Creating a terrific PowerPoint presentation is a ability that any skilled can profit from. The issue? It’s very easy to get it unsuitable. From poor coloration selections to complicated slides, a foul PowerPoint slideshow can distract from the unbelievable content material you’re sharing with stakeholders in your workforce.
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Obtain NowThat’s why it’s so necessary to learn to create a PowerPoint presentation from the bottom up, beginning along with your slides. Even should you’re conversant in PowerPoint, a refresher will aid you make a extra engaging, skilled slideshow. Let’s get began.
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I like to consider Microsoft PowerPoint as a take a look at of fundamental skilled abilities. To create a passing presentation, I have to display design abilities, technical literacy, and a way of private model.
If the presentation has an issue (like an unintended font, a damaged hyperlink, or unreadable textual content), then I’ve most likely failed the take a look at. Even when my spoken presentation is properly rehearsed, a foul visible expertise can break it for the viewers.
Experience means nothing with no good PowerPoint presentation to again it up. For starters, seize your assortment of free PowerPoint templates beneath.
Regardless of your subject, profitable PowerPoints rely upon three most important components: your command of PowerPoint’s design instruments, your consideration to presentation processes, and your devotion to constant model. Listed here are some easy ideas that can assist you begin mastering every of these components, and remember to take a look at the extra sources on the backside of this publish.
Easy methods to Make a PowerPoint Presentation
A presentation is made up of a number of slides, let’s delve deeper into PowerPoint’s capabilities.
Getting Began
1. Open PowerPoint and click on ‘New.’
If a web page with templates doesn‘t robotically open, go to the highest left pane of your display and click on New. For those who’ve already created a presentation, choose Open then double-click the icon to open the prevailing file.
2. Select a theme or create your personal.
Microsoft provides built-in themes and coloration variations that can assist you design your slides with a cohesive look. To select from these pre-built themes, select the File tab once more, choose New, select one of many choices, and click on Create. There’s additionally an choice to pick out a clean presentation should you choose to not add one.
In any other case, you should use PowerPoint components, your design sense, and your model’s coloration palette to make your personal “theme.”
Creating PowerPoint Slides
3. Insert a slide.
Insert a brand new slide by clicking on the Dwelling tab after which the New Slide button. Contemplate what content material you wish to placed on the slide, together with heading, textual content, and imagery.
Contemplate what content material you wish to placed on the slide, together with heading, textual content, and imagery.
4. Create a wide range of slides for various functions.
You don‘t wish to current the identical actual slide, solely with completely different content material on it. This might bore your viewers. Make sure that you create a number of variations, accommodating a number of the widespread makes use of for slides. At minimal, you’ll want:
- A title slide
- An agenda or desk of contents slide
- A slide that introduces the speaker
- Numerous content material slides (create completely different layouts contemplating what sort of multimedia you may use)
5. Use the Duplicate Slides characteristic to save lots of you time.
There‘s no cause to create these designs over and over. Now that you’ve a couple of to attract from, you may merely duplicate them earlier than inputting your content material. Right here’s how to do this:
- On the left pane, right-click the thumbnail of the slide you wish to duplicate.
- Select Duplicate Slide from the pop-up menu.
This may robotically add a duplicate of this slide to the presentation. From there, you may customise it to your wants.
6. Add photographs to your slide
Add pictures by clicking Insert and clicking the Footage icon. Moreover, you may add different components through the use of options within the Dwelling and Insert tabs on the highest ribbon. Mess around with the format by dragging components round along with your mouse.
7. Add transitions to your slides (elective).
Accomplished properly, transitions can add somewhat little bit of motion and showmanship to your presentation. PowerPoint has a number of transitions inbuilt so that you can select from.
To entry them, choose the Transitions tab from the highest ribbon. From there, you may choose a transition for it to preview in your display. To customise it additional, click on Impact Choices and play with the options to seek out one thing that fits your liking. To take away a transition, choose Transitions and click on None.
8. Add animations to your slides (elective).
Like transitions, animations can add motion, reveal data, and aid you underscore the factors you wish to hit throughout your speech. To animate a component, observe these steps:
- Choose the aspect you need animated by clicking on it.
- Select Animations from the highest ribbon.
- You will have the choice to select from a number of results displayed within the ribbon.
- Clicking on one provides you with a preview.
- To customise the animation, choose Impact Choices.
- To take away an animation, click on None within the ribbon.
Among the methods to customise animations embrace:
- On Click on
- With Earlier
- After Earlier
- Period
- Delay
These describe the way you need the impact to behave, so mess around with them till you discover an impact that fits your liking.
You will even have the choice to maneuver animations round as you edit your slides by clicking on the Animation Pane button, then reordering the animations within the record that pops up.
Ending Up Your Presentation
9. Save your presentation.
Click on File and Save, ensuring to specify which folder or vacation spot you need your PowerPoint to be saved. For those who’re utilizing your slides for training or educating, it may very well be helpful to convert your presentation to a web-based course.
10. Run your presentation.
It is all the time good to do a trial run to make sure that your slides are arrange correctly and your animations hearth the way in which you anticipate them to.
To current your PowerPoint, go to the Slide Present tab and click on Play from Begin. The slide will cowl your complete display, blocking out your desktop and PowerPoint software program. That is so your viewers (on this case, you for the trial run) is solely targeted on the visible components of your presentation.
11. Advance the slides.
Once you’re achieved with one slide and wish to present the following in your sequence, click on your mouse in presentation mode. This may advance the slide.
PowerPoint Presentation Suggestions
- Do not let PowerPoint resolve how you utilize PowerPoint.
- Create customized slide sizes.
- Edit your slide template design.
- Write textual content along with your viewers in thoughts.
- Ensure that all your objects are correctly aligned.
- Use ‘Format Object’ to higher management your objects’ designs.
- Benefit from PowerPoint’s shapes.
- Create customized shapes.
- Crop pictures into customized shapes.
- Current web sites inside PowerPoint.
- Attempt Utilizing GIFs.
- Maintain it easy.
- Embed your font recordsdata.
- Save your slides as JPEGs.
- Embed multimedia.
- Convey your personal {hardware}.
- Use ‘Presenter View.’
PowerPoint Fashion
1. Don’t let PowerPoint resolve how you utilize PowerPoint.
Microsoft needed to offer PowerPoint customers with plenty of instruments. However this doesn’t imply it is best to use all of them. Listed here are some key issues to look out for:
- Guarantee that the preset PPT themes complement your wants earlier than you undertake them.
- Attempt to get away from utilizing Microsoft Workplace’s default fonts, Calibri and Cambria. Utilizing these two typefaces could make the presentation appear underwhelming.
- Professionals ought to by no means use PPT’s motion sounds. (Please think about your viewers above private choice).
- PowerPoint makes bulleting computerized, however ask your self: Are bullets really applicable for what you could do? Typically they’re, however not all the time.
- Current PPT defaults embrace a small shadow on all shapes. Take away this shadow if it isn’t really wanted. Additionally, don’t depart shapes of their default blue.
2. Create customized slide sizes.
Whilst you often can get away with the default slide dimension for many shows, chances are you’ll want to regulate it for bigger shows on weirdly sized shows. If you could do this, here is how.
- Within the top-left nook, select File.
- Choose Web page Setup.
- Kind the peak and width of the background you need, and click on OK.
- A dialogue field will seem. Click on Scale if you wish to additionally resize your content material, or Don’t Scale should you don’t. We suggest clicking Don’t Scale, then manually adjusting minor format points.
Tip: You’ll be able to keep away from a headache with the final step should you resize your slides earlier than you add any objects to them. In any other case, the scale of your objects will grow to be skewed.
3. Edit your slide template design.
Typically, it is a lot simpler to edit your PowerPoint template earlier than you begin — this fashion, you do not have to design every slide by hand. This is the way you do this.
- Choose View within the prime navigation.
- Click on Grasp.
- Within the drop-down, click on Slide Grasp.
- Make any adjustments you want, then click on Shut Grasp within the prime ribbon. All present and future slides in that presentation will use that template.
4. Write textual content along with your viewers in thoughts.
A big a part of a PowerPoint’s content material is textual content. Nice copy could make or break your presentation, so evaluating your written work from a couple of completely different angles might make you appear extra persuasive. Maintain the quantity of textual content below 6-8 traces (or 30 phrases) at a minimal of dimension 24 pt. Fascinated about how your textual content is obtained differentiates good presenters from the most effective.
Typography:
Many individuals underestimate the affect of typeface, however choosing the proper font is necessary — the notion of your font sort might affect your viewers’s impression of you. The proper font is a chance to convey constant model character and professionalism.
Some fonts are seen as clear {and professional}, however this doesn’t suggest they’re boring. A typical mistake is pondering your font is not “thrilling” sufficient, which could lead on you to decide on a font that distracts out of your general message. We suggest sticking to easy serif and sans-serif fonts. Keep away from script fonts due to potential readability points.
That mentioned, you may nonetheless use enjoyable and eccentric fonts — carefully. Offsetting a enjoyable font or giant letters with one thing extra skilled can create an interesting presentation.
Above all, make certain you are constant so your presentation appears the identical all through every slide. That approach, your viewers would not grow to be distracted by too many disparate fonts. Try this instance from HubSpot’s firm profile templates:
on this presentation template? Obtain it free of charge right here.
5. Ensure that all your objects are correctly aligned.
Having correctly aligned objects in your slide is the important thing to creating it look polished {and professional}. You’ll be able to manually attempt to line up your pictures … however everyone knows how that usually works out. You are attempting to verify all your objects hang around in the midst of your slide, however once you drag them there, it nonetheless would not look fairly proper. Do away with your guessing sport and let PowerPoint work its magic with this trick.
Right here’s find out how to align a number of objects:
- Choose all objects by holding down Shift and clicking on all of them.
- Choose Prepare within the prime choices bar, then select Align or Distribute.
- Select the kind of alignment you need.
Right here’s find out how to align objects to the slide:
- Choose all objects by holding down Shift and clicking on all of them.
- Choose Prepare within the prime choices bar, then select Align or Distribute.
- Choose Align to Slide.
- Choose Prepare within the prime choices bar once more, then select Align or Distribute.
- Select the kind of alignment you need.
PowerPoint Design
6. Use “Format Object” to higher management your objects’ designs.
Format menus assist you to do advantageous changes that in any other case appear inconceivable. To do that, right-click on an object and choose the Format Object choice. Right here, you may fine-tune shadows, alter form measurements, create reflections, and way more. The menu that may pop up appears like this:
Though the primary choices may be discovered on PowerPoint’s format toolbars, search for full management within the format window menu. Different examples of choices out there embrace:
- Adjusting textual content inside a form.
- Making a pure perspective shadow behind an object.
- Recoloring photographs manually and with computerized choices.
7. Benefit from PowerPoint’s shapes.
Many customers don’t understand how versatile PowerPoint’s form instruments have grow to be. Together with the expanded format choices launched by Microsoft, the potential for good design with shapes is available. PowerPoint offers the person with a bunch of nice form choices past the normal rectangle, oval, and rounded rectangle patterns.
At this time’s shapes embrace a extremely useful Sensible Shapes perform, which lets you create diagrams and move charts very quickly. These instruments are particularly invaluable when you think about that PowerPoint is a visible medium. Paragraphing and bullet lists are boring — you should use shapes to assist categorical your message extra clearly.
8. Create customized shapes.
Once you create a form, proper click on and press Edit Factors. By enhancing factors, you may create customized shapes that suit your particular want. For example, you may reshape arrows to suit the scale you want.
Another choice is to mix two shapes collectively. To take action, choose the 2 shapes you’d wish to work with, then click on Form Format within the prime ribbon. Faucet Merge Shapes.
You’ll see a wide range of choices.
- Mix creates a customized form that has overlapping parts of the 2 earlier shapes minimize out.
- Union makes one utterly merged form.
- Intersect builds a form of solely the overlapping sections of the 2 earlier shapes.
- Subtract cuts out the overlapping portion of 1 form from the opposite.
- Fragment will cut up your form into completely different components relying on the place they overlap.
Through the use of these instruments fairly than attempting to edit factors exactly, you may create precisely measured customized shapes.
9. Crop pictures into customized shapes.
Moreover creating customized shapes in your presentation, it’s also possible to use PowerPoint to crop current pictures into new shapes. This is the way you do this:
- Click on on the picture and choose Image Format within the choices bar.
- Select Crop, then Crop to Form, after which select your required form. Ta-da! Customized-shaped photographs.
10. Current web sites inside PowerPoint.
Custom says that if you wish to present an internet site in a PowerPoint, it is best to simply create a hyperlink to the web page and immediate a browser to open. For PC customers, there’s a greater choice.
Third celebration software program that integrates totally into PowerPoint’s developer tab can be utilized to embed an internet site immediately into your PowerPoint utilizing a traditional HTML iframe. Among the best instruments is LiveWeb, a third-party software program you could set up in your PowerPoint program.
Through the use of LiveWeb, you don’t must interrupt your PowerPoint, and your presentation will stay fluid and pure. Whether or not you embed an entire webpage or only a YouTube video, this could be a high-quality third celebration enchancment. To put in the add-on, easy head to the LiveWeb web site and observe the directions.
Sadly, Mac customers don’t have an analogous choice. An excellent second alternative is to take screenshots of the web site, hyperlink in by a browser, or embed media (akin to a YouTube video) by downloading it on to your pc.
11. Attempt Utilizing GIFs.
GIFs are looped animated pictures used to speak a temper, concept, data, and way more. Customers add GIFs to PowerPoints to be humorous or shortly demo a course of. It is easy so as to add GIFs to your slides. To take action, merely observe these steps:
- Obtain and save the GIF you need.
- Go to the slide you need the GIF on.
- Go to the Dwelling tab, and click on both Insert or Image.
- From the Image drop-down menu, select Image from File.
- Navigate to the place you saved your GIF and choose it. Then, select Insert.
- It would play robotically the second you insert it.
PowerPoint Course of
12. Maintain it easy.
PowerPoint is a superb instrument to help your presentation with visible data, graphics, and supplemental factors. Which means that your PowerPoint shouldn’t be your total presentation. Your slides — regardless of how artistic and exquisite — should not be the star of the present. Maintain your textual content and pictures clear and concise, utilizing them solely to complement your message and authority.
In case your slides have dense and cluttered data, it’ll each distract your viewers and make it more likely that you’ll lose their consideration. Nothing in your slides needs to be superfluous! Maintain your presentation persuasive by holding it clear. There are a couple of methods to do that:
- Restrict bullet factors and textual content.
- Keep away from paragraphs and lengthy quotes.
- Preserve “white house” or “unfavorable house”.
- Maintain percentages, graphs, and information tremendous fundamental.
13. Embed your font recordsdata.
One fixed drawback presenters have with PowerPoint is that fonts appear to alter when presenters transfer from one pc to a different. In actuality, the fonts are usually not altering — the presentation pc simply doesn’t have the identical font recordsdata put in. For those who’re utilizing a PC and presenting on a PC, then there’s a clean workaround for this situation.
Right here’s the trick: Once you save your PowerPoint file (solely on a PC), it is best to click on File, then Choices, then open up the Save tab. Then, choose the Embed fonts within the file examine field below Protect constancy when sharing this presentation. Now, your presentation will maintain the font file and your fonts is not going to change once you transfer computer systems.
The macOS PowerPoint model has an analogous perform. To embed your fonts on a Mac, do the next:
- Open up your presentation.
- On the highest bar, click on PowerPoint, then click on Preferences.
- Below Output and Sharing, click on Save.
- Below Font Embedding, click on Embed fonts within the file.
14. Save your slides as a PDF file for backup functions.
For those who’re nonetheless fearful of your presentation exhibiting up otherwise when it’s time to current, it is best to create a PDF model simply in case. It is a good choice should you’ll be presenting on a special pc. For those who additionally run into a problem the place the presenting pc doesn’t have PowerPoint put in, it’s also possible to use the system viewer to open up the PDF. No laptop computer will ever offer you hassle with this file sort.
The one caveat is that your GIFs, animations, and transitions gained’t switch over. However for the reason that PDF will solely work as a backup, not as your main copy, this needs to be okay.
To avoid wasting your presentation as a PDF file, take the next steps:
- Go to File, then click on Save as …
- Within the pop-up window, click on File Format.
- A drop-down menu will seem. Choose PDF.
- Click on Export.
You can too go to File, then Export, then choose PDF from the file format menu.
15. Embed multimedia.
PowerPoint permits you to both hyperlink to video/audio recordsdata externally or to embed the media immediately in your presentation. It is best to embed these recordsdata should you can, however should you use a Mac, you can not really embed the video (see be aware beneath). For PCs, two nice causes for embedding are:
- Embedding permits you to play media immediately in your presentation. It would look way more skilled than switching between home windows.
- Embedding additionally signifies that the file stays throughout the PowerPoint presentation, so it ought to play usually with out further work (besides on a Mac).
Word: macOS customers of PowerPoint needs to be further cautious about utilizing multimedia recordsdata.
For those who use PowerPoint for Mac, then you’ll all the time have to convey the video and/or audio file with you in the identical folder because the PowerPoint presentation. It’s greatest to solely insert video or audio recordsdata as soon as the presentation and the containing folder have been saved on a transportable drive of their everlasting folder. Additionally, if the presentation shall be performed on a Home windows pc, then Mac customers want to verify their multimedia recordsdata are in WMV format. This tip will get a bit difficult, so if you wish to use PowerPoint successfully, think about using the identical working system for designing and presenting, it doesn’t matter what.
16. Convey your personal {hardware}.
Between working techniques, PowerPoint remains to be a bit jumpy. Even between differing PPT variations, issues can change. One approach to repair these issues is to just remember to have the proper {hardware} — so simply convey alongside your personal laptop computer once you’re presenting.
For those who’re tremendous involved concerning the completely different techniques you might need to make use of, then add your PowerPoint presentation into Google Slides as a backup choice. Google Slides is a cloud-based presentation software program that may present up the identical approach on all working techniques. The one factor you want is an web connection and a browser.
To import your PowerPoint presentation into Google Slides, take the next steps:
- Navigate to slides.google.com. Ensure you’re signed in to a Google account, ideally your personal.
- Below Begin a brand new presentation, click on the empty field with a plus signal. This may open up a clean presentation.
- Go to File, then Import slides.
- A dialog field will come up. Faucet Add, then click on Choose a file out of your machine.
- Choose your presentation and click on Open.
- Choose the slides you’d wish to import. If you wish to import all of them, click on All within the higher right-hand nook of the dialog field.
- Click on Import slides.
Once I examined this out, Google Slides imported the whole lot completely, together with a form whose factors I had manipulated. It is a good backup choice to have should you’ll be presenting throughout completely different working techniques.
17. Use Presenter View.
In most presentation conditions, there shall be each a presenter’s display and the primary projected show to your presentation. PowerPoint has a terrific instrument known as Presenter View, which may be discovered within the Slide Present tab of PowerPoint. Included within the Presenter View is an space for notes, a timer/clock, and a presentation show.
For a lot of presenters, this instrument can assist unify their spoken presentation and their visible support. You by no means wish to make the PowerPoint look like a stack of notes that you simply’re studying off of. Use the Presenter View choice to assist create a extra pure presentation.
Professional Tip: In the beginning of the presentation, you must also hit CTRL + H to make the cursor disappear. Hitting the “A” key will convey it again should you want it!
Your Subsequent Nice PowerPoint Presentation Begins Right here
With model, design, and presentation processes below your belt, you are able to do much more with PowerPoint than simply shows to your purchasers. PowerPoint and comparable slide functions are versatile instruments that shouldn’t be forgotten. With a terrific template, you may be in your approach to creating shows that wow your viewers.
Editor’s be aware: This publish was initially printed in September 2013 and has been up to date for comprehensiveness.
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