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How to Make a Presentation: A Guide for Memorable Presentations

A presentation goes beyond the idea of crafting a catchy document to present in front of an audience. It is an art in which a person relies on communication skills to introduce a topic relevant to a group of people, regardless of its size. Different elements participate in this communication process, such as body language, presentation skills, visual tools, etc. and are key in delivering an effective presentation.

In this article, we shall present a detailed guide on how to make a presentation, intended both for newcomers in this subject but also for professional presenters who seek to improve the performance of their presentations. Let’s get started.

Table of Contents

What is a presentation?

What is a powerpoint presentation.

• The Importance of a good PowerPoint presentation
• Choosing a topic

Consider the audience & presentation goals

Gather data, references, and source.

• Define the storyline
• Define the outline  

Using one idea per slide

Choose the presentation format, colors & styles, determine the use of metaphors and visual slides, proofreading and polishing process, prepare your speech, rehearse, rehearse and rehearse.

• How to give a memorable presentation

Start strong

Hook your audience, close your presentation.

• Selecting a PowerPoint template
• Add or delete slides in PowerPoint
• Adding images to slide templates
• Adding notes to your slides
• Adding animations to your slides
• Adding transitions to your slides
• Adding audio narration to your slides
• Ideal typeface and size

Color scheme

Printing your powerpoint presentation, powerpoint presentations tips, closing thoughts.

What is a presentation, and what is a PowerPoint presentation?

It is essential to highlight the difference between Presentation and PowerPoint Presentation, often interchangeable terms. One thing is a presentation, an audiovisual form of communication to present information. A PowerPoint presentation is a subset of a presentation. Since PowerPoint remains the leading tool in the market for creating presentations, the term was coined by both spectators and presenters. Let’s begin by checking the main differences between the two terms.

A presentation is any situation in which a person or group has to transmit a message in front of an audience. The format by which the audience attends can answer the following categories:

• Live crowd: A presentation in which the average number of spectators exceeds 100 people. 
• Massive event: Similar to the format above, but we speak about thousands of spectators. This format has specific requirements regarding scenario setup and logistics, and the usual presenters are influencers in worldwide conferences or corporate events (like All-Hands meetings).
• Private event: A selected number of attendants can listen to the presenter. Coaching sessions are the leading kind of private event for presenters, but multiple other categories can fit into this format.
• Online event: Following the trends of remote working and what the pandemic has left us in terms of digital immersion, multiple events shifted their large attendance numbers in favor of online settings. This has the advantage of a narrowed setting, as the area in which the presenter has to stand is considerably reduced – with simpler A/V inputs. Attendees are given a link to the event and watch from their computers or mobile devices.
• Offline event: This medium is what we consume via YouTube videos. Behind each and every YouTube video is countless hours of content development, editing, rehearsing a presentation, and so forth. We call it offline because attendees can browse the content at any time, replaying as desired, unlike Online Events in which the attendees must be logged in to a specific platform. No interaction with the presenter.
• Hybrid event: This is a format coined by large tech companies, the automobile industry, and even fashion brands. The idea is to create an event where a selected number of attendees are allowed to participate (using the Private Event model). Still, at the same time, the event is streamed for users worldwide (Online Event) and/or available on the official social media networks of the brand (Offline Event).

Each one of these formats exposed above has specific requirements in terms of interaction with the audience. For example, in-company presentations will differ from common presentations that seek to capture the interest of new consumers. It is vital to establish the presentation’s intent from the very first moment and then narrow it down according to the topic to present, as well as the knowledge level of your target audience.

A presentation does not necessarily requires to create a slide deck . It is a tool presenters use to make the content more interesting for the audience and also memorable. However, it is well-known that influencer speakers such as Tony Robbins or Warren Buffet ignore PPT documents altogether, preferring to articulate their narrative on the go.

A PowerPoint presentation is a specific type of presentation, which involves the usage of a slide deck crafted with Microsoft PowerPoint. This kind of tool allows presenters to communicate a message through a vast range of mediums, such as images, graphs & charts, audio, and video for a better impact.

Creating a PowerPoint presentation is an easy process, and there are two routes for it: working from a blank slide or using PowerPoint templates .

Some of the advantages of building a PowerPoint presentation:

• Better information retention by the audience, thanks to visual cues.
• Improves the audience’s focus.
• Easy to create powerful graphics.
• Templates are editable, meaning you can repurpose the original designs to meet your standards.
• Saves time to create presentations thanks to its user-friendly UI.
• Encourages teaching and learning processes.

The Importance of a Good PowerPoint presentation

There are some elements that presenters must take into account when making a PowerPoint presentation . It’s not just drag-and-drop, then magic happens. Creating a PowerPoint presentation involves a process of generating the graphic content to display and the narrative around it. The purpose of PowerPoint is to serve as a tool to enhance communication, not to make it overly complex.

We emphasize the relevance of working the speech and graphic content together since the speech itself gives the timeframes for each slide, what elements it contains, or whether it is relevant to use a slide or not to speak about a topic. 

Some points to highlight when preparing a presentation:

• Presenters often use the element of surprise. This means a presentation can start without a slide, use a video, or involve a discussion between two parties, then jump to the slide deck presentation. More on this topic later on.
• A good PowerPoint presentation can be your introduction card in multiple professional settings. The effort you put in terms of design and content shall pay back over time in contacts or business deals.
• Having a spare copy of your presentation, preferably in Google Slides presentation format, is a safe-proof technique in case the PPT file gets corrupted. The aesthetic remains the same and can be browsed by any computer with internet access.

How to Make a Presentation (5 Essential Points)

1. planning your presentation.

The first step in making a presentation is to plan the content according to our personal/business goals and the audience’s interest. Let’s break down each part in more detail.

Choosing the topic of your presentation

There are two situations for this. The first one is that you are open to presenting any topic of your preference. This usually happens in business presentations, inspirational presentations, product releases, etc. The second scenario is restricted, by which you have to pick a topic among a selected number of references. That’s the typical situation in which presenters see themselves when taking part in significant events – as not all topics are suitable for the main content of the event, and this is where creativity comes to play.

How to choose a topic, you may ask. Brainstorming is a good technique as long as you remain within the boundaries of this formula:

What you know and feel confident about + What is relevant to the current moment + What can resonate with your audience = Quality Content.

Again, if you experience restrictions due to the nature of an event, but your objective is to share specific information about your business, here are some tactics that can come to play:

• Do keyword research about the topics your business is involved. See the common patterns in your activity compared with the keywords. Then research the 15 articles on the 5 biggest volume keywords. Narrowing the possibilities in your business is a different take.
• Research whether there’s room for sponsored advertisement. That’s an alternative when directly speaking about your business is a no-no in a presentation.
• Turn your presentation into an inspirational story. That works in most events and brings the audience’s interest.

Another vital point to consider is how passionate you can be about the topic of your choice. Nothing speaks more about professionalism than a presenter being deeply involved with the topic in discussion. It sparks curiosity and gives validation as a reliable authority on the content. On the other hand, when a presenter delivers a talk about a topic they don’t connect with, body language usually betrays the presenter. Spectators feel that the speaker wished to be elsewhere, hence dooming the presentation’s performance (and badly impacting the presenter’s reputation).

Consider the purpose of the content to present. Is it going to be informative? Educational? Inspirational? That shall set the tone of your speech later on.

Like with any project, you can estimate the ROI of your presentation with two verifiable metrics: the behavior of the audience and how many contacts did you build after delivering an effective presentation.

Making a presentation has the implicit purpose of helping you construct your network of professional contacts. Even when the presentation has no explicit financial purpose – as in the case of non-profitable organizations, there is still the acknowledgment component. People want to feel validated for the work they do. People want to build long-lasting contacts that can later on turn to be part of a new project.

Considering the audience is imperative, and often one of the pitfalls many presenters fall prey to. You must be aware of the following:

• The knowledgeability of your audience about the topic to discuss. This filters the option of using technical jargon during a presentation.
• The age range and demographics of your audience. It is not the same to discuss a methodology to reduce financial risk to a group of corporate workers in their 40s than to a group of students in their early 20s. The language is different, the intention behind the message is different, and so is the information retention span.

On regards to presentation goals, they can be classified as professional goals (those who seek conversions or valuable business contacts), influential (to establish a brand in the market), educational (to inform a group of people about a topic you researched), etc. Depending on the presentation goals, you can then structure the content to list and the tone in which you speak to your audience.

2. Preparing content for your presentation

No presentation can be made without reference material. Even when you believe you are the most prominent authority about a topic – you have to prove it with valuable, referenceable material. For some niches, this is critical, such as scientific poster presentations, educational presentations, and other areas in which copyright might be an issue.

References for the material you used can be listed in different formats:

• If you are citing a book/article, you can do a bibliography slide, or screenshot the excerpt you want to cite, then include a proper source format below the image.
• You have to credit the author for images/videos that are subject to intellectual property rights. Depending on the context where the image is presented, you may even have to inquire the author about using the image. If the photo in question is yours, no citation is required. Learn more about how to cite pictures in PowerPoint .
• Graphs and charts should include a reference to what they mean, explaining in a short sentence their context. Cite the source if the graph is extracted from a book or article.

As a tip, prepare a document in which you jot down the references used to create the presentation. They can serve whenever a question is asked about your presentation and you must research extra material. 

Define the presentation storyline

We interpret the storyline as what is the connecting thread of your presentation. What do you wish to discuss? What motivated you to present this topic in this particular setting and in front of an audience? What can your message deliver in terms of new information and quality to your spectators?

All those questions are worth asking since they shape the narrative you build around your presentation. The storyline is the step before building an actual outline of your presentation.

Define the presentation outline

Now that you have a clear idea of your reference material and the story to tell behind your presentation , it is time to list down your presentation structure in a Table of Contents format. Keep in mind this is for internal reference, as the outline is a tool for writing the speech and creating the slides. You don’t have to list the outline in a presentation; if you desire, you can do a simplistic version with an agenda slide.

Be specific. Don’t let any topic be broad enough to lead to confusion. Sometimes, it is best to list many elements in a presentation outline, then trim them down in a second iteration.

This is perhaps the biggest mistake presenters make in the professional context when creating a new presentation. Slides are free; you don’t have to jam everything in, wishing people get an instant idea about EVERYTHING you will discuss in one slide. Not only does it become overwhelming for the audience, but it is also a faux pas in terms of design: when you use too many elements, the hierarchy does not seem clear enough.

Opt for the “one-idea-per-slide” technique, which, as the term refers, implies using one slide per concept to introduce. Work with as many slides as required, but just one main idea by slide. Your presentation becomes clearer, easy to digest for a non-knowledgeable audience, and also serves as reference material on how to pace your presentation.

3. Designing your presentation

The following section contains guidelines about the different aspects that shape a presentation structure . If you are looking for an all-in-one solution that implements these teachings into presentation design, try SlideModel’s AI Presentation Maker . A time-saver AI-generation tool for presenters powered by Artificial Intelligence.

Event organizers have a saying in the presentation format, which can be online or a live event. Depending on which, users have to structure the elements of their presentation to match the final output. An example of this: it’s not the same to create a PPT slide deck for an event in which you stand on a stage, in front of a live audience, than when you present via Zoom call, using your computer screen to cast the presentation. 

The format is different because text usage and images are perceived differently. For starters, an online presentation is most likely to draw users to read the entire content of your slides than a live presentation. The audience may not get your body language in an online presentation, merely watching slide after slide with the presenter’s voiceover. In some conditions, it can be incredibly dull and hard to follow. 

Do your research with the event organizers about which format shall be used. When it comes to in-company presentations or educational presentations, the format is usually live, as the audience is selected and part of the same organization (that being a company or a school/university). If a webinar is required for an in-company format, ask the organizers about the length of the presentation, if it is possible to interact with the audience, deliverable requirements, etc.

The aspect ratio for a presentation format usually follows the 16:9 format or 4:3 format. Presentations built in 16:9 aspect ratio are the standard , rectangular format PPT templates, which also serve to be printed without many distortions in regular A4 files. As we work with a rectangular format, there are two axes – horizontal and vertical, in which presenters can arrange the content according to its importance (building a hierarchy). Working with a 4:3 format is more challenging as it resembles a square. Remember, in a square there are no visible tensions, so all areas have the same importance. 

As a recommendation, the 4:3 aspect ratio is a safe bet for all projectors & beamers. When working with a 16:9 slide and the projector is 4:3, the content gets squeezed to fit the required ratio, and for that very reason, it is advised to increase the font size if you use a 16:9 slide on a 4:3 projector. Be mindful about logos or photographs getting distorted when this conversion happens.

The 16:9 ratio looks more visually appealing these days as we get used to TVs and mobile devices for browsing content. New projectors are usually intended for 16:9 format, so you won’t experience any inconvenience in this regard.

No, not every color works harmonically with other colors. Colors have a psychology behind their usage and impact, and to not make this guide extensive, we highly recommend you visit our article on color theory for presentations . You can find suggestions about which colors you should use for different kinds of messages to deliver and what each color represents in terms of color psychology.

The color you use in your presentations must be in accordance with your branding. For example: you should definitely not build a presentation with a bright, bold magenta neon tone when your logo contains green neon-like hues. If you work with a PPT presentation template that doesn’t match the color of your branding, we recommend you check our guide on how to change color themes in PowerPoint .

Regarding typefaces, do never use more than 3 different typefaces per design. It is best to stick to 1 or 2 typefaces, using the variations each font offers in terms of weight.

An example of this:

You create the heading title (H1 size) with Open Sans bold. Subtitles should be done in H2 size using Open Sans regular. Body text in paragraph size, using either Open Sans Regular or Light. Words to emphasize shall be bolded for important terms and italics for foreign terms to be explained.

Use a cohesive color scheme that fits the background, graphics (such as charts and bar graphs), text, and even images. It helps the audience to understand concepts more naturally and gives a pleasant experience to the sight.

Just as badly a slide deck filled with text is felt by the audience, the exact impact can be attributed to a slide deck that only contains images. The audience may feel disconnected, not understanding the purpose of the presentation. A second side-effect is when the spectators wish to browse the slides to study, as in the context of an educational presentation. If the presenter does not include any text guidance, the slide deck is a mere collection of images without any reference that helps remember the presentation.

Work in balance, like a 3:1 ratio between graphic elements and text. For every 3 graphic elements, a text box must be included.

Using metaphors in presentations is a great idea to introduce complex topics or to tell a story. Say, you want to make the audience aware of your company’s challenges to reach its current standing in the industry. Using a roadmap template that depicts a mountain is an excellent idea as it reinforces the ideas of “challenge” and “teamwork.” 

4. Final touches and polishing your presentation

Before giving any presentation, you should dedicate at least one day to this polishing process. Let’s break down the process for easier understanding.

• Do a first iteration of your slides. The objective here is to grasp how everything looks in terms of design. Check the alignment of images and text, any color inconsistencies, typos, etc.
• Rehearse your presentation one time, tracking how much time it takes to perform the presentation.
• If any information is missing that’s worth adding to the slides, proceed to add it. If there are elements that can be reduced, trim them.
• For time-restricted presentations, get a clear idea about how much time it takes to complete your presentation, plus 5 extra minutes for a Q&A session.
• The second iteration should check the tone of your writing, and double-proof any spelling, punctuation and grammar errors. 

After two complete iterations, your presentation is ready to go to the next stage.

Even though we believe the speech is partially built as you prepare your presentation slides, you should dedicate an extra section of time to prepare your speech correctly. This process involves the following steps:

• Identifying the purpose of your presentation. The core element of why you are speaking to this audience.
• Get to know your audience, their interests, their challenges, and what can they possibly wish to overcome.
• Adding value. This is vital – your presentation has to leave a lasting message to your audience on what they are interested.
• A strong start and a strong finish. Don’t neglect any of these elements.

Writing down your speech in notes is a must. It is the tool you can use to rehearse your presentation, and -in case you feel anxious- you can include some speaker notes in your presentation (which won’t be visible to your audience) to help you structure the speech.

Practice makes perfect. Rehearsing does not imply memorizing the entire presentation, as that would make your speech robotic, and prone to errors. How? Imagine a person asking you a question in the middle of your presentation, a question you didn’t expect. A prepared presenter can easily manage the situation because of the background built around the topic. A presenter that memorized a speech and robotically repeated its content can feel unease, losing focus for the remainder of the presentation.

Some valuable tips on the rehearsing process:

• Record your rehearsing sessions. You can use tools like Presenter View in PowerPoint to track your time. 
• Make it a memorable event. Creating an engaging presentation requires creativity, so consider brainstorming for new takes on adding exciting elements to your presentation for attention retention.
• An exercise recommended by Tim Ferris is to mimic the conditions as closely as possible. This helps to reduce presentation anxiety, and also to get used to cameras and spotlights or evaluate your body language.
• If possible, ask a friend for feedback on your presentation performance. This is particularly helpful for new presenters to get used to interacting with the audience.

5. Presenting (your presentation)

Now it’s time to talk about the presentation and your performance when delivering it in front of an audience. Giving a presentation has many aspects to discuss, from start to end, the techniques to keep your audience interested in the topic, and also recommendations to make a memorable event. Let’s get started.

How to give a Memorable Presentation – Delivering an Impactful Presentation

There are multiple methods to approach a presentation and deliver an impactful presentation. Let’s be honest, not everyone feels comfortable when standing in front of an audience. For that reason, we want to lay out some fresh ideas to help you bring your best to your spectators.

The first element you ought to be aware of is body language . It has to feel natural, not overly acted but also not stiff. Think of a presentation as a similar scenario in which you have a deep conversation with a group of people about a topic you are passionate about. That mindset helps to ease anxiety out of the equation. Avoid crossing arms or constantly pacing across the stage – that only shows impatience and lack of interest.

Keep the concepts simple. Don’t overload your presentation with unnecessary jargon; if you feel something cannot be easily explained, go break down concept by concept until the whole idea is understandable. Graphics are a fantastic asset to help you in this process and boost your performance as a presenter. 

Be mindful of not doing any of these common pitfalls:

• Including large chunks of text on a single slide.
• Using intense background colors that make it difficult to understand the contents of the slide.
• Don’t read every single element in your slides – this is perceived as boring by your audience.

One particularly interesting approach is by Guy Kawasaki, author of the book “The Art of the Start.” He considers the best presentations to be handled using 10 slides, lasting no longer than 20 minutes, and using a 30pt font size. That’s known as the 10-20-30 rule in presentations . It helps you to condense the content for the sake of information clarity.

In case you don’t use a PowerPoint presentation, there are multiple ways to make a presentation memorable:

• Tell a story, but connect with your audience in terms of body language. Play with the elements on the stage (much like TED presenters do), and let the audience feel the experience of your story by being as detailed as possible within the time frame.
• Using a video is an incredibly engaging tool, as it lets you introduce a topic you will discuss in more detail later.
• Use a visual impact in the form of an image with a dramatic element (i.e., climate change consequences, technological advancements, children engaging with technology or studying, etc.). This allows to hook the audience into what’s due to come next.

Knowing how to start a presentation is a critical skill all presenters ought to master. There are several approaches for this behalf, but for the sake of this guide, let’s stick to the following ones.

Using the Link-Back formula

This consists of throwing a story in front of your audience that explains who you are, what your background is, and why your speech should make a difference in the life of the spectators.

The Link-Back formula is beneficial for creating an emotional connection with the audience.

Using a Hook

Asking a rhetorical question, using a powerful fact, or other well-known hook techniques is a plus when starting a presentation. We shall talk about hook techniques for presenters in the next section.

Using a captivating visual

Much like the power of storytelling , visuals impact the audience’s psyche, especially if the presentation is about a trendy topic. Create a quality graphic with any of our designs at SlideModel, a graphic designer’s help, an AI Image Generator, or work with a video.

A hook is a tactic used by presenters as an opening statement but can be used in different areas of the presentation if it has an ample length. Much like the metaphor suggests, they serve to attract the audience to what you are communicating.

Research on attention span during lectures suggests a gradual decline in the audience’s interest in the presentation. That’s exponentially increased if you miss the chance to give a powerful first impression. Check this list of hook techniques to enhance the performance of your presentation skills:

• Asking rhetorical questions – better if a series of them on the topic to discuss.
• Using catchy phrases.
• Using a contrarian position, explain why such thinking harms the topic you wish to introduce.
• Historical event referencing.
• Making a powerful statement, best if data related. (i.e., “Every year, 8 million tons of plastic gets into the ocean, which equals to a truckload being dumped every minute” )
• Using the word “imagine”. It’s one of the powerful words in you can use in presentations .
• Add the comedy element – NB: be careful not to overdo it.
• Apply a “what if” scenario – this hook is similar to the “imagine” but with more data added.
• Tell a story.
• Spark curiosity.
• Smartly use quotations. Do not stick to text-book quotations but give your insight on why the quote is relevant for your speech.

Photo 9: Slide using a hook

Most people assume that ending a presentation equals doing a recap. It is a bad idea since your audience feels as if you haven’t planned a conclusion for your presentation. 

Another bad practice is to end with a Q&A format. Although questions and answers are often a required part of any presentation, they shouldn’t be the end of your presentation. You can include questions during your presentation or opt for a proper closure of the presentation past the Q&A session.

There are some powerful strategies to give a memorable ending to a presentation:

• Include a CTA on the lines like “Join our journey!” or similar that make the audience part of a bigger story.
• Close using a relevant quote. The idea is to deliver something that can linger, so the audience remembers your content.
• Use a story to close your presentation, as long as you avoid using a case study. The idea is to close with a meaningful thought, not with boredom.

We recommend you check our article on how to end a presentation for more ideas before reaching this stage of your presentation.

How to Make a PowerPoint Presentation (Quick Steps)

In this section, we will see how to use PowerPoint to make a presentation . Starting from creating a blank presentation or choosing a pre-defined PowerPoint template to preparing the presentation structure by adding PowerPoint slides and then working on the design of the presentation, we will explain how to make a visually-appealing and eye-catching PowerPoint presentation and how to create a slideshow in PowerPoint.

1. Selecting a PowerPoint template

When making a PowerPoint presentation, Professional PowerPoint Templates bring the advantage of not needing to think about complex graphic design decisions. However, there are certain aspects worth considering prior to picking the perfect PowerPoint template.

• Color aesthetic : If your presentation has to be done quickly, stick to PowerPoint templates that resemble your company’s branding palette. Although color can be changed, it is best not to lose time with extra adjustments.
• Opt for minimalistic designs : It is one of the most suitable ways to remain elegant in the professional world. You won’t be signaled for using a template that speaks seriousness on its design – and take for granted everyone shall badly remember the presentation that overdid color or graphics (or even worse, typeface effects).
• Avoid using heavy transition effects : Not all computers are as powerful as the ones you own. The simpler you make your presentation, the best it shall play on any PC.

As in life, there are advantages and disadvantages of using Premium or Free PowerPoint Templates vs. starting from a blank slate.

Advantages of PowerPoint templates when making a presentation

• Speed up the presentation design process.
• Reusable designs, ready for any situation.
• Helps to present data in an understandable format.
• Complex design decisions are made for users.
• Color pairing and font pairing are done for users.
• Helps to reduce the usage of text in slides.

Disadvantages of PowerPoint templates

• We are not learning to use advanced PowerPoint tools, as designs come pre-made for users.
• It can hinder creativity.
• Not every presentation template for PowerPoint is suitable for any topic.
• A professional team of PowerPoint template designers must be behind those templates to ensure quality.

2. Add or delete slides in PowerPoint

When we create PowerPoint Design ideas , not every slide makes the cut for the final presentation. Users then feel overwhelmed about those slides: will they be visible in the final presentation? Should you make a new PPT file without those extra templates? How to clone the “good” slides into a new file?

Instead of worrying about that process, we have here a guide on how to add, delete and rearrange slides in PowerPoint that explains, step by step, how to get rid of the unwanted slides or add more content to your presentation.

3. Adding images to slide templates

Some presentation templates and slide decks include entirely editable placeholder areas, and those boxes do not imply text only – they can include images, graphs, videos, etc. Say you want to add more images to your slides – it is as easy as replicating one of those placeholder areas with CTRL+C / CTRL+V (CMD for Mac users) or going to Insert on the Ribbon’s menu, then Picture . 

If you plan to move elements in your slide design, we recommend you get familiarized with how to lock an image in PowerPoint , so the images that shouldn’t be altered remain in position. This technique is ideal when your images are surrounded by plenty of editable graphics.

4. Adding notes to your slides

Presenters often struggle to remember key pieces of information due to performance anxiety or because they were moved from focus by an unexpected question. Using speaker notes in PowerPoint is the answer to prevent becoming stuck, since those notes won’t be available to the viewers – they remain visible only on the computer where the presentation is being streamed.

Keep in mind this technique works when the presenter is sitting next to the computer. If you have to stand in front of a crowd, opt to use different memory-recalling techniques when you feel out of focus.

5. Adding animations to your slides

Another technique presenters use adding animated objects or effects. This is as easy as following these steps:

• Select the object/text you desire to animate.
• Go to Animations in the Ribbon and select Add Animation .
• You can stack animations on a simple object to make unique effects.

Using animated presentation templates is an alternative when you don’t feel confident about adding animations. 

6. Adding transitions to your slides

Transitions are animated effects that happen when you change between slides during a presentation. Some people love them, while others prefer to stay away from them. 

If you want to add transitions to your slides, follow these steps:

• Select the slide you want to add the transition effect.
• Go to Transitions in the Ribbon, and choose a transition.
• If the transition allows the Effect Options menu, you can alter that transition’s direction and behavior.
• Click on Preview to visualize the effect.
• To remove a transition, select Transitions > None .

7. Adding audio narration to your slides

Sometimes, presenters opt to add audio narrations to the slides. The advantage of using this medium is to increase accessibility for visually impaired users. We created a guide on how to add audio narrations in PowerPoint that explains the procedure in detail.

Considerations for your PowerPoint presentation

Ideal typeface and font size.

There are multiple opinions on which typeface is ideal for presentations. Experience tells us the ideal typeface to work with is one that is system-available, meaning you don’t have to install a new font in the computer used to present. Why? You may ask. Simple: If the font used is not available on a computer, PowerPoint will automatically render a different font (sometimes even a different typeface) to replace and display the text appropriately. That action, which is replicated by other software such as Google Slides, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Apple Keynote, etc., can drastically change your design. 

Font size for titles should be between 36-44 pt. Paragraph font size between 24-28 pt. Use bold to emphasize concepts, and italics to insert foreign terms or quotations. Alternatively, you can make quotations to be displayed on a single slide, using 36 pt size, in italics.

Remember, these recommendations about size are intended for presentations in a live format. If the presentation is streamed through Zoom, using screen sharing, reduce the font size by 10-15% to avoid incredibly large texts. Test your presentation beforehand to be on the safe side.

The color scheme used is a primary part of your presentation design. When defining the presentation color palette , we recommend working within the colors that make part of your branding scheme. 

If we speak about a personal presentation or a presentation with no logo, then opt for pastel tones that don’t create harsh contrast between text and background.

Above all things, avoid these conflictive color combinations:

• Yellow and green
• Brown and orange
• Red and green
• Neon colors combined
• Purple and yellow
• Red and purple
• Black and navy
• Navy and red (unless you use a muted red tone or control the amount of red used)

Sometimes, printables are a requirement by event organizers, which represents a challenge to many presenters. We want to give a helping hand on this behalf, offering tips that can improve your printing experience:

• Always work within margins when adding content. It helps not to downsize the presentation, which often renders the text illegible. 
• If you have to print a presentation that uses intense background colors, opt for laser printing instead of inkjet. Laser printing won’t make the paper look odd when it is full-color print. The extra price is worth it when presenting a quality product.
• On the same lines about color-heavy presentations, ask for thicker printer paper than the average. This option is often advised when opting for laser printing.
• Run a print proof before ordering a large printing order. Colors can significantly change due to the RGB to CMYK conversion.

In this section, we want to list valuable tips to power up your presentations for their best performance. Some of these tips are tailored to presentation skills, others to design ideas, but ultimately, you can take in mind these tips the next time you need to make a powerful presentation in PowerPoint.

Tip #1. Using Video Presentations

An alternative to conventional presentations is to work with video presentations . These are particularly useful in academic and educational environments since they can convey large chunks of information in a memorable, easy-to-digest format. 

If we consider that social media platforms like YouTube and TikTok are transitioning into professional content for creatives, you should consider using video presentations when the situation arises. As a plus, you can repurpose that presentation on your website or other official social media channels for your company.

Tip #2. Drop Shadows and Text Shadows

When we intend to create interesting contrasts between elements, color isn’t the only option to try. Learn how to work with drop shadows in PowerPoint to make images and objects stand out from the presentation. It is an effect that boosts a tri-dimensional feeling in the presentation.

Using text shadows in PowerPoint – with extreme caution – is an excellent method to highlight titles instead of using fancy colors or other 3D effects. Do not overdo the text shadow, as it makes the text illegible. 

Tip #3. Working on your Presentation Skills

Giving presentations in front of an audience is, as we have seen, a process that involves many factors. One of those is the human element and the speaker’s ability to resonate with the audience. Therefore, we advise presenters to work on their presentation skills early, especially for mastering different kinds of presentation approaches, such as persuasive presentations (used in sales).

Tip #4. Editing Background Graphics in PowerPoint

Sometimes, PPT presentation templates include quality backgrounds that make the design pop from the screen. Yet, some of those backgrounds may not be suitable for all brands in terms of color, textures, etc.

Learn today how to edit background graphics in PowerPoint and create outstanding presentations in just minutes.

Tip #5. Google Slides compatibility

Finally, we want to remind users that almost every PowerPoint template has compatibility with Google Slides – if you intend to upload the presentation into the Cloud. Google Slides is an online tool for creating slideshow presentations, and one of its features is that we can convert PowerPoint presentations into Google Slides format. The converted slides are entirely editable, allowing presenters to count with a backup plan in case the PPT file doesn’t work or the computer to use doesn’t count with PowerPoint.

This is not an exhaustive list of presentation tips, but they offer a starting point for those who want to create attractive and effective PowerPoint presentations. You can also create presentations in other ways, and leveraging AI, for example. Check out the article how to create a PowerPoint presentation with ChatGPT to learn how to use Large Language Models to prepare presentations.

As we have seen, making a presentation is a complex process involving different skills, from knowing how to deliver a speech to having essential graphic design criteria. 

While it is true that PowerPoint presentation templates make the process far more manageable, we shouldn’t entirely rely on them. A PowerPoint presentation isn’t a presentation on its own. It is a medium by which presenters showcase their ideas and structure the speech, but one cannot live without the other.

We hope this guide can give you a better understanding of how to create a successful presentation. See you next time!

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Business Presentations, Presentation, Presentation Approaches Filed under Business , Presentation Ideas

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What It Takes to Give a Great Presentation

• Carmine Gallo

Five tips to set yourself apart.

Never underestimate the power of great communication. It can help you land the job of your dreams, attract investors to back your idea, or elevate your stature within your organization. But while there are plenty of good speakers in the world, you can set yourself apart out by being the person who can deliver something great over and over. Here are a few tips for business professionals who want to move from being good speakers to great ones: be concise (the fewer words, the better); never use bullet points (photos and images paired together are more memorable); don’t underestimate the power of your voice (raise and lower it for emphasis); give your audience something extra (unexpected moments will grab their attention); rehearse (the best speakers are the best because they practice — a lot).

I was sitting across the table from a Silicon Valley CEO who had pioneered a technology that touches many of our lives — the flash memory that stores data on smartphones, digital cameras, and computers. He was a frequent guest on CNBC and had been delivering business presentations for at least 20 years before we met. And yet, the CEO wanted to sharpen his public speaking skills.

• Carmine Gallo is a Harvard University instructor, keynote speaker, and author of 10 books translated into 40 languages. Gallo is the author of The Bezos Blueprint: Communication Secrets of the World’s Greatest Salesman  (St. Martin’s Press).

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How to Make Effective Impactful Presentations (Tips & Tools)

Learn how to make a good presentation great - step-by-step with examples. Learn the principles, guidelines & qualities needed to prepare captivating slides.

Dominika Krukowska

12 minute read

Short answer

Short answer: how to make a good presentation.

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

Provide context with a bit of background information

Structure your presentation within a story framework

Make every word count, and use as few as possible

Use visuals only to support your presentation text

Use interactive design to make your audience active participants

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

Boring presentations are instantly forgotten. How’s yours?

Lifeless presentations can spell doom for your message, leaving your audience disengaged and your goals unreached.

The price of a mediocre presentation is steep; missed opportunities, unimpressed prospects, and a bad rep.

In a world where everyone has grown to expect a good story, a boring presentation will be instantly forgotten. Like a drop in the ocean.

But not all is lost.

This post will teach you how presentation pros create compelling narratives and leverage the latest tech tools to command attention, drive a powerful message, and get shared like gossip.

Let’s get started!

How to prepare a presentation?

The successful presenter understands the value of small details and thorough preparation like the seasoned chef knows the importance of quality ingredients and careful technique for serving a 5 star dish

But where do you start?

Step-by-step guide for preparing a presentation:

1. Define your objective

Every presentation needs a clear goal. Are you looking to persuade, educate, or motivate? Perhaps you aim to showcase a product, or share insights about a recent project.

Defining your objective early on will guide your content creation process, helping you to focus your message and structure your presentation effectively. Think of your objective as the North Star guiding your presentation journey.

2. Analyze your audience

Next up, who are you talking to? Your audience should shape your presentation as much as your objective does. Understanding their needs, interests, and background will enable you to tailor your message to resonate with them.

Are they experts in your field, or are they novices looking for an introduction? What questions might they have? The more you know about your audience, the more compelling your presentation will be.

3. Research your topic

Once you've defined your objective and analyzed your audience, it's time to delve deep into your topic. Comprehensive research lays the groundwork for a robust, credible presentation.

Don't just scratch the surface – explore different perspectives, recent developments, and key statistics. This will not only enhance your understanding but also equip you with a wealth of information to answer any questions your audience might have.

4. Choose the right delivery format

Finally, consider the best format to deliver your message.

The right format can make all the difference in how your message is received, so choose wisely!

PowerPoint presentations are classic and easy to work with. But PowerPoint and Google slides are not so versatile in terms of their content experience. They're static, packed with information, and all look alike.

Our own presentation maker offers interactive, personalized, and multimedia content experience.

Data from our research of over 100K presentation sessions shows that audiences engage with Storydoc presentations 103% better than PowerPoint.

How to create an effective presentation?

There’s part art and part science in creating high-engagement high-impact presentations.

An effective presentation is the painstaking result of well-organized content, visuals that support and elevate your message, simplifying complex information, and personalizing wherever possible.

I wrote this post to teach you how to do all these, and a few things more.

Ready to learn? Let's dive in!

How to organize your presentation content?

Crafting a compelling presentation is like writing a page-turner.

You need to captivate your audience, maintain their interest, and guide them effortlessly through your narrative.

But how do you transform a heap of information into a well-structured presentation you can’t stop reading? There’s a structure you can follow.

3-step process for organizing a magnetic presentation:

1. Prioritize content

Your presentation should immediately capture interest and demonstrate relevance before moving on to establish understanding .

A) Build interest:

Begin with a strong hook that grabs your audience's attention. This could be an intriguing statistic, a powerful image , or an engaging question. It should stir curiosity and make your audience eager to hear more.

B) Establish relevance:

Once you have their attention it's time to establish why your presentation matters to your audience.

Address your audience's main concerns. Make sure your content directly speaks to these pain points, and address them in order of importance.

2. Build anticipation

A great presentation is like getting a new car – it builds anticipation, takes you on a thrilling ride, and ends with you wanting to share the experience with all your friends.

Start with a compelling problem your audience relates to and follow up with a promise of an amazing way they can solve it. This problem-solution dynamic creates a suspense that keeps your audience glued to your presentation.

3. Use a story framework

Finally, use a story framework to give your presentation structure and flow.

Begin with a big idea that underpins your presentation. Then delve into the problem, showcasing why it needs attention. Present your solution, painting a vision of a better future for your audience.

Weave in concrete examples of how your solution changes lives.

Tell the story of WHO you helped, WHAT the situation was before and after your solution, WHERE and WHEN it happened, WHY it worked and HOW it made them feel.

If you’re writing a business presentation you should follow this with an execution plan that outlines how the solution will be implemented.

Finally, close with clear next steps, guiding your audience on what they should do after the presentation to bring meaningful change into their lives.

Our recommended story framework:

How to design your presentation?

A good presentation is more than just making it look pretty ; it's about communicating your message effectively and creating a lasting impression.

Good presentation design grabs attention, and leads it to where it’s needed most. It takes your hand and leads you through the easiest and most pleasant path to understanding.

Good presentation design supports your message rather than steals the spotlight. Good design is narrated design.

What is narrated design (Scrollytelling)?

Scrollytelling, where "scroll" meets "storytelling", is an interactive content experience that guides readers through a narrative journey with a simple scroll. It connects text, images, videos, and animations into integrated “scenes” where content is both shown and narrated.

Scrollytelling breaks complex content into digestible chunks and gives the reader control over pace. It has been scientifically shown to enhance engagement, understandability and memorability.

Scrollytelling came up as a central thing when Itai Amoza, our Founder and CEO was building the foundations for Storydoc.

He partnered with one of the world’s leading visualization scientists , prof. Steven Franconeri , to help him bring to Storydoc the means to reduce the complexity, friction, and information overload so characteristic of business presentations.

Scrollytelling is part of the solutions that came up, which led to specialized storytelling slides like our narrator slide (in the example below).

An example of Storydoc scrollytelling:

How to design presentation visuals to support your story

Presentation visuals can be unsung heroes or sloppy distractions.

Visuals can bring your message to life, make complex concepts easy to understand, and engage your audience in ways that words alone cannot. Or… they can sit there looking all pretty and distract you from what’s really going on.

4 elements of great presentation visuals:

Support your message: Your visuals should support your text, highlight your main message, and align with your objective. They should reinforce your points and help your audience understand your message.

Represent your audience: The best visuals are relatable. They should resonate with your target audience and reflect their world of associations. Use images and graphics that your audience can identify with – this can enhance their engagement and make your presentation more memorable. Equally important is using clean images - an effective way to do this is by using tools that allow you to remove your image backgrounds . By eliminating distractions and focusing on your subject, you create images that are more impactful and, therefore, can potentially increase audience engagement.

Introduce your product, outcomes, and clients: Wherever possible, use visuals to demonstrate your product, illustrate outcomes, and represent your clients. This can remove doubt and misunderstanding by letting your audience see (and make obvious) what words sometimes struggle to describe.

Follow your branding guidelines: Your presentation is an extension of your brand, so your visuals should conform to your branding guidelines. Consistent use of colors, fonts, and styles not only enhances brand recognition but also creates a cohesive, professional look.

Here’s an example of a well-designed presentation:

How to communicate complex information?

Did you ever have to read a presentation where you felt like you're lost in a maze of jargon, data, and complex concepts?

Are you giving others this same experience?

Communicating complex information is a common challenge in presentations. But there are ways you can simplify your presentation and reengage your audience.

Here’s how you can get complex information across:

1. Use interactive content

Interactive content is your best friend when it comes to simplifying complex information and getting deeply engaged with your content.

It gets the readers more involved in your presentation by letting them play an active part; like choosing the content route they wish to take and controlling the pace.

It keeps your presentation textually lean - giving readers the choice to expand more details on demand (in tabs, live graphs, sliders, accordions, and calculators).

Beyond that, live graphs can illustrate trends, animations can demonstrate processes, and videos can bring concepts to life.

Calculators, questionnaires, and chatbots provide personalized and specific answers to readers as part of your presentation, without them having to get in touch with you or your team.

Elavating your presentations from static to interactive has been tied to increasing the number of people who read your presentation in full by 41% !

Making interactive used to be hard, but now you can just use Storydoc. Go make your first interactive presentation. It’s easy as pie.

2. Show don’t tell

A picture is worth a thousand words. Because no one will read a presentation with a thousand words, do everyone a favor and use images.

Images can be super effective at communicating complex information and save you a lot of needless text.

In fact, visual representation of data and concepts can often convey what words cannot. Use diagrams, infographics, and images to illustrate your points and simplify the complex.

The goal is to create a visual narrative that complements your verbal one.

3. Narrate your content

Storytelling is another powerful tool for communicating complex concepts.

Whether it's through text to speech AI, video bubbles, or a scrollytelling narrator slide, narrating your content can help guide your audience through the complexity.

By giving your information a narrative structure, you can make it more digestible, engaging, and memorable.

According to Sales Hacker’s data, people remember up to 10% of numbers and 25% of images they see. When you center your presentation around a story, this rises to 60-70% .

4. Use examples and allegories

Examples and allegories help unravel the complexity of ideas.

They scaffold your message with concepts we already know and understand, and can easily imagine in our mind. This makes them less new and intimidating and more familiar.

Critically, the real secret lies in selecting examples that are not just familiar but also deeply relevant—those are the ones that will truly ring with your listeners.

If you tailor the allegory to your audience's world, it is guaranteed to lead to an “aha” moment.

5. Open a line of communication

Finally, invite dialogue. This could be through a chatbot or an option to book a meeting for further discussion. This not only helps clarify any confusion but also encourages engagement and deepens understanding.

For example, finishing your presentation with an interactive calendar to book a meeting instead of a generic “Thank you” slide has proven to boost conversion rate by 27% !

How to personalize your presentation?

Imagine attending a party where the host doesn't remember your name or anything about you. Not a great experience, right? The same holds true for presentations.

In a sea of generic content, personalization can be a lifeline that connects you to your audience on a deeper level. It’s also the single most important predictor of success, getting 68% more people to read your presentation in full .

But how do you add that personal touch?

1. Address reader by name

Just as you wouldn't start a conversation without a greeting, don't start your presentation without acknowledging your audience.

Using your audience's name can make your presentation feel like a personal conversation rather than a generic monologue. It's a simple yet powerful way to engage your audience from the get-go.

2. Use their company logo

Including your audience's company logo in your presentation can make them feel seen and valued. It shows that you've taken the time to tailor your presentation to them, enhancing its relevance and appeal.

Plus, it's a subtle way to reinforce that your message is specifically designed to address their needs and challenges.

3. Add a personal message (video or text)

A personal message can go a long way in building a connection with your audience.

It could be a video message from you, expressing your enthusiasm for the opportunity to present to them, or a text message highlighting why the presentation matters to them.

This personal touch can make your audience feel special and more invested in your presentation.

4. Personalize your Call-to-Action

Finally, cap off your presentation with a call to action that speaks directly to your audience.

Swap out the generic 'Contact us' with something that gets to the heart of their needs, something like, 'Let's roll up our sleeves and tackle your [specific issue] at [their company].'

By tailoring your call to action, you show your audience you've truly got their back, that you're not just here to talk, but to make a real, positive impact on their world.

Here’s an example of a personalized slide:

How to measure the effectiveness of your presentation

Imagine if you could peek into your audience's mind, understand what resonated, what fell flat, and what drove them to action?

Presentation analytics is essential in order to guide you on how to fine-tune it for maximum impact.

But how do you get your hands on presentation analytics?

Any presentation you create with Storydoc comes with an out-of-the-box analytics suite , ready to track and provide insights.

We give you 100% visibility into how people engage with your presentations and send you real-time engagement alerts.

Here’s a video explaining how you can track performance with our analytics panel:

4 critical presentation engagement metrics to keep track of

1. Reading time

Storydoc gives you the precise time prospects spend reading your presentation so you can quickly figure out what's hitting the target and what's not.

Are they soaking up every word or just quickly skimming through? This can help you shape your content to hit the bullseye.

NOTE: Keep in mind that reading time alone might not show you a full picture. A better way is to use a smart engagement score that brings together different metrics like time spent and depth of reading. You can get this kind of total score in Storydoc.

2. Reading completion

Another basic metric we track is how many people read your content from start to finish.

This metric is a strong sign of the prospect’s interest and your content quality. It shows you if they're finding the information relevant, but also worth sticking with till the end.

3. Next step conversion rate

This one tracks how many people take the next step after they check out your presentation. This could be filling out a form, setting up a meeting, or downloading more files.

For business presentations, measuring this can show how well your presentation is pushing people further down the sales funnel.

At the top of your analytics dashboard, you can find a tab that shows you how many people clicked on your CTA divided by presentation, date, and location. If you scroll down to the list of readers, next to each person you can also see whether they clicked on the CTA or not.

Here's what it looks like:

4. Number of shares

This metric is particularly important for B2B sales teams . As more people are getting involved in buying decisions, this measure helps you see if and when your content is being passed around inside your prospect’s company.

On the analytics dashboard, under each presentation version, you can find detailed information on how many people read it. So, the higher the number, the more your presentation has been shared internally.

We'll notify you when your presentation has been shared, and who opened it, so you can time your follow-up perfectly to your buyer’s readiness to advance further.

Here's where you can find this information:

Best tool for making an effective presentation

In the realm of presentation tools, classics like Google Slides and PowerPoint offer simplicity and ease, while Canva and Pitch add a dash of design flair and collaboration.

If you're seeking to elevate your presentations to new heights you’ll need to do better than simple PowerPoints or flashy Canvas. Next-gen AI presentation tools like Storydoc are your game-changer.

They break free from the static concept of slides and offer the creation of interactive, immersive content experiences that sweep us along like a good story.

Grab a template - create your best presentation to date

Ever wished for a secret recipe to whip up a killer presentation? We've got something even better! Our interactive presentation templates are your shortcut to success.

Say goodbye to hours of formatting and hello to captivating, interactive presentations, all with a few clicks.

Grab a template and turn presentation woes into wows!

Hi, I'm Dominika, Content Specialist at Storydoc. As a creative professional with experience in fashion, I'm here to show you how to amplify your brand message through the power of storytelling and eye-catching visuals.

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How to make a great presentation

Stressed about an upcoming presentation? These talks are full of helpful tips on how to get up in front of an audience and make a lasting impression.

The secret structure of great talks

The beauty of data visualization

TED's secret to great public speaking

How to speak so that people want to listen

How great leaders inspire action

Ready to get started?

• Inspiration

23 presentation examples that really work (plus templates!)

• 30 Mar 2023

To help you in your quest for presentation greatness, we’ve gathered 23 of the best business presentation examples out there. These hand-picked ideas range from business PowerPoint presentations, to recruitment presentations, and everything in between.

As a bonus, several of our examples include editable video presentation templates from  Biteable .

Biteable allows anyone to create great video presentations — no previous video-making skills required. The easy-to-use platform has hundreds of brandable templates and video scenes designed with a business audience in mind. A video made with Biteable is just what you need to add that wow factor and make an impact on your audience.

Create videos that drive action

Activate your audience with impactful, on-brand videos. Create them simply and collaboratively with Biteable.

Video presentation examples

Video presentations are our specialty at Biteable. We love them because they’re the most visually appealing and memorable way to communicate.

1. Animated characters

Our first presentation example is a business explainer video from Biteable that uses animated characters. The friendly and modern style makes this the perfect presentation for engaging your audience.

Bonus template:  Need a business video presentation that reflects the beautiful diversity of your customers or team? Use  Biteable’s workplace scenes . You can change the skin tone and hair color for any of the animated characters.

2. Conference video

Videos are also ideal solutions for events (e.g. trade shows) where they can be looped to play constantly while you attend to more important things like talking to people and handing out free cheese samples.

For this event presentation sample below, we used bright colours, stock footage, and messaging that reflects the brand and values of the company. All these elements work together to draw the attention of passers-by.

For a huge selection of video presentation templates, take a look at our  template gallery .

Business PowerPoint presentation examples

Striking fear into the hearts of the workplace since 1987, PowerPoint is synonymous with bland, boring presentations that feel more like an endurance test than a learning opportunity. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Check out these anything-but-boring business PowerPoint presentation examples.

3. Design pointers

This PowerPoint presentation takes a tongue-in-cheek look at how the speakers and users of PowerPoint are the problem, not the software itself.

Even at a hefty 61 slides, the vintage theme, appealing colors, and engaging content keep the viewer interested. It delivers useful and actionable tips on creating a better experience for your audience.

Pixar, as you’d expect, redefines the meaning of PowerPoint in their “22 Rules for Phenomenal Storytelling”. The character silhouettes are instantly recognizable and tie firmly to the Pixar brand. The bright colour palettes are carefully chosen to highlight the content of each slide.

This presentation is a good length, delivering one message per slide, making it easy for an audience to take notes and retain the information.

Google slides examples

If you’re in business, chances are you’ll have come across  slide decks . Much like a deck of cards, each slide plays a key part in the overall ‘deck’, creating a well-rounded presentation.

If you need to inform your team, present findings, or outline a new strategy, slides are one of the most effective ways to do this.

Google Slides is one of the best ways to create a slide deck right now. It’s easy to use and has built-in design tools that integrate with Adobe, Lucidchart, and more. The best part — it’s free!

5. Teacher education

Here’s a slide deck that was created to educate teachers on how to use Google Slides effectively in a classroom. At first glance it seems stuffy and businessy, but if you look closer it’s apparent the creator knows his audience well, throwing in some teacher-friendly content that’s bound to get a smile.

The slides give walkthrough screenshots and practical advice on the different ways teachers can use the software to make their lives that little bit easier and educate their students at the same time.

6. Charity awareness raiser

This next Google slide deck is designed to raise awareness for an animal shelter. It has simple, clear messaging, and makes use of the furry friends it rescues to tug on heartstrings and encourage donations and adoptions from its audience.

Pro tip: Creating a presentation is exciting but also a little daunting. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed — especially if the success of your business or nonprofit depends on it.

Prezi presentation examples

If you haven’t come across  Prezi , it’s a great alternative to using static slides. Sitting somewhere between slides and a video presentation, it allows you to import other content and add motion to create a more engaging viewer experience.

7. Red Bull event recap

This Prezi was created to document the Red Bull stratosphere freefall stunt a few years ago. It neatly captures all the things that Prezi is capable of, including video inserts and the zoom effect, which gives an animated, almost 3D effect to what would otherwise be still images.  

Prezi has annual awards for the best examples of presentations over the year. This next example is one of the 2018 winners. It was made to highlight a new Logitech tool.

8. Logitech Spotlight launch

What stands out here are the juicy colors, bold imagery, and the way the designer has used Prezi to its full extent, including rotations, panning, fades, and a full zoom out to finish the presentation.

Sales presentation examples

If you’re stuck for ideas for your sales presentation, step right this way and check out this video template we made for you.

9. Sales enablement video presentation

In today’s fast-paced sales environment, you need a way to make your sales enablement presentations memorable and engaging for busy reps.  Sales enablement videos  are just the ticket. Use this video presentation template the next time you need to present on your metrics.

10. Zuroa sales deck

If you’re after a sales deck, you can’t go past this example from Zuora. What makes it great? It begins by introducing the worldwide shift in the way consumers are shopping. It’s a global phenomenon, and something we can all relate to.

It then weaves a compelling story about how the subscription model is changing the face of daily life for everyone. Metrics and testimonials from well-known CEOs and executives are included for some slamming social proof to boost the sales message.

Pitch presentation examples

Pitch decks are used to give an overview of business plans, and are usually presented during meetings with customers, investors, or potential partners.

11. Uber pitch deck

This is Uber’s original pitch deck, which (apart from looking a teensy bit dated) gives an excellent overview of their business model and clearly shows how they intended to disrupt a traditional industry and provide a better service to people. Right now, you’re probably very grateful that this pitch presentation was a winner.

You can make your own pitch deck with Biteable, or start with one of our  video templates  to make something a little more memorable.

12. Video pitch template

This video pitch presentation clearly speaks to the pains of everyone who needs to commute and find parking. It then provides the solution with its app that makes parking a breeze.

The video also introduces the key team members, their business strategy, and what they’re hoping to raise in funding. It’s a simple, clear pitch that positions the company as a key solution to a growing, worldwide problem. It’s compelling and convincing, as a good presentation should be.

13. Fyre Festival pitch deck

The most epic example of a recent pitch deck is this one for Fyre Festival – the greatest event that never happened. Marvel at its persuasion, gasp at the opportunity of being part of the cultural experience of the decade, cringe as everything goes from bad to worse.

Despite the very public outcome, this is a masterclass in how to create hype and get funding with your pitch deck using beautiful imagery, beautiful people, and beautiful promises of riches and fame.

Business presentation examples

Need to get the right message out to the right people? Business presentations can do a lot of the heavy lifting for you.

Simply press play and let your video do the talking. No fumbling your words and sweating buckets in front of those potential clients, just you being cool as a cucumber while your presentation does the talking.

Check out two of our popular templates that you can use as a starting point for your own presentations. While they’re business-minded, they’re definitely not boring.

14. Business intro template

Modern graphics, animations, and upbeat soundtracks keep your prospects engaged as they learn about your business, your team, your values, and how you can help them.

15. Business explainer template

Research presentation examples.

When you’re giving a more technical presentation such as research findings, you need to strike the perfect balance between informing your audience and making sure they stay awake.

As a rule, slides are more effective for research presentations, as they are used to support the speaker’s knowledge rather can capture every small detail on screen.

With often dry, complex, and technical subject matter, there can be a temptation for presentations to follow suit. Use images instead of walls of text, and keep things as easy to follow as possible.

16. TrackMaven research deck

TrackMaven uses their endearing mascot to lighten up this data-heavy slide deck. The graphs help to bring life to their findings, and they ensure to only have one bite-size takeaway per slide so that viewers can easily take notes.

17. Wearable tech research report

Obviously, research can get very researchy and there’s not a lot to be done about it. This slide deck below lays out a ton of in-depth information but breaks it up well with quotes, diagrams, and interesting facts to keep viewers engaged while it delivers its findings on wearable technology.

Team presentation examples

Motivating your team can be a challenge at the best of times, especially when you need to gather them together for….another presentation!

18. Team update template

We created this presentation template as an example of how to engage your team. In this case, it’s for an internal product launch. Using colorful animation and engaging pacing, this video presentation is much better than a static PowerPoint, right?

19. Officevibe collaboration explainer

This short slide deck is a presentation designed to increase awareness of the problems of a disengaged team. Bright colors and relevant images combine with facts and figures that compel viewers to click through to a download to learn more about helping their teams succeed.

Recruitment presentation examples

Recruiting the right people can be a challenge. Presentations can help display your team and your business by painting a dynamic picture of what it’s like to work with you.

Videos and animated slides let you capture the essence of your brand and workplace so the right employees can find you.

20. Company culture explainer

If you’re a recruitment agency, your challenge is to stand out from the hundreds of other agencies in the marketplace.

21. Kaizen culture

Showcasing your agency using a slide deck can give employers and employees a feel for doing business with you. Kaizen clearly displays its credentials and highlights its brand values and personality here (and also its appreciation of the coffee bean).

Explainer presentation examples

Got some explaining to do? Using an explainer video is the ideal way to showcase products that are technical, digital, or otherwise too difficult to explain with still images and text.

Explainer videos help you present the features and values of your product in an engaging way that speaks to your ideal audience and promotes your brand at the same time.

22. Product explainer template

23. lucidchart explainer.

Lucidchart does a stellar job of using explainer videos for their software. Their series of explainers-within-explainers entertains the viewer with cute imagery and an endearing brand voice. At the same time, the video is educating its audience on how to use the actual product. We (almost) guarantee you’ll have more love for spiders after watching this one.

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

• PowerPoint Tutorials
• Presentation Design
• January 22, 2024

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

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

Table of Contents

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

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

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

Ready to start learning how to make a PowerPoint presentation?

Take your PPT skills to the next level

Start with a blank presentation.

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

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

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

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

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

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

The PowerPoint interface

Here is how the program is laid out:

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

The Slide Area

The notes pane.

• The Status Bar (including the View Buttons)

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

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

The PowerPoint Ribbon

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

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

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

• Online Pictures
• Screenshots
• Screen Recording

The Slides Pane

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Adding Content to Your PowerPoint Presentation

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Insert More Slides into Your Presentation

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Adding Content to Your Slides

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• A picture from the web

To insert a picture into the picture placeholder, simply:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Using Designer to generate more layouts ideas

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

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

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

Change the Overall Design (optional)

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

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

A. Picking your PowerPoint slide size

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

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

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

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

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

 B. Selecting a PowerPoint theme

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

C. How to change a slide background in PowerPoint

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

D. How to change your color palette in PowerPoint

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

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

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

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

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

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

E. How to change your fonts in PowerPoint

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Adding Animations & Transitions (optional)

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

A. Adding PowerPoint animations

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

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

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

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

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

B. How to preview a PowerPoint animation

There are three ways to preview a PowerPoint animation:

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

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

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

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

C. How to manage your animations in PowerPoint

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

• Navigate to the  Animations tab
• Select the  Animation Pane

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

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

D. How to add transitions to your PowerPoint presentation

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

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

To add a transition to a PowerPoint slide, simply:

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

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

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

E. How to preview a transition in PowerPoint

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

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

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

Save Your PowerPoint Presentation

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

To save a PowerPoint presentation using your Ribbon, simply:

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

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

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

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

How to save your PowerPoint presentation as a template

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

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

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

Printing Your PowerPoint Presentation

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

To open the Print dialog box, you can either:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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The formal presentation of information is divided into two broad categories: Presentation Skills and Personal Presentation .

These two aspects are interwoven and can be described as the preparation, presentation and practice of verbal and non-verbal communication. 

This article describes what a presentation is and defines some of the key terms associated with presentation skills.

Many people feel terrified when asked to make their first public talk.  Some of these initial fears can be reduced by good preparation that also lays the groundwork for making an effective presentation.

A Presentation Is...

A presentation is a means of communication that can be adapted to various speaking situations, such as talking to a group, addressing a meeting or briefing a team.

A presentation can also be used as a broad term that encompasses other ‘speaking engagements’ such as making a speech at a wedding, or getting a point across in a video conference.

To be effective, step-by-step preparation and the method and means of presenting the information should be carefully considered. 

A presentation requires you to get a message across to the listeners and will often contain a ' persuasive ' element. It may, for example, be a talk about the positive work of your organisation, what you could offer an employer, or why you should receive additional funding for a project.

The Key Elements of a Presentation

Making a presentation is a way of communicating your thoughts and ideas to an audience and many of our articles on communication are also relevant here, see: What is Communication? for more.

Consider the following key components of a presentation:

Ask yourself the following questions to develop a full understanding of the context of the presentation.

When and where will you deliver your presentation?

There is a world of difference between a small room with natural light and an informal setting, and a huge lecture room, lit with stage lights. The two require quite different presentations, and different techniques.

Will it be in a setting you are familiar with, or somewhere new?

If somewhere new, it would be worth trying to visit it in advance, or at least arriving early, to familiarise yourself with the room.

Will the presentation be within a formal or less formal setting?

A work setting will, more or less by definition, be more formal, but there are also various degrees of formality within that.

Will the presentation be to a small group or a large crowd?

Are you already familiar with the audience?

With a new audience, you will have to build rapport quickly and effectively, to get them on your side.

What equipment and technology will be available to you, and what will you be expected to use?

In particular, you will need to ask about microphones and whether you will be expected to stand in one place, or move around.

What is the audience expecting to learn from you and your presentation?

Check how you will be ‘billed’ to give you clues as to what information needs to be included in your presentation.

All these aspects will change the presentation. For more on this, see our page on Deciding the Presentation Method .

The role of the presenter is to communicate with the audience and control the presentation.

Remember, though, that this may also include handing over the control to your audience, especially if you want some kind of interaction.

You may wish to have a look at our page on Facilitation Skills for more.

The audience receives the presenter’s message(s).

However, this reception will be filtered through and affected by such things as the listener’s own experience, knowledge and personal sense of values.

See our page: Barriers to Effective Communication to learn why communication can fail.

The message or messages are delivered by the presenter to the audience.

The message is delivered not just by the spoken word ( verbal communication ) but can be augmented by techniques such as voice projection, body language, gestures, eye contact ( non-verbal communication ), and visual aids.

The message will also be affected by the audience’s expectations. For example, if you have been billed as speaking on one particular topic, and you choose to speak on another, the audience is unlikely to take your message on board even if you present very well . They will judge your presentation a failure, because you have not met their expectations.

The audience’s reaction and therefore the success of the presentation will largely depend upon whether you, as presenter, effectively communicated your message, and whether it met their expectations.

As a presenter, you don’t control the audience’s expectations. What you can do is find out what they have been told about you by the conference organisers, and what they are expecting to hear. Only if you know that can you be confident of delivering something that will meet expectations.

See our page: Effective Speaking for more information.

How will the presentation be delivered?

Presentations are usually delivered direct to an audience.  However, there may be occasions where they are delivered from a distance over the Internet using video conferencing systems, such as Skype.

It is also important to remember that if your talk is recorded and posted on the internet, then people may be able to access it for several years. This will mean that your contemporaneous references should be kept to a minimum.

Impediments

Many factors can influence the effectiveness of how your message is communicated to the audience.

For example background noise or other distractions, an overly warm or cool room, or the time of day and state of audience alertness can all influence your audience’s level of concentration.

As presenter, you have to be prepared to cope with any such problems and try to keep your audience focussed on your message.   

Our page: Barriers to Communication explains these factors in more depth.

Continue to read through our Presentation Skills articles for an overview of how to prepare and structure a presentation, and how to manage notes and/or illustrations at any speaking event.

Continue to: Preparing for a Presentation Deciding the Presentation Method

See also: Writing Your Presentation | Working with Visual Aids Coping with Presentation Nerves | Dealing with Questions Learn Better Presentation Skills with TED Talks

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Blog Beginner Guides 8 Types of Presentations You Should Know [+Examples & Tips]

8 Types of Presentations You Should Know [+Examples & Tips]

Written by: Krystle Wong Aug 11, 2023

From persuasive pitches that influence opinions to instructional demonstrations that teach skills, the different types of presentations serve a unique purpose, tailored to specific objectives and audiences.

Presentations that are tailored to its objectives and audiences are more engaging and memorable. They capture attention, maintain interest and leave a lasting impression. 

Don’t worry if you’re no designer —  Whether you need data-driven visuals, persuasive graphics or engaging design elements, Venngage can empower you to craft presentations that stand out and effectively convey your message.

Venngage’s intuitive drag-and-drop interface, extensive presentation template library and customizable design options make it a valuable tool for creating slides that align with your specific goals and target audience. 

Click to jump ahead:

8 Different types of presentations every presenter must know

How do i choose the right type of presentation for my topic or audience, types of presentation faq, 5 steps to create a presentation with venngage .

When it comes to presentations, versatility is the name of the game. Having a variety of presentation styles up your sleeve can make a world of difference in keeping your audience engaged. Here are 8 essential presentation types that every presenter should be well-acquainted with:

1. Informative presentation

Ever sat through a presentation that left you feeling enlightened? That’s the power of an informative presentation. 

This presentation style is all about sharing knowledge and shedding light on a particular topic. Whether you’re diving into the depths of quantum physics or explaining the intricacies of the latest social media trends, informative presentations aim to increase the audience’s understanding.

When delivering an informative presentation, simplify complex topics with clear visuals and relatable examples. Organize your content logically, starting with the basics and gradually delving deeper and always remember to keep jargon to a minimum and encourage questions for clarity.

Academic presentations and research presentations are great examples of informative presentations. An effective academic presentation involves having clear structure, credible evidence, engaging delivery and supporting visuals. Provide context to emphasize the topic’s significance, practice to perfect timing, and be ready to address anticipated questions. 

2. Persuasive presentation

If you’ve ever been swayed by a passionate speaker armed with compelling arguments, you’ve experienced a persuasive presentation . 

This type of presentation is like a verbal tug-of-war, aiming to convince the audience to see things from a specific perspective. Expect to encounter solid evidence, logical reasoning and a dash of emotional appeal.

With persuasive presentations, it’s important to know your audience inside out and tailor your message to their interests and concerns. Craft a compelling narrative with a strong opening, a solid argument and a memorable closing. Additionally, use visuals strategically to enhance your points.

Examples of persuasive presentations include presentations for environmental conservations, policy change, social issues and more. Here are some engaging presentation templates you can use to get started with: 

3. Demonstration or how-to presentation

A Demonstration or How-To Presentation is a type of presentation where the speaker showcases a process, technique, or procedure step by step, providing the audience with clear instructions on how to replicate the demonstrated action. 

A demonstrative presentation is particularly useful when teaching practical skills or showing how something is done in a hands-on manner.

These presentations are commonly used in various settings, including educational workshops, training sessions, cooking classes, DIY tutorials, technology demonstrations and more. Designing creative slides for your how-to presentations can heighten engagement and foster better information retention. 

Speakers can also consider breaking down the process into manageable steps, using visual aids, props and sometimes even live demonstrations to illustrate each step. The key is to provide clear and concise instructions, engage the audience with interactive elements and address any questions that may arise during the presentation.

4. Training or instructional presentation

Training presentations are geared towards imparting practical skills, procedures or concepts — think of this as the more focused cousin of the demonstration presentation. 

Whether you’re teaching a group of new employees the ins and outs of a software or enlightening budding chefs on the art of soufflé-making, training presentations are all about turning novices into experts.

To maximize the impact of your training or instructional presentation, break down complex concepts into digestible segments. Consider using real-life examples to illustrate each point and create a connection. 

You can also create an interactive presentation by incorporating elements like quizzes or group activities to reinforce understanding.

5. Sales presentation

Sales presentations are one of the many types of business presentations and the bread and butter of businesses looking to woo potential clients or customers. With a sprinkle of charm and a dash of persuasion, these presentations showcase products, services or ideas with one end goal in mind: sealing the deal.

A successful sales presentation often has key characteristics such as a clear value proposition, strong storytelling, confidence and a compelling call to action. Hence, when presenting to your clients or stakeholders, focus on benefits rather than just features. 

Anticipate and address potential objections before they arise and use storytelling to showcase how your offering solves a specific problem for your audience. Utilizing visual aids is also a great way to make your points stand out and stay memorable.

A sales presentation can be used to promote service offerings, product launches or even consultancy proposals that outline the expertise and industry experience of a business. Here are some template examples you can use for your next sales presentation:

6. Pitch presentation

Pitch presentations are your ticket to garnering the interest and support of potential investors, partners or stakeholders. Think of your pitch deck as your chance to paint a vivid picture of your business idea or proposal and secure the resources you need to bring it to life. 

Business presentations aside, individuals can also create a portfolio presentation to showcase their skills, experience and achievements to potential clients, employers or investors. 

Craft a concise and compelling narrative. Clearly define the problem your idea solves and how it stands out in the market. Anticipate questions and practice your answers. Project confidence and passion for your idea.

7. Motivational or inspirational presentation

Feeling the need for a morale boost? That’s where motivational presentations step in. These talks are designed to uplift and inspire, often featuring personal anecdotes, heartwarming stories and a generous serving of encouragement.

Form a connection with your audience by sharing personal stories that resonate with your message. Use a storytelling style with relatable anecdotes and powerful metaphors to create an emotional connection. Keep the energy high and wrap up your inspirational presentations with a clear call to action.

Inspirational talks and leadership presentations aside, a motivational or inspirational presentation can also be a simple presentation aimed at boosting confidence, a motivational speech focused on embracing change and more.

8. Status or progress report presentation

Projects and businesses are like living organisms, constantly evolving and changing. Status or progress report presentations keep everyone in the loop by providing updates on achievements, challenges and future plans. It’s like a GPS for your team, ensuring everyone stays on track.

Be transparent about achievements, challenges and future plans. Utilize infographics, charts and diagrams to present your data visually and simplify information. By visually representing data, it becomes easier to identify trends, make predictions and strategize based on evidence.

Now that you’ve learned about the different types of presentation methods and how to use them, you’re on the right track to creating a good presentation that can boost your confidence and enhance your presentation skills . 

Selecting the most suitable presentation style is akin to choosing the right outfit for an occasion – it greatly influences how your message is perceived. Here’s a more detailed guide to help you make that crucial decision:

1. Define your objectives

Begin by clarifying your presentation’s goals. Are you aiming to educate, persuade, motivate, train or perhaps sell a concept? Your objectives will guide you to the most suitable presentation type. 

For instance, if you’re aiming to inform, an informative presentation would be a natural fit. On the other hand, a persuasive presentation suits the goal of swaying opinions.

2. Know your audience

Regardless if you’re giving an in-person or a virtual presentation — delve into the characteristics of your audience. Consider factors like their expertise level, familiarity with the topic, interests and expectations. 

If your audience consists of professionals in your field, a more technical presentation might be suitable. However, if your audience is diverse and includes newcomers, an approachable and engaging style might work better.

3. Analyze your content

Reflect on the content you intend to present. Is it data-heavy, rich in personal stories or focused on practical skills? Different presentation styles serve different content types. 

For data-driven content, an informative or instructional presentation might work best. For emotional stories, a motivational presentation could be a compelling choice.

4. Consider time constraints

Evaluate the time you have at your disposal. If your presentation needs to be concise due to time limitations, opt for a presentation style that allows you to convey your key points effectively within the available timeframe. A pitch presentation, for example, often requires delivering impactful information within a short span.

5. Leverage visuals

Visual aids are powerful tools in presentations. Consider whether your content would benefit from visual representation. If your PowerPoint presentations involve step-by-step instructions or demonstrations, a how-to presentation with clear visuals would be advantageous. Conversely, if your content is more conceptual, a motivational presentation could rely more on spoken words.

6. Align with the setting

Take the presentation environment into account. Are you presenting in a formal business setting, a casual workshop or a conference? Your setting can influence the level of formality and interactivity in your presentation. For instance, a demonstration presentation might be ideal for a hands-on workshop, while a persuasive presentation is great for conferences.

7. Gauge audience interaction

Determine the level of audience engagement you want. Interactive presentations work well for training sessions, workshops and small group settings, while informative or persuasive presentations might be more one-sided.

8. Flexibility

Stay open to adjusting your presentation style on the fly. Sometimes, unexpected factors might require a change of presentation style. Be prepared to adjust on the spot if audience engagement or reactions indicate that a different approach would be more effective.

Remember that there is no one-size-fits-all approach, and the best type of presentation may vary depending on the specific situation and your unique communication goals. By carefully considering these factors, you can choose the most effective presentation type to successfully engage and communicate with your audience.

To save time, use a presentation software or check out these presentation design and presentation background guides to create a presentation that stands out.    

What are some effective ways to begin and end a presentation?

Capture your audience’s attention from the start of your presentation by using a surprising statistic, a compelling story or a thought-provoking question related to your topic. 

To conclude your presentation , summarize your main points, reinforce your key message and leave a lasting impression with a powerful call to action or a memorable quote that resonates with your presentation’s theme.

How can I make my presentation more engaging and interactive?

To create an engaging and interactive presentation for your audience, incorporate visual elements such as images, graphs and videos to illustrate your points visually. Share relatable anecdotes or real-life examples to create a connection with your audience. 

You can also integrate interactive elements like live polls, open-ended questions or small group discussions to encourage participation and keep your audience actively engaged throughout your presentation.

Which types of presentations require special markings

Some presentation types require special markings such as how sales presentations require persuasive techniques like emphasizing benefits, addressing objections and using compelling visuals to showcase products or services. 

Demonstrations and how-to presentations on the other hand require clear markings for each step, ensuring the audience can follow along seamlessly. 

That aside, pitch presentations require highlighting unique selling points, market potential and the competitive edge of your idea, making it stand out to potential investors or partners.

Need some inspiration on how to make a presentation that will captivate an audience? Here are 120+ presentation ideas to help you get started. 

Creating a stunning and impactful presentation with Venngage is a breeze. Whether you’re crafting a business pitch, a training presentation or any other type of presentation, follow these five steps to create a professional presentation that stands out:

• Sign up and log in to Venngage to access the editor.
• Choose a presentation template that matches your topic or style.
• Customize content, colors, fonts, and background to personalize your presentation.
• Add images, icons, and charts to enhancevisual style and clarity.
• Save, export, and share your presentation as PDF or PNG files, or use Venngage’s Presentation Mode for online showcasing.

In the realm of presentations, understanding the different types of presentation formats is like having a versatile set of tools that empower you to craft compelling narratives for every occasion.

Remember, the key to a successful presentation lies not only in the content you deliver but also in the way you connect with your audience. Whether you’re informing, persuading or entertaining, tailoring your approach to the specific type of presentation you’re delivering can make all the difference.

Presentations are a powerful tool, and with practice and dedication (and a little help from Venngage), you’ll find yourself becoming a presentation pro in no time. Now, let’s get started and customize your next presentation!

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20 Great Examples of PowerPoint Presentation Design [+ Templates]

Published: August 06, 2024

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

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

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

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What makes a good PowerPoint presentation?

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

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

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

1. Minimal Animations and Transitions

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

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

2. Cohesive Color Palette

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

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

Image source

Mesmerize your audience by adding some neon colors and effects to your PowerPoint slides. Adding pops of color to your presentation will create visual interest and keep your audience engaged. 

What I like: Neon will add personality and depth to your presentation and will help the information you're providing stand out and be more memorable. 

2. Use an interesting background image.

Do you have some interesting nature photos from a recent road trip? Or maybe a holiday passed, and you have gorgeous photos to share? If so, consider incorporating them into your PowerPoint. 

What I like: PowerPoints don't have to be stuffy and boring. They can be fun and a unique or interesting background will enhance the experience of your presentation.

3. Or be minimal.

Have you ever heard of K.I.S.S.? Not the band! I mean, Keep It Simple, Sweetheart. If you're worried too many colors or visuals could take attention away from the message of your presentation, consider going minimal. 

Pro tip: Stick to no more than three colors if you're going for a minimalist design in your slides. 

4. Incorporate illustrations.

Illustrations are a great way to highlight or break down a point in your presentation. They can also add a bit of whimsy and fun to keep viewers engaged.

5. Use all caps.

Using all capital letters can draw your audience's eyes to where you need them, helping cement your message in their minds. It can also just be aesthetically pleasing.

Pro tip: If you choose to use all capital letters, use varying fonts so readers can tell which information is important and which are supporting details.

6. Alternate slide layouts

You don't want readers to grow bored with your presentation. So, to retain visual interest, use alternating slide layouts. The example above shows PowerPoint slides alternating between vertical and horizontal layouts.

This keeps things interesting and ensures your presentation isn't monotonous.  

7. Inject a little humor.

Humor is a great way to drive a point home and help people remember the information you're presenting. People remember a good joke, so if you have a funny pun to connect to a concept in a presentation, why not use it in a slide?

Pro tip: Remember you're in a professional setting, so keep your jokes appropriate. If you're worried a joke can get you a meeting with HR, then keep it to yourself. 

8. Use duotones.

Duotones (or gradience) can take the aesthetic of your PowerPoint to new levels. They can provide a calming energy to your presentation and make viewers feel relaxed and eager to stay focused. 

9. Include printed materials.

Let's say you have a PowerPoint you're proud of, but you want to go that extra mile to ensure your audience understands the material. A great way to do this would be to supplement your presentation with printed materials, as such as:

• Pamphlets 
• Printed slides
• Short quizzes on the material

10. Keep it to one chart or graph per slide.

This is both a design example and a warning. Graphs and charts are an excellent way of displaying quantitative data in a digestible format.

However, you should have no more than one graph or chart per slide so your presentation doesn't get too confusing or muddled. 

11. Use a large font.

Just like capital letters, a large font will help your shift your audience's focus to key points in your presentation.

Pro tip: You can combine large fonts and capital letters to boost its effectiveness. 

12. Include videos.

Embedding a video into your PowerPoint can help you expand on a point or effectively break down a complex topic. You can either embed a video from a platform like YouTube or TikTok or use HubSpot's Clip Creator to make your own.

Pro tip: Try to keep videos short, like, under a minute, and don't use more than one or two. 

13. Use GIFs.

GIFs add more visual interest, and they can be a great way to add humor or personal touch to your PowerPoint presentation.

14. Use contrasting colors when comparing two ideas or arguments. 

Contrasting colors can convey the difference between two opposing thoughts or arguments in a way that is visually appealing. 

15. Add a touch of nature.

If you want your presentation to exude a calming energy to your audience, including images of trees, flowers, and natural landscapes can do the trick.

PowerPoint Theme Ideas

Atlas (theme).

Covering a more creative subject for a younger or more energetic audience? I’d recommend using the cover slide design below. Its vibrant red color blocks and fun lines will appeal to your audience.

Madison (Theme)

This design doesn't have the intensity of the first slide on this list. But I like how it has a simple structure that can make any PowerPoint presentation a good slideshow.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

12. “The GaryVee Content Model,” Gary Vaynerchuk

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

18. “How Google Works,” Eric Schmidt

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And if you want more templates and examples, you can download them here .

PowerPoint Presentation Examples for the Best Slide Presentation

Mastering a PowerPoint presentation begins with the design itself.

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

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

Don't forget to share this post!

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Simple Steps to Make a PowerPoint Presentation

Last Updated: July 23, 2024 Fact Checked

Creating a New PowerPoint

Creating the title slide, adding a new slide, adding content to slides, adding transitions, testing and saving your presentation.

This article was co-authored by wikiHow staff writer, Darlene Antonelli, MA . Darlene Antonelli is a Technology Writer and Editor for wikiHow. Darlene has experience teaching college courses, writing technology-related articles, and working hands-on in the technology field. She earned an MA in Writing from Rowan University in 2012 and wrote her thesis on online communities and the personalities curated in such communities. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 4,340,550 times. Learn more...

Do you want to have your data in a slide show? If you have Microsoft 365, you can use PowerPoint! PowerPoint is a program that's part of the Microsoft Office suite (which you have to pay for) and is available for both Windows and Mac computers. This wikiHow teaches you how to create your own Microsoft PowerPoint presentation on a computer.

How to Make a PowerPoint Presentation

• Open the PowerPoint app, select a template and theme, then like “Create.”
• Click the text box to add your title and subtitle to create your title slide.
• Click the “Insert” tab, then “New Slide” to add another slide.
• Choose the type of slide you want to add, then add text and pictures.
• Rearrange slides by dragging them up or down in the preview box.

Things You Should Know

• Templates make it easy to create vibrant presentations no matter your skill level.
• When adding photos, you can adjust their sizes by clicking and dragging in or out from their corners.
• You can add animated transitions between slides or to individual elements like bullet points and blocks of text.

• If you don't have a Microsoft Office 365 subscription, you can use the website instead of the desktop app. Go to https://powerpoint.office.com/ to use the website version.
• You can also use the mobile app to make presentations, though it's easier to do this on a computer, which has a larger screen, a mouse, and a keyboard.

• If you don't want to use a template, just click the Blank option in the upper-left side of the page and skip to the next part.

• Skip this step if your selected template has no themes available.

• If you're creating a PowerPoint presentation for which an elaborate title slide has been requested, ignore this step.

• You can change the font and size of text used from the Home tab that's in the orange ribbon at the top of the window.

• You can also just leave this box blank if you like.

• You can also click and drag in or out one of a text box's corners to shrink or enlarge the text box.

• On a Mac, you'll click the Home tab instead. [1] X Research source

• Clicking the white slide-shaped box above this option will result in a new text slide being inserted.

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

• Naturally, the title slide should be the first slide in your presentation, meaning that it should be the top slide in the left-hand column.

• Skip this step and the next two steps if your selected slide uses a template that doesn't have text boxes in it.

• Text boxes in PowerPoint will automatically format the bulk of your text for you (e.g., adding bullet points) based on the context of the content itself.
• You can add notes that the Presentation will not include (but you'll still be able to see them on your screen) by clicking Notes at the bottom of the slide.

• You can change the font of the selected text by clicking the current font's name and then clicking your preferred font.
• If you want to change the size of the text, click the numbered drop-down box and then click a larger or smaller number based on whether you want to enlarge or shrink the text.
• You can also change the color, bolding, italicization, underlining, and so on from here.

• Photos in particular can be enlarged or shrunk by clicking and dragging out or in one of their corners.

• Remember to keep slides uncluttered and relatively free of distractions. It's best to keep the amount of text per slide to around 33 words or less. [2] X Research source

• Slide content will animate in the order in which you assign transitions. For example, if you animate a photo on the slide and then animate the title, the photo will appear before the title.
• Make your slideshow progress automatically by setting the speed of every transition to align with your speech as well as setting each slide to Advance . [3] X Trustworthy Source Microsoft Support Technical support and product information from Microsoft. Go to source

• If you need to exit the presentation, press Esc .

• Windows - Click File , click Save , double-click This PC , select a save location, enter a name for your presentation, and click Save .
• Mac - Click File , click Save As... , enter the presentation's name in the "Save As" field, select a save location by clicking the "Where" box and clicking a folder, and click Save .

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• ↑ https://www.virtualsalt.com/powerpoint.htm
• ↑ https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/set-the-timing-and-speed-of-a-transition-c3c3c66f-4cca-4821-b8b9-7de0f3f6ead1#:~:text=To%20make%20the%20slide%20advance,effect%20on%20the%20slide%20finishes .

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Christmas Recipe

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20 Really Good PowerPoint Examples to Inspire Your Next Presentation

By Sandra Boicheva

3 years ago

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You might have the most amazing idea that you wish to share with the world, but you might not get the results you want if the delivery isn’t good. Although as a tool, PowerPoint is pretty easy to use and intuitive, creating a good PowerPoint presentation is not a simple task. There is a lot of things to consider when designing your slides from the words you use, to the copy structure, data visualization, and overall design. This is why today we gathered 20 really good PowerPoint examples of presentations that flawlessly deliver their messages. These creative ideas will surely inspire you to make your next presentation your best one, as they all share good design and engaging storytelling.

“If you don’t know what you want to achieve in your presentation your audience never will.” – Harvey Diamond

1. Idea to Identify: The Design of Brand

This is a long one. Here we have a 242 slides presentation that exposes the myriad facets of design and how they impact the brand identity. The presentation has a lot of data to show and spreads it throughout more than 200 slides to make it easy to read and follow. In all, this is the best way to present a lot of information: instead of overwhelming the viewers with text walls, the presenter simply adds more slides.

• Author:   Sudio Sudarsan

2. Jeunesse Opportunity Presentation 2021

This is a great example of brand presentation with company profile, product system, plan, and reward. It gives a similar experience to browsing a website.

• Author:   DASH2 – Jeunesse Global

3. Accenture Tech Vision 2020

A short and sweet presentation about how companies prepare for data regulation and how this impacts the customer experience. 

• Author:   Accenture

4. APIs as Digital Factories’ New Machines

A comparison presentation of how companies capture most of the market value. It explains well how to view the economy from a different perspective and adopt customer-centric thinking. The presentation has a lot of value, it’s well structured and it’s a good read in only 28 slides.

• Author:  Apidays

5. 24 Books You’ve Never Heard Of – But Will Change Your Life

This is a great example of how repeating slides design for the same type of content isn’t a synonym for being unimaginative. It’s pretty straightforward: it promises 24 titles, an inspirational introduction, and a slide for each book that will change your life.

• Author:   Ryan Holiday

6. 10 Memorable David Bowie Quotes

Not always presentations must have a specific educational or conventional goal. Sometimes, it could be a cool personal project meant to inspire your audience. And let’s be honest, who doesn’t love David Bowie? A presentation with 10 memorable quotes by him is worth watching. 

• Author: Stinson

7. Creative Mornings San Diego 

• Author:   Anne McColl

8. Digital 2020 Global Digital Overview

A report heavy-data presentation about everything you need to know about mobile, internet, social media, and e-commerce use around the world in 2020. It’s a long read but comprehensive and well-illustrated with data visualization.

• Author:   DataReportal

9. Blitzscaling: Book Trailer

One of the most well-made presentations about informative topics such as startup’s life-cycle and where the most value is created. It’s designed as a book, consistent, with lesser text as possible, and imitates animation by adding new content on copies of the same slide. 

• Author:  Reid Hoffman

10. Poor Self-Esteem: Just Beat It!

A very valuable presentation that takes on the reasons for low self-esteem and how to overcome it. The design is very simple and comprehensive and even suitable for social media carousel posts.

• Author:   SlideShop.com

11. You Suck At PowerPoint!

This presentation is more than a decade old and still checks out. After all, you could expect great presentation design from someone who talks about design mistakes and how to overcome them.  61 slides of a fun experience and a great read.

• Author:  Jesse Desjardins

12. Pixar’s 22 Rules to Phenomenal Storytelling

Pixar’s 22 Rules to Phenomenal Storytelling, originally tweeted by Emma Coats, in a 24-slides presentation with a custom design. 

• Author:   Gavin McMahon

13. A Complete Guide To The Best Times To Post On Social Media

A fun little presentation with great value. It takes on the most effective times to post on social media, send an email, or publish a blog.

• Author:   TrackMaven

14. Fix Your Really Bad PowerPoint

The next presentation honors Seth Godin and his wisdom. It uses his book’s insights to visualize all the tips in 45 engaging slides.

• Author:   HighSpark

15. 10 Lessons from the World’s Most Captivating Presenters

This presentation is for presenters who wish to become better. And what better way than getting inspired by the world’s greatest presenters and accessing some of their secrets. 

• Author:   HubSpot

16. Crap. The Content Marketing Deluge

For starters, this presentation has a very captivating title and opening. Winning the attention from the very start, it continues with consistent clean design and great content. It delivers exactly what it promised. 

• Author: Velocity Partners

17. Displaying Data

More insightful advice and tips from professional presenters that check out to this very day. It’s a great presentation about visualizing your data in the best way possible and it also delivers it with design.

• Author:   Bipul Deb Nath

18. 5 Storytelling Lessons From Superhero Stories

Custom-made presentation with illustrations made specifically for the occasion, and brilliant execution. It shows it’s definitely worth it to spend time making your presentation more personal and from scratch. 

19. 10 Things your Audience Hates About your Presentation

Another custom presentation with icons-style illustrations about how to avoid cringe when making presentations. 

• Author:   Stinson

20. The Designer’s Guide to Startup Weekend

You will work hard all weekend long but you will also find new friends, mentors, and the chance to promote yourself. A pretty wholesome presentation with a custom design where the presenter shares her own experience in the world of startups.

• Author:  Iryna Nezhynska

That’s It!

These 20 presentations prove that PowerPoint is never out of date and it’s a great tool to deliver your message across. We hope you got inspired for your next presentation and make your audience fall in love with your concepts.

In the meantime, why not take a look at the related articles to get some more inspiration or grab a couple of freebies:

• [Freebies] 17 Really Good Sources For Free Vector Images For Commercial Use
• [Inspiration] 85 Really Good T-Shirt Design Ideas to Inspire You for Your Next Project
• [Insights] The 5 Top Online Tools for Custom YouTube Banners (and YouTube Thumbnails)

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51 Best Presentation Slides for Engaging Presentations (2024)

Written by: Chloe West

When you're creating a presentation for a live audience or embedding it on a webpage for visitors to access on their own time, you want it to be engaging. And unfortunately, too many presentation slides are boring and forgettable.

But with Visme, we've put together 51 of our top presentation slides to help you find the perfect template for your next presentation.

To make navigation easier, we've broken them down into six categories. Browse through each below to find your next presentation slides.

Here's a short selection of 8 easy-to-edit presentation templates you can edit, share and download with Visme. View more below:

51 Best Presentation Slides for Engaging Presentations

Business Presentation Slides

Finance presentation slides.

• Sales & Marketing Presentation Slides

Education Presentation Slides

Pitch deck presentation slides, nonprofit presentation slides, presentation slide faqs.

There are so many reasons you might need to give a presentation in your business or career. And we’ve got just the right templates to get you started.

After all, you’re probably spending enough time creating the content and rehearsing your presentation deck. You don’t need to worry about your presentation slide design at the same time.

Here are a few of the best presentation slide ideas based on topic material, like the ones you’re regularly using. And if you're racing against the clock, tap into Visme's AI presentation maker to create eye-catching presentations in seconds. Just input your prompt, provide more context, select your preferred style and watch the tool generate your slides. Customize every part of your presentation with our intuitive editor.

1. Meeting Agenda Template

Customize this presentation template to make it your own! Edit and Download

Sick of seeing team members nod off or lose focus during your team meetings?

Put together your meeting agenda ahead of time using these presentation slides to help keep your team engaged and informed throughout.

This template comes with 15 premade presentation slides that cover everything from project management to charts showing performance and overall meeting objectives. Whatever you need to share in your meeting, you can find in this theme.

Plus, you can completely customize these business slides to match your company colors directly in Visme!

2. Company Goals Template

It’s important to ensure everyone on your team knows and understands the company’s goals. After all, everyone’s work should be geared towards achieving those goals.

You can use these nice business slides to put together a background of your company and how far it’s come, as well as detail your upcoming goals, launches and more.

3. Company Overview Template

If you’re speaking to a networking group about your company or pitching to investors, you likely need to give an overview of your company, its leadership team and its offerings.

These are the perfect presentation slides to help you put together a minimalistic design that draws focus towards your company and its mission.

Plus, all of these good-looking slides are perfectly set up to highlight your company’s most important assets.

And best of all, they’re completely customizable. Add in your own brand fonts and colors to create the perfect presentation for your business.

Make the goal-setting or design process a collaborative activity with the help of Visme’s collaborative feature . Team members can edit your presentation, leave feedback and draw annotations in real-time or at their own pace.

4. Project Status Report Template

When it comes to project management, you could always just send over a boring email or report update, but a better way would be to put together a presentation updating your team and/or your supervisors on the status of the project and the remaining timeline.

This presentation theme comes with 14 different slides to help you put together a status report that covers all aspects of your project: the various phases and how far along each one is, the timeline for your project, a project health card and more.

You can also gain even more inspiration for your project timeline slides from these timeline infographic ideas .

5. Business Annual Report Template

Want to show your boss how the company is doing? Or share how your team’s efforts have affected the bottom line? Put together a presentation that shows your business’s results over the year.

While this presentation template comes with a fun geometric accent pattern, you’re able to swap out any of these shapes for ones that more accurately represent your business or your message right in Visme’s design dashboard.

Working on this design with your team? Effectively manage the process with Visme’s workflow management tool . You can assign different sections of the slide to your team members to work on set deadlines, manage progress, track corrections and more.

6. Business Plan Template

Are you starting a new business? You might be looking for investors, or perhaps you want to pitch the idea to a potential cofounder. You need to deploy the best presentation slides possible.

You can use this theme to put together a polished business plan presentation that showcases your business idea, the market summary, the industry opportunities and more.

You can also use Visme’s color themes to find the perfect color scheme for your presentation and your upcoming business. After all, your brand colors can say a lot about your business.

7. Product Introduction Template

Put together a presentation that introduces a new product idea to your boss, your board of directors or your investors. Take advantage of the charts and graphs in Visme’s design dashboard to showcase various studies and statistics that prove why your idea will be profitable.

Or you can utilize this presentation theme to introduce a product to the public. If your company is in the process of developing a new product to release, a presentation introduction can be a great and engaging way to share it with your audience.

8. Product Presentation Template

Whether you’re launching a new product or sharing the features of an already existing one, you can show off your product through a presentation with nice slides.

You can share your presentation on social media, on your website or at a large company event to announce it to your audience. Include bright, high-quality photos of your product and a list of its best features to really highlight your new release.

9. Visual Brand Identity Template

There are many different ways to create a brand style guide for your business. One great way is with a presentation.

These presentation example slides allow you to seamlessly input your fonts, colors and other visual guidelines into a single presentation so that you can easily share your brand with the designers, marketers and other members of your team.

10. Special Business Presentation Template

These presentation slides can help you easily put together a business introduction template for a conference or networking event.

Just click above to edit in Visme, switch out your background with one of the thousands of options in our photo library, add in your own key facts, vision and values and download!

If you’re running out of ideas for your presentation , you can use Visme’s Writer AI to produce high-quality drafts, proofread your content or adjust its tone.

11. Industry Trends Template

Put together a presentation to showcase upcoming trends in your industry. You can leave the patterns and colors the way they are in these existing presentation slides, or you can add in your own brand colors or product colors.

Understanding developing trends in your industry each year is important so that you know where your business should focus its efforts.

Sharing a presentation with your team is a great way to stay ahead of the curve.

12. Services Template

Use these slide presentation examples to showcase your services and what you can offer your clients/customers. If you have a visual business, a presentation is an excellent way to highlight your work and show it off to prospective leads.

Swap out each photo in the example slides with photos of your work, update the fonts to match your brand voice (or upload your brand fonts) and add in the services you offer.

13. Slideshow Template

A slideshow presentation is a great way for you to showcase photos of your work alongside your service offerings. This template even includes social media icons on the last page so that viewers know how to find the business online.

Again, you’ll want to swap out all of the photos with your own work, but this presentation theme is a great way to get started.

14. How To Presentation Template

Are you presenting a tutorial or step-by-step guide on how to do something? Using example slides to put together your content is a great idea.

It’s a disservice to your company and your customer to assume that everyone automatically knows how to use your product or service. Showing your audience exactly what to do is essential to your customer service strategy.

Spice up your presentation by adding stunning, high-resolution images and stock photos , videos , icons , widgets and other design elements.

Didn’t find any photos that caught your eye? We’ve got you. Use Visme’s AI image generator to whip up captivating images that match your presentation theme and design.

Even if you have photos that need editing, use Visme's AI Edit tools to touch up, unblur, upscale, erase and replace images with one click.

15. Survey Results Template

Putting together a customer survey is a great idea to understand how your audience feels about your industry or even your company. Grab those results and insert them into these presentation slides to share with your team.

You can also put together a blog post or webpage with survey results and embed this presentation directly into it so your audience can understand the state of the industry as well.

Visme’s design dashboard allows you to add in various charts and graphs that adjust automatically based on the numbers you input. After all, ain’t nobody got time for manually adjusting the sizes of bar graphs and pie charts.

16. Company Overview Presentation Template

Utilize these beautifully designed presentation slides to create a brief overview of your company and its offerings.

Having a readily available presentation overview of your company is a great idea for when you’re pitching investors, journalists for coverage and more. You don’t need to recreate a presentation each time. Instead, put together a visually appealing and informative one-size-fits-all overview.

You can add in your own photos or choose from Visme’s photo library to keep the same beautifully minimalistic appeal.

When sharing financial information, it’s always helpful to put together some kind of visual aid. This can be used to further emphasize your content, whether it’s about going over budget, showing off exciting revenue increases and more.

Check out these finance slide presentation examples to find the perfect template for your goals.

17. Financial Report Template

Use this template to put together a presentation that goes over your company’s expenses, sales, profits and more.

The built-in data visualization options allow you to showcase your point with more than just numbers. Add in a table of contents to keep your report organized and cohesive, letting your team know exactly what information they’ll find inside.

18. Statistical Presentation Template

Need to report some financial statistics and data? These presentation slides are perfect for helping you insert cold, hard facts into your presentation.

Each slide includes a different type of chart or graph for you to choose from to fully represent your data and statistics. You can easily switch your color scheme by inputting your own brand colors or by choosing a preset color theme from Visme’s dashboard.

19. Map Presentation Template

It’s important to know where it makes the most sense to market your product geographically. Showcase sales and overall company growth and profitability by location.

Knowing your revenue based on geographic location is essential for a global company, and this presentation template is perfect for the job.

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Sales and Marketing Presentation Slides

When it comes to sales and marketing for your company, there is a lot of data and information that can be represented visually. Creating sales and marketing presentations helps with keeping your team on the right track, but can also be a great way to make a pitch.

Learn more about creating essential sales and marketing presentations with these templates.

20. Visualization for Sales and Marketing Template

When you’re putting together a sales and marketing plan, you have to present it to your boss for approval, then to your team for implementation.

Use these presentation slides to help visualize your sales and marketing plan , including each of the upcoming tactics and strategies and the steps for putting them in place.

Having a presentation to refer back to allows your team to ensure they’re implementing the strategies properly.

21. Simple Marketing Presentation Template

Whether you’re introducing new marketing ideas to your team, pitching a new marketing strategy to your boss or to a new client, a presentation with nice slides is the perfect format.

Grab this presentation template that helps you to define your new ideas and share specific tactics for how they should be implemented for the business. Then get ready to rock your pitch and share your awesome new ideas.

22. Market Analysis Template

Review market trends with your team so you know where to take your company’s marketing messaging. You can send out a customer survey or take a look at a few studies that have been done surrounding your industry to put together your market analysis report.

Input all of your findings into this presentation template so you can easily present it to your team or grab the link and send it in an email. Even if you’re not standing up to give a presentation, these presentation slides are still an engaging way to share necessary information.

23. Marketing Plan Template

Building a new marketing plan for your business? Put together  great presentations for your marketing plan to share with your team.

Presenting your new marketing plan to the company is a great way to get everyone motivated and on board with new strategies and ideas.

You can add in your goals, objectives and even user personas with this ready-made marketing plan template.

24. Sales Report Template

Your sales team should be regularly providing insight on how much revenue the company is generating. And a great way to do that is through a sales report presentation or slideshow.

It’s important to stay informed of sales growth throughout the year. Share graphs of sales quarter-over-quarter or year-over-year to see where the company/sales team needs to improve.

25. Press Release Template

Don’t just write a boring old press release to send out to journalists and media publications. Instead, create an interactive press release showcasing your launch.

A presentation press release will help your business stand out from the dry press releases most publications receive, offering even more incentive for them to highlight your business and its products/services.

Edit this business slide to add in your own brand touches, voice and launch information before grabbing the link and sending it off.

26. Social Media Report Template

Sharing results of any marketing strategy is always essential. This is how you keep your team updated of any strategies that are working, and any strategies that need some adapting.

This presentation theme is a great way to share your current strategy and results. Input your platforms, your strategies and your metrics before presenting it to your team. Customize the presentation slides so that they cater perfectly to your company’s strategy.

27. Social Media Strategy Template

Pitching a social media strategy to your boss can also be done well with a presentation. Showcase why social media is important to invest in, what your plan is and how it will affect the bottom line.

This presentation template already gets you started in perfectly pitching your own strategy. Simply adjust it to your brand colors and fonts and update the information with your own.

Presentations are huge in educational settings.

Whether you’re a teacher looking for an interactive way to share your lesson plan or a student trying to finish up a school project, we’ve got the presentation templates for you.

Take a look at our education presentation slide options to find one that works for you.

28. Training Plan Template

When working one-on-one with a student or mentee, it can be a good idea to put a training or education plan into place. These presentation slides are the perfect start to your lesson and can help to visualize the content and learn in a different way.

Putting together educational content in a presentation helps offer different formats for learning. Students are often not provided with all of the tools they need to learn the material, and an interactive presentation is a great place to start.

29. Book Report Template

Putting together a book report to present for your class? Get started with a presentation theme that you can fully customize for your specific book.

These presentation slides allow you to seamlessly enter in the information about your main characters, the theme of the book, its timeline and any other pertinent information you need to share with the class.

Don’t worry about presentation design in your next project. We’ve already got it all put together for you! Simply click edit, insert your book content and download your presentation.

30. Trivia Template

Help your class remember fast facts before a text with this trivia template. It’s a great way to host a study session in your classroom, and the content is easily interchangeable.

Or if you’re a student, put together a presentation study guide to help you memorize the most important key facts and information from class. A trivia presentation format can make for a fun study sesh before the test.

31. Lesson Plan Template

Don’t waste time putting together a dry Microsoft Word or PowerPoint lesson plan. Instead, create an interactive lesson plan that helps you stay on message during your class, and helps your students to know exactly what’s going to come next.

32. Group Project Template

Group presentations just got a little more exciting. Blow the rest of your class’s projects away by using these presentation slides to compile your overall project objectives and results.

You can easily adjust colors and fonts, add in your team members and insert copy relevant to your class and your group project.

Don’t forget to thank your classmates and your teacher for listening in the end.

A pitch deck is an essential presentation for all businesses and entrepreneurs to have. There are many times you might need to pitch your business, whether it’s to investors for funding, journalists for media coverage and more.

Using a presentation template to put together your pitch deck is a great idea so that you can focus on pitching your business without having to worry about the design.

Browse through the pitch deck presentation slides below to find one that works for your business and its goals.

33. Airbnb Pitch Deck Presentation Template

Give this Airbnb-inspired pitch deck presentation theme a go when putting together a slideshow for your business. In your company slide, include the solution that your business provides its customers, product/service information, and excerpts from press acknowledgements.

34. Front Pitch Deck Presentation Template

Showcase your business with this geometric pitch deck template inspired by Front. Add in the planned acquisition channels for your business, your leadership team and more.

Your pitch deck is meant to showcase your business to people who may want to work with you, so it’s important to share the most imperative information.

35. Buffer Pitch Deck Presentation Template

Showcase the state of the industry and your business’s role in it with this pitch presentation slides idea inspired by Buffer. The information these presentation slides include helps you to share the impact your company has had on your industry.

Since industries are ever-changing, you can easily update the information within your pitch deck in Visme and it will automatically sync to the webpage where you embed this presentation.

36. Comms Pitch Deck Presentation Template

Use these presentation slides inspired by Intercom to give your audience an idea of what your product is going to look like and how it will work.

This is the perfect pitch deck template to take advantage of when launching a new SaaS product or app so that you can share what the technology will look like and how it will work.

Showcasing specific features and tutorials is a great way to get people talking about your product.

37. WeWork Pitch Deck Presentation Template

Is your company helping to fuel a movement? Share how your company is changing the industry with this pitch deck template inspired by WeWork.

It’s exciting when your business is doing more for your industry than simply adding another product or service. Focusing on a movement that really switches up the way your industry does things is an incredible feat.

Utilize a pitch deck template like the one above to showcase how your company is involved.

38. Buzzfeed Pitch Deck Presentation Template

Does your business focus on content? Or perhaps you’re creating a new kind of media outlet?

Show off your content and analytics with this Buzzfeed-inspired pitch deck presentation template. Getting advertisers on board and other media outlets to talk about you is important for success.

This is why you need to be putting together a pitch deck that shares that kind of information. No one will want to work with you if you keep your analytics in the dark.

Use dynamic fields to ensure your brand information and other key details stays consistent across slides and other projects. These fields are customizable and change automatically based on input or predefined conditions.

39. Investor Pitch Deck Template

Starting a new venture that you need funding for? Use these presentation slides to put together a pitch for investors in your business.

From showcasing the problem in the industry to your business’s solution, along with your business plan and pricing table is a great way to get potential investors interested in what you’re selling.

40. LinkedIn Pitch Deck Presentation Template

Compare and contrast what processes look like with and without your business with this pitch deck template inspired by LinkedIn.

It’s a great idea to take care of this in your pitch deck so that you make the job of any media outlet or writer covering your business even easier. After all, you’ve done the hard work for them.

They were going to share how your business helps. You’ve already visualized this in your pitch deck. This increases the chances that people will cover your business.

41. Mattermark Pitch Deck Presentation Template

Use this pitch deck presentation theme inspired by Mattermark to put together key questions about the industry that showcase why your business is so essential.

Launching a startup is hard work, and that’s why a pitch deck is an essential marketing tool to have. Creating a pitch deck that already answers the why and how questions of your business is a great way to introduce who you are and what you’re doing to investors and reporters.

42. Foursquare Pitch Deck Presentation Template

Put together an overview of how your product works with this pitch deck presentation template inspired by Foursquare.

With presentation slides already in place to showcase a step-by-step tutorial, all you have to do is input your content and publish your presentation.

43. Fyre Festival Pitch Deck Presentation Template

If your company has been doing some awesome stuff lately, you want your potential investors and those looking to work with your business to know about it.

Show off your company achievements with this pitch deck presentation template inspired by the famous Fyre Festival pitch deck.

44. Biogrify Pitch Deck Presentation Template

Use these presentation slides inspired by Biogrify to excite people about how they can use your product. If you have a unique product or service, you just need to drum up a little excitement and attention!

A pitch deck is the perfect way to do that. Add in your company’s logo, mission and unique selling proposition to get people looking forward to becoming customers/users.

45. Launchrock Pitch Deck Presentation Template

Influencer marketing is a huge marketing strategy that can generate some serious results. What better way to pitch influencers about your business than with this pitch deck inspired by Launchrock?

Don’t email off some boring PDF or Google Doc. Create enticing pitches to influencers with this pitch deck theme, and start watching the replies from influencers pour in.

Working with influencers to promote your product is a great way to increase your audience base and word of mouth about your company.

When you’re running a nonprofit, there is a lot of pitching your organization, talking to donors and working on events to increase donations. This is why you need great slide presentations.

Putting together a presentation for your nonprofit is a great way to showcase what your organization does and why people should donate to it.

Here are a few nonprofit presentation slides to choose from, where all you have to do is insert your information, change colors and fonts and present.

46. Nonprofit Report Template

Put together a report that covers what your nonprofit is working against as well as your nonprofit’s achievements each year.

47. Nonprofit Art Template

Use this presentation slides idea to provide an overview of your nonprofit and its main projects. To generate even more support and donations, it’s important to provide clear insight into your key products and objectives.

48. Nonprofit Environmental Template

This presentation theme is perfect for showcasing the key issues your nonprofit fights for and its process for doing so.

Being transparent about what your nonprofit works on is important so that your donors know exactly where their money is going. Being secretive can generate some bad press, so it’s better to be open with your supporters.

49. Nonprofit Animals Template

These presentation slides use earthy colors to convey their nonprofit’s connection to animal rights. Use this to showcase your nonprofit. You can use the current colors or update it to match your nonprofit’s brand/industry.

50. Wildlife Conservation Template

Use these presentation slide examples to cover why your nonprofit matters and why donors should consider contributing.

A nonprofit only exists when people donate, so putting together a compelling pitch deck showcasing why your nonprofit is so important to your main issue is important. These slides are perfect for sharing your goals and mission.

51. Pet Adoption Slideshow Template

If you're looking for stunning presentation slide ideas , we've got more than enough. This pitch deck presentation template is perfect for SPCAs and other animal societies working on finding forever homes for their animals.

However, it can also be adapted to any other nonprofit or business need. The great thing about these presentation slides is how versatile they are. Each one is completely customizable to fit your specific needs. For example, you can turn it into a video presentation .

Q. What is a PowerPoint Slide Deck?

A PowerPoint slide deck is a collection of slides that are created using an online presentation maker. These slides are used to create presentations for various purposes, like sales , marketing , research , case studies , webinars , onboarding and business in general.

PPT presentation slides typically consist of a series of slides that contain text, images, charts, graphs, and other multimedia elements that are used to communicate information to the audience in an engaging and visually appealing manner.

So why is it called a slide deck? In the early days, presenters would create slides by photographing images or text onto transparent film. These slides would then be loaded into a slide projector and displayed on a screen. The collection of slides was referred to as a "deck," and the presenter would advance through them one by one. Today, the term "slide deck" is still used to refer to a collection of slides or presentation materials, even though most presentations are now created and displayed digitally.

Q. What is a good presentation slide?

A good presentation slide is one that engages your audience and effectively communicates your message.

Here are some key characteristics of a good presentation slide:

1. Keep your slides simple and uncluttered: Avoid excessive text and use bullet points or concise phrases to convey your main points. Use clear and legible fonts, and maintain a consistent design throughout the presentation.

2. Visual appeal: Incorporate visually appealing elements such as relevant images, charts, graphs, or diagrams. Use high-quality visuals that enhance understanding and make the content more engaging

3. Make it readable: Use a readable font size. Stick to a maximum of two or three font styles and sizes. Blend bright and dark colors for the text and background to ensure visual contrast and good visibility.

4. Consistent structure: Use consistent formatting, such as font styles, colors, and alignment, throughout the presentation.

5. Make it interactive: Include animation and interactivity to add flair to your presentation. It can make your presentation powerful and memorable.

Q. How do you make a good presentation slide?

There are lots of presentation software available for creating presentations. But Visme offers users a wide range of features to create visually stunning and engaging presentations.

All you need to do is choose a template from our extensive library of over 500 presentation templates and customize it with your text. You can edit content, change image(s), apply custom colors, input your own fonts and logo, and more. You can visualize data using our wide range of customizable charts and widgets.

Spruce up your presentation by adding audio, video, animations and other interactive elements. Download it as a PDF, PPTX, MP4, and HTML5 to share with your recipient , or generate a shareable link for online sharing.

Q. How do you design a presentation?

Here's a step-by-step guide to help you design some of the best business presentations:

1. Define Your Objective: Determine the purpose of your presentation and identify the main message or key points you want to convey

2. Plan Your Content: Outline the structure and flow of your presentation. Divide it into sections or key topics to ensure a logical progression. Read this article to learn more about creating an effective presentation outline .

3. ​​Create a Storyline: Craft a compelling narrative that ties your key points together. Storytelling can help engage your audience and make your presentation more memorable.

4. Choose a Design Theme: Select a visually appealing design theme or template that aligns with your topic and audience. You can use the ones we've shared above as your presentation inspiration.

Visme’s branding kit streamlines on-brand content creation and ensures you stay consistent across all channels. With our AI-powered brand wizard , you can automatically generate branded templates fitted with your brand elements.

5. Use Visual Elements: Incorporate relevant visuals such as images, charts, graphs, icons, or diagrams to enhance understanding and engagement.

6. Maintain Visual Hierarchy: Organize your content with a clear visual hierarchy. Use headings, subheadings, and bullet points to guide the audience's attention and emphasize key points.

7. Use Transitions and Animations: Apply transitions and animations to enhance the flow and engagement of your presentation.

8. ​​Practice and Test: Review and rehearse your presentation to ensure a smooth delivery. Test your presentation on the actual equipment or platform you'll be using to ensure compatibility and optimal display.

9. Seek Feedback: Before delivering your presentation, consider sharing it with a trusted colleague or friend for feedback. Ask for their input on the content, design, and overall effectiveness. Incorporate their suggestions to improve your presentation.

Q. Which slide is best for presentation?

The best slide for a presentation highly depends on the topic and the target audience. For example, if it's a pitch deck presentation, the financial projections or business model slide would be the best.

However, here are some of the most common slides you should know about:

1. Title Slide: It announces the presentation's topic and introduces the speaker. It grabs the audience's initial attention.

2. Agenda Slide : This gives the audience an idea of what to expect throughout the presentation.

3. Content Slide : These are dense with information. They're best when broken down into bullet points for readability.

4. Visual Slide: Slides with infographics, charts, or other visuals can improve understanding and retention of complex data.

5. Interactive Slide: Encourages audience participation and engagement, especially in virtual presentations.

6. Conclusion/Summary Slide: Reinforces your presentation's key points or takeaways.

7. Question & Answer Slide: Allows interaction and clarification, ensuring the audience fully grasps the presented materials.

8. Contact Information Slide: Provides follow-up information for further questions or networking.

Q. What are the 3 main types of presentation slides?

While there's no one-size-fits-all rule for making presentation slides, you can group them into three main categories:

Introduction and Closing Slides

These slides bookend your presentation. The introduction slide typically includes the title of your presentation, your name and any relevant introductory information. The closing slide summarizes key points, provides a conclusion and often includes contact information or a call to action.

Content Slides

Content slides make up the core of your presentation and contain the primary information you want to convey to your audience. They can include text, images, charts, graphs and other visual or textual elements supporting your presentation's message.

Transition Slides

Transition slides signal a change in topic or create a smooth flow between different sections of your presentation. They often feature a brief title or heading that previews the upcoming content. Transition slides help guide your audience through the presentation and make it easy to follow.

Q. What are the 4 types of presentation?

The four types of presentations are informative, instructional, persuasive and arousing.

1. Informative Presentations: These are used to educate the audience on a particular topic. They present facts, data and information to increase the audience's knowledge and understanding.

2. Instructional Presentations: These presentations provide step-by-step guidance or training on a specific task, process or concept. You can use this type of presentation for teaching or coaching purposes, emphasizing learning and development.

3. Persuasive Presentations: The primary goal of these presentations is to influence the listeners' attitudes, beliefs or behaviors. Use this presentation type when you want your audience to accept certain arguments or propositions.

4. Arousing Presentations: These presentations aim to evoke interest and awaken curiosity about the topic among the audience. They often aim to inspire, motivate or raise awareness about an issue.

Q. How do you make a 5-minute presentation interesting?

Creating an intriguing 5-minute presentation may be challenging due to the time constraint. Yet, you can deliver an impactful and engaging presentation with a focused approach and attention to detail.

Here are some of the ways to do it:

1. Focus on a single core message : Since you have limited time, choose a specific topic and stick to it. Present only the crucial information that will help the audience understand your point.

2. Engage from the start: Start your presentation with a compelling story, anecdote or a surprising fact. This will grab the audience's attention and spark curiosity.

3. Keep slides simple and visual: Avoid cluttered slides with too much text. Use visuals such as images, graphs or infographics to illustrate your points clearly and concisely.

4. Tell a story: A narrative structure engages the audience and helps them follow your message. Consider using metaphors or anecdotes to explain complex ideas.

5. Encourage questions or interaction: Since time is limited, you might opt for a brief Q&A session, ask a rhetorical question or request audience feedback for further discussion later.

6. Finish strong: Conclude with a powerful statement, call-to-action or takeaway summarizing your main point. Leave your audience with a lasting impression of your message.

Q. How many slides should a 20 minute presentation be?

The number of slides you should have for a 20-minute presentation can vary depending on several factors, such as the complexity of the topic and the pace of your speech.

However, the general rule of thumb is to allocate at least 1-2 minutes per slide, which suggests 10-20 slides for a 20-minute presentation.

Q. What Is the 5 5 5 Rule for Presentation?

The 5 5 5 rule is a framework that ensures your presentation is clear and remains engaging. A presentation should have no more than five words per line of text, five lines of text per slide and five slides that apply the first two rules in a row.

Q. How Do You Make a Presentation Slide?

With Visme’s presentation software, creating a presentation slide is a breeze. Follow these steps to create a presentation slide with Visme.

Step 1: Log in to Visme and choose from hundreds of beautifully designed presentation templates . Each template is equipped with various intuitive layouts, typography, color themes, data widgets and graphics. Or Use Visme’s AI presentation maker to swiftly create a presentation based on your specific needs.

Step 2: Customize your presentation with your company’s logo, colors and other brand items. Upload your own creative collateral or use our assets library to add photos, images, graphics, icons and animations to your content.

Step 3: Once you have finished editing and are ready to share, download your presentation as a live webpage, video, PDF, or HTML file, a customizable PPTX, or embed it on your website.

Q. What Is the 10 Rule for Slides?

The 10 rule for slides is part of Guy Kawasaki’s 10/20/30 rule which emphasizes that no presentation should have more than 10 slides, last longer than 20 minutes, and contain fonts smaller than thirty points.

Q. Which is better Google Slides or PowerPoint?

When it comes to PowerPoint vs Google Slides , both have they're pro's and con's. You'll need to decide what's worth the trade if you should pick one over the other, or simply choose Visme.

Ready to Create Engaging Presentation Slides?

Ready to get started with creating your presentation? Choose from any of these 51 slides for presentation, or browse Visme’s complete template library to find the perfect match for creating your own presentation.

Each one of these presentation themes can be adapted to match your business, school, nonprofit and other needs so that you can create something perfect for your goals and objectives. Create your free account to start customizing with our drag-and-drop presentation maker.

And once you’ve finished creating your presentation, check out our video to help you present like a pro and wow your audience.

Create beautiful presentation slides with Visme

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About the Author

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

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After Kennedy’s Endorsement of Trump, the Two Signal a New Alliance

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who suspended his independent presidential bid earlier on Friday, was embraced by Donald J. Trump at a rally in Arizona. But the union’s political impact remains unclear.

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By Kellen Browning and Simon J. Levien

Reporting from Phoenix and Glendale, Ariz.

• Published Aug. 23, 2024 Updated Aug. 24, 2024, 3:06 p.m. ET

One of the most attention-grabbing days of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s independent presidential bid was also its last.

After toiling for months as an electoral afterthought, Mr. Kennedy suspended his long-shot campaign on Friday and endorsed former President Donald J. Trump in a speech in Phoenix carried live by television networks. Then, he traveled across town to speak in front of the largest rally audience since he began his third-party run last year: an audience of 17,000 at a Trump event at an arena in Glendale, Ariz.

As he shook hands with Mr. Trump amid bursts of fireworks, Mr. Kennedy was, briefly, the star of the show, a new attraction for the Trump campaign. But it was unclear what impact, if any, Mr. Kennedy’s endorsement of Mr. Trump would have on the 2024 race.

Framing his third-party bid as an outsider movement and a breath of fresh air for Americans fed up with partisan politics, Mr. Kennedy initially attracted significant support — more than 20 percent in some early polls — and was especially popular with Hispanic voters. Many voters had said they were frustrated with the lack of choice between two unpopular and familiar candidates: Mr. Trump and President Biden.

But Mr. Kennedy had been falling recently in polls, and plummeted further after Vice President Kamala Harris took the mantle of Democratic nominee from Mr. Biden, luring some wayward Democrats back home. Even those supporters who have remained steadfast to Mr. Kennedy are less likely than others to say they will vote in November, and polls have not provided a consistent answer as to whether Mr. Kennedy’s supporters would prefer Ms. Harris or Mr. Trump.

Still, Mr. Trump and his allies on Friday relished the fact that the former president had won the backing of a member of America’s most storied Democratic family, albeit one who has had many of his relatives denounce him and his endorsement of Mr. Trump. Of all the outlandish political news stories of the summer, mused Charlie Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA, which helped organize the rally, “maybe most remarkable of all: A Kennedy has endorsed a Republican.”

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KS4 GCSE Physics EDEXCEL SP7e Origin of the Universe Lesson Bundle

Subject: Physics

Age range: 14-16

Resource type: Lesson (complete)

Last updated

24 August 2024

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Interactive PowerPoint Presentation Differentiated for levels 4-8 Includes assessment opportunities Custom made animations Levelled activities, worksheets and mark schemes to assist Afl

Accompanying worksheet available with mark scheme

SP7e Origin of the Universe v5.pptx SP7e Origin of the Universe Brief History Universe v1.pdf SP7e Origin of the Universe LAQ 1 v1.pdf SP7e Origin of the Universe LAQ 1 MS v1.pdf SP7e Origin of the Universe LAQ 2 v1.pdf SP7e Origin of the Universe LAQ 2 MS v1.pdf SP7e Origin of the Universe WS v2.pdf SP7e Origin of the Universe WS MS v2.pdf

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