PowerPoint Tips to Present Like a Pro [Expert Advice & Free Templates]

When you’re right here since you’re questioning tips on how to make a very good PowerPoint, you’re in the appropriate place. Let’s simply hope it’s not the evening earlier than the large day.

Nevertheless it’s okay… I’ve been there too. As a author with extraordinarily common design expertise, creating nice displays can generally really feel like an insurmountable process. The storytelling is a key element, which we’ll get into later, however your design method and supply techniques are simply as essential, too.

On this article, we’ll go over all of those facets of an awesome PowerPoint — from the design and creation course of to tips on how to ship a presentation like a professional. I’ll additionally share some useful sources to get you began.

Desk of Contents

Microsoft PowerPoint is sort of a check of fundamental skilled expertise, and every PowerPoint is mainly a presentation fabricated from a number of slides.

Successful PowerPoints rely on three fundamental elements: your command of PowerPoint’s design instruments, your consideration to presentation processes, and being constant together with your fashion.

Hold these in thoughts as we leap into PowerPoint’s capabilities.

Getting Began

1. Open PowerPoint and click on ‘New.’

A web page with templates will often open routinely, but when not, I’m going to the highest left pane of my display screen and click on New. If I’ve already created a presentation, I choose Open after which double-click the icon to open the prevailing file.

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2. Select a theme or create your personal.

Microsoft provides built-in themes and shade variations that can assist you design your slides with a cohesive look. To select from these pre-built themes, I select the File tab once more, choose New, select one of many choices, and click on Create.

P.S. We have now some nice PowerPoint templates that you could check out — you possibly can browse them here.

There may be additionally an choice to pick a clean presentation when you favor to start out from scratch. I like this feature as a result of I can use PowerPoint parts, my design sense, and my model’s color palette to make my very own theme.

Creating PowerPoint Slides

3. Insert a slide.

I insert a brand new slide by clicking on the House tab after which the New Slide button. When selecting the slide structure, think about what content material you need to placed on the slide, together with heading, textual content, and imagery.

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4. Create quite a lot of slides for various functions.

You don’t need to current the identical actual slide every time, simply with completely different content material on it. This may bore your viewers, so just remember to create a number of variations.

I recommend you think about what sort of multimedia you’ll be utilizing and select or create completely different layouts accordingly. At minimal, I often use:

• A title slide
• An agenda or desk of contents slide
• A slide that introduces the speaker
• Varied content material slides

5. Use the “Duplicate” characteristic to save lots of you time.

There’s no have to create these designs time and again. As soon as I’ve a number of to attract from, I merely duplicate them earlier than inputting my content material:

• On the left pane, I right-click the thumbnail of the slide I need to duplicate.
• I select Duplicate Slide from the pop-up menu.

This can routinely add a duplicate of this slide to the presentation. From there, I can customise it for my wants.

6. Add pictures to your slide.

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I add photographs by clicking Insert and clicking the Footage icon. I can add different parts by utilizing options within the House and Insert tabs on the highest ribbon. I like exploring my structure by dragging parts round.

Ending Up Your Presentation

7. Save your presentation.

I click on File and Save, ensuring to specify the place I need my PowerPoint to be saved. When you’re utilizing your slides for training or instructing, it might be helpful to convert your presentation to an online course.

8. Run your presentation.

I all the time do a trial run to make sure that my slides are arrange correctly and my animations hearth the way in which I count on them to.

To current my PowerPoint, I’m going to the Slide Present tab and click on Play from Begin. The slide covers my entire display screen in order that my viewers (or, on this case, me) is solely centered on the visible parts of my presentation.

9. Advance the slides.

Everytime you’re in presentation mode and able to transfer on, click on your mouse to advance to the following slide.

I feel the simplest method to know you’re getting it proper is to obtain some templates. We offer 30 free templates that you simply’re welcome to check out. Even when you don’t find yourself utilizing them, you’ll get a way of greatest design practices.

2. Create customized slide sizes.

Default slide sizes work for many displays, however it’s possible you’ll want to regulate them for bigger displays and/or weirdly-sized shows. Right here’s how:

• Within the top-left nook, select File.
• Choose Web page Setup.
• Sort the peak and width of the background you’d like, 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 if not. I like to recommend clicking Don’t Scale, then manually adjusting minor structure points.

Professional tip: You’ll be able to keep away from a headache when you resize your slides earlier than you add any objects to them. In any other case, the scale of your objects will turn into skewed.

3. Edit your slide template design.

I discover it’s a lot simpler to edit your underlying PowerPoint template earlier than you begin — this manner, you don’t should design every slide by hand. Right here’s how I do it:

• Choose View within the high navigation.
• Click on Grasp.
• Within the dropdown, click on Slide Grasp.
• Make any modifications you want, then click on Shut Grasp within the high ribbon. All present and future slides in that presentation will use that template.

4. Write textual content together with your viewers in thoughts.

Keep in mind that no matter else your PowerPoint presentation does, it must help the improbable content material you’re sharing with stakeholders.

A big a part of a PowerPoint’s content material is textual content, and nice copy could make or break your presentation.

I recommend you consider your written work from a number of completely different angles so your total viewers can see and perceive it.

Hold the quantity of textual content beneath 6-8 traces (or 30 phrases max). Use a minimal font dimension 24 pt. How your textual content is acquired differentiates good presenters from the most effective.

Typography

Selecting the best font is essential — the notion of your font sort might affect your viewers’s impression of you. I imagine the appropriate typeface is a chance to convey constant model persona and professionalism.

Some fonts are seen as clear {and professional}, however this doesn’t imply they’re boring. A standard mistake is considering your font isn’t thrilling sufficient, which could lead on you to decide on a font that distracts out of your message.

I like to recommend sticking to simple serif and sans-serif fonts. Keep away from script fonts due to potential readability points.

That mentioned, you possibly can nonetheless use enjoyable and eccentric fonts moderately. Offsetting a enjoyable font or giant letters with one thing extra skilled can create an enticing presentation.

Above all, make certain you’re constant so your presentation appears to be like cohesive all through every slide. Try this instance from HubSpot’s firm profile templates:

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

5. Be sure that all your objects are correctly aligned.

This can be a big pet peeve of mine. 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 photographs, however everyone knows how that usually works out.

Eliminate the guessing sport and let PowerPoint work its magic to align a number of objects:

• Choose all objects by holding down Shift and clicking on all of them.
• Choose Prepare within the high choices bar, then select Align or Distribute.
• Select the kind of alignment you would like.

Right here’s how I align objects to the slide:

• Choose all objects by holding down Shift and clicking on all of them.
• Choose Prepare within the high choices bar, then select Align or Distribute.
• Choose Align to Slide.
• Choose Prepare within the high choices bar once more, then select Align or Distribute.
• Select the kind of alignment you’d like.

PowerPoint Design Instruments

6. Use “Format Object” to higher management your objects’ designs.

I like format menus as a result of they permit me to make nice changes that in any other case appear unattainable.

To do that, right-click on an object and choose the Format Object choice. (The title of the thing within the drop-down menu will change relying on whether or not you’re formatting an image or form.) Right here, you possibly can fine-tune shadows, modify form measurements, create reflections, and far more. The menu appears to be like like this:

Though the principle choices may be discovered on PowerPoint’s format toolbars, search for full management within the format window menu. Different choices embody:

• Adjusting textual content inside a form.
• Making a pure perspective shadow behind an object.
• Recoloring pictures manually and with computerized choices.

7. Make the most of PowerPoint’s shapes.

PowerPoint’s form instruments have come a great distance. At this time’s shapes embody a extremely purposeful Good Shapes operate, which allows you to create diagrams and circulate charts very quickly.

I discover these instruments are particularly beneficial as a result of paragraphing and bullet lists are boring to have a look at — I like utilizing shapes to assist categorical my message extra clearly.

8. Create customized shapes.

While you create a form, right-click and press Edit Factors to create customized shapes that suit your particular wants. As an illustration, you possibly can reshape arrows to suit the scale you want:

An alternative choice is to mix two shapes collectively. Choose the 2 shapes you’d wish to work with, then click on Form Format within the high ribbon. Faucet Merge Shapes. There are a number of choices to create customized shapes:

• Mix creates a customized form that has overlapping parts of the 2 earlier shapes reduce out.
• Union makes one fully 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 break up your form into completely different components relying on the place they overlap.

9. Crop photographs into customized shapes.

You can too use PowerPoint to crop present photographs into new shapes:

• 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.

10. Current web sites inside PowerPoint.

Imagine it or not, presenting web sites inside PowerPoint is one thing we’re nonetheless having to seek out workarounds for.

From my expertise, these are some techniques which have labored up to now which may be useful relying on which model of PowerPoint you may have:

• Historically, to point out an internet site in a PowerPoint slide, you’d simply create a hyperlink to the web page and immediate a separate browser to open.
• Strive including the third-party program LiveWeb that you simply set up in your PowerPoint program. Head to the LiveWeb website and observe the directions. Sadly, Mac customers don’t have an identical choice.
• Take screenshots of an internet site, insert the picture in your slide, and hyperlink in by means of a browser. You’ll be able to embed media (equivalent to a YouTube video) by downloading it on to your laptop.
• Some variations allowed a Internet Viewer Add-on till Microsoft determined that was a safety threat. Insert > Get Add-ons, seek for Internet Viewer, then click on on the Add button.

• Install ClassPoint, which primarily places an web window on high of your slide to be used till you’re performed with it. Then, you possibly can simply transfer to the following slide. You’ll be able to even bookmark the online web page you need forward of time to leap straight to it. Utilizing this does introduce a brand new navigation bar on the backside of your presentation. Right here’s a video, Introduction to ClassPoint:

• Lastly, PowerPoint Stay is a brand new instrument that allows you to do extra seamless displays throughout video calls and perhaps a greater general match for doing displays remotely. Try this video:

11. Strive Utilizing GIFs.

GIFs are looped animated photographs used to speak a temper, thought, info, and far more.

I take pleasure in adding GIFs to PowerPoints to be humorous or rapidly demo a course of. They’re extremely popular with and simply acknowledged by Millenials and Gen Z, and it’s straightforward so as to add GIFs to your slides:

• Obtain and save the GIF you need.
• Go to the slide you need the GIF on.
• Go to the House 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 should play routinely the second you insert it.

PowerPoint Course of

12. Hold it easy.

PowerPoint is a wonderful instrument to help your presentation with visible info, graphics, and supplemental factors.

Your PowerPoint shouldn’t be your total presentation, and the weather you do introduce have to operate correctly.

If the presentation merely repeats your phrases, has damaged hyperlinks, or reveals unreadable textual content, the hiccups can turn into the takeaway of your discuss, irrespective of how well-spoken the presentation.

I discover slam-dunking the fundamentals by holding it easy is the way in which to go. In case your slides have dense and cluttered info, it is going to distract your viewers, and you might lose their consideration.

In brief? Hold your presentation persuasive by holding it clear:

• Restrict bullet factors and textual content.
• Keep away from paragraphs and lengthy quotes.
• Preserve “white area” or “damaging area.”
• Hold percentages, graphs, and knowledge tremendous fundamental.

13. Embed your font recordsdata.

One fixed downside presenters have with PowerPoint is that fonts appear to vary when presenters transfer from one laptop to a different.

The fonts are usually not truly altering — the presentation laptop simply doesn’t have the identical font recordsdata put in.

To embed your fonts on a PC:

• Click on File, then Choices.
• Open up the Save tab.
• Choose the Embed fonts within the file examine field beneath Protect constancy when sharing this presentation.

Now, your presentation will maintain the font file, and your fonts won’t change while you transfer computer systems.

To embed your fonts on a Mac:

• 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.

When you’re nonetheless afraid of your presentation exhibiting up in another way when it’s time to current, you possibly can create a PDF model simply in case.

I feel it is a good choice when you’ll be presenting on a unique laptop as a result of if it doesn’t have PowerPoint put in, you possibly can nonetheless use the system viewer to open a PDF.

The one caveat is that your GIFs, animations, and transitions received’t switch over.

To save lots of your presentation as a PDF file:

• 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 lets you both hyperlink to video/audio recordsdata externally or to embed the media instantly in your presentation. For PCs, I feel two nice causes for embedding are:

• Embedding lets you play media instantly in your presentation. It should look far 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).

When you use PowerPoint for Mac, it will get a bit sophisticated, however it may be performed:

• At all times convey the video and/or audio file with you in the identical folder because the PowerPoint presentation.
• 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.
• If the presentation will likely be performed on a Home windows laptop, then Mac customers want to ensure their multimedia recordsdata are in WMV format.
• Think about using the identical working system for designing and presenting, it doesn’t matter what.

16. Carry your personal {hardware}.

Between working methods, PowerPoint continues to be a bit jumpy. Even between differing PPT variations, issues can change. The best repair? Simply convey alongside your personal laptop computer while you’re presenting.

The subsequent best repair is to add your PowerPoint presentation into Google Slides as a backup choice — simply be certain there’s a good web connection and a browser accessible the place you intend to current.

Google Slides is a cloud-based presentation software program that can present up the identical manner on all working methods.

To import your PowerPoint presentation into Google Slides:

• Navigate to slides.google.com. Be sure to’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 can open up a clean presentation.
• Go to File, then Import slides.
• A dialog field will come up. Faucet Add.
• Click on Choose a file out of your system.
• 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 all the things completely, together with a form whose factors I had manipulated. This can be a good backup choice to have when you’ll be presenting throughout completely different working methods.

17. Use “Presenter View.”

In most presentation conditions, there will likely be each a presenter’s display screen and the principle projected show to your presentation.

PowerPoint has an awesome instrument referred to 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, I’ve seen this instrument assist unify their spoken presentation and their visible aids. You by no means need to make the PowerPoint appear to be 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: Initially of the presentation, you also needs to hit CTRL + H to make the cursor disappear. Hitting the “A” key will convey it again when you want it.

Now that we’ve lined the fundamentals on tips on how to create a PowerPoint presentation, let’s go over the fundamentals of what makes a presentation memorable — beginning with what not to do.

1. Studying instantly from the slides.

As somebody who has sat by means of a whole lot of displays and webinars, few issues frustrate me greater than watching somebody learn their slides word-for-word. It makes the presenter appear unprepared and disengaged, and it rapidly loses the viewers’s consideration.

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Additionally, it makes the viewers really feel dumb — they’re simply as able to studying the slide as you might be, so when you don’t convey extra worth, why hassle with the presentation?

Do that as a substitute: Attempt to have 2-3 details per slide that you simply need to get throughout. Don’t really feel the necessity to write all of it on the slides. As a substitute, write out what’s most essential to know and use bullet factors, visuals, or key phrases to information your dialogue.

2. Making a presentation and not using a function.

Each presentation ought to have a function — a transparent level that each viewers member will stroll away with. When you can’t state the aim of your presentation in a single sentence, your viewers will really feel misplaced and confused about what your message is.

Do that as a substitute: Earlier than you craft your presentation, ask your self, “Why am I making this presentation?” and “What do I need my viewers to remove from it?” After you reply these two questions, examine your slides and speaking factors in opposition to your solutions to ensure every one aligns together with your final targets.

3. Utilizing too many “buzzy options” that distract from the message.

PowerPoint provides a ton of cool options — animations, transitions, sound results — however simply since you can use them doesn’t imply you must.

Too many results could make your presentation really feel cluttered and amateurish, and as a substitute of focusing in your message, your viewers is left questioning, Why did that textual content simply spin onto the display screen?

Do that as a substitute: Let your message be what stands out essentially the most. Attempt to simplify every slide as a lot as attainable and get rid of till you may have simply what’s completely needed to inform your story.

4. Not practising timing beforehand.

When you’re new to delivering displays, you is likely to be shocked at how for much longer it takes you to offer your presentation IRL than while you go over your slides in your head.

Do that as a substitute: Do a number of rounds of practising out loud at house (or, higher but, to a buddy or accomplice) to see how long it takes you to get by means of your slides and the place you would possibly want to hurry issues up or elaborate extra.

5. Talking too quick or slowly.

Once I was in journalism faculty, pacing was one of many hardest issues to grasp. It’s straightforward to talk too quick while you’re nervous or excited. On the flip aspect, talking too slowly could make you appear uncertain or disengaged.

Do that as a substitute: While you’re practising, purpose for a clean, measured tempo. Typically, it may be useful to document your self whereas talking to see how your presentation would possibly come throughout to your viewers.

6. Utilizing too many filler phrases like “like” or “um.”

All of us use filler phrases when talking, however too many could make you sound unprepared or uncertain of your materials.

Do that as a substitute:

• Observe pausing as a substitute of filling area. A brief silence feels far more pure than a string of “um’s.”
• Concentrate on your habits. When you incessantly use filler phrases, consciously prepare your self to interchange them with pauses.
• Strive talking extra slowly. Filler phrases usually come from speeding by means of a presentation with out sufficient time to suppose.

7. Ending and not using a robust conclusion.

A weak ending — like “Properly, that’s it” or “Any questions?” — could make your presentation really feel unfinished.

You need to use your ultimate moments to go away a message together with your viewers, whether or not it’s potential enterprise traders or a job alternative.

Do that as a substitute: Earlier than presenting, ask your self what’s one factor you need everybody to stroll away understanding after your presentation. Use your conclusion to recap your details and get this message throughout.

However when you can, I like to recommend exploring our other resources to ensure your content material hits the mark. In spite of everything, you want a robust presentation to land your level and make an impression. And it’ll take each apply and time; don’t stress!

With a number of templates to select from — each in PowerPoint and accessible for free download — you possibly can swiftly be in your method to creating displays that wow your audiences.

Editor’s word: This publish was initially printed in September 2013 and has been up to date for comprehensiveness.