basics of power point presentation creation

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6 Simple Parts for Beginners to Create a PowerPoint Presentation

Last Updated: December 19, 2022 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 4,319,938 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.

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 .

Community Q&A

• If you save your PowerPoint presentation in .pps format instead of the default .ppt format, double-clicking your PowerPoint presentation file will prompt the presentation to open directly into the slideshow view. Thanks Helpful 5 Not Helpful 0
• If you don't have Microsoft Office, you can still use Apple's Keynote program or Google Slides to create a PowerPoint presentation. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0

• Your PowerPoint presentation (or some features in it) may not open in significantly older versions of PowerPoint. Thanks Helpful 1 Not Helpful 1
• Great PowerPoint presentations avoid placing too much text on one slide. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0

You Might Also Like

• ↑ https://onedrive.live.com/view.aspx?resid=DBDCE00C929AA5D8!252&ithint=file%2cpptx&app=PowerPoint&authkey=!AH4O9NxcbehqzIg
• ↑ 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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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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7 Steps to Create a Presentation in PowerPoint (+ Templates)

Learn essential steps and tips to move beyond data slides. Discover why PowerPoint falls flat and unveil next-gen tools for impactful presentations.

Hadar Peretz

6 minute read

Short answer

7 steps to create a presentation in PowerPoint

Begin with a surprise or bold statement.

Provide necessary background information.

Frame your presentation as a story.

Keep the text concise and meaningful.

Use visuals to complement the text.

Incorporate interactive design.

Conclude with actionable insights.

Effective data and visual presentation requires specific knowledge

Displaying complex data and project visuals via multimedia elements demands substantial knowledge.

It's not merely about presenting data but doing so in a manner that's intuitive and engaging for the audience.

Utilizing graphs, charts, videos, and interactive animations effectively necessitates a good grasp of design principles, storytelling, and data visualization.

Moreover, familiarity with the technology and platforms for creating and sharing these multimedia presentations is crucial.

This blend of design acumen, technological expertise, and succinct communication is key to ensuring the data and project visuals are comprehended well by the audience.

5 benefits of mastering PowerPoint presentations

PowerPoint presentations come with a variety of benefits that make them a popular choice for both professional and educational settings. Here are some of the advantages:

Visual Engagement: Utilize visuals to keep audiences engaged and convey ideas effectively.

Organization: Structured slides ensure a clear, linear flow of content.

Customization: Modify designs to suit different topics or branding needs.

Compatibility and Reusability: Easily share across platforms, and update or reuse presentations.

Supports Multimedia: PowerPoint supports the integration of videos, hyperlinks, and other multimedia elements.

How to make a presentation in PowerPoint? (7 steps)

Creating a compelling presentation in PowerPoint is a blend of artistry and storytelling, combined with a clear understanding of the material at hand.

Let’s break down this process into seven detailed steps to craft a presentation that not only captivates your audience but leaves a lasting impact.

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

Kicking off with something unexpected grabs your audience's attention right from the outset.

It might be a shocking fact related to your topic, a bold promise of what they'll learn, or a mystery that piques their curiosity.

For instance, if your presentation is about time management , you might start with a surprising statistic about the average amount of time people waste on trivial tasks.

learn how to avoid these presentation starters : overloading facts, over-explaining initially, generic content, relying solely on PowerPoint norms, revealing key benefits early, and focusing on self over audience engagement.

Aim for curiosity-sparking, audience-tailored narratives.

2. Provide context with a bit of background information

Before diving deep, give your audience a clear understanding of the topic at hand. Offer a brief background to set the stage.

Going with the time management example, you could provide some insights into how modern distractions have made managing time more challenging.

3. Structure your presentation within a story framework

Stories are a powerful medium to convey messages. Structuring your presentation as a story keeps your audience engaged.

Introduce a protagonist, which could be an individual, a group, or even your audience, facing a problem that your presentation will help solve.

For instance, narrate a day in the life of a person struggling to manage time and how the techniques you’re about to share turn things around.

4 steps to structuring your presentation within a story framework:

Introduce Setting and Characters: Kickstart by presenting the backdrop and the entities involved, making them relevant to your audience.

Highlight a Conflict or Challenge: Unveil a significant problem or hurdle that the audience can relate to, setting the stage for your solutions.

Propose the Resolution: Unfold your solutions to the earlier stated problem, walking your audience through each resolving step.

Recap and Look Ahead: Conclude by recapping the narrative and offering actionable steps or insights for the audience to ponder upon or implement.

4. Make every word count, and use as few as possible

Conciseness is key. Make sure each word on your slide adds value to your presentation. This approach keeps your slides uncluttered and easy to follow.

For instance, instead of writing a long sentence about the importance of prioritizing tasks, use a brief statement like “Prioritize to Monetize.”

5. Use visuals only to support your presentation text

Utilizing visuals judiciously within your presentation is crucial. Visuals should complement your narrative, not overshadow it.

Explore the steps to make a presentation creative , apply these methods, and see your skills enhance, leading to captivating presentations.

The essence is to employ images, graphs, and charts to enhance understanding or convey a message more efficiently.

For instance, a simple pie chart can swiftly illustrate how much time is saved by effective prioritization.

By adhering to this guideline, you ensure that your audience remains focused on the key messages being delivered, with visuals serving as a supportive tool rather than a distraction.

6. Use interactive design to make your audience active participants

Engage your audience with interactive elements. Incorporating clickable links, embedded videos, or live polls can make your presentation more interactive and engaging.

For instance, a live poll could be used to understand the audience’s prior knowledge about time management.

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

Your conclusion should empower your audience to apply the learnings in their lives. Recap the key points and provide actionable steps they can take post-presentation.

For instance, share a list of time-management tools or a 30-day challenge to improve productivity.

By following these seven steps, you’re on the path to mastering the art of creating impactful PowerPoint presentations.

Each step is geared towards making your content more engaging, understandable, and memorable, ensuring that your message not only resonates with your audience but prompts action long after your presentation concludes.

Browse basic examples about how to end a presentation and discover what should be on the last slide of the presentation.

8 pro tips for crafting effective PowerPoint presentations

Crafting an effective PowerPoint presentation demands a blend of clear objectives, engaging narrative, visual creativity, and audience-centric communication.

Here are key tips to guide you in this endeavor:

Know Your Audience: Tailor your message to match audience expectations.

Clear Objective: Define the primary goal of your presentation.

Engaging Storyline: Employ a compelling narrative to convey your message.

Simplicity is Key: Keep content concise and language simple.

Visual Aids: Use visuals like images and charts to support text.

Practice and Prepare: Familiarize yourself with your content and anticipate questions.

Interactive Elements: Incorporate polls or Q&A to engage the audience.

C all to Action: End with a clear call to action guiding the audience on the next steps.

Why it's time to move to the next-gen presentation tools

Making a memorable presentation requires more than just PowerPoint slides. In fact, making a PowerPoint presentation interesting is impossible .

In today's digital era, engaging your audience demands innovative tools and a narrative approach.

Let’s explore a game-changing tool for impactful presentations.

Embrace interactivity

Interactive presentations foster real-time engagement, turning monologues into dialogues.

Tools like Storydoc offer a fresh, engaging approach to sharing your message.

With the right tools, creating lasting impressions is a breeze. It’s time to change the narrative and make your presentations both informative and inspiring.

Here’s our CEO, Itai Amoza, discussing the key elements that make a presentation engaging:

Best tool for making an effective presentation

Traditionally, PowerPoint or Google Slides were the go-to platforms for crafting presentations, offering simplicity.

However, to truly engage modern audiences, stepping up your game is essential. This is where next-gen AI-driven tools like Storydoc come into play.

Unlike static slides, Storydoc enables the creation of interactive, immersive content experiences. It’s not merely about showcasing data, but weaving a compelling narrative that resonates with your audience.

Creative presentation templates

Ever faced the daunting blank slide with a blinking cursor urging creativity? It's like having a stage awaiting your script.

Overcoming this initial challenge can be hefty, but there's a savior - creative presentation templates.

These templates act like a structured canvas, guiding your narrative while leaving room for your unique flair.

Grab a template and witness the simplicity it brings to narrating your distinct tale.

I am a Marketing Specialist at Storydoc, I research, analyze and write on our core topics of business presentations, sales, and fundraising. I love talking to clients about their successes and failures so I can get a rounded understanding of their world.

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How to Get Started with PowerPoint + Guide and Resources

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PowerPoint is a presentation tool that’s been around for speakers ever since its initial release in 1990. It’s still relevant and still allows speakers from educators to sales executives to catch their audience’s attention. In this article we will review how to get started with PowerPoint, why is the tool still effective, and why you should use it.

Article overview: 1. Why use PowerPoint? 2. Why is PowerPoint still popular? 3. What are the main features? 4. Less known but valuable features 5. How to get started? 6. Benefits of using templates 7. More PowerPoint resources

1. Why use PowerPoint?

This tool is for each and every one of us who finds presentations stressful and needs our audience to focus on the visuals instead of focusing on us.  However, this is just barely scratching the surface of PowerPoint’s importance in business and education.

• Setting the flow through your visuals: When you make a PowerPoint presentation, by planning each slide you plan the flow of the entire presentation. You control which slides to focus on, the tempo, and the performance.
• Visualizing your concept: The core purpose of your presentation is to help your audience visualize your message. When you put the right infographics, images, and videos, your viewers can create the full picture in their minds.
• Use it as a tool of persuasion: You can sell an idea to your audience way easier by visualizing the benefits.

2. Why is PowerPoint Still Popular?

You’ve probably come across articles by popular media websites of the sort “ Why are you still using PowerPoint? “, “ Why do you still live in the 90s? “, “ Stop Using PowerPoint ” and others of the sort. To some degree, it is true that with the rising popularity of explainer videos for online presentations and other tools, PowerPoints come as too classic, linear, and basic.

However, despite it all, speakers still choose PowerPoint for their presentations. Why is that?

Benefits of using PowerPoint:

• Accessible: the tool doesn’t need monthly subscriptions, it comes for free for Windows and Mac users, as well as for Android and iOS.
• Easy to Learn: The learning curve is minimal, as the tool is very intuitive and it’s very easy to master basic features.
• Easy to Use: Most people refuse to drop PowerPoint because of the convenience of its simplicity. It’s the most useful, accessible way to create and present concepts. You navigate your slides with a simple keystroke. The drag and drop option also allows you to modify and re-order your slides.
• Customizable: For software that’s been around for decades, the community offers thousands of presentation templates, free and paid, all of them customizable. No matter how do you imagine your presentation in terms of slides, colors, sections; there are templates for you. You can also build your own templates from scratch.
• Organized:   The whole mindset of PowerPoint pushes you to organize your concept into chapters and bullet points. This way it reminds you to stay focused on your main points. You will have an organized presentation even you aren’t putting effort to organize it.
• Easy to Deliver:  PowerPoint slides are easy to see and read by a large audience and easy to navigate without breaking eye contact with the viewers.

In short, presenters still use PowerPoint for its convenient nature. Anyone can put a presentation together, it replaces note cards and keeps your subject flowing and versatile. It’s easily accessible and works on every device. It gives you control over your presentation and engages the audience.

And, last, everything can look good if it’s on a slide.

3. What are the Main Features

Despite being user-friendly and basic, PowerPoint has a lot of power hiding beneath the surface.

🎨 Design Features

The tool offers design features to help you customize your slides the way you want. You can start creating your layouts and templates from scratch or use a pre-made template and adapt it to your concept. Everything is editable from images and colors to fonts.

You can also use the page setup to optimize your presentation for the display size. It all depends on where you’ll be presenting. If you do it via projector, it means to use a larger screen ratio in comparison to when you present on a computer screen.

🎬 Animation Features

PowerPoint also has animations for different elements and slide transitions. These are also customizable, as you can edit the transition effects, their timing or set an on-click or auto transition between the slides. You can also arrange slides for a slide show and add audio.

📽️ Presentation Features

The tool packs built-in notes so when you’re printing your presentation slides you can ass presenter notes beside each slide. This is a very useful feature for the speaker to clarify points without putting too much text to the slides, that were meant for the audience. You can also pre-record narration for your presentation and make it perfect through the rehearsal function.

✔️ Compatibility

Besides the obvious integration with other Microsoft Office tools, PowerPoint has image, audio, and video support if you wish to embed videos to play within the program. It also supports exporting presentation files for online multi-user editing.

4. Less Used but Valuable Features

Here I will list less known features that are extremely valuable and can save a lot of headaches.

• Live subtitles: The tool allows you to activate subtitles for Presenter mode so you can make your presentation more accessible. Click Slideshow Tab/ Check "Always use subtitles"/ Choose mic and languages settings/ Go to Presenter View
• Accessibility Checker : Just like in content writing, you can put alt text to all your images, object, and graphs. This is for viewers who use a screen reader due to a disability. You also need to make sure your information order is correct, add slide titles, and so on. This tool helps you find slides that don’t check out in these areas.
• Built-In Visuals: Unlike the ancient PowerPoint SmartArt, these built-in icons, photos, and illustrations are modern and on point. You can easily find these galleries in the Insert menu. Double Click Photo/ Click Photo Tab/ Crop
• Crop: You can actually trim a photo that doesn’t fit well in your space instead of distorting it.
• Remove Background:  To save time from manually removing background from images in your photo-editing software, you can do that quickly in PowerPoint with one click. Double Click Photo/ click Photo tab/ Remove Background
• PowerPoint Zoom: This feature allows you to jump to and from specific slides and sections on the go during the presentation. Insert/ Zoom
• Clean-Up: It takes the manual work of removing metadata, speaker notes, sensitive info, annotations, and others before you need to send your presentation out.
• Stretch to Align Shapes: The first object you select becomes the reference for the other selected shapes. Meaning, this feature allows you to align all of them in one click.
• Convert Word Document to PowerPoint: You can do that with a single click.

Sounds good to you? In this case, you seem ready to make your first PowerPoint presentation.

5. How to Get Started with PowerPoint?

There are numerous splendid free video tutorials for you to look at. However, before you get to any of that, it’s important to first know the key elements of the program itself.

There are a few main things, or key actions, you will do when creating your presentation.

• Creating your slides: these are the pages to your presentation.
• Adding content: you’ll be filling your slides with text content, data viz, images and videos.
• Setting a theme: you’ll either make your own theme or customize an existing template to best fit your preferences.
• Getting ready: the last thing before presenting is to prepare your notes and presenter view.

In order to do perform all of these actions, you will use the menu. Here I’ll list and explain the tabs you’ll be working with.

Menus and Toolbars

• File: This is the menu where you save, share and export your presentation files.
• Home: The home of all the tools you need. Here you can start a new slide, change the layout, add sections, change text and paragraph settings.
• Insert: The menu you will use to add content to your slide: images, shapes, screenshots, tables, charts, links, and more.
• Design: Here is where your design options are. You can change themes, color schemes, and styles from this menu. As well as change the slide background.
• Transitions: Here’s the library of the traditions you can use and set up how your slides will change from one to another.
• Animations: In this tab, you can choreograph movements of elements on your slides.
• Slide Show: This menu helps you set up what will your presentation look like to your audience.
• Review: Here you can add comments, compare presentations, and even run spell checks.
• View: In this tab, you have the options to look at your presentation in various ways. It depends on where you are in the creation or delivery process.
• Tools: This tab changes depending on the elements you’re working on. For example, if you click a shape, you will get the Drawing Tools tab. If you click on an image, the Picture Tools tab will appear. Other tabs include Chart Tools, Table Tools, Video Tools, and SmartArt Tools.

How to Make Your First PowerPoint Presentation: The Short Version

Now let’s have a look at the basics of how to create a presentation.

1. Open PowerPoint

2. Select one of the options :

• Blank Presentation: select this option to create a presentation from scratch
• Select a Template: Choose one of the templates to work with

That’s it. Now you can add new slides by clicking  Home/New Slide . You can also select the layout of each slide via the dropdown Layout menu.

3. Add and format text. You can start adding your text content simply by placing your cursor on the slide to start typing. To format your text, select it, and then go to the Home tab where you’ll find options for font, font size, and font style. By selecting the text, you can also make each line a bullet point with the Bullets and Numbering options in the same menu.

4. Add your visuals.  Go to the Insert tab and choose what element you need to add. If you want an image, select Picture and browse for the image you wish to insert. The same goes for Shapes , Chart . Icons and SmartArt .

And there you have it. A very simple presentation that covers the basics.

From there, you can advance your skills by watching this complete guide to PowerPoint:

Or get familiar with some cool techniques that will make your work with PowerPoint even easier:

6. The Benefits of Using PowerPoint Templates

PowerPoint is an absolute powerhouse in the right hands despite its seemingly limited nature. Especially if you have the advantage of templates. The blank title slide can look very menacing for non-designers. Where exactly to start with it? You have to plan your content and the flow of your presentation AND to make it look good and modern. Here’s where pre-made editable templates come into action.

• If you aren’t an experienced designer, you can adjust an already designed by professionals template.
• Adapting a pre-made template is really easy for branding . You simply change the colors, fonts, and graphics to match those of your brand, business, school, or university and Woolah! There’s your brand presentation.
• It’s very quick to make as you don’t need to start inventing the entire presentation design from scratch.
• And on top of that, you will keep the design consistent .

Some Free PowerPoint Templates

Hey! We added a  brand new presentation templates category  to our collection of graphics! Our creative designers rolled up their sleeves to prove PowerPoint presentation templates are still relevant. This is why they re-imagined the whole concept and crafted their own take on ultra-modern and trendy multipurpose templates suitable for the ever-changing design standards.

Below you will see part of the templates, some are completely free for personal and commercial use. You can download them now and test them for your own presentation. It would be our pleasure.

Free Educational Presentation Templates for Online Lessons

This pack of templates by our designers at GraphicMama comes for free with 30 lesson slides and 2 color themes. Ideal for educational purposes.

• Slides : 30
• Theme : Education
• Fonts : Free web fonts
• Files : PPTX, PDF, as well as PNG/SVG files of all image assets.
• License : Royalty-free

Free Business PowerPoint Presentation  Template

This free PowerPoint template had 6 business-related slides. Perfect for reports, business plans, analysis, or product introduction. This PPT template is designed in a modern style, giving the feeling of a more professional presentation.

Including a total of 6 presentation slide designs, all in HQ quality (1920×1080 resolution), this free business PowerPoint template will give you the opportunity to create amazing, professional presentations.

• Theme : Business

Free Hand-Drawn PowerPoint Presentation

Including a total of 8 different slides, all in HD quality and 16:9 aspect ratio. This free Powerpoint template will give you an excellent base to make a lasting impression.

Free Corporate Presentation Template

This PPT template is designed in a modern style, giving the feeling of a more professional presentation. Including a total of 6 presentation slide designs, all in HQ quality.

Ultimate Infographic Template Collection – Mega  Bundle

The one we call “the big boy”. This multipurpose collection is our best-seller infographic bundle. It includes 539 infographic templates  with steps, processes, cycles, flowcharts, timelines, lists, maps, and basically everything. In addition, the infographics are made in different graphic styles, which will help you easily select the ones that suit the exact design you need to present your concept best.

• Subjects: Slides for over 20 different subjects, including ecology, business, education, technology, office life, statistics, medicine, marketing, science.
• Infographics: steps, statistical, informational, timeline, process, geographic, comparison infographics, hierarchical, list, tables, conceptual illustrations.
• Styles: Flat, 3D, gradients, minimalistic, cartoons, full illustrations, paper cutout style, dark mode, futuristic, isometric.

This collection of templates is suitable for both designers and non-professionals to create beautiful infographics fast and easily. All infographic templates come as fully editable vector Ai, Eps, Photoshop (.psd), and PowerPoint (.pptx) file formats, also compatible with Google Slides and there are 20 free-to-download infographic templates .

7. More PowerPoint Resources

To end on a high note, here is a list of collections with valuable resources for your future PowerPoint presentations.

Valuable materials and insights for better PowerPoint presentations:

• 10 PowerPoint Tutorials to Help You Master PowerPoint
• How to Make an Infographic in PowerPoint: The Beginners’ Guide
• 12 PowerPoint Presentation Tips To Dramatically Boost Your Efficiency
• Graphic Mama’s Modern Templates for New Era of PowerPoint Presentations
• How to Add Audio to PowerPoint: The Quick Step-by-Step Guide

Articles with free PowerPoint resources:

• The Best Free PowerPoint Templates to Download in 2022
• 25 Free Education PowerPoint Templates For Lessons, Thesis, and Online Lectures
• 100+ Free PowerPoint Graphics For Better Presentations [Free PPT]
• Need PowerPoint Backgrounds? The Best Places to Check Out [+ Freebies]

In Conclusion

PowerPoint is old as time and ever-changing to match modern times and stay trendy. The default power tool for presentations isn’t going anywhere soon as it’s easy to learn and adapt, intuitive, and familiar. Due to its large community that’s been growing for decades, there are thousands of resources, tutorials, and templates to use to your advantage. Ready to get started with PowerPoint?

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Al Boicheva

Al is an illustrator at GraphicMama with out-of-the-box thinking and a passion for anything creative. In her free time, you will see her drooling over tattoo art, Manga, and horror movies.

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How to Make a PowerPoint Presentation

Create a basic PowerPoint presentation to share information

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In This Article

Jump to a Section

Create a PowerPoint Presentation

Add text and images to a powerpoint presentation.

• Save and Share PowerPoint Presentation

What to Know

• Select File > New > Blank Presentation or choose preset theme.
• Next, select Home tab > New Slide . Or right-click Slide Sorter bar > select New Slide .
• Select Insert tab > Text Box > select spot in slide for text box > enter text. Select Insert > add images.

This article details how to put together a PowerPoint presentation using PowerPoint for Microsoft 365, PowerPoint 2019, 2016, and 2013.

Here are the steps to create a basic PowerPoint presentation.

Open PowerPoint. The program may open a blank presentation. If so, select File > New to see the options for creating a new slideshow.

If you'd like to take a tour of the most popular PowerPoint features, go to File > New , then choose the Welcome to PowerPoint template.

Select either a Blank Presentation or choose one of the Microsoft-supplied design themes to create your presentation. When you choose a blank presentation, PowerPoint creates a one-slide presentation that starts with a title slide. You can then select the text boxes on the Title Slide to add your text.

Themes include matching color palettes and fonts to help you create a document with a cohesive look.

Add more slides to your presentation. Go to the Home tab and select New Slide . Or, right-click the Slide Sorter bar in the left pane and select New Slide .

Change the slide layout, if desired. Go to the Home tab and select Layout . Then, choose options for content layout in your slides, which you can resize or delete as needed.

Repeat these steps until you have enough slides to finish your presentation.

Now that you've created the framework of your presentation, you can use some basic operations to make it more interesting.

If you selected a pre-determined layout for a slide that includes text or image elements, click any element. Selecting a text box opens it for editing. You can then type or paste your content into the text box. General content boxes have icons to click to insert objects, including tables, charts, SmartArt, pictures, and video.

Add a text box to a slide. Go to the Insert tab and choose Text Box . Click any place in the slide to place the box. When you begin typing, the Home tab opens with text formatting options such as font, size, bold, italics, color, and alignment. The text editing buttons are only available when a text box is selected.

To resize a text box, drag (click and hold with a mouse) one of the adjustment handles on the outside of the text box until the text box is the desired size.

Add an image. Go to the Insert tab and find the options in the Images group. Choose from these options:

• Picture opens a file browser. Navigate to the photo on your computer you wish to use.
• Online Picture opens a search window. Search Bing for an image online or use OneDrive to access your photos.
• Screenshot captures part of your screen and adds it to your presentation.
• Photo Album accesses a group of photos on your computer.

Adding other objects is also done through the Insert tab. You can drag and create shapes, SmartArt, and charts.

Save and Share a PowerPoint Presentation

Don't leave your new presentation without saving it. Also, you may want to share it with someone or put it where you can access it easily.

Save your presentation by selecting File > Save As .

You can also select Save as Adobe PDF to convert the presentation to a PDF file.

If you use OneDrive, save your presentation to OneDrive for easy access and sharing.

Select File > Share to see options to share your presentation quickly. Depending on your other software, PowerPoint allows you to share through OneDrive, email, and other options.

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PowerPoint  - Creating and Opening Presentations

Powerpoint  -, creating and opening presentations, powerpoint creating and opening presentations.

PowerPoint: Creating and Opening Presentations

Lesson 3: creating and opening presentations.

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Introduction

PowerPoint files are called presentations . Whenever you start a new project in PowerPoint, you'll need to create a new presentation , which can either be blank or from a template . You'll also need to know how to open an existing presentation .

Watch the video below to learn more about creating and opening presentations in PowerPoint.

To create a new presentation:

When beginning a new project in PowerPoint, you'll often want to start with a new blank presentation.

• A new presentation will appear.

To create a new presentation from a template:

A template is a predesigned presentation you can use to create a new slide show quickly. Templates often include custom formatting and designs , so they can save you a lot of time and effort when starting a new project.

• Click the File tab to access Backstage view , then select New .

• A preview of the template will appear, along with additional information on how the template can be used.

• A new presentation will appear with the selected template .

It's important to note that not all templates are created by Microsoft. Many are created by third-party providers and even individual users, so some templates may work better than others.

To open an existing presentation:

In addition to creating new presentations, you'll often need to open a presentation that was previously saved. To learn more about saving presentations, review our lesson on Saving Presentations .

Most features in Microsoft Office, including PowerPoint, are geared toward saving and sharing documents online . This is done with OneDrive , which is an online storage space for your documents and files. If you want to use OneDrive, make sure you’re signed in to PowerPoint with your Microsoft account. Review our lesson on Understanding OneDrive to learn more.

To pin a presentation:

If you frequently work with the same presentation , you can pin it to Backstage view for easy access.

• Select the File tab to go to Backstage view , then click Open . Your Recent Presentations will appear.

Compatibility Mode

Sometimes you may need to work with presentations that were created in earlier versions of PowerPoint, like PowerPoint 2003 or PowerPoint 2000. When you open these types of presentations, they will appear in Compatibility Mode .

Compatibility Mode disables certain features, so you'll only be able to access commands found in the program that was used to create the presentation. For example, if you open a presentation created in PowerPoint 2003, you can only use tabs and commands found in PowerPoint 2003.

In the image below, you can see at the top of the window that the presentation is in Compatibility Mode. This will disable some current PowerPoint features, including newer types of slide transitions.

To exit Compatibility Mode, you'll need to convert the presentation to the current version type. However, if you're collaborating with others who only have access to an earlier version of PowerPoint, it's best to leave the presentation in Compatibility Mode so the format will not change.

You can review this support page from Microsoft to learn more about which features are disabled in Compatibility Mode.

To convert a presentation:

If you want access to the newer features, you can convert the presentation to the current file format.

Note that converting a file may cause some changes to the original layout of the presentation.

• The presentation will be converted to the newest file type.
• Open our practice presentation .
• Notice that the presentation opens in Compatibility Mode . Convert it to the current file format. If a dialog box appears asking if you would like to close and reopen the file in order to see the new features, choose Yes .
• In Backstage view, pin a file or folder.

/en/powerpoint/saving-presentations/content/

• Slide Design Fundamentals
• Presentation Fundamentals
• App Tips & Tricks

How to Create a Basic PowerPoint Presentation

April 26, 2022

This video shows you step-by-step how create your first PowerPoint slide deck in less than 5 minutes. You will learn what to do to get started, an explanation of the slide layouts, two key strategies for creating high-quality presentations, and the final steps to wrap up the creation of the slide deck.

Introduction

Are you brand new to PowerPoint and not sure how to get started? Or are you feeling a bit overwhelmed with all of the buttons and options? Don’t worry, in this video, I will show you how create your first PowerPoint slide deck in less than 5 minutes.

Opening a new app can be a bit intimidating, particularly if you don’t feel confident in your tech or computer skills. In this this video, I will show the basic steps you need to take to create a presentation and feel confident to keep creating.

FYI - I am using PowerPoint for Mac in this video. But the interface and buttons are the same for the Windows version. Also, I am covering mostly the mechanics of the software. But later in the video I talk about other strategies you need to consider for creating a good presentation. Let’s get started.

Getting Started

When you open the PowerPoint app, you will see several options to choose. For your first presentation, I recommend using the blank presentation option. Consider this a practice run to get used to the software and you don’t have the pressure of making the slide look nice or professional.

Once you have these basic skills down, the next slide deck will be much easier. Double click the blank presentation option. This will open the edit mode. There are two parts in edit mode, the thumbnails pane and the slide edit pane. You use the thumbnails to navigate to different slides. The slide edit section is where you add your content to each slide.

The first slide will be the Title slide layout. There are two placeholders for your main title and a subtitle. Click in the box and type you title. If you don’t have a subtitle that is okay. That placeholder won’t show up when you are in slideshow mode.

To add your next slide, click the New Slide button on the Home ribbon or tab. The new slide will be added underneath the title slide in the thumbnail pane and show up automatically in the slide edit section. This layout will be the Title and Content layout.

Add your slide title at the top. In the second placeholder you can add a list or click a content icon to add visual content like a picture or chart. Keep clicking the New Slide button to add more slides. Click the small down arrow next to the button to show different slide layouts.

To learn more about each slide layout, watch my PowerPoint Slide Layouts video .

Two Strategies for Good Presentations

At this point I want to say that creating a good presentation is more than a slide deck. I recommend two strategies before you even start creating your slides.

One, make sure you are really clear about the focus and purpose of the presentation.

Two, create an outline of your presentation.

Both of these strategies will help you avoid adding unnecessary content. And it saves you time when you are ready to create your slide deck.

If you’d like to learn more, check out my Creating Great Slide Decks mini course. The link is in the description below. If you are getting value from this video, I invite you to like and subscribe.

Finishing the Slide Deck

Okay, back to creating the slide deck. Once you’ve added all of the content slides, it helps to have a concluding slide. The layout can be up to you, but I recommend using the Section slide layout. Visually, it signals to your audience that you are wrapping up.

Once you are done editing, make sure you save the presentation file. When you are ready to present, click the Slide Show tab or ribbon. Click the Start from Beginning button.

I'd love to hear what aspects of creating a slide trip you up. Leave a comment or question.

About the Author

Jennifer Sharkey is known as the Virtual Presentation Specialist. Being passionate about seeing people shine and be heard, she leans into her 20+ years of public speaking experience and uses what she has learned from presenting, both in-person and virtually, to small groups all the way up to 5000 people. Jennifer draws from her experience as an associate professor, academic librarian, and coach to help holistic coaches master virtual presentations to grow their business. Her unique immersive program provides practical strategies and methods to build confidence, engage audiences, and generate authenticity and authority.

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17 PowerPoint Presentation Tips to Make More Creative Slideshows [+ Templates]

Published: August 16, 2023

Creating a great PowerPoint presentation is a skill that any professional can benefit from. The problem? It’s really easy to get it wrong. From poor color choices to confusing slides, a bad PowerPoint slideshow can distract from the fantastic content you’re sharing with stakeholders on your team.

That’s why it’s so important to learn how to create a PowerPoint presentation from the ground up, starting with your slides. Even if you’re familiar with PowerPoint, a refresher will help you make a more attractive, professional slideshow. Let’s get started.

How to Make a PowerPoint Presentation

• Presentation Tips

PowerPoint Design

I like to think of Microsoft PowerPoint as a test of basic professional skills. To create a passing presentation, I need to demonstrate design skills, technical literacy, and a sense of personal style.

If the presentation has a problem (like an unintended font, a broken link, or unreadable text), then I’ve probably failed the test. Even if my spoken presentation is well rehearsed, a bad visual experience can ruin it for the audience.

Expertise means nothing without a good PowerPoint presentation to back it up. For starters, grab your collection of free PowerPoint templates below.

10 Free PowerPoint Templates

Download ten free PowerPoint templates for a better presentation.

• Creative templates.
• Data-driven templates.
• Professional templates.

You're all set!

Click this link to access this resource at any time.

Tell us a little about yourself below to gain access today.

No matter your topic, successful PowerPoints depend on three main factors: your command of PowerPoint's design tools, your attention to presentation processes, and your devotion to consistent style. Here are some simple tips to help you start mastering each of those factors, and don't forget to check out the additional resources at the bottom of this post.

A presentation is made up of multiple slides, let's delve deeper into PowerPoint's capabilities.

Getting Started

1. open powerpoint and click ‘new.’.

If a page with templates doesn‘t automatically open, go to the top left pane of your screen and click New. If you’ve already created a presentation, select Open then double-click the icon to open the existing file.

That said, you can still use fun and eccentric fonts — in moderation. Offsetting a fun font or large letters with something more professional can create an engaging presentation.

Above all, be sure you're consistent so your presentation looks the same throughout each slide. That way, your audience doesn't become distracted by too many disparate fonts. Check out this example from HubSpot’s company profile templates:

Interested in this presentation template? Download it for free here.

5. Make sure all of your objects are properly aligned.

Having properly aligned objects on your slide is the key to making it look polished and professional. You can manually try to line up your images ... but we all know how that typically works out. You're trying to make sure all of your objects hang out in the middle of your slide, but when you drag them there, it still doesn't look quite right. Get rid of your guessing game and let PowerPoint work its magic with this trick.

Here’s how to align multiple objects:

• Select all objects by holding down Shift and clicking on all of them.
• Select Arrange in the top options bar, then choose Align or Distribute .
• Choose the type of alignment you'd like.

Here’s how to align objects to the slide:

• Select Align to Slide .
• Select Arrange in the top options bar again, then choose Align or Distribute .

6. Use "Format Object" to better control your objects' designs.

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

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

• Adjusting text inside a shape.
• Creating a natural perspective shadow behind an object.
• Recoloring photos manually and with automatic options.

7. Take advantage of PowerPoint's shapes.

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

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

8. Create custom shapes.

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

Another option is to combine two shapes together. To do so, select the two shapes you’d like to work with, then click Shape Format in the top ribbon. Tap Merge Shapes .

You’ll see a variety of options.

• Combine creates a custom shape that has overlapping portions of the two previous shapes cut out.
• Union makes one completely merged shape.
• Intersect builds a shape of only the overlapping sections of the two previous shapes.
• Subtract cuts out the overlapping portion of one shape from the other.
• Fragment will split your shape into different parts depending on where they overlap.

By using these tools rather than trying to edit points precisely, you can create accurately measured custom shapes.

9. Crop images into custom shapes.

Besides creating custom shapes in your presentation, you can also use PowerPoint to crop existing images into new shapes. Here's how you do that:

• Click on the image and select Picture Format in the options bar.
• Choose Crop , then Crop to Shape , and then choose your desired shape. Ta-da! Custom-shaped photos.

10. Present websites within PowerPoint.

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

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

By using LiveWeb, you don’t have to interrupt your PowerPoint, and your presentation will remain fluid and natural. Whether you embed a whole webpage or just a YouTube video, this can be a high-quality third party improvement. To install the add-on, simple head to the LiveWeb website and follow the instructions.

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

11. Try Using GIFs.

GIFs are looped animated images used to communicate a mood, idea, information, and much more. Users add GIFs to PowerPoints to be funny or quickly demo a process. It's easy to add GIFs to your slides. To do so, simply follow these steps:

• Download and save the GIF you want.
• Go to the slide you want the GIF on.
• Go to the Home tab, and click either Insert or Picture .
• From the Picture drop-down menu, choose Picture from File .
• Navigate to where you saved your GIF and select it. Then, choose Insert .
• It will play automatically the moment you insert it.

PowerPoint Process

12. keep it simple..

PowerPoint is an excellent tool to support your presentation with visual information, graphics, and supplemental points. This means that your PowerPoint should not be your entire presentation. Your slides — no matter how creative and beautiful — shouldn't be the star of the show. Keep your text and images clear and concise, using them only to supplement your message and authority.

If your slides have dense and cluttered information, it will both distract your audience and make it much more likely that you will lose their attention. Nothing in your slides should be superfluous! Keep your presentation persuasive by keeping it clean. There are a few ways to do this:

• Limit bullet points and text.
• Avoid paragraphs and long quotes.
• Maintain "white space" or "negative space".
• Keep percentages, graphs, and data super basic.

13. Embed your font files.

One constant problem presenters have with PowerPoint is that fonts seem to change when presenters move from one computer to another. In reality, the fonts are not changing — the presentation computer just doesn’t have the same font files installed . If you’re using a PC and presenting on a PC, then there is a smooth workaround for this issue.

Here’s the trick: When you save your PowerPoint file (only on a PC), you should click File , then Options, then open up the Save tab. Then, select the Embed fonts in the file check box under Preserve fidelity when sharing this presentation . Now, your presentation will keep the font file and your fonts will not change when you move computers.

The macOS PowerPoint version has a similar function. To embed your fonts on a Mac, do the following:

• Open up your presentation.
• On the top bar, click PowerPoint , then click Preferences .
• Under Output and Sharing , click Save .
• Under Font Embedding , click Embed fonts in the file.

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

If you’re still scared of your presentation showing up differently when it’s time to present, you should create a PDF version just in case. This is a good option if you’ll be presenting on a different computer. If you also run into an issue where the presenting computer doesn’t have PowerPoint installed, you can also use the system viewer to open up the PDF. No laptop will ever give you trouble with this file type.

The only caveat is that your GIFs, animations, and transitions won’t transfer over. But since the PDF will only work as a backup, not as your primary copy, this should be okay.

To save your presentation as a PDF file, take the following steps:

• Go to File , then click Save as …
• In the pop-up window, click File Format.
• A drop-down menu will appear. Select PDF .
• Click Export .

You can also go to File , then Export , then select PDF from the file format menu.

15. Embed multimedia.

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

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

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

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

16. Bring your own hardware.

Between operating systems, PowerPoint is still a bit jumpy. Even between differing PPT versions, things can change. One way to fix these problems is to make sure that you have the right hardware — so just bring along your own laptop when you're presenting.

If you’re super concerned about the different systems you might have to use, then upload your PowerPoint presentation into Google Slides as a backup option. Google Slides is a cloud-based presentation software that will show up the same way on all operating systems. The only thing you need is an internet connection and a browser.

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

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

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

17. Use Presenter View.

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

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

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

Your Next Great PowerPoint Presentation Starts Here

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

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

Don't forget to share this post!

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• How It Works

https://nasacademy.com/blog/article/create-a-powerpoint-presentation-in-3-simple-steps

Tips and Tricks

Create a powerpoint presentation that nobody will forget in 3 simple steps, your powerpoint doesn’t tell the story – you do.

Team Nas Academy

17 Sep · 10 mins read

Preparing a work pitch is no simple task, especially if you’re wanting make a good impression. Even after all this time spent in Zoom meetings, many people still struggle to create an engaging PowerPoint presentation that goes beyond reading key points off a slide. 

But don’t worry – we’ve got you covered, in just three simple steps.

And these presentation tips will help you fully utilize your storytelling skills so that your presentation will linger in the minds of your audience – long after you’ve left the room – and even buy yourself negotiating power .

While PowerPoints are all about the visuals, you still have to focus on how to best deliver your message if you want to keep people interested from start to finish.

Step 1: Structure Your Presentation

Before you start creating your powerpoint presentation, you need to know what you’re going to talk about, and how you are going to structure it. Pick a good topic, that you know enough about, and find the best angle that others will want to hear about. Then, reveal your information in order by structuring your presentation like a story. 

Writing your presentation from the perspective of a storyteller is what is going to hold the attention of your listeners from beginning to the end (because it won’t feel like you are just relaying facts and information).

Rather, you’ll get them investing in what you have to say and take them on a journey with you, to teach them exactly what you need them to know.

A. Learn how to write a good hook

Arguably, the most important part of your entire presentation is your introduction. How you start your presentation and what you lead with is going to determine how interested your audience will be throughout the rest of your presentation.

After all, your first words immediately introduce your audience to who you are and what your style is – and it sets the tone going forward. It’s the point where audiences will choose to tune in or tune out.

A solid hook instantly makes a commitment to your audience that what you have to say is going to be interesting, and it keeps them wanting more. It helps you stand out as a speaker. 

So, focus on creating an attention-grabbing introduction, just like you would find in the first page of a book or the opening scene of a movie. Consider starting with:

• An interesting, mind-blowing fun fact,
• A unique image or video,
• Asking an engaging question, or 
• Creating a scenario involving your audience: “Imagine…”

Depending on the environment, goal, and subject of your talk, you could do a poll and ask people to raise their hands or stand up – or get physically involved with their senses by putting something interesting under their chairs or on the tables in front of them, and ask them to engage with it.

Pulling on that human connection and encouraging active participation with your audience is an amazing way to come off as confident and experienced.

Don’t forget to bring people into the world you’re about to explore. It’s been proven that people learn and are more receptive to information when they feel involved (rather than feeling like passive viewers who are doomed to sit through, yet again, another boring PowerPoint presentation).

As inaccurate as it might be, people do make assumptions. And they will continue to make decisions based on first impressions – so make that first impression count. 

B. Build your mystery box

Famous Hollywood director JJ Abrams (creator of Lost and director of the most recent Star Wars films) gave his own TedTalk presentation  that was based around a “mystery box” that he got from a magic store when he was a kid. 

It was a sealed box, with a question mark printed on it. There was no indication of what was inside when he bought it – and even as an adult with kids of his own now, he still doesn’t know . It remains sealed to this day. Never opening it and admiring the mystery within this box is what inspired him to go on and create so many successful, enticing stories – by f ocusing on always including an element of mystery.

Your PowerPoint presentation is your story, so build it like a mystery box.

Humans love solving mysteries – we are constantly looking to uncover things and make sense of the world around us. So, if you introduce a mystery to your audience at the beginning of a story, it can be a great way to get people to stick around until the end .

You could try asking a question, and refusing to answer it until the end. Allude to something intriguing, but don’t give it away. Try thinking of creative ways that make sense for your specific presentation, where you can keep the mystery alive – and, ultimately, keep your audience engaged.

C. End your talk with a bang

If you want to know how to end a presentation, it’s all about making yourself memorable and bringing your point to a strong close. In order to do this, you have to wrap up loose ends like any other story arc, and find some way of continuing the conversation beyond your pitch .

How can you leave a long-lasting impression, and let people get the most out of your presentation? This is why you should always leave a call-to-action (CTA).

Your CTA will depend on what your goals are as a presenter.

You might want to encourage discussion around a topic – so it might be good to end by asking a question and leaving the floor open for answers, as many do. But if you want readers to do something, give them actionable steps they can take today or provide them with resources and encourage them by telling them why doing this work is necessary.

Whatever it is you are hoping to get from this talk, make sure you are clear on it and then end your presentation accordingly.

Step 2: Create Your Presentation

A. pick a powerpoint template or theme.

Now that you have your story, it’s time to start building a visually effective deck to go along with it.

The first step in creating your slides is to customize a theme – this is what will make each and every slide of your presentation feel cohesive, and give the entire slide deck a natural flow. 

Each slide should have some type of variation for visual interest, but should also incorporate the same, main design. This makes it easier for your audience to follow along, and feel as though you are taking them through a journey. They will feel like they can keep up and won’t be overwhelmed and confused by too many different styles, tones, and mixed brand messages. Use variation as a tool , but be mindful not to overdo it.

Picking a PowerPoint template can be as easy as using a free one in the PowerPoint library, purchasing one, or even creating your own. When preparing themes, try and customize the look as much as possible to fit your brand or messaging.

It’s a simple but effective way of making yourself look more professional and dedicated and it helps you stand out .

You can create your own themes in Photoshop or in free design software like Canva , and then import them into PowerPoint. Or, you can purchase stock images online from Shutterstock, Envato Elements , or any other online store.

Whatever route you take when choosing a powerpoint theme, make sure it is functional, on brand, clean-looking, and not too distracting. The most important part is that your theme reflects the story you are trying to tell.

B. Focus more on the visuals

When crafting your PowerPoint presentation and organizing how you will display your information on your slides, remember to focus more on visuals, and less on text.

Trying to talk while showing a wall of text at the same time is ineffective in many ways . When people see text, they naturally start to read it. And as soon as people start to read your slides, they stop listening to the story you’re trying to tell .

Audiences will focus on what’s written rather than what’s being said (and they might even try to write down what’s on your slides).

Both of these things draw too much time and attention away from you, as the person behind the presentation that will help them connect to the story and make a lasting impression. It reduces your impact and it forces audiences into playing a game of “catch-up.”

Some  recommended best practices are to not go beyond 6-8 lines of text, or 30 words, per slide . Keep the font no smaller than 24 pts. You could also just use the “old-school Twitter rule” of using no more than 140 characters on a slide .

But remember: the best results often come from using the least amount of words possible – challenge yourself to only focus on placing keywords or terms that you really want to emphasize. 

And for the rest, use your voice.

C. Add custom infographics

PowerPoint templates can be relatively simple, and the options for shapes and designs on Microsoft PowerPoint aren’t plentiful – although it’s a good starting point, they are not customized to your specific brand or the story you are trying to tell. 

If you are going to be referring a lot to your slides throughout your presentation or sharing graphics to display information, consider creating some custom design infographics . You can either get creative and combine shapes in PowerPoint to create a new design or shape, or get an affordable designer on a marketplace like Fiverr to help you.

Making customized infographics to deliver your message is what will make your information stand out. Sometimes, adding personal touches like this can really help emphasize what you’re trying to teach, and make you look committed.

D. Use mixed media in your slides

Varying up the kind of media can also help make a more interesting and engaging PowerPoint presentation – when done tastefully, of course. While you should use images and designs and infographics, try also including videos, sound effects, or subtle animations to see if it adds more visual appeal to your static slides. 

These tools can be very effective in making your slides more attention-grabbing, but remember to use them sparingly. Always make sure they support your message and aren’t distracting from it.

Relying on mixed media is not a way to make your presentation better . It shouldn’t be used to try and hide the fact that your story isn’t strong or that you lack confidence.

It’s supposed to elevate your already stunning performance; it’s supposed to enhance your audience’s experience, and capture their eye to draw them deeper into what you’re already saying. 

E. Simplify, simplify, simplify

When it comes to everything about your presentation – the text, images, videos, slides, design, and even your story – the most important thing you can do is keep it simple.

Don’t make elaborate designs all piled onto one slide as this will overwhelm and confuse people. Don’t take too many approaches and angles to your story, just pick one. Don’t make your slides squished to the edges with text so people get overloaded with information and can’t read, and don’t throw too many numbers or complicated statements at your audience.

Remember: your listeners are only human.

People can only take in so much information at a time before they start to get lost. Keep this in mind, and keep things simple. Focus on your story, and focus on the goal of your presentation before anything else. 

Above all, understand that your deck is not your presentation. It’s simply a visual supplement to your presentation. Relying on your PowerPoint too much will only make you appear less certain and less prepared, and in order to make a lasting impression, you need to be both of these things.

You should speak more than your slides, as they are only a simple crutch. Your deck doesn’t tell the story – you do.

Step 3: Prepare for Your Presentation

Once you’ve finished crafting your PowerPoint presentation, now it’s time to prepare how you are going to present with your slides. Here’s some beginner tips on how to best deliver a presentation and get the most out of your slide deck:

A. Know exactly who you’re talking to

You should always know your audience and keep them top of mind. Understand their mindset and know what they are going to be looking for. You should endeavour to know what they expect, and how they see you – even before they’ve met you. 

Part of this preparation process is doing proper research . Research all there is to know about who you will be talking to, and what the best way is for you to speak to them, and design your slides.

What language is best to use? How can your structure fit their optimal learning style?

If your audience is elderly, you might want to focus on visibility and simplicity even more. If it’s younger people, maybe focus on using references, mixed media, or trending elements to help your speech resonate with them.

Doing this level of in-depth research will help you relate better with your audience, create an emotional connection , and encourage them to stay interested in what you have to say.

B. Practice, practice, practice

You must practice – out loud – before you present. Even the most experienced speakers out there practice their presentations.

Know your script and everything down to a tee, this way you can improvise if needed, and you can pivot if things go wrong. Another great tip is to try rehearsing your PowerPoint presentation in front of some family members, friends, or colleagues.

Having real people to interact with as you run through your speech can considerably help your confidence and personality for when you actually have to get up in front of a crowd – especially if you’re less experienced.

Practice making eye contact with those in the room and get used to ignoring distractions. Not only this, but practicing with an audience helps you get used to being under pressure.

Ask your audience for detailed and constructive feedback: what did they think of the presentation? What could be improved? What was good? Did your slides take away from your message or distract them? What would have been a more useful way of using your PowerPoint slides? 

(Pro tip: Take Susan Cain’s advice, a n author who delivered a presentation that gained over 24 million views online .)

By practicing your presentation under similar circumstances and with higher stakes involved, it will feel more familiar, and you’ll be less likely to choke on the big day. Or, you’ll discover where you struggle and where you could potentially choke, and can therefore prepare some tactics in advance to help avoid it.

Another great tip when practicing is to record yourself!

See how you will appear in front of your audience – are your slides distracting, even to you? Are you referencing them or looking at them too much? Look at your natural movements, vocal quality, and behavioral tendencies, and try to modify them before the real thing. 

C. Make it a two-way conversation

If you want to stand out and really engage your audience, focus on turning your presentation into a conversation. Focus on natural flow, and be prepared for people to ask questions or steer your conversation elsewhere. 

As you talk, don’t focus on your slides too much, focus more on your story and be intuitive to how your audience is responding .

You want your audience to feel like they are part of this journey you are bringing them on, and, sometimes, being too strict or formal in your presentation can take them away from that. 

Be personable. Read your audience and adjust. Skip over some slides if you think they’re going to slow down the pace too much. In other words: read the room and listen . It’s all about being ready to adapt to your audience’s needs. And while this takes practice, it is sure to help people remember you and make your story even more impactful.

D. Move around and use gestures

No one likes to watch a brick wall deliver a speech. 

Be natural and allow yourself the opportunity to move around, instead of standing on the spot. Use your slides to your advantage and point at important keywords or images, walk around the stage – use hand gestures.

Not only will this feel more engaging and emphasize important points to make your story stronger, but it makes your speech come across as natural and professional.

Specifically when pointing at slides, make sure that you use it as a way to explain and help people understand what you’re sharing. This can be a great asset to bring relevance to your PowerPoint presentation, and help deepen and clarify your audience’s understanding of what you’re trying to say.

With that said, don’t just use it as a way to get attention off of yourself – and the same goes for any movements or gestures. They should be done mindfully, and not out of nervousness. 

E. Focus on all aspects of timing

When using visual presentations, timing is key. The way that you talk and how your slides appear, with what information, when, significantly impacts your effectiveness as a speaker .

You can create some really powerful effects by timing your slides to pop up right when you speak specific words, or make specific references. Pauses in between slides as you try and use the clicker, or scattering because you forgot to change the slide and went too far ahead, is what diverts people’s attention and makes you look unprofessional. 

This is where preparation comes in. Preplan how you are going to time your slides with what you are saying, and pace yourself accordingly.

Go a step further and plan some bold visuals that you are going to time with certain strong points you want to make – this is what can create an experience, and tell your story in a compelling way. It can make the difference between an extremely effective talk where your PowerPoint is an asset, versus a mediocre talk with an unnecessary slide deck.

Do some research on this.

Watch some famous speakers present , and note how they use their slide decks. Watching other successful presenters and seeing what they do, how they craft their PowerPoint or Google Slides – or whether they even have one at all – can help inspire you to find different ways of approaching your presentation. And watch how their audience responds to their storytelling at different moments, and learn from them.

After all, learning from others is one of the best ways to improve.

Sometimes, presentations can be riddled with anxiety and self-doubt. You might even start to experience a bit of imposter syndrome as you’re putting together your powerpoint presentation – but that’s all very normal.

What’s important (and what is also great about PowerPoints) is that the slides are simply a guide – for your audience, but also for you. Having a PowerPoint means you always have a reference, should you get nervous. It can help remind you of where you are in your story, and help you gain the confidence to keep going.

Because as long as you focus on approaching your talk as exactly that, a story, you’re going to have all that you need to make a powerful PowerPoint presentation that will last in your audience’s mind, long after you walk off the stage.

Learn How To Become a Better Storyteller

5 years ago, the world had 5 million social media creators. Today, that number is over 50 million.

Welcome to the Creator Revolution. Now, for the first time ever, you can actually get a job doing what you love.

You can be a social media manager, a digital marketer on TikTok, or a community manager on Discord. Not only are these the world’s newest jobs, they are guaranteed to be in-demand in future. And they are way more fun than your average 9 to 5, and pay even better! But there hasn’t been one single place to learn all these skills. Until now.

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What is PowerPoint: A Comprehensive Guide for Beginners

What is PowerPoint? This blog provides the essence of PowerPoint, a versatile presentation software by Microsoft. Discover its features, uses, and the art of crafting compelling slideshows. Whether you're a student, professional, or simply curious, explore the power of PowerPoint and learn how to create impactful presentations effortlessly.

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According to Glassdoor , a PowerPoint designer's average salary in the UK is about £37,811 annually. In this blog, you will learn What is PowerPoint, its key features, its benefits, and how to use it, as well as learn some tips for creating effective presentations.   

Table of contents       

1)  What is PowerPoint?  

2)  Understanding the PowerPoint Interface  

3)  Key Features of PowerPoint 

4)  How to use PowerPoint to create a presentation? 

5)  Benefits of PowerPoint  

6)  Tips for Creating Effective PowerPoint Presentations 

7)  Conclusion      

What is PowerPoint?   

PowerPoint is a versatile and popular presentation software developed by Microsoft (MS). It is a part of the Microsoft Office Suite and offers various features and tools to create visually appealing and engaging presentations. MS PowerPoint allows users to combine text, graphics, multimedia elements, and animations to convey information effectively .   

Evolution of PowerPoint   

Understanding the PowerPoint Interface   

The PowerPoint interface provides a user-friendly environment for creating and editing presentations. Familiarising yourself with its essential components will help you navigate the software efficiently. Here's a breakdown of the MS PowerPoint interface:   

1)  Ribbon : The Ribbon is located at the top of the MS PowerPoint window and consists of multiple tabs, such as Home, Insert, Design, Transitions, and more.    

2) Slides pane : The Slides pane is on the left side of the PowerPoint window. It displays thumbnail images of your presentation slides, allowing you to navigate and rearrange them easily. You can add, delete, duplicate, or hide slides from this pane.   

3)   Notes pane : The Notes pane is located below the Slides pane. It provides space for adding speaker notes or additional information related to each slide.    

4)  Slide area : The Slide area occupies the central part of the PowerPoint window. It displays the selected slide, where you can add and arrange content such as text, images, charts, and multimedia elements .    

5)  Task panes : Task panes are additional panels on the PowerPoint window's right side. They offer various functionalities such as formatting options, slide layouts, animations, etc. Task panes can be opened or closed based on your specific needs.   

Understanding the MS PowerPoint interface will help you navigate the software effectively and make the most of its features. Whether you are creating slides, adding content, or applying formatting, having a good grasp of the interface ensures a smooth and productive experience .  

Key Features of PowerPoint  

When it comes to creating captivating and professional presentations, MS PowerPoint stands out as versatile and feature-rich software. Its array of tools and functionalities enables users to bring their imagination and ideas to life. Moreover, it also helps engage their audience effectively .    

1) Slide Templates : PowerPoint provides a collection of pre-designed templates that make it easy to create visually appealing slides.   

2)  Slide Master : The Slide Master feature allows users to define the overall layout, font styles, and colour scheme for the entire presentation .   

3)  Animations and transitions : PowerPoint offers various animation effects and slide transitions to add visual interest and captivate the audience .   

4)  Multimedia integration : Users can embed images, videos, and audio files directly into their presentations, enhancing the overall impact .   

5)   Collaboration tools : MS PowerPoint allows multiple users to work on a presentation simultaneously, making it ideal for team projects and remote collaboration .   

6) Presenter View : The Presenter View feature gives presenters access to speaker notes, a timer, and a preview of upcoming slides, enabling a seamless presentation experience .   

These features collectively contribute to PowerPoint's versatility and make it a powerful tool for developing engaging and impactful presentations.  

How to use PowerPoint to create a presentation?   

Creating a presentation in PowerPoint is a straightforward process. Whether it's simple animations or explainer videos learning H ow to use PowerPoint is an extremely valuable skill. Here's a step-by-step guide on how to create a presentation:   

1)  Launch PowerPoint and choose a template or start with a blank slide. 

2)  Add slides by clicking "New Slide" or using the shortcut key (Ctrl + M). 

3) Customise slide content by entering text and inserting visuals.  

4)  Rearrange slides for a logical flow by dragging them in the slide navigation pane.  

5)  Apply slide transitions for visual effects in the "Transitions" tab.  

6)  Add animations to objects in the "Animations" tab.  

7)  Preview your presentation by clicking "Slide Show".   

8)  Save your presentation and choose a format (.pptx or .pdf).  

9)  Share your presentation via email, cloud storage, or collaboration tools.   

By following these steps, you can create a well-structured and visually appealing presentation in Microsoft PowerPoint. Remember to keep your content concise, use engaging visuals, and practice your presentation skills to deliver an impactful presentation .   

Benefits of PowerPoint   

1) Visual appeal : Microsoft PowerPoint allows you to create visually appealing presentations with its wide range of design tools and features. You can use templates, themes, and customisable layouts to make your slides visually engaging and professional .   

2)  Easy to use : PowerPoint has a user-friendly interface, making it accessible to users of all levels. The intuitive tools and straightforward navigation make it easy to create, edit, and deliver presentations efficiently .   

3)   Flexibility : PowerPoint provides flexibility in terms of content creation. You can include various types of content, such as text, images, charts, graphs, videos, and audio files, to enhance your message and engage your audience effectively.   

4)   Organisation and structure : PowerPoint offers features to help you organise and structure your content. You can create multiple slides, use slide masters for consistent formatting, and arrange the sequence of slides to create a logical flow .   

5)  Presenter tools : PowerPoint includes built-in presenter tools that aid in delivering presentations smoothly. You can use presenter view to see your notes and upcoming slides while your audience sees only the presentation. Additionally, features like slide transitions and animations add visual interest and help you control the flow of information .   

6)  Collaboration and sharing : PowerPoint allows for easy collaboration and sharing of presentations. Several users can simultaneously work on the same presentation, making it convenient for team projects. You can also share your presentations via email, cloud storage, or online platforms, ensuring easy access for viewers .   

7)   Integration with other tools : PowerPoint can seamlessly integrate with other Microsoft Office applications, such as Word and Excel. You can import data and charts from Excel or copy and paste content between different Office applications, saving time and effort .  

8)   Presenter-audience interaction : PowerPoint provides features that facilitate interaction between the presenter and the audience. You can include interactive elements like hyperlinks, buttons, and quizzes to engage your audience and make your presentations more dynamic.   

9)   Portable and accessible : PowerPoint presentations can be saved in various formats, such as .pptx or .pdf, making them easily accessible on different devices. This portability allows you to deliver presentations on laptops, tablets, or even projectors without compatibility issues .   

10)  Time and effort savings : PowerPoint simplifies the process of creating presentations, saving you time and effort. The pre-designed templates, slide layouts, and formatting options enable you to create professional-looking presentations efficiently .   

Unleash your creativity to deliver captivating presentations that leave a lasting impact with our Microsoft PowerPoint Masterclass – Sign up now!   

Tips for Creating Effective PowerPoint Presentations   

1) Simplicity is key : Keep your slides clean and uncluttered. Use concise bullet points and simple visuals to convey your message effectively .   

2)  Visuals matter : Incorporate relevant, high-quality visuals such as images, charts, and diagrams to enhance understanding and engagement .   

3)  Limit text : Avoid overwhelming your audience with excessive text on slides. Use brief phrases or keywords to communicate key points .   

4)  Choose legible fonts : Opt for clear and readable fonts that are easy to read, even from a distance. Maintain consistency in font styles throughout your presentation .   

5)  Consistent design : Maintain a consistent design theme, including colours, fonts, and layout, to create a visually appealing and professional presentation.   

6)  Emphasise important points : Use visual hierarchy techniques, such as font size, colour, and formatting, to draw attention to essential information .   

7)  Use transitions and animations sparingly : Incorporate slide transitions and animations thoughtfully, focusing on enhancing content and transitions without distracting the audience .   

8)  S lide notes for guidance : Utilise the slide notes feature to include additional details, explanations, or reminders for a well-prepared and confident presentation.   

9)  Practice and time yourself : Rehearse your presentation to ensure smooth delivery and stay within the allocated time. Practice helps you refine your content and delivery.   

10)  Engage the audience : Encourage audience participation through interactive elements, questions, or discussions to foster engagement and make your presentation more memorable.   

By implementing these tips, you can create effective MS PowerPoint presentations that capture attention, communicate information clearly, and engage your audience effectively.  

Conclusion      

We hope this blog has helped you understand What is PowerPoint and how it can help you. It offers powerful features with a user-friendly interface for creating visually appealing presentations. With its tools for organising information, incorporating text and visuals, and delivering impactful content, PowerPoint is a valuable tool for beginners to communicate their ideas effectively .   

Master the art of effective communication and productivity and unlock your potential with our comprehensive Microsoft Office Training – Sign up now!  

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