how to make a simple presentation with powerpoint

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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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Simple Steps to Make a PowerPoint Presentation

Last Updated: April 28, 2024 Fact Checked

Creating a New PowerPoint

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

This article was co-authored by wikiHow staff writer, Darlene Antonelli, MA . Darlene Antonelli is a Technology Writer and Editor for wikiHow. Darlene has experience teaching college courses, writing technology-related articles, and working hands-on in the technology field. She earned an MA in Writing from Rowan University in 2012 and wrote her thesis on online communities and the personalities curated in such communities. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 4,328,769 times. Learn more...

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

How to Make a PowerPoint Presentation

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

Things You Should Know

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 2
• Great PowerPoint presentations avoid placing too much text on one slide. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0

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• ↑ 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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17 PowerPoint Presentation Tips From Pro Presenters [+ Templates]

Published: April 26, 2024

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

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

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

Table of Contents

How to Make a PowerPoint Presentation

Powerpoint presentation tips.

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

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

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

Getting Started

1. open powerpoint and click ‘new.’.

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

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Creating PowerPoint Slides

3. insert a slide..

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

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

11. Try Using GIFs.

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15. Embed multimedia.

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

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

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

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

16. Bring your own hardware.

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

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

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

To import your PowerPoint presentation into Google Slides:

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

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

17. Use Presenter View.

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

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

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

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

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

Your Next Great PowerPoint Presentation Starts Here

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

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

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

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

Don't forget to share this post!

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How to Create a Simple PowerPoint Presentation

These steps let you add titles, text, designs, and images

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You can make your next classroom or office presentation stand out by creating slides in PowerPoint, a simple process anyone can learn with a little practice.

Getting Started

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When you first open PowerPoint, you'll see a blank “slide” with space for a title and a subtitle in different boxes. You can use this page to begin creating your presentation right away. Add a title and subtitle in the boxes if you want, but you can also delete the boxes and insert a photo, graph, or another object onto the slide.

Creating Slides

Here is an example of a title in the “title” box, but instead of a subtitle, there's a photo in the subtitle box.

To create a slide like this, click inside the “Title” box and type a title. The “subtitle” box is a container for inserting text, but if you don't want a subtitle there, you can remove this box by clicking on one edge to highlight it and then hitting “delete.” To insert a picture into this space, go to "Insert" on the menu bar and select "Picture." Choose a photo from your saved photo files in locations such as "My Pictures" or a flash drive .

The picture you select will be inserted onto the slide, but it may be so big that it covers the entire slide. You can select the picture and make it smaller by moving your cursor to the edge of the photo and dragging the corners inward.

Now that you have a title slide, you can create additional presentation pages. Go to the menu bar at the top of the page and select "Insert" and "New Slide." You’ll see a new blank slide that looks a little different. The makers of PowerPoint have tried to make this easy and have guessed that you’d like to have a title and some text on your second page. That's why you see “Click to add title” and “Click to add text.”

You can type a title and text in these boxes, or you can delete them and add any type of text, photo, or object that you like by using the "Insert" command.

Bullets or Paragraph Text

A title and text have been inserted in the boxes on this slide template. The page is set up to insert text in bullet format. You can use bullets, or you can delete the bullets and type a paragraph .

If you choose to stay with the bullet format, type your text and hit "return" to make the next bullet appear.

Adding a Design

Once you have created your first couple of slides, you might want to add a design to your presentation. Type the text for your next slide, then go to "Format" on the menu bar and select "Slide Background." Your design choices will show up on the right side of the page. Click on the different designs to see how your slide will look in each format. The design you select will be applied to all your slides automatically. You can experiment with the designs and change them at any time.

Watch Your Slide Show

You can preview your slideshow at any time. To see your new creation under way, go to "View" on the menu bar and select "Slide Show." Your presentation will appear. To move from one slide to another, use the arrow keys on your computer keyboard.

To go back to design mode, hit the “Escape” key. Now that you have some experience with PowerPoint, you're ready to experiment with some of the other features of the program.

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

23 PowerPoint Presentation Tips for Creating Engaging and Interactive Presentations

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• Display one bullet at a time

Avoid unnecessary animations

• Only add content that supports your main points

Do not use PowerPoint as a teleprompter

• Never Give Out Copies of the Presentation

Re-focus the attention on you by fading into blackness

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Best Practice PowerPoint Presentation Tips

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

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

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

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

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

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

Display one sentence at a time

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

Presentation Blunders To Avoid

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

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

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

Only add engaging content that supports your main points

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

“Does this slide help support my main point?”

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

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

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

Avoid Giving Out Copies of the Presentation

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

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

Tips To Making Your Presentation More Engaging

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

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

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

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

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

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

How To Make Your Presentation More Interactive

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Key Takeaways from one of the best presenters, Steve Jobs

He kept his slides uncluttered and always strove for simplicity.

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

Source: Macworld 2008

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

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

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

He found made the complex sound simple

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

(This particular slide is referencing the iMac features)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Like this article? Please share

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

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

Very great advices!

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

Thank You ?

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How-To Geek

8 tips to make the best powerpoint presentations.

Want to make your PowerPoint presentations really shine? Here's how to impress and engage your audience.

Quick Links

Table of contents, start with a goal, less is more, consider your typeface, make bullet points count, limit the use of transitions, skip text where possible, think in color, take a look from the top down, bonus: start with templates.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Related: How to Burn Your PowerPoint to DVD

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Microsoft 365 Life Hacks > Presentations > How to create an inspirational PowerPoint presentation

How to create an inspirational PowerPoint presentation

Creating an inspirational PowerPoint presentation involves more than just putting together slides; it’s about crafting a moving story that resonates with your audience and leaves a lasting impact. See how you can elevate your material to truly call your audience to agree with you or ask for action.

What is an inspirational presentation?

Easy and effective PowerPoint tools make it simple to assemble a compelling slideshow. You can choose from creative templates , make animated shorts , or implement video clips via Clipchamp .

However, PowerPoint works the best when you imbue it with a narrative that has the power to captivate. Whether you’re trying to motivate and uplift your audience, offer encouraging advice, or ask them to act or change their perspective, an inspirational presentation carries the same motivational speaking skills as a sales pitch.

Therefore, the key to a successful inspirational presentation is to deliver a clear, impactful message that is both engaging and memorable. Structure your presentation as a narrative, with a clear beginning, middle, and end. To elevate the storytelling qualities of your presentation, introduce a conflict or challenge and describe the journey of overcoming it. While not every topic that you choose to inspire others will involve a conflict, an inspirational presentation will nonetheless conclude with a resolution that leaves your audience inspired.

Tell your story with captivating presentations

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

How to inspire others with your presentational skills

Any good presentation begins with a strong outline . The outline of your presentation should adhere to your goals:

• To persuade people to share your point of view.
• To present something new or give a new perspective on something old.
• To inspire, motivate, and call for action or change.

Keep these goals in mind when you begin outlining. Start your outline with a strong theme that aligns with the message you want to convey. This should be relevant to your audience and your objectives and serve as the backbone of your presentation in guiding the narrative and supporting your message.

Use motivational quotes and visuals

Sprinkle your presentation with quotes from leaders and famous thinkers that align you’re your theme. Pair these quotes with compelling visuals to enhance their impact. Keep in mind that in a presentation that uses visual aids, these quotes are the “icing on the cake” of the message you’re trying to convey; they can serve as powerful reminders of the key points you want your audience to remember.

Share success stories

Incorporating success stories that are related to your topic can convey a sense of success to your audience. Stories of achievable potential can provide examples on how the concepts or strategies you’re sharing can help benefit your audience. This can make otherwise abstract ideas more tangible—and therefore achievable.

Engage your audience

Audience interaction—in the form of quizzes, can make your presentation more memorable. Include questions to ponder, prompt discussions, or incorporate quick activities that reinforce the message. This engagement makes the experience more dynamic and personal for the audience, increasing the impact of your presentation.

Brush up on presentation skills

The key to an inspirational presentation is to balance the use of visual aids and public speaking skills. This can be easier said than done, of course—which is why it’s vital to learn how to practice your presentations , incorporate humor and wit into your speech, or overcome the fear of public speaking that plagues an estimated 73% of the population.

Creating an inspirational presentation requires thoughtful preparation, a balance of visual aids and speaking, as well as a creative approach. By following these guidelines, you can develop a presentation that not only informs but also inspires and motivates your audience.

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How to Make Creative PowerPoint PPT Presentations (With Unique Ideas + Video)

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Want to learn how to make a creative PowerPoint presentation ? Figuring out how to make your PowerPoint creative can be a real challenge. Learning how to make a cool PPT is easier when you leverage pre-built designs.

You may not consider yourself a creative, but you can still build creative PowerPoints. Creativity is a great solution, when considering how to make PowerPoint interesting. By using creative PowerPoint themes and slide inspiration, you will be ready for your next presentation.

In this tutorial, we'll walk through how to make a creative PowerPoint. We'll also look at some ways how to make PPT creative design choices to make things more interesting. You'll see some creative presentation ideas. You'll also learn how to create your own innovation presentation in PowerPoint step by step. 

Guide to Making Great Presentations (Free eBook Download)

Before you read on, be sure to grab our free eBook:  The Complete Guide to Making Great Presentations . It'll help you master the presentation process. It takes you from initial idea, to writing, design, and delivery. It's a great, free resource that can help you further learn how to make a unique PowerPoint presentation.

Jump to content in this section:

How to Make a Creative PowerPoint Presentation (Quickstart Video)

What not to do in your presentation, how to get inspiration for your presentation, how to be creative (even when you aren't), 5 quick tips make your powerpoint presentations more attractive, 5 top creative ppt templates (from envato elements), more creative powerpoint templates (powerpoint ideas and downloads), inspiration: more creative powerpoint templates from envato elements (video), how to make attractive ppt presentations.

Are you in a hurry to make a PowerPoint presentation? Don't worry, we've got your tips for making creating PowerPoints in the quickstart video below:

Now, let's look at how to avoid some common presentation missteps: 

Whether you're a student or business professional, you've probably endured some boring presentations. Too many presenters lean on PowerPoint instead of using it as a presentation aid. Don't focus so hard on how to create creative PowerPoint presentation designs that you forget this vital point.

Because of this, PowerPoint often gets a bad reputation. Keep in mind that PowerPoint is just a tool that you can use to share your message with an audience. 

Learn how to make a cool PPT by avoiding missteps. Here are the biggest issues to watch out for when it comes to PowerPoint and speaking:

• Don't read directly from your slides . There's no faster way to lose your audience's attention than using the slide as a teleprompter.
• Don't use the stock PowerPoint themes .   The built-in PowerPoint themes are too bland and overused to stand out from the crowd. If you want to get creative, use a custom PowerPoint theme with creative slides.
• Don't create cluttered slides .   Slides that are packed form edge to edge with content can overwhelm your audience and obscure your point.
• Don't overdo it with animations .   Too many boxes or objects flying off and on the slide will distract the audience from your message. It's better to keep your animations simple.

Sometimes it's easier to think about what  not  to do when you're about to create creative PowerPoint presentation designs. Artistic PPT's avoid faux pas. Check out these helpful tips for even more to keep in mind:

There's nothing wrong with looking for inspiration when you're building a presentation. You can find unique presentation ideas by browsing through some of the top presentations online.

In fact, it can be a great way to figure out how to make creative PowerPoints. Here are some great creative, unique slide decks (from SlideShare ) to check out when you make your own PowerPoint presentation:

• The Dungeons & Dragons Guide to Marketing . This fun, engaging slide deck applies lessons from the popular game Dungeons & Dragons to the business of marketing.
• 24 Books You've Never Heard Of - But Will Change Your Life . Ryan Holiday's roundup of these powerful, lesser-known books inspired me to add several to my reading list.
• A Non-Technical Introduction to ChatGPT - SEDA . Artificial intelligence is a hot topic the world over. This inspiring slide deck provides a robust overview that’s easy to understand.
• The Future of Wearables - Explained .   This insightful presentation shares the latest innovations in wearable technologies. The artistic PPT includes simple photos and text overlays.
• Pixar's 22 Rules to Phenomenal Storytelling . Lessons from the animation studio Pixar are outlined here. It’s a great example of slide design and offers ways to tell stories that are more creative and engaging.
• The Secret Psychology of Snapchat . Another simple presentation that shares the secrets behind the addictiveness of Snapchat.

All these presentations are simple and use tools that are built into PowerPoint. They might seem simplistic, but they're designed to support the speaker's presentation, not replace it. Discover more great SlideShare presentation presentations in our featured Envato Tuts+ article. Or looks at one of these tutorials for inspiration:

Creative PowerPoint Template Designs

Grab a creative PPT template to get a quick start to a great presentation design. Here are some of the best, trending PowerPoint templates with creative slides built-in and ready to use: 

PowerPoint can bring out creative anxiety in even the most seasoned presenter. Even in you've learned how to make a PPT creative, it can be tough to figure out where to being. When you open a new presentation file, you're faced with a blank slide and many decisions about how to lay out your content.

PowerPoint's basic, built-in themes are a good starting point. But they lack the ideas and inspiration that pro presentation themes include. My favorite solution is to use premium PowerPoint themes  with creative designs. These are professional, high quality themes that are made by talented graphic designers. It takes some of the mystery out of how to make creative PowerPoints,

Let's build an artistic PPT. We're going to use a creative PowerPoint presentation,  available through Envato Elements. 

This theme has a collection of PowerPoint slide designs inside. They're perfect for showcasing your creative ideas. There are many versions of the presentation included with different color schemes.

These let you build totally different presentation styles using the very same template! You can drop your own content into any of these slide layouts quickly. Using a premium theme is a great way to borrow creativity from a graphic designer and get a great result.

Instead of designing a presentation from scratch, I'd rather focus my time on preparing to speak. I think of premium themes to save countless hours of design work while preparing for a presentation.

How to Make a Creative PowerPoint Presentation (Quickly)

Let's walk through how to make a creative PPT quickly and easily with a professional PowerPoint template. Note, there are so many ways to make creative PPT designs, and you could push your template in any direction you prefer. They are completely customizable, so the sky's the limit. Consider it a starting point, or, if you're in a hurry, it could be a complete solution.

1. Grab Your Audience's Attention

First impressions count. If you want to get off on the right foot, you need an opening slide that creates interest. Presentation topics on PowerPoint set the tone with strong hooks.

Less is more when it comes to an opening slide. It's better to make a spoken statement that captures an audience from the beginning than load up the opening slide.

2. Introduce Your Team

I'm a big believer that audiences connect to the individuals behind products. Visit any startup or small company and they almost all feature a "Team" page. These showcase the members of the company. These are also vital if you're looking to bring in investors with a presentation pitch deck .

Increasingly, I find myself buying from companies with teams that have interesting stories. Pair this with the right experience and you have a compelling reason to make a purchase. It’s a powerful way to make a PowerPoint presentation work for you.  

Even if your team can't join for the presentation in person, this slide can build familiarity. A slide that introduces the team will get your audience familiar with their work and build a sense of connection. It's a great opportunity to give credit where credit is due.

3. Share Your SWOT Analysis

Now that you've introduced the team, you can start building toward your big product reveal. One of my favorite ways to assess a business is to use a  SWOT  analysis . It's where you list the  Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats  that exist.

This creative PowerPoint presentation template has slides that you can use to share your SWOT with the audience. Check out this example from Slide 28:

The SWOT analysis can help your audience understand why you developed your product, and how it fits with other products in your niche. Basically, consider what need your product fills that isn't already met?

This slide is a great example of how to make a cool PPT. You might not have thought of the SWOT method on your own, but the built-in template can spark your creativity.

4. Unveil The Product

So, we've been hinting at our product up until now and it's time to pull the curtain back on what it is. This would be a great time to use a screenshot or a video to show off your product. Make a PowerPoint presentation your big reveal!

At this point, I would expect you to leave PowerPoint and showcase a product demo, either direct inside the app itself or with a video demo. This template has some slides where you can showcase an image within a phone, screen, or laptop mockup.

5. Show Your Product Roadmap

A product roadmap is where you share the features you plan to add to your product. Apps or services often launch with just the basics, so you want to give the audience a vision for the future. It's a technique you can use as you learn how to make a cool PPT.

Consider using infographics or a visual representation of a timeline. This helps creatively illustrate progression. Here's an example from this creative PowerPoint template. Notice how it visually implies a continuation.

Chronological times help you connect presentation topics on PowerPoint. They show you how creative unique ideas fit together. Make a PowerPoint presentation with a timeline, and your audience will connect the dots.

6. Give the Audience "One More Thing"

There's nothing wrong with borrowing creative presentation ideas from others. A great way is to use a famous Steve Jobs technique. Jobs always wowed audiences by saving a key feature for the very end of the presentation.

You can use a very simple slide design with just a text box for this purpose. For our product, I'm announcing that the audience can start using the app right away inside their web browser. This is a way to entice the audience into giving the content a try, right now. 

Each slide design played off the built-in, innovative layouts in our template. I used a fictitious app to show that you can use slide designs to get creative. But remember: you could use this same presentation for practically any purpose.

Creative, unique presentations are easier to create when you feel inspired. Get more creative presentation ideas for your next presentation: 

You can also find more information in our eBook on making great presentations . Grab this PDF Download now for FREE with your subscription to the Tuts+ Business Newsletter:

There are simple tweaks that you can make to your creative PowerPoints to help them come to life. With just a few inspirations for adjustments, you'll learn how to make a cool PowerPoint!

Here are five tips that'll transform your presentation into an artistic PPT:

1. Start With a Strong Title Slide

It can be difficult to start your presentation with a strong point. As you learn how to share presentation topics on PowerPoint, don't forget the power of a title slide.

It's a great idea to use the title slide to help you set the tone properly. In creative PowerPoints, always find a way to make a title slide so your slide deck stands out!

Luckily, there are creative ways to build a title slide that does just that. For examples of creative title slides, check out the tutorial below:

2. Make Your Presentations Interactive

The normal format of a presentation is this: someone stands up in front of an audience and speaks to them. The audience listens until the speaker is finished.

But that isn't the only way to give a presentation. What if you involved the audience, and opened the presentation up as an open dialogue?

Here are seven techniques you can use to turn your presentation topics on PowerPoint into a two-way interaction:

3. Use Infographics to Tell Data Stories

Data and quantitative facts help you make a strong case. The problem is that most people find statistics and data tables overwhelming.

That's why we use  infographics  in our creative PowerPoint presentations. Infographics can help you combine the best of both worlds by showing data combined with visuals. A good infographic helps bridge that gap and makes data understandable to practically anyone. 

Check out the tutorial below to learn how to use templates to showcase infographics:

4. Animate Key Elements

Animation can help you bring key elements onto your creative PowerPoint slides in a way that makes an impact. Instead of showing everything on your slide all at once, using animation will add an extra bit of flair to your presentation. 

If you're making a big point that provides a surprising angle, using animation can help you save key points as a "punchline" in your presentation. Use the guide below to learn creative PowerPoint animation techniques:

5. Give Your Presentation a Strong Close

A fitting way to end this section is by recommending techniques that end your creative PowerPoint with a strong close.

Most presentations will quickly be forgotten by the attendees. That's why it's so crucial to set yourself apart with a strong close. Using a combination of slide designs and speaking techniques, you can leave your audience with a memorable conclusion.

Check out the comprehensive article below to learn more:

Still thinking about how to make a unique PowerPoint presentation for your project? Check out the PowerPoint creative ideas in these templates. These  creative PowerPoint templates  from Envato Elements are chock full of ideas. Use them to create presentations that are sure to stand out. 

Above all, they include pre-built slide designs that are easy to update with fresh content. What's best: you don't need strong design skills! It's easy to make a creative PowerPoint presentation template work for you.

1. Dogopia Creative PowerPoint Template

The minimalist, airy design of Dogopia perfectly embodies the creative style. They'll help your presentation stand out. Creative, unique designs don't have to be overloaded with content.

Each slide design brings something a bit different to your presentation. Show your content in a way that's sure not to be overlooked by your audience.

2. Klaudia PowerPoint Template

If you want variety in your presentation, look no further than the Klaudia PowerPoint template. You can use it to make a PowerPoint presentation with minimal but varied designs. More than 60 creative slide designs come together to help you bring your visuals to life while speaking.

Best of all, both 16:9 and 4:3 aspect ratios are included to help your slides make the most of their screen real estate. It's a design that's as functional as it is creative, thanks to minimalist designs and bold elements. 

3. Buxe Creative PowerPoint Template

That means that you can use it again and again as you design presentations, and never use the same slide twice! You can even customize the color schemes to make sure that your slides stay on brand.

The strong typography in this template is the perfect way to highlight creative titles for presentations. Fill in the placeholders with creative, unique intros for the most impact.

4.  Sunflowers - Creative PowerPoint Presentation

If you're looking for PowerPoint ideas that incorporate stylish, trendy layouts, this one is for you. This creative PowerPoint designs contains over 50 slides that you can mix, match, and remix in any way you like. It could be the perfect starting point for a wide variety of projects. 

5.  Bowman - Creative PowerPoint

Aren't these creative PowerPoint slides stylish? Easily add your own imagery, adjust colors, and add in your content for a creative PowerPoint presentation in a snap. Or use this creative template to help jumpstart your design process. You can add, change, and customize this as much or as little as you like.

Looking for even more PowerPoint ideas for your next creative PowerPoint presentation? It's easy to make PowerPoint slides interesting and visually appealing! Use these inspiring collections of creative PowerPoint slides to get started:

Love using PowerPoint to share your big ideas? It's certainly one of the top creative presentation apps. We have you covered with even more creative, unique designs.

See some of these creative PowerPoint templates in action. Discover a handful of helpful, creative PowerPoint presentation design tips. Check out even more ways how to make attractive PPT presentations.

Check out some of our best PowerPoint templates with creative ideas from Envato Elements in this quick video:

Want even more examples of how to make PowerPoint interesting and creative? For even more great examples of creative PowerPoint templates. You can use them to leverage the design process, check out the two articles below with creative PowerPoint slides:

This tutorial should make you realize that creativity is a skill that can be borrowed. Using custom, creative PowerPoint themes from talented artists is a professional shortcut. When considering how to make your PowerPoint creative, remember, you can always expand on a template in a new direction. You can use them as a springboard for PowerPoint ideas.

If the Mulch PowerPoint theme I used in this tutorial isn't your style, no problem. Take the time to check out other creative themes on Envato Elements. Each of these templates includes unique PowerPoint presentation ideas and ready-made layouts. They help you make your creative presentation quickly.

Creative presentation apps like PowerPoint empower you. Now that you know how to make a creative PowerPoint presentation, you're ready to get started. Download your favorite creative PowerPoint theme and make your own.

Editorial Note : T his post was originally published in February of 2019. It's been comprehensively updated with special help from Daisy Ein and Andrew Childress . A tutorial video has been added by Andrew Childress .

Creating a Radial Chart in PowerPoint: A Step-by-Step Tutorial

Creating visually appealing presentations is key to engaging your audience. Luckily, PowerPoint offers many tools to convey your message effectively. Today, let's explore one of these tools: the radial chart .

Radial charts stand out for their originality and unique visual appeal compared to other charts. The cool rounded format not only captures the audience's attention but also leaves a lasting impact.

Ready to level up your data presentation game? Follow this step-by-step tutorial to create a radial chart in PowerPoint and present your data like a pro!

Today, we'll cover the following topics:

What is a Radial Chart?

Donut chart vs. radial bar chart vs. pie chart, how to make a radial chart in powerpoint, free ppt radial chart templates, looking for more effective presentations 24slides is the answer.

A radial chart displays data in a circular layout, starting from the center. This means it can take many shapes . According to Tableau's blog , there are two common types of radial charts: donut and sunburst charts.

A donut chart is a pie chart with a hole in the middle. On the other hand, a sunburst chart shows connections across multiple levels of categories. 

Another common chart you'll find when searching online for radial charts is the radial bar chart . A great way to compare categories with circular bars instead of the classic horizontal bars.

Although all these charts look similar, each has unique features that make them better for different data types.

The next section will review the differences between the most common radial charts. In the meantime, here's a classic radial chart example: a donut chart.

I’ve already defined that a radial chart can take many shapes. But, among so many options, which one should I choose?

To help you, I’ll differentiate between the main types of radial charts: donut chart, radial bar chart, and pie chart. Are they really the same? The short answer is... not exactly.

After researching and consulting with our expert designer, Carmen Navarrete , these are the differences:

A donut chart has one layer of information, which is helpful for simple comparisons. A radial bar chart, on the other hand, has multiple layers for detailed comparisons with subcategories. In contrast, a pie chart has no layers and consists of sections.

While they might seem similar, it's key to remember that they're not the same technically. This visual comparison will be helpful to you:

We already know what a radial chart is and the differences between its types. So, let's create a radial chart from scratch in PowerPoint. Let's walk through the easiest way to do it, step by step.

This chart overlays a pie chart and a donut chart. This allows for comparing two sets of proportions or displaying additional information in a compact and visually appealing manner.

Making the outer body of your radial chart

Add a partial circle.

• Choose the slide for the radial chart and go to the Insert tab.
• Next, click on Shapes > Basic shapes > Partial Circle .

• Click and drag to draw the pie. Holding Shift to keep its proportions.
• To change the style, go to Shape Fill and pick your favorite color. 

For a minimalist look, remove the borders by selecting "No Border" in the Shape Outline options.

Adjust the size of the pie chart

• Click the shape to resize your pie chart, and a selection box with dots will appear.
• Select and drag any of the yellow dots to adjust the size of your shape.

Duplicate the pie chart

• After resizing the shape, copy and paste it (Ctrl C + Ctrl V or Cmd C + Cmd V on a Mac). 
• Next, place the duplicate over the original and use the red guidelines to align them correctly.

Change the color and rotate the duplicate chart

• To differentiate it, click on it and navigate to the Shape Format tab . Choose Shape Fill and select a specific color.

• Once you have both pie charts lined up, click the rounded arrow at the top. Next, rotate the duplicate pie chart.

Resize the duplicate chart

• Move the copied radial chart away from the original. Use the yellow handles to resize it to look like a piece of pie with some space. Make sure the two charts are parallel. 

Creating and styling the inner body

Create the first inner circle.

• Duplicate the first pie chart (the blue one) and change its color to light blue (like the example) to differentiate. To do this, choose the Shape Fill option.
• Then, make it smaller than the original. To ensure it looks good, adjust it directly over the original.

Create the second Inner Circle

• For this step, duplicate the second pie chart (the light blue) and change its color to blue (like the example) to differentiate .
• Then, make it smaller and adjust it until it looks good.

Inserting data labels and text

Create data labels.

You need to label each section's meaning. 

• Go to the Insert tab, then select Shapes . In the rectangles section, select the rounded rectangle option.
• Drag the rectangle where you want your label. 
• Repeat the process , changing the second color’s rectangle to light blue (in this example).

Insert text in labels

• Just double-right-click on the rounded rectangles we created earlier and start typing.
• To customize the text style, select the text and utilize the formatting tools that appear.

Link the labels to the radial chart

To connect the radial bar chart labels, you need to add lines.

• Click on the Insert tab > Shapes > Lines. Next, draw a line connecting your label to the chart.
• For this step, you will need to draw multiple lines.

Change lines color

• To change the line's color, click on it and go to the Shape Format tab.
• Next, choose the Shape Outline option. Here, choose the color that matches your radial chart. Repeat the process for all the lines.

Change lines thickness

The lines are thin by default, so make them thicker for better visibility. 

• Click on the Shape Format tab > Shape Outline option > Weight option . Next, choose the weight you prefer.

Adding text

Insert titles.

• Click on the Insert tab. Next, click the Text Box button. Finally, draw a text box under each label.

Insert descriptive text

• Click on the Insert tab. Next, click the Text Box button. Finally, draw a text box under each title and start typing.
• For the last step, apply styling and make sure everything is correct.

You can add information to the inner sections if needed. This provides more context for your explanation.

And there you have it: a shiny radial chart for your presentation!

A radial chart is a simple way of displaying data in a circular format. However, mastering PowerPoint takes time and practice, especially for beginners who may find it challenging at first.

Luckily, our Templates by 24Slides platform has hundreds of free PowerPoint chart templates. You can download the donut, radial bar, and pie charts here.

All the templates are completely editable. With just a few clicks, you can create a stunning presentation. Have fun customizing them!

Just remember to ensure consistency and keep it simple. After all, knowing how to use PowerPoint charts effectively can make all the difference.

In this article, I’ve shown you why using a radial chart is a game-changer for presenting data . But if you still struggle to communicate your message effectively, you can always rely on professionals.

We are the world's largest presentation design company with 10+ years of expertise and more than 200 designers worldwide.

24Slides supports thousands of companies and professionals each month, allowing them to give powerful on-brand presentations.

You can focus on the content while 24Slides expert designers handle all the visual elements. In less than 24 hours , you'll get a standout, fully editable presentation that will impress your audience.

Ready to upgrade your PowerPoint prowess? Don't miss this content:

• PowerPoint Charts, Graphs, & Tables Made Easy | Tips & Tricks
• Mastering the Art of Presenting Data in PowerPoint
• PowerPoint 101: The Ultimate Guide for Beginners
• How to Create a Flowchart in PowerPoint
• How to Make a Timeline in PowerPoint? Step by step

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Get Microsoft Office 365 Education free if you're a student or a teacher

Say you're a student, teacher or faculty member with an active school email address. You're probably eligible to get access to Office 365 for free through Microsoft, with access to Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote and Teams, plus other classroom tools.

All you have to do is punch in your school email address on this page on Microsoft's website: Office 365 Education . In many cases, you'll be instantly granted access thanks to an automated verification process. If you attend an institution that needs to be verified, it might take up to a month to confirm your eligibility. 

College students can also get Microsoft 365 Personal for $3 a month with a valid school email address.

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How to get Microsoft 365 for free if you're not a student or faculty member

Not everyone can take advantage of an email address through an academic institution to get the Microsoft Office suite at no cost. Thankfully, anyone can get a one-month free trial of Microsoft 365. You do need to enter a credit card number. If you don't cancel your subscription before the month is up, you'll be charged $100 for a one-year subscription to Microsoft 365 Family (formerly called Office 365 Home). 

The good news is that you can access a number of apps online for free, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneDrive, Outlook, Calendar, My Content, Skype, Designer and Clipchamp as long as you don't need the full suite of Microsoft 365 tools. Here's how to get them: 

1 . Go to Microsoft365.com .

2 . Click Sign up for the free version of Office under the "Sign in" button.

3 . Log in to your Microsoft account or create one for free . If you already have a Windows, Skype or Xbox Live login, you have an active Microsoft account.

4 . Select the app you want to use and save your work in the cloud with OneDrive.

Use the browser-based version of the Microsoft Word app for free.

So what's the catch for the free version?

You might be saying, "Wait a minute, if I can get all of those apps for free, why pay for Microsoft 365 in the first place?" The functionality of the free apps is limited, so they only run in your web browser and you can only use them while you're actively connected to the internet -- there’s no online version. They also have fewer features than the full Microsoft 365 versions. 

There are still benefits to the free version, including the ability to share links to your work and collaborate in real-time, similar to what the Google Workspace (formerly G Suite) productivity tools allow. If you're looking for basic versions of each of these apps, the free version should work well for you. 

For more productivity coverage, check out what Microsoft 365 Basic offers customers , all of the  best features in Windows 11  and  how to take screenshots in Windows 10 or 11 . You can also take a look at CNET's list of the best Windows laptops .

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• Use Presenter View Video
• Add speaker notes​ Video
• Practice and time your presentation​ Video
• Record a presentation Video
• Print a presentation Video

Use Presenter View

PowerPoint Presenter View shows you the current slide, the next slide, and your speaker notes, to help you focus while presenting and connect with your audience. 

Select the Slide Show tab.

Select the Use Presenter View checkbox.

Select which monitor to display Presenter View on.

In Presenter View , you can:

See your current slide, next slide, and speaker notes.

Select the arrows next to the slide number to go between slides.

Select the pause button or reset button to pause or reset the slide timer in the upper left.

See the current time to help you pace your presentation.

Select the font icons to make the speaker notes larger or smaller.

Select the annotations pen icon to draw on the screen in real time, or select a laser pointer.

Select the thumbnail icon to see all the slides in your presentation and quickly jump to another slide.

Select the magnifying glass icon to zoom in on a particular part of a slide.

The screen icon let's you make the screen temporarily black to focus the attention on you.

Select END SLIDESHOW when you're done presenting.

Start the presentation and see your notes in Presenter view

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