide, they are effectively layered, so that an object may partially obscure another object.

This may not be how you want to see these objects, and you wish to change the order in which they are layered.

Click on the Home tab of the ribbon, and then click on Select in the Editing group of the ribbon and select choose Selection Pane from the options.

A list of objects on the slide will be displayed in the order that they are layered.

To change the layering order, simply click on the object name in the selection pane, and drag it to the top of the list. This will instantly change the order and will be reflected on the slide.

Spell Checking

Checking the spelling on a presentation is very important. You do not want to be let down by obvious mistakes in front of an audience.

Click on the Review tab in the ribbon and then click on Spelling in the Proofing group of the ribbon. 

This will check through all the slides in the presentation, and display possible corrections in the spelling pane on the right-hand side of the slide.

Creating Symbols on a Slide

Where you are using text on a slide, you can type in a certain sequence of characters to get a specific symbol

• Two equals signs ( = ) followed by a greater than sign ( > ) will produce a large arrow pointing to the right.
• A less than sign ( < ) followed by two equals signs will produce a large arrow pointing to the left.
• Two hyphens ( – ) followed by a greater than sign ( > ) will produce a smaller arrow pointing to the right.
• A less than sign ( < ) followed by two hyphens ( – ) will produce a smaller arrow pointing to the left.
• A lesser than sign ( < ) followed by an equals sign ( = ) followed by a greater than sign ( > ) will give a double arrow.
• An opening bracket followed by followed by a closing bracket (c) will give a copyright symbol.
• An opening bracket followed by followed by a closing bracket (r) will give a registered symbol.
• An opening bracket followed by followed by a closing bracket (tm) will give a trade mark symbol.
• To insert a fraction, type the fraction like this 3/4 and then press the space bar.

Protect Your Presentation

If you are distributing your presentation to individual audience members by email, you may want to stop them making changes.

If the presentation is for an audience environment and is saved to a public folder, you may also want protection on it.

To access the protection settings, you click on File on the ribbon and then select Info from the menu on the left-hand side of the screen.

Adding Comments to a Slide

There may be more than one person creating the presentation, and it is handy to set up a means of communication between the multiple authors as to why they have done something on a slide.

You can add a comment attached to a specific element of the slide like a text box, picture or icon by selecting it and then clicking on Review in the ribbon, and then clicking on New Comment in the Comments group.

This will open the Comments pane on the right-hand side of the slide, and a text box will appear to allow you to enter your first message.

You then close the Comments pane, and other authors can view your comment by clicking on the Comment icon in the top-left hand corner of the slide. They can then add a reply so that a trail of discussion builds up.

The Comments icon does not form part of the presentation and will not appear.

@ Mention a User in a Comment

If your PowerPoint file is saved in SharePoint then you will be able to mention your colleagues in comments.

Type an @ symbol and then start typing their name. Select the person you want to mention from the list after typing out the first few letters of their name.

The person mentioned will get an email notification that they were mentioned with a link to the file so they can open it and respond.

Shortcut Keys

Shortcut keys are very useful when you do not want to go through all the menu steps on the ribbon. This is a list of the main ones, but it is not exhaustive.

Use the Eyedropper

You can use this useful function to copy background colors from different objects like another shape or text.

A simple example is to insert two shapes onto a slide.  Set them to different background colors by right clicking on each shape and selecting Format Shape from the pop-up menu.

Click on the first shape and then click on Shape Fill in the Drawing group of the Format ribbon.

Click on EyeDropper in the drop-down menu and a small square box will appear.  Drag this box around the slide. You will notice that as it moves it picks up the color of what is hovering over. 

When you find the right color, press RETURN and the background color of the first shape will change to the selected color.

Align Objects

When you add objects such as shapes, pictures, or text to a slide, they may not be very neatly aligned.  This makes the display look ragged and unprofessional.

To solve this, select all the objects to be aligned by dragging the cursor across.

A Shape Format tab will now appear in the ribbon. Click on the Format tab and then click on Align in the Arrange group of the ribbon, and a drop-down will be displayed with options of how you want the objects aligned.

Once you have selected the required option, the slide will be updated and the objects will be properly aligned.

Using Gridlines

You can switch on gridlines on your slide to help you with aligning and shaping objects.

Click on the View tab in the ribbon, and then check the box for gridlines in the Show group of the ribbon.  The slide will display gridlines to help with alignment, size and shape.

By clicking on the small arrow in the bottom right-hand corner of the Show group in the ribbon, you will get options to change the size of the grid, and also to use the grid as a snap grid so that objects will line up perfectly against the gridlines.

The gridlines are not visible when the slide is presented.

PowerPoint is an enormously flexible tool not only for producing an exciting and professional presentation, but also in terms of what can be achieved with graphics and video.

A lot of these tips and tricks are not necessarily apparent to the user, but they can save a lot of time and produce a really professional presentation.

Hopefully, it will inspire you to create a presentation that gets your message across to the audience in an outstanding way.

About the Author

Richard Shepherd

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Hi Richard, good tips for PPTx. I have a couple of macros in PPTm, using good old VBA. If I open macros.pptm while editing a file.pptx then I can use those macros from the custom toolbar. Give me your email so U can share my macros. Thanks, Phil

Thanks for the update on PowerPoint presentation. It is very educative and interesting.

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How to Make a Beautiful PowerPoint Presentation: A Simple Guide

Ready to craft a beautiful and attention-grabbing powerpoint presentation we’ll walk you through slideshow 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..

In this post, we’ll cover:

Key Elements of Winning PowerPoints

Illustrative, not generic, supportive, not distracting, inspiring and engaging, other considerations when creating a slideshow.

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

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

We’ll walk you through some slide design tips, show you 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.

1. Use Layout to Your Advantage

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

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

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

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

Try to structure your slides more like this:

And not like this:

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

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

2. No Sentences

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

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

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

Stick with this:

And avoid this:

3. Follow the 6×6 Rule

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

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

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

Slides should never have this much information:

4. Keep the Colors Simple

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

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

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

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

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

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

Stay away from color combinations like this:

5. Use Sans-Serif Fonts

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

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

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

6. Stick to 30pt Font or Larger

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

7. Avoid Overstyling the Text

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

• A change in color

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

8. Choose the Right Images

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

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

The ideal presentation images are:

• Inspirational

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

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

Tips on Making Beautiful PowerPoint Presentations

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Setting Appropriate Image Resolution in PowerPoint

Want to learn how to make a PowerPoint look good? Though you can drag-and-drop images into PowerPoint, you can control the resolution displayed within the file.

All of your PowerPoint slide layout ideas should get the same treatment to be equal in size.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Resizing, Editing, and Adding Effects to Images in PowerPoint

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

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

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

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

Cropping Images in PowerPoint

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

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

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

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

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

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

PowerPoint Presentations FAQs

What is the 5 5 5 rule in powerpoint.

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

How long should your PowerPoint be?

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

What is the easiest way to make a PowerPoint prettier?

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

License this cover image via F8 studio and Ryan DeBerardinis .

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7 of the Best PowerPoint Tips and Tricks for 2020

Below is a summary of the 7 Best PowerPoint Tips & Tricks for 2020. I will go into detail for each.

Start by Designing Your Speech. Then, Design Your Visual Aids.

Focus on just a few bullet points covered really well., make your slide a visual aid for the audience, not a cheatnote for you., avoid accessive photos, animation, and graphs on your powerpoint slides., be careful using recorded videos when delivering a live presentation, every once in a while, create a spontaneous visual aid., just about any other type of visual aid that you add can make your slideshow better..

I was working with a group of presenters last week. I mentioned offhandedly to design your speech first, then design your PowerPoint slideshow. A few minutes later, after we had covered a number of other tips, one of the ladies stopped me. She said, “I’m still thinking about that ‘design your speech first’ tip. That seems like such a simple solution, but I always start by designing my slideshow. And, incidentally, I always end up with a not-so-good speech.”

The truth is that most every presenter makes this fatal error. I call this the kung-fu movie approach to designing a speech. When I was a kid we sometimes watched dubbed kung-fu movies on TV on Saturday morning. The sounds and voices never quite matched what was happening on the screen. When you design your visual aid first, you create the same problem for yourself. Instead of designing an awesome speech, you design a pretty slideshow. However, now, you have to dub your speech into the pre-created PowerPoint show.

Here is something that you will likely never hear after a presentation. “That PowerPoint slideshow was just way too short and didn’t have near enough bullet points.” In fact, the absolute biggest complaint that audience members give after a speech is the opposite. “It was too long,” or “I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do as a result of all of that content.”

A good technique for determining what to cover in your bullet points is to ask yourself, “What are the absolute, most important things that my audience needs to know about this topic?” This technique will help you scrutinize your content so you are only including the most important pieces of content.

For instance, a bullet point like “Quarterly Expenses” tells the audience nothing. “Expenses Decreased by 7% Last Quarter” is much better. The later can be proven with data or a story. In the same manner, a bullet such as “What Happened to Expenses Last Quarter?” again tells the audience nothing. The audience may remember the question, but not the answer.

This is the tip that almost everyone fights. I’ve heard people say that you need lots of pictures because a “picture is worth a 1000 words.” In addition, I’ve also had people tell me, “Slides in our PowerPoint slideshows are ALL charts and graphs.” I hate to be the bearer of bad news, folks. Both of those concepts can be very bad for your audience.

We may end up doing a whole session on this topic because it is so big. For now, though, try a few of these tips and see if you get better results.

For instance, instead of putting lots of photos in your slideshow, try creating a board or poster with the picture. It will have more longevity and will look more professional. Instead of loading your slideshow with charts and graphs, create a handout for your audience. The handout will be much easier to read and understand.

A little animation can be fun and cute. A lot of animation, though can be a distraction.

If you decide to use videos in your presentation, be careful. The best way that I have seen videos used in presentations is as background animation while the speaker is talking. The video will then add to the speaker’s authority.

I sometimes play funny videos related to my topic during breaks. These add a little entertainment when no one is speaking at the moment.

One of the best PowerPoint tips and tricks is to stop using PowerPoint during your presentation. Every once in a while hit the “B” button on the slideshow to blackout the presentation. Then, create a spontaneous visual aid on a whiteboard or flipchart. Audiences like when speakers tailor the presentation to the group. Your delivery will seem even more customized to their needs.

The final PowerPoint tip is to use other types of visual aids as well as your slideshow. I’ve already mentioned posters, boards, handouts, spontaneous drawings and the like. However, there are dozens of other types of visual aids as well. For instance, when you tell a good story about one of your bullet points, you are creating images in the minds of your audience. So, stories and anecdotes are fantastic visual aids.

A good analogy can also help your audience see your point in a different way. What I’m saying here is to don’t be so tied to your slideshow that you forget that you are really communicating with your audience. If you rely less on PowerPoint, you will be a much better presenter!

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20 Best Update & Project Status Report Templates for PPT (2024)

Working on a big project can be stressful if you've got no idea of how it’s progressing. It’s easy to keep everyone on the same page and updated. Present the status of your project with a project status report PPT format.

Creating a project status report for PPT may sound difficult and time-consuming. But you don’t have to start from scratch. You can find hundreds of modern and easy-to-edit project status report templates online. I'll share some of the best project status report templates for PowerPoint .

Jump to content in this section:

Top 20 Project Status Report Templates for PPT From Envato Elements

How to quickly customize a premium project status template, 8 tips for creating a project status report, top 5 project status report design trends, common powerpoint questions answered (faq).

Take a look at some of the best project status report templates for PPT, all available on Envato Elements:

1. Imfea: Project Status Report Template for PowerPoint  

Looking for a professional and creative project status template for PowerPoint? This template will come in handy. The PowerPoint report template offers:

• 60 unique status update slides
• two color variations
• widescreen resolution
• image placeholders

This project progress report PPT also comes with custom icons and image placeholders.

2. Project Status Report PowerPoint Template  

This project status report template for PowerPoint has a modern design. It’s perfect for a project progress report PPT. The PowerPoint report template comes with many different slides to help you include relevant project details. It offers:

• five color variations for your project update slides
• download link to 800 vector icons

Start working with this project status update presentation PPT! 

3. Project Status Report Template (PPT)  

Project Status is a simple project status report for PPT. It comes with:

• 40 editable project status slides
• 10 color variations
• retina-ready format
• easy editing options

Designed in widescreen resolution to present a perfect project status report PPT, it also comes with custom icons and image placeholders. Likewise, this project status update template for PPT includes plenty of tables, charts, and other infographic elements. Use them to design a beautiful report.

4. Project Status PowerPoint Template  

Choose this project status update template for PPT. It's great if you’re looking for a bold and professional template. You’ll find:

• 20 unique status update slides
• based on master slides

The status report template PPT comes with icons, tables, and charts, plus plenty of infographic elements. 

5. A4 Vertical Project Status Report PowerPoint Template

Stand out with this vertical project status PowerPoint template. It includes many different project update slides. You'll find slides for an agenda, yearly Gantt chart, and task timeline. The template includes:

• five color variations
• 800 custom icons
• various infographic elements

6. Project Review PowerPoint Template

Wondering how to present your project status in PowerPoint? This template comes with modern and minimalist slide designs to make it easy to see the project status. It was designed in standard and widescreen resolutions. With this project update PowerPoint template, you'll get:

• 31 PowerPoint project status slides
• resizable graphics
• free web fonts 
• picture placeholders
• 16:9 widescreen ratio

7. Project Plan: A4 Vertical PowerPoint Template

This PowerPoint report template has a versatile and modern design. Use the template to create status report updates for any type of project. This vertical template comes with:

• dark and white versions
• vector icons

Also, these project status presentation slides are suitable for print. Start working with this original project report PPT template! 

8. Retail Pitch Deck PowerPoint Template

Try this PowerPoint report template if you're in the retail business. Find versatility in your project report design with this template. It comes with modern and professional designs, and it also includes:

• plenty of slide designs to add your content, including a status update slide
• 16:9 widescreen aspect ratio 
• blue, green, orange, salmon, and lavender color themes
• user guide PDF

9. Animated Project Update PowerPoint Template

Looking for an animated project update PowerPoint template? This marketing project status PowerPoint template has everything you need. Create a detailed project status report with awesome infographics. The template comes with:

• 100 unique project update slide designs
• five pre-made color themes
• 3,000+ icon pack
• fully and easily editable

It's perfect for a complete project status report in PowerPoint.

10. Radit Business PowerPoint Template

Here’s a modern PowerPoint template for project status reports. The project status report PPT includes:

• 39 unique project status slides
• 16:9 widescreen aspect ratio
• all graphics are resizable and editable
• documentation file

It also features a stunning design. Still thinking about how to present project progress in PowerPoint? This project status update PPT template is a great way to start.

11. Project Strategy PowerPoint Template

Looking for a more unique project status report in PPT? This PowerPoint report template comes with:

• unique and dark project status slides
• three color themes
• infographic elements

It's a great tool for project managers looking for work efficiency. This also works as a project update presentation sample. 

12. Brila Business PowerPoint Template

Create an original project progress presentation PPT with Brila. This project PowerPoint report template has a creative and colorful design and was designed in widescreen resolution. With this download, you'll get:

• all resizable graphics
• used and recommended free web fonts

Download this easy-to-edit project update presentation.

13. Company Profile PowerPoint Template

Wondering how to present project status in PowerPoint? This project status template also works as a company profile. It's easy to customize and edit. It comes with:

• five color themes (blue, red, green, orange, and grey)
• infographic elements, charts, and tables
• 800 vector icon set

Add your content to this project status update PPT. Insert your own photos in the image placeholders. 

14. Annual Report PowerPoint Template

This PowerPoint report template can easily be used for a project status report in PPT. The project status report PowerPoint has a professional design. It includes:

• different project update slides
• widescreen format
• six color themes
• plenty of infographic elements

Still wondering how to present a project status in PowerPoint? This template is a great place to start.

15. Movea Project Status Report PowerPoint Template

Here’s another great project status PowerPoint template. Create a beautiful status update slide with this template, which comes with editable icons. Also, find image placeholders with this project update template PPT. With your download, you'll get:

• 100 presentation slides in total
• 50 unique and editable presentation slide designs
• two options of color theme variations
• 16:9 HD widescreen slide format (1920 x 1080 pixels)
• image placeholders with slide master

Looking for a sample project report PPT? Start working with this amazing status update presentation. 

16. Rima Business PowerPoint Template

This cool and modern PowerPoint template has all you need. Rima has enough project status presentation slides PPT for you to play. Create a stunning project report with this template. It comes with:

• 39 unique project update slides
• resizable and editable graphics
• free web fonts

The PowerPoint report template also has image placeholders. This is one of the best project status reports in PowerPoint you'll find. 

17. Project Status Report PowerPoint Template

Looking for a project update presentation sample? Here’s another complete project status report PowerPoint template. Use it to create great-looking project reports. The PowerPoint report template comes with:

• 30 unique slides
• light and dark versions
• easy customization options

Wondering how to present a project status in PowerPoint? This template includes charts and infographics to make it happen.

18. Web Design Project Status PowerPoint Template

Are you a web designer working for different clients? Learn how to present your project progress in PowerPoint with this awesome template. Here are some of its features:

• 5 PPTX files
• 5 pre-made color themes

This modern project status template for PPT also works for any type of presentation. It has everything you need for detailed project reports. 

19. Proposal Project Update PowerPoint Template

This is a beautiful project status update PPT PowerPoint template. Use it for different project status reports. It comes with:

• 30 slides for a complete project progress presentation PPT
• widescreen slide format
• fully editable elements

The status update slide comes with image placeholders. This is a great project status update template for PPT.  

20. Holi Project Status Template for PPT

Last but not least! Create an amazing project status report PPT with this template. Holi is a simple PowerPoint template with a clean and bold design. It includes:

• 39 unique project status update slides
• drag-and-drop image placeholders
• custom icons

Design a stunning project status report. This is one of the best project status update templates for PPT.

Found your project status report template for PPT? Now you’ll need to customize it to fit your project details. Take a look at how easy it is. Customize a premium project status report template below. 

For this tutorial, I’ll be using Movea: Project Status Report PowerPoint Template. Find it on Envato Elements. This template has a modern and clean design. It comes with 50 editable project status update slides in two color variations. 

Let's get started:

1. Choose Your Slides

To delete unwanted slides, click on the View tab and select Slide Sorter . Then, hold down the Shift key and click on each slide you don’t want to keep. After you've selected all the unnecessary slides, right-click and select Delete slide . Then, switch back to Normal view . 

2. Add Your Content

Add your own content. Double-click on any text area and press Control-A or Command-A to select all the text. Then, paste your own content or type it in. 

3. Customize Fonts

As you’re entering the content, it’s easy to update your fonts at the same time. While the text is highlighted, select a different font from the drop-down menu on the Home tab of the ribbon. 

4. Customize Colors

To change the colors, click on the Design tab and select a different color theme. Or right-click on any colored area and select Format shape . Then, click on Fill > Solid Fill and enter your own color code. 

5. Add Your Own Images 

The last step is to add your own images or photos. Most PowerPoint project status report templates come with image placeholders. It’s easy to do. Click on an image placeholder icon, choose an image from your computer, and click Insert .

Add the necessary project status update slides to your PowerPoint report template. Here are some tips that can help you work with a project report template:  

1. Use Gantt Charts

Gantt charts are an excellent way to illustrate a project schedule in the form of a bar chart. This type of chart is a staple for any project status report. 

2. Talk About Solutions 

Even when these details were laid out before the project was started, talk about how your project is solving problems. This helps connect your audience with the problem and solution again. 

3. Break Your Project Down

Project status reports are about breaking down the components of your project, so turn them into digestible pieces. Consider one slide that contains a road map, section breakdown, or project phases. 

4. Add an Expenses Page

The road map to achieving a particular goal is important, and so is including your expenses. This expense slide can be a simple list of all the expenses that you've accrued.

5. Add Milestones

On a project status report, include all the milestones that you've reached. Add any future milestones that you plan to reach with your project. This is essential for your audience to know what you've done and what you plan to do. 

6. Add a Summary Slide

Be it at the beginning or the end of your presentation, it's a good idea to add a summary slide. This can be where you highlight the essential topic you'll touch on or give a reminder of what you just mentioned. Either way, it can help your audience keep their attention on crucial aspects of your presentation.

7. Provide Helpful Links

A great PowerPoint presentation shares the key points of a specific subject. However, sometimes, project status reports require more information and data. To that end, it's helpful to include links to resources that can help your audience seek more information if they need it. Here's one example of how to do it:

8. Highlight Next Steps

Last but not least, highlight next steps. Knowing the basis of where the project is at is incredibly helpful. However, it's just as (or even more) important to let your audience know what actions you'll be taking to keep the project progressing. Don't forget to highlight the course of action so everyone can be on the same page.

Deliver the most up-to-date designs to your audience in your project status reports. We've collected five of the top design trends in 2024. Use them in your own PowerPoints:

1. Include Multi-Colored Charts

Make the charts more interesting. Use many complementary colors to highlight lines, bars, and tables. Blue, green, and red colors work exceptionally well here. 

2. Add Dimension

Make your design seem more interesting and appear to pop out of the slides. Layer your elements on top of each other. This gives a sense of dimension in your slides that looks visually pleasing. Add solid shapes on your slides as this is one standard design that always looks great.

3. Use Highlight Colors

This can really help give a hierarchy to your slide design. This color can be a highlight color that's used for on the various shapes on your slides. Draw attention to a particular section on the slide, and display the most important information on that slide. 

For more color combinations that work well together, check out this article:

4. Include Various Types of Charts

Get creative with the different types of graphs in project status reports. Use them to highlight specific data for your project in your project status PPT. Pie charts, line graphs, bar charts, timelines, and infographics. All work well in a project status PPT. Only include charts that fit the particular content that you're presenting.

5. Use Icons

Most types of PowerPoint presentations come with icons in their slides. Create a complete project report PPT using icons as visual aids. They also work for a project progress presentation PPT.

Need even more PowerPoint templates? We'll cover even more premium templates that you can download.

Discover More Great PowerPoint Templates

Looking for a different PowerPoint template? Or need more inspiration for your project status report template design? The articles below will be useful:

Microsoft PowerPoint is a complete slideshow application. It's got all the features you could ever want in this type of software. To help you get the most out of PowerPoint for your presentations, we'll cover five frequently asked questions:

1. Can I Print My PowerPoint Presentations?

Absolutely! Need to print out hard copies of your PowerPoint presentations? You can easily do this within the software. But keep in mind that all your animations and videos won't be shown. 

For more information on how you can print your presentations, check out the article below:

2. Can I Customize Templates Easily?

All PowerPoint templates are fully customizable, regardless of what template you use. Templates will help you start with a professional design. Customize every aspect of the design to fit your particular presentation.

Learn how to edit your PowerPoints from the article below:

3. Can You Create Infographics in PowerPoint?

Infographics are a great way to add interest to your presentations, especially in project status reports. They give the viewer something to look at, while providing useful information about your project.

The best way to get started with infographics is with templates. Choose the ones that have them designed and ready to customize. For more templates that feature infographics, check out the article below:

4. How Can I Make My Presentations More Interesting?

PowerPoint presentations can be quite stale, but there are many different ways that you can spice up your slides. Here are some tips to create a captivating presentation:

• declutter your slides
• change up the colors
• use images for interest

Check out this article to find out how you can add interest to your slides:

5. Can I Record a PowerPoint Presentation Via Zoom?

Virtual meetings are a staple for any business in 2024. Don't miss any detail by recording a presentation on Zoom.

To begin a recording of a PowerPoint presentation, move your cursor over the menu bar in Zoom. To record your PowerPoint in Zoom, click Record .

For a more detailed explanation, follow the tutorial below: 

Learn More About Making Great PowerPoint Presentations

Creating great presentations can be tricky. Ready to learn more about making great PowerPoint presentations ? We've got you covered. Check out the tutorials below: 

Where to Find Great Project Status Report Templates

Are you looking for the best project status report templates? Envato Elements should be your first stop. This marketplace offers thousands of top-quality project status report templates for PowerPoint, as well as thousands of design assets.

Explore PowerPoint Status Report Templates

Browse our collection of the best project status report templates for PowerPoint, and find your next favorite presentation template!  

Editorial Note: This post has been updated with contributions from Daniel Strongin , Janila Castañeda and Dacia Egurrola . Daniel is a freelance instructor for Envato Tuts+. Janila is the Associated Editor of the Tuts+ Business channel. Dacia is a staff writer with Envato Tuts+. 

Create PowerPoint Presentations with ChatGPT: 4 Easy Ways

You probably know that ChatGPT is a powerful AI tool for generating text and answering questions. However, it can do much more than that. In fact, ChatGPT is changing how we approach presentation design.

Crafting professional PowerPoint presentations can be time-consuming and challenging, especially if you’re not a design expert. Luckily, ChatGPT makes it easier, helping you save time and create high-quality, engaging presentations.

In this article, we’ll explore how to use ChatGPT to create a PowerPoint Presentation. Let’s look at three simple ways ChatGPT can improve your presentation process.

Keep scrolling for step-by-step instructions, or check out the screenshots and GIFs to make the most of using ChatGPT for presentations.

Here are the topics we'll cover:

Can ChatGPT make a PowerPoint?

Why use chatgpt for powerpoint presentations.

• How to use ChatGPT to create a PowerPoint presentation?

Tips for Using ChatGPT to Create Presentations

Why 24slides beats ai in presentation design.

Technically, no. ChatGPT doesn't create PowerPoint files directly and can't design visual elements. However, it can be a useful tool in the presentation creation process.

ChatGPT can help you create content, suggest slide outlines, and provide ideas to enhance your presentation. Here are some other ways ChatGPT can save you time and effort in creating your next PowerPoint:

• ChatGPT can generate VBA code to create slides. Although the slides may be basic, they can be a good starting point for your presentation.
• Don’t know where to start? The AIPRM extension helps you get the most out of ChatGPT with ready-made prompts for your next PPT. 
• Want to maximize any AI presentation tool ? ChatGPT can help you craft the perfect prompt. The AI tool will then turn ChatGPT's output into a PowerPoint presentation.

Later, I’ll show you how to use ChatGPT to generate a PowerPoint presentation for each of these methods.

Using ChatGPT can be a game-changer for creating PowerPoint presentations. Here’s why:

• Save Time: Making a presentation not only requires effort but also time. ChatGPT quickly provides content, speeding up the process and saving you from starting from scratch.
• Enhance Content: It helps refine your message, suggest improvements, and create engaging text. It also simplifies complex concepts for your slides.
• Generate Ideas: ChatGPT gives you fresh ideas and unique insights for your slides, helping you present your material in a more compelling way.
• Automate Tasks: ChatGPT can generate VBA code to automate repetitive tasks, like formatting and slide design. This makes it easier to handle large presentations.
• Ensure Consistency: ChatGPT ensures consistency in language, quality, and tone, giving your presentation a professional touch. It also minimizes grammar and language errors, making your slides clear and well-written.
• Seamless Integration: With tools like the AIPRM extension , you can use pre-made prompts to get a jump start on creating effective presentations.

How to use ChatGPT to create a PowerPoint presentation

Now that we know ChatGPT helps create PowerPoint presentations, let's explore the different ways we can use it. 

Feel free to explore the method you find most useful!

• Use ChatGPT for Slides Outline and Content
• Use ChatGPT to Create a PowerPoint Using VBA Codes
• Use ChatGPT AIPRM Extension to create a PowerPoint

Use ChatGPT with an AI Presentation Tool

1. use chatgpt for slides outline and content.

ChatGPT can help you brainstorm and outline your slides. You can generate detailed content for each slide by providing key points to cover in your presentation.

Step 1: Ask ChatGPT for a Table of Contents

First, you need a strong prompt. It should clearly state the topic, audience, objective, and slide count to ensure the content is relevant, well-organized, and has the right tone.

Use this ChatGPT prompt format:

“As an expert in [field/topic], create an outline for a PowerPoint presentation on [list of topics] for [target audience]. The objective is [state the objective]. Structure it to fit [number] slides. Use a [tone/style] tone.”

Here’s an example:

Step 2: Refine the ChatGPT Output

Once the outline is created, you have a good starting point to refine the content. You can expand or reformulate the information on each slide. The goal is to help ChatGPT get the result you're looking for.

Use this ChatGPT prompt to improve the content:

"Please expand the information for each slide. Include interesting facts to enhance engagement and provide more value."

Step 3: Add ChatGPT content to your PowerPoint

Once you have the content for your slides, you can transfer it directly to your PowerPoint presentation. Just copy and paste the content generated by ChatGPT, making sure you keep the structure.

Format the text by adjusting fonts and sizes to match your slide design. Here’s an example:

You now have a great starting point. From here, You’ll need to add design elements and media, plus adjust the layout and content to enhance visual appeal.

2. Use ChatGPT to create a PowerPoint using VBA codes

By using ChatGPT to provide VBA code, you can streamline the process of creating presentations. But before we start, let's answer this question:

What is VBA?

VBA, or Visual Basic for Applications, is a programming language that automates tasks in Microsoft Office apps like PowerPoint. By using ChatGPT, you can quickly generate VBA code to create and customize PowerPoint presentations, making the process faster and easier.

Step 1: Ask ChatgPT for the VBA PowerPoint code

You can use a ChatGPT prompt like "Write me VBA PowerPoint codes on [topic]..." However, the more detailed your explanation of the content, the better the result will be. Here’s an example:

Write me a VBA code for a PowerPoint presentation on [list of topics] for [target audience]. As an expert in [field/topic], structure it to fit [number] slides with a [tone/style] tone. The objective is [state the objective].

Then, ChatGPT will provide an output like this:

This is the code used to create a presentation in Powerpoint.

Step 2: Open PowerPoint and copy the VBA code

• Open PowerPoint and press ALT + F11 to open the VBA editor.
• Go to Insert > Module to create a new module.
• Copy and paste the code into the module.

Step 3: Create and refine the PowerPoint Presentation

• Press F5 to run the code and create the presentation.
• Check the content and make changes as needed.

Of course, we will need to add images and media. If needed, you can ask ChatGPT for more information and repeat this process to generate a new VBA code.

3. Use ChatGPT AIPRM Extension to create a PowerPoint

This is one of the easiest methods to simplify your PowerPoint creation process. There's no need for any ChatGPT prompts. But first, let's answer this question:

What is AIRPRM?

AIPRM is an extension designed to enhance ChatGPT's capabilities for creating and refining content, including PowerPoint presentations. 

This AI tool provides pre-made ChatGPT prompt templates to streamline your PowerPoint creation process. With AIPRM, users get automated suggestions, better formatting, and tailored content within the ChatGPT interface.

Using AIPRM Extension for PowerPoint

• Step 1: Open your browser and search for "AIPRM ChatGPT prompts." You can use this link .
• Step 2: Download and install the AIPRM extension.
• Step 3: Log in to your ChatGPT account.

Once the extension is installed, your ChatGPT interface will have new options and templates. Here’s an example:

• Step 4: Type “PowerPoint” in the search bar. This will give you a list of AIRPRM ChatGPT prompts for PowerPoint.

• Step 5: Select a prompt and click on it. It will appear in the chat bar.

• Step 6: Follow the format. Add the presentation topic and VBA instruction. In this prompt, the format is as follows: PowerPoint, Slides, VBA.

For this example, I will use Digital Marketing, 10, VBA.

• Step 7: Hit Enter. ChatGPT will generate a VBA code as in the previous method (#2).

After ChatGPT generates the VBA codes, paste the code into the Visual Basic Editor in PowerPoint. Next, run the code to generate the slides. To do this, follow the steps in the previous method (#2). 

Here’s a summary:

• Open PowerPoint.
• Press Alt + F11 to open the VBA editor.
• Insert a new module by clicking Insert > Module.
• Press F5 to run the macro and create the presentation.

Step 1. Choose Your AI Presentation Tool:

• Research and choose the best AI presentation tool for your needs. Our last article, “ 10 Best AI Tools for Creating Impactful Presentations ,” can help you.

For this example, I will use Gamma. In our review, this AI maker scored 4.5/5 for ease of use. Additionally, it offers a free plan. Use this link to sign up.

Step 2. Ask ChatGPT for a Presentation Outline

• First, you need a strong prompt. To ensure accuracy, I’ll reuse the prompt from method #1

• Once you have the outline, you can refine and expand the content for each slide. The aim is to help ChatGPT generate the best results.

Use a ChatGPT prompt like this to improve the initial output:

"Please expand the information for each slide. Include interesting facts to enhance engagement and provide more value." 

Step 4. Copy and paste the ChatGPT output into the AI tool

Since we're using Gamma for this example, here's what we'll do:

• In Gamma, choose “ Paste in text .” You already have the outline from ChatGPT.
• Copy and paste the ChatGPT prompt and click “ Continue .”
• Set the number of “ Cards ” to match your slides.
• Click “ Continue ”.

Step 5. Generate and Refine Your PowerPoint Presentation

• Select your favorite theme and click “ Generate .”
• Wait a moment while Gamma AI generates the presentation.
• Review the slides and refine the content.

You have a strong starting point. Enhance the visual appeal by adding media, adjusting the layout, and refining the content.

• Use Specific Prompts: The more detailed your prompt, the better the result will be. You should clearly mention the topic, audience, objective, and the number of slides. This will keep the content relevant.
• Understand ChatGPT’s Capabilities: ChatGPT excels at generating content but doesn't create visuals or handle design elements. Since Chat GPT doesn't have a presentation maker, you'll need to complement its outputs.
• Review the Content: Always review and edit the generated content to ensure it is accurate, coherent, and aligned with your presentation goals. ChatGPT can make mistakes, so check important info.
• Refine Your Output: Even if you're very specific, it's hard to get the perfect content for your presentation on the first try. Feel free to adjust your prompts based on initial outputs. The first outputs often highlight what is needed for the best outcome.
• Integrate ChatGPT into Your Workflow: Refining an existing idea is easier than starting from scratch. Use ChatGPT to generate fresh ideas and create outlines for your presentation. You can tailor your prompts based on your specific experience and needs. Additionally, consider using VBA code to automate repetitive tasks like summarizing information and creating bullet points.

AI tools like ChatGPT are excellent for generating content and speeding up the design process. 

However, refining prompts to achieve a decent result can be time-consuming. In contrast, 24Slides lets you create a professional, on-brand presentation with just a few clicks.

In our AI vs. professional designer comparison, it's clear that the perfect prompt isn’t enough. You’ll still need many adjustments for a polished result. Most AIs don't fully understand the context of your command or what you really have in mind.

At 24Slides , we believe nothing can replace the human touch in crafting standout presentations.

With 10+ years of experience and more than 200 designers worldwide , we are the world’s largest presentation design company.

Unlike AI tools, our world-class designers understand your needs deeply. They ensure that each slide is not only visually appealing but also aligned with your brand and message. 

Want to see what we can do? Try us out for just $1. We’ll design a custom, editable one-slide presentation that truly reflects your brand for just one dollar!

Don't miss this incredible deal – from $43 down to $1!

Looking for more info? Check out these articles!

• 10 Best AI Tools for Creating Impactful Presentations
• AI vs. Professional Presentation Designer: A Comprehensive Comparison
• The Ultimate Guide to Pick the Perfect Presentation Design Agency For You
• 8 Questions to Ask Before Hiring a Presentation Design Agency
• Discover the Top 15 Presentation Design Agencies & Services to Use in 2024

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