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What is PowerPoint Presentation with Features & Examples?

PowerPoint is a presentation software developed by Microsoft, which allows users to create, edit, and deliver visually engaging slideshows, whether you're a student, professional, or simply curious, explore the power of Microsoft PowerPoint and learn how you can create impactful presentations effortlessly.

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

Table of contents      

1) What is PowerPoint?   

2) Understanding the PowerPoint interface   

3) Key features of PowerPoint  

4) How to use PowerPoint to create a presentation?  

5) Benefits of PowerPoint   

6) Tips for creating effective PowerPoint Presentations  

7) Alternatives to PowerPoint    

What is PowerPoint?  

PowerPoint is an essential multifunctional tool for making presentations which had been created by MS. As a part of the Microsoft Office Suite, it offers a toolbox to organise the presentation by using different tools and features to make it visually pleasant and attractive. MS PowerPoint gives the opportunity for the text, graphics, multimedia objects, and animation elements to be combined in one place to allow the users to present information in a more effective way.  

Evolution of PowerPoint  

In the course of time, PowerPoint has become a very functional tool to produce high-quality presentations Moreover, a secure system would be established to manage risks of data leakage or theft. First released in 1987 for Apple computers, it defies to the competition with its easy Graphical User Interface (GUIGUI)) and its large range of functions. With every new release, MS PowerPoint offered new functionality and boasted significant improvements, staying the wonder of the world of presentations.

Understanding the PowerPoint interface  

 The PowerPoint Program provides the presenter with an easy-to-use interface for designing and updating the presentation. It is important to master its main functions in order to conduct operations using this software with a level of proficiency.Here's a breakdown of the MS PowerPoint interface:   

1) Ribbon: The Ribbon is located at the top of the MS PowerPoint window and has several tabs which include Home, Insert, Design, Transitions, etc.

2) Slides pane: Slide pane which is positioned to the far left of the window, is the PowerPoint window. You will see there a collection of your slides examples (thumbnails) which enables you to adjust and customize them with greater ease. The floating pane of the editor lets you not only add, delete, duplicate, but also hide slides from there.

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

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

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

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

Create impactful project timelines! Click to learn How to Make a Gantt chart in PowerPoint and impress with your project planning skills!

Key Features of PowerPoint  

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

From slide templates to multimedia integration, there are various Features of PowerPoint ; let's discuss some of them below.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Take your Microsoft Office skills to the next level – sign up for our Power Apps and Power Automate Training ! 

How to use PowerPoint to create a presentation?   

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Benefits of PowerPoint   

PowerPoint is a very popular presentation software and for a good reason. It offers numerous benefits for users, from easy collaboration to ease of use. These are some of the key benefits of PowerPoint.

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

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

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

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

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

Land the job with ease! Learn how to ace your PowerPoint interview with tips to create slides that leave a lasting impression!

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

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

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

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

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

Keynote vs. PowerPoint : Discover which tool is best for your presentations! Click to compare features and make the right choice!

Tips for Creating Effective PowerPoint Presentations   

PowerPoint presentations can be powerful tools for communicating information and engaging an audience. Consider the following PowerPoint Tips to create effective presentations .

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Google Slides vs. PowerPoint : Which is best for you? Click to compare features and choose the right tool for your next presentation!

Alternatives to PowerPoint  

Most of you are used to using PowerPoint for your presentation needs since it was the first option available to us through our academics. However, if you wish to check out alternative options to Powerpoint know if they work better for you, here are ten options that is worth a short: 

5) Slidebean

6) Zoho Show 

7) Google Slide 

9) Beautiful.ai

10) Microsoft Sway

Conclusion     

This blog walked you through What is PowerPoint and how it can aid you in curating compelling visual representations of the message you wish to get across. We discussed it features and the process of how you can create presentations on PowerPoint. Now take what you know and run with it explore your options with your templates and building new ones, let your creativity take its course. 

Learn how to create customised slide shows in MS PowerPoint with our Microsoft PowerPoint MO300 Training .  

Frequently Asked Questions

Well, making a presentation can be tricky business. Here are some of the common mistakes people make:

1) Adding too much text! The presentation needs to have brief and simple points you elaborate on in person. 

2) Bad colour schemes for template and font colour. Sometimes the clash of colour may make the text illegible. 

3) Too many elements! Crowding of elements may lose your audience’s attention.   

Yes, you most definitely can! You can use PowerPoint online with a Microsoft Office 360 plug in that allows you to use all Microsoft applications on your browser. 

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Simple Steps to Make a PowerPoint Presentation

Last Updated: July 23, 2024 Fact Checked

Creating a New PowerPoint

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

This article was co-authored by wikiHow staff writer, Darlene Antonelli, MA . Darlene Antonelli is a Technology Writer and Editor for wikiHow. Darlene has experience teaching college courses, writing technology-related articles, and working hands-on in the technology field. She earned an MA in Writing from Rowan University in 2012 and wrote her thesis on online communities and the personalities curated in such communities. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 4,346,323 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 6 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

You Might Also Like

• ↑ https://onedrive.live.com/view.aspx?resid=DBDCE00C929AA5D8!252&ithint=file%2cpptx&app=PowerPoint&authkey=!AH4O9NxcbehqzIg
• ↑ https://www.virtualsalt.com/powerpoint.htm
• ↑ https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/set-the-timing-and-speed-of-a-transition-c3c3c66f-4cca-4821-b8b9-7de0f3f6ead1#:~:text=To%20make%20the%20slide%20advance,effect%20on%20the%20slide%20finishes .

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What Is Microsoft PowerPoint?

Get to know Microsoft’s presentation software

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Microsoft PowerPoint is a slideshow presentation program first developed by Forethought, Inc. for the Macintosh computer in 1987 and purchased by Microsoft in 1990. Microsoft has released several updated versions, each offering more features and incorporating better technology than before. The most current version of Microsoft PowerPoint is available in Microsoft 365.

Do You Need PowerPoint?

Presentation software is the easiest way to create and show the kinds of slides you've likely seen in meetings or classroom situations.

There are several free options, including LibreOffice , Apache OpenOffice , and SlideDog . However, if you need to collaborate with others on a presentation, integrate with other Microsoft programs (like Microsoft Word), or create a presentation that's viewable by anyone, purchase Microsoft PowerPoint .

If integration with other Microsoft programs isn't important, Google Workspace has a presentation program called Slides that allows for excellent collaboration with others.

Microsoft PowerPoint comes with all the features you need to create presentations. You can start with a blank presentation or choose from various preconfigured presentations (called templates). A template is a file constructed with styles and designs applied. This option provides an easy way to begin a PowerPoint with a single click.

You can also insert pictures and videos from your computer and the internet, draw shapes, and create and insert all kinds of charts. PowerPoint offers many ways to transition between slides and animate the items on any slide.

What Is a PowerPoint Presentation?

A PowerPoint presentation is a group of slides that you create either from scratch or a template that contains information you want to share. Often, you show the presentation to others in an office setting, such as a sales meeting, but you can also create slide shows for weddings and birthdays.

When you display the presentation to your audience, the PowerPoint slides take up the entire presentation screen.

Do You Have Microsoft PowerPoint?

Lots of (but not all) Windows-based computers come with Microsoft Office installed. That means you might have a version of Microsoft PowerPoint.

To see if you have Microsoft PowerPoint installed on your Windows device:

From the  Search window on the taskbar (Windows 10), the  Start screen (Windows 8.1), or from the  Search window on the Start menu  (Windows 7), type PowerPoint  and press Enter .

Note the results.

To find out if you have a version of PowerPoint on your Mac, you can find it in a couple of ways.

Look for it in the  Finder sidebar, under  Applications by selecting Go > Applications .

Or select the magnifying glass in the upper-right corner of your Mac's screen and type PowerPoint in the search field that appears.

Where to Get Microsoft PowerPoint

The two ways you can purchase PowerPoint are by:

• Subscribing to Microsoft 365 .
• Buying the Microsoft Office suite outright from the Microsoft website.

Microsoft 365 is a monthly subscription, whereas you pay only once for the Office Suite.

If you don't want to create presentations but only want to view what others have created, use PowerPoint Online to view it for free.

Some employers, community colleges, and universities offer Microsoft 365 free to their employees and students.

The History of PowerPoint

Over the years, there have been many versions of the Microsoft Office suite. The lower-priced suites only included the basic apps (often Word , PowerPoint, and Excel ). The higher-priced suites included some or all of them (Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Outlook , OneNote, SharePoint, Exchange, Skype , and more). These suite editions had names like Home and Student, Personal, or Professional.

PowerPoint is included regardless of which version of the Microsoft Office suite you are looking at.

Here are the recent Microsoft Office Suites that also contain PowerPoint:

• PowerPoint Online and PowerPoint 365 are available and updated regularly in Microsoft 365.
• PowerPoint 2019 is available in Office 2019.
• PowerPoint 2016 was available in Office 2016.
• PowerPoint 2013 was available in Office 2013.
• PowerPoint 2010 was available in Office 2010.
• PowerPoint 2007 was included with Office 2007.
• PowerPoint 2003 was included with Office 2003.
• PowerPoint 2002 was included in Office XP.

PowerPoint is available for the Macintosh line of computers too, as well as smartphones and tablets.

The easiest way to start a new PowerPoint presentation is to use a template. Microsoft offers a variety of them in a range of casual and professional tones. Choose one and replace the placeholder text and images with your own.

Go to the Insert tab and select Audio > Audio on My PC to play music across slides in a presentation . Locate the music file you want to use, then choose Insert . Select the audio icon, go to the Playback tab , and select Play in Background .

To save your current presentation as a template, go to File > Save As . Click Browse , then choose PowerPoint template from the Save as type list options. Give your new template a file name and select Save .

If you want to make your presentations smaller, compress the pictures you use in them. Select an image so the Picture Format tab appears. Go to that tab and select Compress Pictures (it's in the Adjust group). Here you have a few options: Uncheck Apply only to this picture so that the changes apply to all images in the presentation. You can also choose Delete cropped areas of pictures , but you can't restore images to their original size. Finally, select Use default resolution in the Resolution section.

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Definition of a Powerpoint Presentation

When you want to make a slideshow complete with text and multimedia content, Microsoft PowerPoint can handle whatever you throw at it. A PowerPoint presentation can share important information such as a business plan or educational lesson, or it can be useful for entertainment purposes.

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You have a lot of control over customizing a PowerPoint presentation and can start quickly with templates and a variety of useful tools. Microsoft offers a free basic web version of PowerPoint but requires an Office 365 subscription to get the most from the powerful program.

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PowerPoint Presentation Description

The basic purpose of a PowerPoint presentation is to communicate information or media through a series of slides. Along with regular text, your slides can contain numerous types of content such as tables, images, drawings, charts, links, word art, videos, audio and even embedded add-ins from Microsoft. The software also has built-in editing tools that you can use to resize, position and update content without needing to open items in other applications.

Using PowerPoint

Often, you narrate a presentation when you give it live or record audio for viewers when you're sharing your presentation to a group remotely. However, you can also include all the important information in the slides themselves or in the speaker notes found below each slide. The program comes with presentation planning tools that can help you both with the narration and timing of the presentation.

PowerPoint also gives you flexibility with presentation styles. You can share your presentation online and let other users view or even edit the content. You can also use the slideshow format that you can configure to show slides at a specified time interval, set up a custom display format or add extras such as subtitles.

Popular PowerPoint Features

Some of PowerPoint's most popular features include the built-in slide designer and templates that can help you make presentations quickly without needing much knowledge of the process. For example, by opening the program's template library, you can generate a starter file with a title slide with your preferred background, layout and color scheme. You can then use the program's duplication option to generate more formatted slides easily. Even if you make a presentation from scratch, you can use a Design Ideas button that generates a list of ready-to-use slide styles to select.

Other helpful PowerPoint features include the built-in transitions and animations, text highlighter and drawing tools. The transitions and animations make your presentation look professional and interesting with effects like fading, growing and shrinking, morphing and zooming. The text highlighter and drawing tools make it easier to point out information as you give presentations. The latest PowerPoint also lets you insert 3D models that users can interact with.

Common Uses of PowerPoint

Whether you use one slide or many, you can find uses for PowerPoint in many professions and areas. Some examples of PowerPoint projects include:

• Work portfolios
• Business meetings
• Tutorials for students and workers
• Photo slideshows
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How to Get PowerPoint

If you're comfortable with a limited version of PowerPoint that you access through your web browser or mobile device, you can use your free Microsoft account to sign in to the OneDrive version of all the Office products. This version allows for collaboration and gives you access to some templates like the paid versions do. However, you can expect some advanced editing options and features – like live narration recording – not to work.

Otherwise, you can purchase the Office 365 Personal or Office 365 Home version of Office that gives you access to the software on all platforms. You pay either monthly or yearly and gain access to all of PowerPoint's premium features along with perks such as a large amount of storage on OneDrive, technical support and access to other popular Office apps. Office 365 Home allows up to six users versus just one for Office 365 Personal, so your whole family can benefit.

• Microsoft: What Is PowerPoint?
• Microsoft: Microsoft PowerPoint
• Finepoint Design: Top 5 Uses of MS Powerpoint in Our Daily Life
• Brandon Gaille: 10 Pros and Cons of Powerpoint Presentations
• Microsoft: Buy Office

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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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PowerPoint is a presentation program developed by Microsoft. It is included in the standard Office suite along with Microsoft Word and Excel . The software allows users to create anything from basic slide shows to complex presentations.

PowerPoint is often used to create business presentations, but can also be used for educational or informal purposes. The presentations are comprised of slides, which may contain text, images, and other media, such as audio clips and movies. Sound effects and animated transitions can also be included to add extra appeal to the presentation. However, overusing sound effects and transitions will probably do more to annoy your audience than draw their attention. (Yes, we have all heard the car screeching noise enough times for one lifetime.)

Most PowerPoint presentations are created from a template, which includes a background color or image, a standard font , and a choice of several slide layouts. Changes to the template can be saved to a "master slide," which stores the main slide theme used in the presentation. When changes are made to the master slide, such as choosing a new background image, the changes are propagated to all the other slides. This keeps a uniform look among all the slides in the presentation.

When presenting a PowerPoint presentation, the presenter may choose to have the slides change at preset intervals or may decide to control the flow manually. This can be done using the mouse , keyboard , or a remote control. The flow of the presentation can be further customized by having slides load completely or one bullet at a time. For example, if the presenter has several bullet points on a page, he might have individual points appear when he clicks the mouse. This allows more interactivity with the audience and brings greater focus to each point.

PowerPoint presentations can be created and viewed using Microsoft PowerPoint. They can also be imported and exported with Apple Keynote, Apple's presentation program for the Macintosh platform. Since most people prefer not to watch presentations on a laptop , PowerPoint presentations are often displayed using a projector. Therefore, if you are preparing a PowerPoint presentation for a room full of people, just make sure you have the correct video adapter.

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PPT: Full Form, Features, Functions and Uses

What is ppt.

PPT is defined as a digital slideshow made with Microsoft PowerPoint, a well-known software application of Microsoft Office. PPT is usually used for visual presentations that include several slides made up of texts, images, graphics, and multimedia elements like videos and animations. This software is used in many different fields like educational institutions, offices, conferences, and business meetings to share information, data, and even messages with the help of a set of visual slides in an organised and presentable manner.

Table of Content

Full Form of PPT

Features of powerpoint presentation (ppt), functions of powerpoint presentation (ppt), uses of powerpoint presentation (ppt).

• PowerPoint Presentation (PPT) vs Google Studies

Advantages of PowerPoint Presentation (PPT)

Disadvantages of powerpoint presentation (ppt).

PPT stands for PowerPoint Presentation. PPT is defined as a sequence of slides used for the visual presentation of information using images, texts, graphics, and multimedia elements like videos and animations. The term “PPT” is often used informally to refer to a PowerPoint presentation file, which commonly has a “.ppt” or “.pptx” file extension.

PowerPoint provides a number of features and customisable options to enhance the visual appeal and performance of presentations. Some of these are as follows:

1. Slide Creation: PowerPoint helps create slides that act as individual pages that contain pictures, texts, tables, charts, graphics, etc. attached to our presentations. This helps users create a meaningful and systematic presentation for our work.

2. Templates and Themes: PowerPoint contains pre-designed templates and themes that can be used to enhance the visual appeal of your presentation. PowerPoint offers a number of themes and templates. These well-created themes and templates improve the slides’ and presentation’s attractiveness and give them a professional look.

3. Transitions and Animations: PPT helps in creation of visual effects between presentations by using animations and transitions. These transitions can be simple or elaborate and can engage the audience and create smooth transitions between slides.

4. Multimedia Integration: PowerPoint can help the users to insert images videos audio and animations in the slides to create an engaging and dynamic presentation.

5. Collaboration and Sharing: PowerPoint offers collaboration features that allow multiple users to work on a presentation simultaneously. Poerpoint presentations with others through email, cloud storage, or collaboration platforms, making it easy to collaborate and distribute work.

6. Speaker Notes: Speaker notes can be added by presenters for use as a reference during the presentation. These notes can be hidden from the audience and can be utilised by the users to give reminders additional details or signals while giving the presentation.

1. Slide Creation: The main function of PowerPoint is to create visually appealing presentations for various purposes by using several options like texts, images, graphs tables, videos, etc.

2. Data Visualisation: PPT helps in creating slides that are organised and presentable by including charts, graphs, and other visual options. This makes the slides easy to understand for the viewers.

3. Slide Customisation: A PowerPoint can provide a number of customisation options. With the help of these options, the users can change fonts, and color backgrounds, and apply themes or templates to the slides to make the presentation more appealing.

4. Slide Show Options: PowerPoint also provides a number of options for presenting slideshows. These functions include setting the timing between the slides, setting loop slideshows, and customising slide transitions. The timings between the slides can be automatic or can be set manually.

5. Printing and Handouts: Presenter mode includes tools and features that help the user view speaker notes, previous and upcoming slides, and other advanced options to make the presentation better. It also provides an option of using a pointer or laser pen to help the users add extra comments to the slides.

1. Personal Use: The most common purpose of PowerPoint is to use it for personal projects for special occasions. The user can design the slides according to their choice and add the necessary points and details.

2. Educational Tools: PowerPoint is often used by teachers and professors in schools and colleges for teaching by using animations to make learning more interactive.

3. Marketing Presentation: PowerPoint is also used for marketing purposes to show sales graphs, market research, etc. These presentations help the marketers to present their annual or internal reports.

4. Training and Workshops: PowerPoint can also be used to perform workshops and trainings. The slides created can be shown to the public for the workshop. It helps the trainers to understand the work easily with the help of images, videos, and other multimedia options.

PowerPoint Presentation (PPT) vs Google Slides

PowerPoint PowerPoint sometimes referred to as PPT, is a popular presentation tool that enables users to create slides for visual presentations. It offers a variety of features, including slide transitions, text formatting, image and video insertion, and animations. PPT files can be shared and presented on a variety of devices and are commonly saved in the .ppt or. pptx format.

Google Slides, on the other hand, is a web-based presentation tool provided by Google as part of its Google Drive collection. Although it has some clear advantages, it offers features that are similar to those in PowerPoint. Since Google Slides is web-based, it enables real-time collaboration so that multiple individuals can work on a presentation at once.

1. Features: There are a wide range of advanced features that includes various options for designs and animations. This helps in creating even complex presentations.

2. Offline Access: PowerPoint can also be used without internet connection. It just needs to be installed on the computer.

3. Compatibility: The presentations created using PowerPoint our highly compatible with other systems and can also be shared easily.

4. Templates: PowerPoint provides various kinds of templates and themes that can be used in the presentation design. These templates are already present by default.

5. Export Options: PowerPoint allows you to export your presentation to video which is quite useful for sharing on platforms like YouTube. It even help you to play the presentation without using the PowerPoint software.

6. Accessibility: The presentations created can be saved in various formats. It also includes converting it into PDF which makes it easier to share to others who may not have PowerPoint installed on their devices.

1. Cost: Microsoft PowerPoint is not free. It is requires a license which is quite expensive.

2. Dependance: PowerPoint is primarily designed for windows and Mac OS which often limits the accessibility on other operating systems.

3. Limited Collaboration: The collaboration feature provided by PowerPoint may not work on a lot of systems and is therefore not user friendly.

4. Complex: PowerPoint has a lot of advanced features which requires time and effort and therefore can be quite complex, especially for beginners.

5. Overuse: Many presentations contains two many slides, extra text and dull animations which can often bore the audience. Too much information can also overwhelm the audience and they can lose interest.

6. Time Consuming: Creating even a simple visually appealing presentation that includes the content in a well manner can be time consuming. Creating a presentation in PowerPoint takes more time than other presentation methods as one has to create various slides.

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Pros and Cons of PowerPoint Presentations: What You Need to Know

PowerPoint presentations have become a staple in both the business and academic worlds. Whether you’re pitching a new idea to your boss or presenting research findings to your classmates, PowerPoint offers a versatile platform that can enhance your message. But like any tool, it has its strengths and weaknesses.

You might find PowerPoint incredibly useful for organizing your thoughts and adding visual flair to your content. However, it’s easy to fall into the trap of overloading slides with text or relying too heavily on flashy graphics. Understanding the pros and cons of PowerPoint presentations can help you make the most of this powerful tool while avoiding common pitfalls.

Key Takeaways

• Visual Engagement: PowerPoint presentations enhance audience engagement through the use of images, charts, and graphs, making complex information easier to understand.
• Structured Delivery: They allow for logical and coherent organization of content, aiding in clear communication and better information retention.
• Ease of Reuse and Sharing: Presentations can be easily updated, adapted, and shared, saving time and effort, especially useful for recurring business activities.
• Tech Dependence Risks: Relying on PowerPoint means potential disruptions from technical issues, highlighting the need for a backup plan.
• Potential Distractions: Overusing visual effects and text can distract from the core message, requiring a balance of visuals and concise information.
• Learning Curve and Time Investment: Creating effective presentations requires significant time and skill, posing a challenge for beginners and a potential drain on resources.

Pros of PowerPoint Presentations

PowerPoint presentations offer versatile and impactful tools for entrepreneurs and business enthusiasts like you. Understanding their benefits can significantly enhance your communication, pitching, and training efforts.

Visual Impact

PowerPoint presentations allow you to create visually engaging content that catches your audience’s attention. Including images, charts, and graphs helps illustrate complex data, making it easier to understand. For instance, use high-quality product images to showcase your new startup’s offerings. Visual cues can also emphasize critical points, aiding retention and engagement.

Structured Information Delivery

PowerPoint presentations provide a way to organize information logically and coherently. Use slides to break down content into manageable sections, facilitating clear communication. For example, in a business pitch, outline your market analysis, business model, and financial projections in distinct slides, ensuring your message flows seamlessly. This structure makes it easier for your audience to follow and digest information.

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Reusability and Sharing

PowerPoint presentations offer reusability, saving you time and effort. Update and adapt existing slides for different audiences or purposes, such as client meetings or internal training sessions. Sharing presentations is straightforward; simply send a file via email or upload it to a cloud service. This efficiency can be particularly beneficial when managing multiple side hustles or pitching to varied stakeholders.

Cons of PowerPoint Presentations

PowerPoint presentations, while powerful, have their drawbacks. As an entrepreneur, you’ll need to be aware of these to maximize your effectiveness.

Overdependence on Technology

Relying on PowerPoint can backfire if the technology fails. A sudden software crash, compatibility issues, or hardware malfunctions can disrupt your presentation and affect your credibility. Always have a backup plan.

Potential for Distraction

Visual aids are helpful but can easily turn into distractions. Overloaded slides with animations, transitions, and excessive text can shift the audience’s focus away from your message. Balance visuals with concise, relevant information.

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Learning Curve and Time Consumption

Creating a professional presentation requires significant time and skill. If you’re just starting, mastering the software can eat into hours better spent on your business. Consider if the time investment is worth the outcome, or if simpler alternatives might serve you better.

Keep these potential pitfalls in mind to harness PowerPoint’s strengths without falling victim to its weaknesses.

PowerPoint presentations can be a powerful tool when used thoughtfully. They offer a great way to visually engage your audience and present information in an organized manner. However it’s important to be aware of their limitations so you don’t fall into common pitfalls.

By balancing the strengths and weaknesses of PowerPoint you can create presentations that are both effective and engaging. Remember to keep your slides clear and concise and don’t rely solely on technology to get your message across.

With a bit of practice and mindfulness you’ll be able to leverage PowerPoint to its fullest potential. Happy presenting!

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the key benefits of powerpoint presentations in business and academic environments.

PowerPoint presentations offer visual impact, structured information delivery, reusability, and easy sharing. These benefits make it easier to communicate complex ideas clearly and efficiently.

How can PowerPoint presentations enhance visual impact?

PowerPoint allows users to incorporate multimedia elements like images, charts, and videos, making presentations more engaging and visually appealing.

Why is structured information delivery important in presentations?

Structured information delivery helps in organizing content logically, making it easier for the audience to follow and understand the key points.

How does PowerPoint support reusability?

PowerPoint presentations can be easily edited and adapted for different purposes, allowing users to reuse content without starting from scratch.

What makes PowerPoint presentations easy to share?

PowerPoint files are easily shared via email, cloud storage, or collaboration platforms, enabling seamless communication and teamwork.

What are the potential drawbacks of relying heavily on PowerPoint?

Overdependence on PowerPoint can lead to potential technical disruptions, distractions from overloaded slides, and the time-consuming learning curve required to create professional presentations.

How can overloaded slides be a distraction in PowerPoint presentations?

Overloaded slides with too much information or too many visual elements can overwhelm the audience, detracting from the main message.

What is the time-consuming aspect of creating PowerPoint presentations?

Creating professional and polished PowerPoint presentations often requires significant time and effort, especially for those unfamiliar with the software.

How can entrepreneurs effectively leverage PowerPoint’s strengths?

Entrepreneurs should balance the use of PowerPoint by keeping slides concise, focusing on key messages, and preparing for potential technical issues to maximize its benefits while minimizing drawbacks.

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About the author.

Ryan Kingsley

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• Presentations

30 PowerPoint Presentation Tips to Make Good PPT Slides in 2024 (+ 6 Expert Tips)

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Here are 30 quick PowerPoint presentation tips to help you improve your presentations. 

Plus, get PowerPoint tips on changing your slide design to make your content shine. We've even called on six presentation experts for their best tips.

How to Make a Good PowerPoint Presentation (Watch & Learn)

This screencast is a speed round of my very favorite PowerPoint tricks. It's a great resource to learn how to make a presentable PowerPoint. I'll walk you through ten of my favorite PowerPoint tips and tricks to create a better presentation.

Keep reading for an illustrated version of these good PPT tips (and more) that you can use to improve your PowerPoint presentations. You'll see 30 of our favorite PowerPoint presentation tips and tricks, including techniques to update slide master PowerPoint 2024 designs.

Jump to content in this section:

• How Do You Give a Memorable PPT Presentation?
• Practice Makes Perfect
• Adapt Your Presentation to the Audience
• Use a Custom Font
• Use Contrast
• Avoid Too Many Animations
• Use the Rule of Three
• Use a Custom PPT Theme Design
• Make Use of Charts and Graphs
• Use the Built-in Slide Layouts
• Align Text Consistently
• Make Your Exports User-Friendly
• Try a Different Color Scheme
• Edit Slide Masters for Consistency
• Use the Alignment Feature
• Use Stock Assets
• Reduce Your Content
• Rethink Your Slide Order
• Use PowerPoint Animations
• Invite Collaborators
• Add Supporting Video Clips
• Use Infographic Templates
• Use Impactful Closing Techniques
• Include Data in the Appendix
• Alternate Between Solid Color and White Slides
• Present Information With Maps
• Keep the Design Best Practices in Mind
• Set a Time Limit
• Test Your Content Everywhere

30 Tips: How to Make Good PowerPoint Presentation Designs Fast in 2024

A few tried and true tips can help you speed up your PowerPoint presentation design. Check out 30 of my favorite PowerPoint tips to do just that. Each of these give you PowerPoint slideshow help to create good PowerPoint slides:

1. How Do You Give a Memorable PPT Presentation?

If you're learning the top PowerPoint presentation tips and tricks, you're probably asking yourself: how do I give a presentation that won't be forgotten?

We all want to be remembered. The best PowerPoint slideshow help to make a mark on the audience. There are tried-and-true ways to do just that, and expert Neil Tomlinson shares expertise on being remembered:

Get your main point into the presentation as early as possible (this avoids any risk of audience fatigue or attention span waning), then substantiate your point with facts, figures etc and then reiterate your point at the end in a ‘Summary’.

2. Practice Makes Perfect

Also, don’t forget to practice your presentation. Go through your slide deck a few times to make sure you know it like the back of your hand when the big day arrives. Doing so helps you feel more confident. It'll reduce any anxiety and nervousness you might feel as the presentation day approaches.

What's the best way to rehears for a good PowerPoint? Here's one of the top PowerPoint presentation tips from expert presenter Sandra Zimmer :

Once slides are ready, practice one slide at a time aloud until you feel like you know it and like the flow of speech. Be willing to change anything that does not feel in flow. At the end of learning all your slides, practice the whole talk.

If you want even more great PowerPoint presentation tips and tricks, check out the following post:

3. Adapt Your Presentation to the Audience

Let's say that you're a seasoned presenter with a pretty standard set of presentation topics. Maybe you're an expert in your field, and you're asked to give a PPT presentation frequently on similar topics.

That's the value of being an expert. You might have a standard spiel that you give your audiences, and your content won't totally change from one presentation to another. That's why it helps to make only slight tweaks to adapt your presentation to each audience.

Leading presentation expert Suzannah Baum offered up this advice:

Different audiences will have different needs and different challenges, which requires me to re-sequence the slides, or create new ones. I tend to do a lot of research on my audiences – via surveys, interviews, and conversations with the hiring manager – to help me better understand what information would be most relevant to them.

How do you adapt to your audience? Here are a few more tips:

• Learn about them. If you're asked to speak, talk to the curator of the presentation to learn more about the audience and their background.
• Ask about them! With contact details, send out a survey or a response link to ask for feedback and preparation info. Ask leading questions like "what do you want to learn?"
• Consider the environment.  If you're presenting via Zoom, your style will differ from presenting in person. The key is to acknowledge the difference and adapt to your environment.

Learn everything you can about your audience. Learning how to make a presentable PowerPoint is all about thinking of the recipient, not the presenter!

4. Use a Custom Font

A PowerPoint presentation tip that'll make your slideshow more interesting and more engaging is to use a custom font.

Fonts set the tone for your presentation. So, when you use a premium font, you’re opting for a high-quality font while also adding a personal or creative touch. 

When choosing a font, remember that you want everyone to read your text easily. 

5. Use Contrast

One PowerPoint trick is to use contrast to make some of your text stand out or make it easier to read.

If you’re putting text over an image on our PowerPoint slide, you may need to use a white box with black text in it to make your text easier to read. You can also use contrasting colors to highlight important text.

6. Avoid Too Many Animations

Another PowerPoint tip is to avoid having too many animations or transitions.

When you've got too many animations, it can be distracting to the audience. It’s not only distracting, but it's unprofessional.

It’s best to stick to one or two animations throughout your presentation. Also, if you've got any animations in your presentation, make sure to test them to see if they work before presenting.

7. Add Audio

Include audio on a slide on PowerPoint to increase audience engagement. Audio can be anything from fun sound effects to interview clips. You can even add an audio clip of your voice.

Audio gives you a break from speaking while also engaging the audience. Envato Elements has hundreds of premium audio clips if you want to add some.

8. Use the Rule of Three

One PowerPoint tip and trick is to follow the rules of PowerPoint.

One of those rules is the rule of three. It's where you start by dividing your presentation into thirds. Everything should come in thirds, so if you use bullet points, you should only have three. If you use icons, you should only have three.

When things come in threes, it's easier to remember them. For more information, read this informative article:

9. Use a Custom PPT Theme Design

Above all, consistently use custom PowerPoint themes. Microsoft has built-in themes that you can use for free, sure. But the premium themes that are on Envato Elements   are a major step-up from PowerPoint's built-in themes. 

When you subscribe to Envato Elements, you'll have access to unlimited downloads of all the PowerPoint themes. Right now, Envato Elements has almost 4,000 PowerPoint themes and that number is always growing. You'll learn tips for a good PowerPoint presentation by using the best templates.

10. Make Use of Charts and Graphs

Illustrate your data with the use of charts and graphs. Not only will you be able to make your presentation more visually appealing, but you'll also help your audience remember the information better.

Many PowerPoint templates already include chart and graph elements. Easily customize them to make your data and stats more interesting and easier to understand.

Want to learn more about how to use data? Turn to expert Adrienne J ohnston , a presentation professional:

When it comes to visualizing data in presentations, we have to remember that our audience does not need all the fine details of the data - they need the main takeaway and we need to make sure that's evident to them when looking at the slide.

11. Use the Built-in Slide Layouts

Inside of PowerPoint themes, you'll find layouts , which are custom slide designs.

Most themes include a selection of content layouts that you can use as a starting point for your own slide designs. You can leverage slide master PowerPoint 2024 designs with the help of layouts.

Layouts are like a starting point for your PowerPoint presentation slides. They contain combinations of placeholders for text boxes, images, and more.

Instead of clicking and drawing individual objects onto the slide, use one of these layouts to start your slide off. It's one of the top PowerPoint presentation tips and tricks to save time.

12. Align Text Consistently

When you're working with text on your slide, it helps to ensure that it aligns consistently. Keeping your text aligned in the same orientation really makes a slide look clean. 

In the example below, I've basically got three text boxes:

• list of bulleted points

Notice that all this text is aligned left. 

Aligning text was the " aha " moment that I learned when I started studying slide design. It's one of those steps that makes a slide look much neater and professional, so keep it in mind when designing.

13. Make Your Exports User-Friendly

No matter how great your PowerPoint presentation slides look, you need to think about how your user will use the presentation file. 

Any of these are likely scenarios if you're regularly sending presentations to other users:

• The viewer may not have PowerPoint installed on their computer.
• The recipient may be using a version of PowerPoint that renders the presentation differently.
• Maybe you don't want the user to be able to make any edits or see your notes in the presentation file.

In this case, my favorite tip is to export the presentation as a PDF. To do that, go to File > Export > Create PDF , and then save your presentation as a PDF.

This is sure to help most of your users see the presentation just the way you intended.

14. Try a Different Color Scheme

Many PowerPoint themes have more than one color scheme that you can apply to your presentation. On the Design  tab, click on the drop-down next to Themes to try out a different color scheme.

Typically, these will restyle your entire presentation. Premium themes that you might get from Envato Elements, for example, may have many versions inside the original presentation zip file.

15. Edit Slide Masters for Consistency

The slide master controls the design for your PowerPoint slide. Instead of making the same change to each slide, apply a change to a slide master. It'll affect all the PowerPoint presentation slides that use the same master.

It's ideal to apply a logo to the slide master itself, for example. This keeps the logo the same size and in the same position on each slide.

To do that, go to View > Slide Master.  On the right side, you're likely to see a variety of slide masters that control designs for many slides. Drop the elements that you want to remain consistent onto one of the slide masters.

16. Use the Alignment Feature

PowerPoint presentation slides look better when the objects on them are in line with one another. There's a certain visual rhythm that occurs when objects line up in the center or along certain boundary lines.

When you start dragging objects on your slide, you'll see guiding lines that pop up. These are very intuitive, and you'll likely notice that they help you line up your objects. You might seem them pop up when you've got a box that's equidistant between two other objects on the slide, for example.

This is one of the best tricks for improving the look of your PowerPoint slide. Spend some time making sure that your key elements line up cohesively.

17. Use Stock Assets

Earlier, I mentioned using Envato Elements to grab PowerPoint themes. But there's more that comes with an Envato Elements subscription for presentations.

That includes a wide variety of stock photos, graphics,  and custom designed fonts  that you can use in your presentation. Instead of reusing the same stock photo or clip art, Envato Elements has everything you need to supplement a presentation. 

Again, Envato Elements is the perfect subscription if you build presentations. It's a one-stop-shop that you can use to fill content.

18. Reduce Your Content

There's nothing that makes an audience tune out faster than being overloaded with slide content. Sometimes we try to make so many points that the audience misses all of them due to information overload.

Less is truly more. When you cut the weaker points of your presentation, the audience's attention will follow your key points accordingly.

It seems like cheating, but one of the best steps that you can take for your slide is to simply reduce the number of items that are on it. Convert some of your typed points to things you'll speak verbally.

19. Rethink Your Slide Order

Sometimes, I find that my presentations are out of order. I might spend too much time explaining my decision before I get to the conclusion.

In these cases, I like to use Slide Sorter View  to re-sequence the slides in my presentation. To access this view, go to View > Slide Sorter  on PowerPoint's ribbon.

From Slide Sorter view, you've got a top-down view of all the slides in your presentation deck. It sometimes becomes obvious that the slides can be reordered into a better sequence from this view.

20. Use PowerPoint Animations 

One of my favorite PowerPoint presentation tips is to complement your major points with a bit of animation. Using animation can bring a key point onto your slide with style!

Check out ten of the best PowerPoint tips for how to use animation from expert Sven Lenaerts below:

21. Invite Collaborators

Building a presentation often benefits from a second set of eyes. That's why it helps so much to invite a collaborator to work with you side-by-side in Microsoft PowerPoint.

Pushing your presentation up to OneDrive and inviting collaborators is easy. Thanks to the cloud-based approach, more than one user can edit a slide deck in real time. Learn how to do that in the tutorial below:

22. Add Supporting Video Clips

Building impactful presentations is all about adding other perspectives and angles to the content. One of my favorite ways to do that is to add a video clip. Maybe that's a production that you built on your own or found on sites like YouTube.

Either way, learn how to add and auto play a video clip in the quick tip below:

23. Use Infographic Templates

More presentations than ever will feature visuals that tell stories with data. But it's easy for an audience become overwhelmed with data. 

That's where infographics come into play. Learn to use them in PowerPoint in the tutorial below:

24. Use Impactful Closing Techniques

I've sat through many presentations in my life. I can only remember a few that really stick out, thanks to techniques that highlighted key points. You need PowerPoint tips and tricks that help leave your audience with an impact.

To do just that, make sure you use some of the techniques highlighted in the article below:

To do that, just drag and drop the thumbnails into the order you want. When you return to Normal view, the PowerPoint presentation slides will be in the resequenced order you set here.

25. Include Data in the Appendix

Many PowerPoint presentations include data in the form of charts and graphs. That means that you'll condense specifics into a few easy-to-follow charts.

But what if your audience wants more of the backing details? Maybe they want to validate and review the detail for themselves. In that case, a   set of  appendix slides  with extra data is sure to help.

Appendix slides are included at the end of a presentation deck for backup purposes. You might not present them, but your audience is certain to appreciate that you included them. That helps your presentation continue to be useful even after you leave the room.

Here's a great tip from: pro presenter  Graeme Thomas of Johnny F Designs:

If (my clients) are sending the deck straight to clients however, I would then put all the information on the slides but will often use more slides so that they aren't too cluttered. In cases where there is a lot of content, like financial statements, I would use  appendix slides.

Including an appendix helps your audience understand data  without  overwhelming them with that data. Follow these tips so that you get the best of both worlds.

26. Alternate Between Solid Color and White Slides

Alternating between solid color and slides with a white background can produce an interesting visual effect and engage your audience. You can use the solid-colored slides to signify a new section in your presentation.

Not to mention, solid-colored slides are the perfect way to re-enforce your brand colors and build your brand recognition.

27. Present Information With Maps

If you’re trying to make a case for a global expansion or need to report on how other branches are performing, consider using a map to help your audience visualize the data.

There's no shortage of quality PowerPoint templates with maps built in so be sure to take advantage of them.

28. Keep the Design Best Practices in Mind

The design of your presentation matters just as much as the content of your presentation. That’s why you need to devote an equal amount of time to making sure the design of your presentation is on point as you do to the actual content.

Familiarize yourself with best design practices and keep them in mind as you go about customizing your template.

29. Set a Time Limit

How many slides is the right number for you? Well, it all depends on the time limit you set for your presentation.

Believe it or not, setting a time limit is helpful to create good PowerPoint slides. If you want to learn how to make a presentable PowerPoint, it's a must to lock in the time limit and ensure that your slides support that timeframe. 

Expert presenter Stephanie Ottavan offers one of our top tips for a good PowerPoint presentation based on time limits:

A presenter is usually limited to a specific time frame and you want to adhere to that as closely as you can. If you have animations and transitions in your deck, these take added time so make sure to rehearse in “show mode” of PowerPoint or Keynote and time yourself.

Believe it or not, setting a time frame is one of the most important part of creating a PPT presentation. It helps you influence how many good PowerPoint slides you should design.

30. Test Your Content Everywhere

PowerPoint in 2024 could take place anywhere. Maybe you present, online, in-person, or beam it to mobile devices. It's important to remember that the content will appear differently on each device.

PowerPoint Online is a different medium than many other apps. Make sure that your presentation design appears the same by testing it with the help of this tutorial. It shows you how your PPT presentation appears even in a browser:

Discover Great Premium PowerPoint Templates With Google Slides (For 2024)

Creating a great presentation starts with a great template. And a great PowerPoint slide design use the best presentation practices, for example:

• Use high-quality photos and graphics to help tell the story.
• Keep text to a minimum.
• Stick to one idea per slide.

Designing a great template doesn’t mean you've got to start from scratch, though. Take a look at some of the best PowerPoint templates we've got on Envato Elements.

1. Neo PowerPoint Template

The Neo PowerPoint template features a modern and bold design and includes five color variations to get you started. Along with this, you'll also get 10 master slides and 30 individual slides for all your presentation needs.

2. Vexana PowerPoint Template

The Vexana template is a great choice for brands that need a touch of elegance. This template works with PowerPoint and Google Slides and comes with a grand total of 150 slides. It also has five color variations and includes infographic elements and photo placeholders.

3. Sprint PowerPoint Template

The Sprint PowerPoint template features a professional and modern design. The template is easy to customize. You'll find 20 masters in the standard 4:3 size, allowing you to choose the best layout for your information.

4. Travelicious PowerPoint Template

For any presentation that deals with the topic of travel, check out the Travelicious template. This template is compatible with both PowerPoint and Google Slides. It includes three premade color variations as well as 30 unique slides.

 As you can see from the examples above, there's no shortage of beautiful and professional PowerPoint slide designs on Envato Elements . What’s more, Envato Elements allows you to download as many PowerPoint templates as you want. Plus, get thousands of other design assets such as fonts, photos, and icons—all for one low monthly price.

Want to see even more great PowerPoint template examples? Be sure to check out our related roundup:

Need Help? Grab Our Making Great Presentations eBook (Free)

We've got the perfect complement to this tutorial. You can find more information in our eBook on making great presentations . Download this PDF eBook now for FREE with your subscription to the Tuts+ Business Newsletter. 

It'll help you master the presentation process from initial creative ideas through to writing, design, and delivering with impact.

PowerPoint Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Now that you’ve read about PowerPoint tips and tricks, if you want to learn more about PowerPoint, here are some FAQs:

1. What Is a Placeholder?

Placeholders in your slide on PowerPoint help you easily add text or images to your slide without changing your design.

In a template, sometimes the placeholders have prompts such as “Click to insert a picture” or “Click to add text.” These prompts let you know what kind of placeholder it is. To learn more about placeholders, read this article: 

2. How Can I Automatically Play a Video?

A PowerPoint tip is to insert an automatically played video in your presentation. When you've got a video that'll play automatically, it saves you the trouble of starting your video manually.

Videos can illustrate topics or specific points. They're also a great way to keep your audience engaged. If you want to learn how to play a video automatically, read this tutorial:

3. How Can I Add a Map to my Slide?

Another PowerPoint trick is to add a map to your slide. If you're discussing a specific location, then a map can help your audience visualize the location you're presenting. To learn how to add a map to your PowerPoint slide, read this tutorial:

4. How Do I Add a GIF to My Presentation?

Adding a GIF to your slide on PowerPoint is one way you can grab your audience's attention. To add a GIF to your slide, you’ll need to download a GIF.

Once you download it, upload it into PowerPoint and use it on your slide. For more information about how to add a GIF to your slide on PowerPoint, read this article:

5. Can I Recover My Unsaved Presentation?

Another PowerPoint trick is to learn how to recover unsaved PowerPoint files so that you can be prepared in case of an emergency. If you want to learn more, read this tutorial:

Learn More About How to Make Presentable PowerPoints

These quick PowerPoint Presentation tips are some of my favorite ways to rapidly improve a presentation. Keeping them in mind while you build a presentation can help you build a deck that you'll be confident about presenting.

Check out these tutorials to keep learning more about PowerPoint. These tutorials will give you more ideas for fixing up your PowerPoint presentation slides efficiently:

Find More Templates

Didn't see a template you like? Here are some more:

Use These PPT Presentation Tips on Your Next Presentation

Now that you've studied some of our best PowerPoint tips, it's time to put them to use. Download one of our top-notch PowerPoint themes from Envato Elements to get started. These PowerPoint presentation tips and tricks give you confidence to make you a skilled presenter.

Editorial Note : This post was first published in February of 2019. Our staff updates this post regularly — adding new, exciting PowerPoint tips and templates (with special help from Brenda Barron , Andrew Childress and Sarah Joy ).

Home Blog Presentation Ideas 10+ Outstanding PowerPoint Presentation Examples and Templates

10+ Outstanding PowerPoint Presentation Examples and Templates

Nobody said it’s easy to make a PowerPoint presentation . There are multiple design decisions to consider, like which layout is appropriate for the content you have to present, font pairing, color schemes, and whether to use animated elements or not. 

Making these choices when working under the clock is overwhelming for most people, especially if you only intend to make a report more visually appealing. For this very reason, we curated a selection of 11 good PowerPoint presentation examples categories in different niches to give you insights into what’s valued and how to take your presentations to a professional quality. All the templates used on each case will be linked for easy access.

Table of Contents

General Guidelines for Professional-Quality PowerPoint Presentations

Business pitch powerpoint presentation examples, marketing plan powerpoint presentation examples, company profile powerpoint presentation examples, quarterly/annual results presentation examples, project proposal presentation examples, training presentation examples, change management presentation examples, industry analysis presentation examples, financial planning examples, inspirational presentation examples, academic presentation examples, final words.

Before introducing our presentation slide examples, we need to discuss a list of factors that transform an average slide into a professional-quality one. 

Design Principles

For any professional-level slide deck, a consistent layout, color scheme, and font pairing are required throughout the presentation. The slides should remain uncluttered, with proper care of white balance across their composition, and stick to the 10-20-30 rule of presentations ’s concept of one concept per slide. 

Contrast between text and background color must comply with web design accessibility standards , meaning to work with a 4.5:1 contrast ratio for normal text, with exceptions for larger text. You can find more information in our article on accessibility for presentations .

A general rule in any graphic design project is to stick with fonts with ample legibility, like Arial, Helvetica, or Calibri. These are known as sans-serif fonts, and they work better than serif ones (i.e., Times New Roman) for larger text blocks.

Avoid using more than two different font families in your presentation; otherwise, the overall design will lose cohesion. Since you ought to ensure readability, the minimum size for body text should be 18pt, opting for larger variations and/or bold text for titles.

Using a combination of font pairing and font sizing helps create a hierarchy in your slides’ written content. For more insights on this topic, browse our article on fonts for presentations .

Color Scheme

Sticking to a color palette selection is one of the first design decisions to make when creating a custom slide deck . Colors have their own psychological impact on presentations, as explained in our article on color theory , so presenters must stick to 3-4 colors to avoid mixing up content in the slides. That being said, the colors have to be carefully selected according to the typical color scheme configurations, and using contrast to highlight key points on presentation slides.

Slide Layout

We can apply multiple graphic design guidelines to create professional-quality presentation slides, but in order to simplify the process, here are the key points to take into account:

• Grids and Guides: Divide your slide into sections using guides in PowerPoint or Google Slides. Then, you can build a grid that helps place elements and catch the viewer’s interest as they follow a logical flow while looking at the slide.
• Whitespace : Empty space is not your enemy. Slides shouldn’t be dense or feel hard on the eyes to read; therefore, work with a minimum of 30% whitespace.

Multimedia Elements

According to our expertise, video presentations and animation effects certainly increase the retention rate of the content you present. This is because they reduce the tiresome 2D presentation layout and add dynamism to the slides. Testing their functionality across different devices is a must to incorporate these elements into your presentation, especially if we consider that not all PowerPoint animation effects are compatible with Google Slides animations . 

Sound can be distracting in many scenarios unless you opt for an interactive presentation and require an audio track for an exercise. Action buttons in the form of quizzes or multiple-choice questions are fine examples of how we can integrate hyperlinks in interactive presentations.

The first professional PowerPoint example we will cover is when creating a problem slide business pitch. This selected business pitch PPT template has a 50/50 image-to-content balance that allows us to add images from our organization (or stick to the corporate placeholder image design) and quickly summarize the issue or need that our business aims to solve.

Remember that the selected colors for the text background area and text color are not 100% pure values—they are slight variations to reduce eye strain, making this slide a perfect choice for any kind of meeting room. Ideally, you can present up to three different problems to solve; otherwise, the text will look too small.

Another fine example of a PowerPoint presentation comes at the time of delivering an elevator pitch . As we all know, this concise presentation format requires a considerable amount of presentation aids to briefly expose each point in the speech under the allotted time frame. In this Revenue Model slide, we can find the answers to typical questions that help us shape the speech, all of them with icons and cues to remember from which areas the information comes.

If we aim to create a sponsorship pitch deck , it is important to bring proof of past sponsorship experiences to build our credibility in front of prospective sponsors. With this best PPT template tailored for sponsorship pitch presentations, we can display such data in an attractive visual format. The neat layout balances whitespace with content, with three distinctive KPI areas to talk about your history in sponsorship experiences. 

Talk about the market segmentation strategies of your marketing plan with this creative infographic template. This slide clearly illustrates that not all examples of PowerPoint presentations follow the same structure in terms of graphics-to-text balance. You can introduce data on how purchasing habits, user status, and brand loyalty influence buying decisions. Present key information about demographic & geographic segmentation and how psychographic information can provide deeper insights into consumer motivations to purchase.

Another PowerPoint example comes in the format of presenting market opportunities in marketing plans . You can list up to four points, which can be extracted from the outcomes of a SWOT analysis or from retrieved data from polls or stakeholders’ insights. The icons are entirely editable, and the crisp layout makes readability much easier.

Marketing agencies can benefit from this presentation PowerPoint example, which illustrates how easy it is to customize the content and repurpose slides for different client meetings. This and the other slides of this marketing plan slide deck allow professionals to discuss their expertise, past projects, and proposals for their target clients. In this case, the agency in question is offering insights on their work ethics through a clean slide layout with icons to flag key areas.

Our next PPT presentation example is suited for a Company Profile presentation in which we have to disclose key financial data. Thanks to the pie chart, presenters can segment revenue streams or do a balance between investments and profit. Additionally, the box placeholders allow us to deepen our knowledge of precise areas of interest.

Organizations who are looking to create a company profile can opt for a one-page arrangement to introduce the team members in charge, the overall services or products, the business model, the market, competitors, and relevant strategy information. The text boxes placed in the right area are a perfect opportunity to highlight KPIs.

In any company profile presentation, we have to introduce the organization’s Mission and Vision Statements. This presentation sample slide allows us to creatively discuss those topics. Including icons, users can summarize the primary aspects of their mission statement in one single, professionally styled slide.

Quarterly reports don’t need to be depicted as boring PDF files. We can work with clean layouts that provide information in an easy-to-follow format that focuses on the core elements of the report. This quarterly report presentation example is perfect for detailed reports as we cover all essentials in a one-page format for an employee’s performance review.

If, instead, you opt for a department-by-department approach, this slide presentation example illustrates two out of four quarters in the annual report. You can compare the product’s performance by production, allowing room to perform further optimizations based on sales behavior.

The construction industry requires a detailed presentation that covers all planned and contingency strategies for a project. Such an approach builds trust in the client, and that’s why we believe this PPT template for contractors is an essential tool for securing business deals. This presentation example template shows how to deliver a project proposal in style with accurate cost estimates.

A generic PPT project proposal template allows us to repurpose the slide for many projects—ideal for agencies, consultants, and academics. With this visual project proposal timeline, you can discuss the different stages of a project, plan for resources (both material and workforce), seek funding, or prepare for contingencies.

Once the project proposal’s core aspects are approved, teams must align efforts for project deliverables, acceptance criteria, and delivery format. This PPT presentation example illustrates a slide in a multi-team meeting to fine-tune aspects of the project deliverables, with an accurate representation of the due date and expected products.

Team training requires a framework in which the objectives of the workshop, coaching, or mentoring programs are laid out for management. HR teams can benefit from this presentation example by summarizing the objectives about missed business opportunities or expansion plans for the organization.

Before even delivering a training program, HR teams discuss the content to cover with the head of each department, mainly to spot any missing area of knowledge required for optimal operations. Presenters can repurpose this slide for that kind of training proposal presentation or the training presentation itself.

Intended for the early planning stages of a training program, this diagram is a well-rounded presentation example of how to discuss all points in one single slide, from the training budget to how to process employee feedback. We can expand each of these six topics in companionship slides.

Companies undergoing change management processes can opt to apply the DMAIC or the ADKAR frameworks to orient the workforce. This presentation slide allows management to compare both methodologies and pick the one best suited for their organization.

Since data sharing is delicate in charge management situations, implementing an information flow diagram is a good practice to orient your team, get the new owners or management the required information, and exchange information between departments.

For change management directed at process optimization, this example slide allows management to stress the importance between the current situation and the expected improved state. This PPT template can also introduce the different milestones per stage and involve the management parties per area.

Startups often present their industry analysis to procure investment from venture capitalists. This industry analysis presentation example showcases a typical FinTech segmentation. Presenters can describe the different types of crowdfunding, credit, and factoring services and provide examples of companies or platforms in each subcategory. They can discuss areas like asset management, payments, and other relevant aspects in detail, with successful stories from referents that helped shape their business model.

STEEPLE stands for Social, Technological, Economic, Ethical, Political, Legal, and Environmental factors. This framework allows us to perform a multidimensional industry analysis in which stakeholders can evaluate the appropriate approaches for venturing into a new business niche, renewing their overall strategy, or pursuing new goals based on recent industry changes, even those we don’t initially acknowledge.

The Gap Analysis concept compares a company’s current status to a desired future state. By doing so, organizations can identify deficits or areas that require improvement in alignment with the future state. Presenters can work with this metaphorical gap analysis template and express the need for a plan that bridges such a gap.

The next example of a PowerPoint presentation is oriented to the financial area, in which a consultant can refer to an organization’s asset management. By Scope, we imply the extent and boundaries of the asset management activities within an organization. It outlines what will be included in the asset management plan and what will not. On the other hand, Inventory points to a comprehensive and detailed list of all the assets owned by an organization. It includes essential information about each asset to facilitate effective management.

In financial presentations, the information must be clearly arranged so decisions can be made easily. In this case, we observe how a financial dashboard template can represent an organization’s relevant KPIs.

Think about TEDx presentations or Pecha-Kucha . They all have one factor in common: quality graphics to talk about inspirational stories. Graphics can feel overwhelming for some presenters, which ends in picking low-quality pictures or stock images unsuitable for the context of your slide deck. For this reason, we highly recommend you implement vector illustrations into your motivational presentation slides. Easy to customize, they are a valuable asset to mix & match PPT templates and create your custom deck.

Aligning efforts toward a common goal requires a powerful visual communication language. Images are easier to retain than words, so imagine adding a storytelling factor and turning a goal into a mountain to conquer. Presenters can work with this mountain PPT template and signal the different milestones to reach prior to fulfilling a significant goal for the company/organization.

Another take in inspirational presentations is when we need to share our success stories with investors or in networking environments to inspire others. With this roadmap PPT template, presenters can go stage by stage and present the key stages that made them reach their success, or even project for expected goals to achieve.

Academic presentations don’t have to look dull or excessively formal. We can incorporate a sleek layout into our slides and use icons to highlight key points. In this case, we observe a project overview for a research project, and the icons represent the main aspects to cover in this research.

A thesis presentation requires properly introducing the methodology to demonstrate the hypothesis. Rather than adding complex figures, we can work with a minimalistic slide design and briefly describe the research methods. This slide deck is suitable for thesis presentations as well as academic projects, research papers , and more.

As we can see, counting with a professionally designed slide deck makes a difference in how your presentation is perceived by the audience. By working with SlideModel PowerPoint templates, we can reuse and repurpose our slide templates as often as required or mix elements from different slides seen in these PowerPoint presentation examples to create uniquely styled slide decks.

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Blog > How to structure a good PowerPoint Presentation

How to structure a good PowerPoint Presentation

08.09.21   •  #powerpoint #tips.

When creating presentations, it is particularly important that they are well organized and have a consistent structure.

A logical structure helps the audience to follow you and to remember the core information as best as possible. It is also important for the presenter, as a good presentation structure helps to keep calm, to stay on the topic and to avoid awkward pauses.

But what does such a structure actually look like? Here we show you how to best organize your presentation and what a good structure looks like.

Plan your presentation

Before you start creating your presentation, you should always brainstorm. Think about the topic and write all your ideas down. Then think about the message you want to communicate, what your goal is and what you want your audience to remember at the end.

Think about who your audience is so that you can address them in the best possible way. One possibility is to start your presentation with a few polls to get to know your audience better. Based on the results, you can then adapt your presentation a little. Use the poll function of SlideLizard and have all the answers at a glance. SlideLizard makes it possible to integrate the polls directly into your PowerPoint presentation which helps you to avoid annoying switching between presentation and interaction tool. You can keep an eye on the results while the votes come in and then decide whether you want to share them or not.

• an informative
• an entertaining
• an inspiring
• or a persuasive presentation?

Typical Presentation Structure

The basic structure of a presentation is actually always the same and should consist of:

Introduction

Make sure that the structure of your presentation is not too complicated. The simpler it is, the better the audience can follow.

Personal Introduction

It is best to start your presentation by briefly introducing yourself which helps to build a connection with your audience right away.

Introduce the topic

Then introduce the topic, state the purpose of the presentation and provide a brief outline of the main points you will be addressing.

Mention the length

In the introduction, mention the approximate length of the talk and then also make sure you stick to it.

The introduction should be no longer than two slides and provide a good overview of the topic.

Icebreaker Polls

According to studies, people in the audience only have an average attention span of 10 minutes, which is why it is important to increase their attention right at the beginning and to arouse the audience's interest. You could make a good start with a few icebreaker polls for example. They lighten the mood right at the beginning and you can secure your audience's attention from the start.

For example, you could use SlideLizard to have all the answers at a glance and share them with your audience. In addition, the audience can try out how the polls work and already know how it works if you include more polls in the main part.

Get to know your audience

As mentioned earlier, it is always useful to think about who your audience actually is. Ask them questions at the beginning about how well they already know the topic of your presentation. Use SlideLizard for this so that you have a clear overview about the answers. You can use both single- and multiple-choice questions or also open questions and display their results as a WordCloud in your presentation, for example.

Include a quote

To make the beginning (or the end) of your presentation more exciting, it is always a good idea to include a quote. We have selected some powerful quotes for PowerPoint presentations for you.

Present your topic

The main part of a presentation should explain the topic well, state facts, justify them and give examples. Keep all the promises you made earlier in the introduction.

Length and Structure

The main part should make up about 70% of the presentation and also include a clear structure. Explain your ideas in detail and build them up logically. It should be organized chronologically, by priority or by topic. There should be a smooth transition between the individual issues. However, it is also important to use phrases that make it clear that a new topic is starting. We have listed some useful phrases for presentations here.

Visualize data and statistics and show pictures to underline facts. If you are still looking for good images, we have selected 5 sources of free images for you here.

Focus on the essentials

Focus on what is most important and summarize a bit. You don't have to say everything about a topic because your audience won’t remember everything either. Avoid complicated sentence structure, because if the audience does not understand something, they will not be able to read it again.

Make your presentation interactive

Make your presentation interactive to keep the attention of your audience. Use SlideLizard to include polls in your presentation, where your audience can vote directly from their smartphone and discuss the answers as soon as you received all votes. Here you can also find more tips for increasing audience engagement.

Repeat the main points

The conclusion should contain a summary of the most important key points. Repeat the main points you have made, summarize what the audience should have learned and explain how the new information can help in the future.

Include a Q&A part

Include a Q&A part at the end to make sure you don't leave any questions open. It's a good idea to use tools like SlideLizard for it. Your audience can ask anonymous questions and if there is not enough time, you can give them the answers afterwards. You can read more about the right way to do a question slide in PowerPoint here.

Get Feedback

It is also important to get feedback on your presentation at the end to keep improving. With SlideLizard you can ask your audience for anonymous feedback through star ratings, number ratings or open texts directly after your presentation. You can then export the responses and analyse them later in Excel.

Presentation style

Depending on the type of presentation you give, the structure will always be slightly different. We have selected a few different presentation styles and their structure for you.

Short Presentation

If you are one of many presenters on the day, you will only have a very limited time to present your idea and to convince your audience. It is very important to stand out with your presentation.

So you need to summarize your ideas as briefly as possible and probably should not need more than 3-5 slides.

Problem Solving Presentation

Start your presentation by explaining a problem and giving a short overview of it.

Then go into the problem a little more, providing both intellectual and emotional arguments for the seriousness of the problem. You should spend about the first 25% of your presentation on the problem.

After that, you should spend about 50% of your presentation proposing a solution and explaining it in detail.

In the last 25%, describe what benefits this solution will bring to your audience and ask them to take a simple but relevant action that relates to the problem being discussed.

Tell a Story

A great way to build an emotional connection with the audience is to structure a presentation like a story.

In the introduction, introduce a character who has to deal with a conflict. In the main part, tell how he tries to solve his problem but fails again and again. In the end, he manages to find a solution and wins.

Stories have the power to win customers, align colleagues and motivate employees. They’re the most compelling platform we have for managing imaginations. - Nancy Duarte / HBR Guide to Persuasive Presentations

Make a demonstration

Use the demonstration structure to show how a product works. First talk about a need or a problem that has to be solved.

Then explain how the product will help solve the problem and try to convince your audience of the need for your product.

Spend the end clarifying where and when the product can be purchased.

Chronological structure

When you have something historical to tell, it is always good to use a chronological structure. You always have to ask yourself what happens next.

To make it more interesting and exciting, it is a good idea to start by telling the end of something and after that you explain how you got there. This way you make the audience curious and you can gain their attention faster.

Nancy Duarte TED Talk

Nancy Duarte is a speaker and presentation design expert. She gives speeches all over the world, trying to improve the power of public presentations.

In her famous TED Talk "The Secret Structure of Great Talks" she dissects famous speeches such as Steve Jobs' iPhone launch speech and Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech. In doing so, she found out that each presentation is made up of 4 parts:

• What could be
• A moment to remember
• Promise of “New Bliss”

Related articles

About the author.

Helena Reitinger

Helena supports the SlideLizard team in marketing and design. She loves to express her creativity in texts and graphics.

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The big SlideLizard presentation glossary

Open educational resources (oer).

Open Educational Resources are free learning and teaching materials provided on the web. They have an open license (e.g., Creative Commons), which allows anyone to use and benefit from these resources.

Persuasive Presentations

A persuasive presentation is made, for example, to introduce an amendment. There are usually several options to choose from. It is particularly important to provide good arguments and reasons.

Learning on Demand

Learning on Demand means that the content is available extactly when it's needed by the learner

Social Events

Social events in companys can be to celebrate an anniversary or to bond better as a team. They should address the personal interests of employees and revolve around things like entertainment and food.

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Sometimes abbreviated as PP or PPT , PowerPoint is a presentation program developed by Microsoft that creates a slide show of important information, charts, and images for a presentation. PowerPoint is frequently used for business and school presentations.

Where do you find or start PowerPoint?

• PowerPoint example.
• Benefits of PowerPoint.
• Related information.

If you have Microsoft PowerPoint or the entire Microsoft Office package installed in Microsoft Windows, you can find PowerPoint in your Start menu .

Realize that new computers do not include PowerPoint. It must be purchased and installed before it can run on your computer.

If you do not have PowerPoint and don't want to purchase Microsoft Office to get it, you can try using Google Slides , a free online presentation program similar to PowerPoint.

If PowerPoint is installed on your computer, but you can't find it in your Start menu, use the following steps to launch PowerPoint manually:

• Open My Computer .
• Click or select the C: drive . If Microsoft Office is installed on a drive other than the C: drive, select that drive instead.
• Navigate to the Program Files (x86) folder, then the Microsoft Office folder.
• If there is a root folder in the Microsoft Office folder, open that folder. Then open the OfficeXX folder , where XX is the version of Office (e.g., Office16 for Microsoft Office 2016). If there is no root folder, look for and open a folder with "Office" in the name.
• Look for a file named POWERPNT.EXE and double-click that file to start Microsoft PowerPoint.

Start PowerPoint without using a mouse

Follow these steps to launch PowerPoint without using a mouse.

• Press the Windows key .
• Type powerpoint .
• Select the PowerPoint entry in the search results using the arrow keys and press Enter to launch the PowerPoint application.

PowerPoint example

The picture below is an example of how Microsoft PowerPoint appears, with a red description in each major area.

PowerPoint slides may contain only text, or they can include pictures, videos, or animated text and images. Text may be formatted in the same ways as Microsoft Word , with custom color, size, and font type.

While the look and feel of PowerPoint has changed over the years, the functionality has remained mostly the same.

Microsoft PowerPoint files have the file extension .ppt or .pptx .

Benefits of PowerPoint

PowerPoint provides multiple benefits to users, including:

• It is widely used and considered the "standard" for presentation software. If you create a PowerPoint presentation, it's more likely to be easier for others to open and view.
• It includes many optional presentation features, including slide transitions, animations, layouts, templates, etc.
• It offers the option to export its slides to alternative file formats, including GIF (graphics interchange format) and JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group) images, MPEG-4 video, PDF (Portable Document Format), RTF (rich text format), WMV (Windows Media Video), and PowerPoint XML (extensible markup language).

Related information

• How to create or add a slide in Microsoft PowerPoint.
• How to insert a picture in Microsoft PowerPoint.
• How to add a video to a Microsoft PowerPoint presentation.
• How to insert a sound file into a PowerPoint presentation.
• How to add or remove animations in a PowerPoint slide.
• How to start and stop a PowerPoint slide show.
• Microsoft PowerPoint help and support.
• Software help and support.

Business terms , CamelCase , Computer abbreviations , File viewer , Google Slides , Notes Pane , Office , Office 365 , Office Online , Presentation program , Productivity tools , Software terms , Transition

BASIC COMPUTER LITERACY: MICROSOFT POWERPOINT

• MAJOR COMPUTER COMPONENTS
• KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS
• FILE MANAGEMENT
• WEB BROWSER
• MICROSOFT WORD

MICROSOFT POWERPOINT

Software to create presentations Easy-to-use presentation graphics software program that allows you to create professional-looking electronic slide shows.  Has a menu similar to MS Word. Contains templates with different designs Select a professional design with P owerPoint Designer . Add transitions, animations, and cinematic motion.

What is a PowerPoint presentation or PPT? A combination of various slides depicting a graphical and visual interpretation of data, to present information in a more creative and interactive manner is called a PowerPoint presentation or PPT.

What is a slide show in a PowerPoint presentation? When all the slides of a PowerPoint presentation are set in series and then presented to a group of people, where each slide appears one after the other, is a set pattern, this is known as a PowerPoint slide show. 

MICROSOFT POWERPOINT FEATURES

Slide Layout Multiple options and layouts are available based on which a presentation can be created. This option is available under the “Home” section and one can select from the multiple layout options provided. Insert – Clipart, Video, Audio, etc. Under the “Insert” category, multiple options are available where one can choose what feature they want to insert in their presentation. This may include images, audio, video, header, footer, symbols, shapes, etc. 

ELEMENTS TO BE ADDED IN A SLIDE

Clip Art Graphs Tables Shapes Photographs Charts Media Clips Videos Audio All these elements are mainly used to enhance presentation skills and make the slide more interactive.

Slide Design MS PowerPoint has various themes where background colour and designs or textures can be added to a slide. This makes the presentation more co lourful and attracts the attention of the people looking at it. This feature can be added using the “Design” category on the homepage of MS PowerPoint.  Although there are existing design templates available, one can add some new texture or colour to customise the design.

Animations Animation add effects to text, pictures, shapes, and objects in your slides. During the slide show, the the animated objects or slides appear on the screen one after the other.  In case one wants to add some animations to the way in which a slide presents itself, they can refer to the “Animations” category.

WHAT IS MICROSOFT POWERPOINT?

MICROSOFT POWERPOINT HELP & TRAINING

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Making the World's Fastest Delivery Even Better - Introducing 10-Hour Turnaround Times

An interview with CEO Tobias Schelle, where he shares his thoughts on developing same-day delivery.

Ever since I started 24Slides over 10 years ago, we have known that our goal is to revolutionize the way people make presentations and empower them to become more confident in front of an audience. 

Knowing that you have to stand in front of a group of people and not be able to rely on the quality of your slides is terrifying. Presentation design requires a pretty specific set of skills, but people still think of it as some inescapable task that everyone should do on their own, no matter how much time they lose in the process — which usually means spending long hours on a subpar final product. 

With a team of 250+ in-house professionals and customers in 113 countries, we can confidently say that 24Slides has helped people harness the true power of presentations and wow their audiences from the get-go. 

When it comes to presentations, we’ve always known that speed is the name of the game. We needed to be able to provide our customers with high-quality presentations, but we also understood that even the most beautiful presentation matters little if it is delivered too late. 

Agencies, marketing teams, and corporate businesses needed someone who could cover the large number of slides they use regularly, while also offering the speed and flexibility to support their last-minute requests. 

That’s why, with our design offices in Indonesia and Peru, 24Slides is currently the only presentation design service that can offer 24-hour turnaround times for every single country in the world. We have a tight-knit team of presentation specialists, who are regularly trained specifically to understand and fulfill the presentation needs of our customers, streamlining the presentation design process and still getting an out-of-this-world result in the end.  

This is what makes 24Slides the world-leading presentation design service today, with the fastest turnaround times, highest quality, best pricing, and a 100% satisfaction track record. 

But what if we could make it even better? 

We've known for a long time that our customers want an even faster turnaround, but we wanted to ensure that quality was not compromised in the name of speed. Now, we're ready to take the next step and redefine what true presentation design means as a service. 

For custom solutions clients that require extra-fast turnaround times, 24Slides has been testing service delivery in as short as 6 hours. In our customers’ words, this has been a priceless service that has truly allowed them to maximize their time and cover their last-minute presentation demands with as little hassle as possible.

Our aim now is to broaden this service and to make high-speed presentation design available for all.  

24Slides will now offer a one-of-a-kind 10-hour delivery service, allowing you to get same-day professional presentations with just a couple of clicks. Imagine being able to set up a workshop, work on a rough sketch of your findings and results, and have it all professionally done and ready to present by the end of the day. 

We’re excited by the amazing results this brand-new 10-hour turnaround service has provided in the last 3 months of production and testing. The absolute consensus? How much of a game-changer it is to be able to get professional, expedited presentations with minimal effort or time. 

Even better, our lightning-fast 10-hour service means our customers can get presentation design overnight while they rest. We’re proud to be able to offer a service tailored exclusively to our clients that allows them to maximize their time, send their slides at the end of the day, and get an amazing presentation ready to go first thing in the morning. 

10-hour delivery is not just about speed; it’s about understanding. The only way to streamline the process for our clients is to truly understand their needs and concerns and resolve them from the start. 

That’s why our 10-hour delivery times will be part of our brand new “Pro” Subscription package, where you’ll get a dedicated project manager to handle your account. You’ll not only get subscription-only prices but also a team of specialists dedicated to your brand and your needs to get a second-to-none result —the perfect combination of speed and superior quality.

Learn more about our brand new Pro Plan here !

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UN / GENDER EQUALITY

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STORY: UN / GENDER EQUALITY TRT: 03:57 SOURCE: UNIFEED RESTRICTIONS: NONE LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS

DATELINE: 16 SEPTEMBER 2024, NEW YORK CITY

FILE - NEW YORK CITY

1. Wide shot, exterior UN Headquarters

16 SEPTEMBER 2024, NEW YORK CITY

2. Wide shot, press room dais 3. SOUNDBITE (English) Navid Hanif, Assistant Secretary-General for Economic Development: “The sobering reality is that our shortfall in gender equality mirrors our overall lack of progress on the SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals). And this report shows that none of the SDG 5 indicators on gender equality has been met. Today, one in five girls still married before age eighteen. Women carry an unfair burden of unpaid domestic and care work, spending 2.5 times more hours a day on it than men. Only one in four parliamentary seats globally are held by women. And we know, unless these targets are met, full realization of the 2030 agenda will remain elusive.” 4. Wide shot, press room dais 5. SOUNDBITE (English) Nyaradzayi Gumbonzvanda, Assistant Secretary-General and Deputy Executive Director for Normative Support, UN System Coordination and Program Results, UN Women: “Countries that have enacted domestic legislation have lower rates of intimate partner violence than those without legislation, 9.5 percent compared to 16.1 percent. However, as we present this report, the reality that progress is far too slow, is also very evident, and we remain off track.” 6. SOUNDBITE (English) Nyaradzayi Gumbonzvanda, Assistant Secretary-General and Deputy Executive Director for Normative Support, UN System Coordination and Program Results, UN Women: “Without acceleration, girl born today will be 39 years old before women hold as many seats in parliament as men; 68 years old before a child marriage ends; and an extraordinary 137 years before extreme poverty for women and girls is eradicated.” 7. Med shot, journalists 8. SOUNDBITE (English) Nyaradzayi Gumbonzvanda, Assistant Secretary-General and Deputy Executive Director for Normative Support, UN System Coordination and Program Results, UN Women: “Implementing a package of policies that increase social protection could reduce extreme poverty for a 150 million women by 2050. Closing the gender gaps in farm productivity and food system wages could raise women farmers income and increase global GDP by nearly 1 trillion. Investing in the care sector and in infrastructure could create 300 million new decent low carbon jobs. Having more women in decision making is the way to move the needle to SDG 5 in one of the biggest electoral years in history. This year. 107 countries have never had a woman head of state. This is an opportunity for change.” 9. Med shot, press room dais 10. SOUNDBITE (English) Papa Seck, Chief, Research and Data Section, UN Women: “Armed Conflict is another persistent problem. 612000 girls living near armed conflicts last year. And that's a 41 percent increase since 2015. The UN has verified 3688 incidents of conflict related sexual violence. That's up 50 percent from 2022 and in 95 percent of these cases are actually against women and girls. So, strengthen protection mechanisms and ensuring that women's leadership in peace building efforts are crucial elements for lasting solutions.” 11. Wide shot, press room dais

A report released by the United Nations today (16 Sep) warns of the world’s failure to meet gender equality targets under the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Titled “Progress on the Sustainable Development Goals: The Gender Snapshot 2024,” the report, presented by the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) and UN Women, highlighted key challenges in advancing gender equality globally.

Navid Hanif, Assistant Secretary-General for Economic Development, emphasized the gravity of the findings. “The sobering reality is that our shortfall in gender equality mirrors our overall lack of progress on the SDGs,” Hanif stated. “None of the Sustainable Development Goal 5 indicators on gender equality has been met today. One in five girls are still married before age eighteen, and women continue to carry an unfair burden of unpaid domestic and care work, spending 2.5 times more hours a day on it than men.”

The report underscores that only one in four parliamentary seats worldwide are held by women, signaling an ongoing gender gap in political representation. Hanif warned that without significant progress, “the realization of the 2030 agenda will remain elusive.”

Nyaradzayi Gumbonzvanda, Assistant Secretary-General and Deputy Executive Director for UN Women, stressed the slow pace of improvement in critical areas. “Countries with domestic legislation have lower rates of intimate partner violence compared to those without it—9.5 percent versus 16.1 percent. However, progress remains far too slow, and we remain off track,” she said.

Gumbonzvanda added that gender parity in parliamentary representation may not be achieved until a girl born today is 39 years old, and ending child marriage could take until she is 68. “An extraordinary 137 years will pass before extreme poverty for women and girls is eradicated,” she noted, reflecting the enormity of the challenge ahead.

Gumbonzvanda pointed to potential policy solutions. “Implementing a package of policies that increase social protection could reduce extreme poverty for 150 million women by 2050. Closing the gender gaps in farm productivity and food system wages could raise women farmers’ income and increase global GDP by nearly $1 trillion,” she explained. “This year, 107 countries have never had a woman head of state. This is an opportunity for change.”

Papa Seck, Chief of the Research and Data Section at UN Women, highlighted the impact of armed conflicts on gender equality. “612,000 girls lived near armed conflicts last year, a 41 percent increase since 2015. The UN has verified 3,688 incidents of conflict-related sexual violence, up 50 percent from 2022,” Seck revealed. In 95 percent of these cases, the victims were women and girls. “Strengthening protection mechanisms and ensuring women’s leadership in peacebuilding efforts are crucial for lasting solutions,” Seck concluded.

The report urges global leaders to take concrete steps to accelerate progress towards gender equality, particularly as 2024 shapes up to be a pivotal electoral year, with more than 100 countries poised for national elections.

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What's new in PowerPoint 2024 for Windows and Mac

PowerPoint 2024 and PowerPoint 2024 for Mac let you create compelling content with the addition of features including the ability to insert a live feed using cameo, several accessibility improvements, modern commenting, and much more.

If you're upgrading to PowerPoint 2024 from PowerPoint 2021, you'll still have all the features you're used to—and you'll notice a few new ones as well!

Important:  All features listed here, unless otherwise noted, are included in both PowerPoint 2024​​​​​​​ (Windows and Mac) and PowerPoint LTSC 2024​​​​​​​ (Windows and Mac) for commercial customers.

Present with cameo

With cameo, you can insert your live camera feed directly on a PowerPoint​​​​​​​ slide. You can then apply the same effects to your camera feed as you can to a picture or other object, including formatting, transitions, and styles.

See ​​​​​​​ Presenting with cameo

Create a video in Recording Studio

Record your PowerPoint​​​​​​​ presentation—or just a single slide—and capture voice, ink gestures, and your video presence. Export your recorded presentation as a video file and play it for your audience.

See Record your presentation

Embed Microsoft Stream (on SharePoint) videos

Add Microsoft Stream (on SharePoint) videos to your PowerPoint presentation to enhance and enrich your storytelling.

See Insert a video from YouTube or another site

Accessibility Ribbon

Now PowerPoint 2024 LTSC users in Windows can make their content more accessible using the Accessibility Ribbon. All the tools are together in one place.

See Improved Accessibility ribbon in PowerPoint for Windows and Mac ​​​​​​​

Note:  The accessibility ribbon is already available for consumers and PowerPoint LTSC for Mac users.

Save as PDF accessibility

Preserve the accessibility of your content when you save or export to PDF format using the new "Best for electronic distribution and accessibility" option in PowerPoint 2024 for Mac. PowerPoint 2024 for Windows includes many PDF accessibility improvements as well.

See Create accessible PDFs with Microsoft 365 apps ​​​​​​​

Add closed captions for video and audio

Now in PowerPoint LTSC 2024, you can add closed captions or subtitles to videos and audio files in your presentations. Adding closed captions makes your presentation accessible to a larger audience, including people with hearing disabilities and those who speak languages other than the one in your video.

See Add closed captions or subtitles to media in PowerPoint

Insert a picture from a mobile device

It used to take several steps to transfer images from your phone to computer, but now you can use your Android device to insert pictures directly into your slide show in PowerPoint LTSC 2024.

See Insert photos from your Android phone into Word, Excel, and PowerPoint for Windows files

Note:  This feature is not available PowerPoint 2024​​​​​​​ for consumers.

Give a Like reaction to a comment

Quickly identify new comments or new replies with the blue dot and show your support to a comment with a Like reaction.

See Add, change, hide, or delete comments in a presentation

​​​​​​​New Office 2024 theme

Office 2024 has a new theme and color palette. PowerPoint 2024 introduces these changes as well, meaning a consistent look with the other office applications. With more vibrant hues, the new theme embodies Microsoft's commitment to accessibility.

See The new look of Office

Support for OpenDocument Format (ODF) 1.4

We now include support for the OpenDocument format (ODF) 1.4. The ODF 1.4 specification adds support for many new features.

See Microsoft 365 apps now support OpenDocument Format 1.4

Magnify slide to 400% in slide show view

You can now zoom up to 400% into your slide in slide show view, while keeping your video and animation running intact.

See Magnify a slide in Slide Show view

​​​​Work with gridlines

Now, you can precisely position objects in ​​​​​​​PowerPoint 2024 for Mac using gridlines. Gridlines give you visual cues when you're formatting and help you build picture-perfect presentations.

See ​​​​​​​ Work with gridlines and use snap-to-grid in PowerPoint

Grow your PowerPoint skills

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