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8 tips to make the best powerpoint presentations.

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

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

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

define a goal

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

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

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

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

avoid walls of text

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

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

Related: How to Burn Your PowerPoint to DVD

use better fonts

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

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

use fewer bullets

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

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

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

avoid transitions

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

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

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

use visuals

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

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

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

find a color palette

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

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

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

change views

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

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

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

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

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

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Blog > Tips for good PowerPoint Presentations

Tips for good PowerPoint Presentations

08.14.21   •  #powerpoint #tips.

If you know how to do it, it's actually not that difficult to create and give a good presentation.

That's why we have some examples of good PowerPoint presentations for you and tips that are going to make your next presentation a complete success.

1. Speak freely

One of the most important points in good presentations is to speak freely. Prepare your presentation so well that you can speak freely and rarely, if ever, need to look at your notes. The goal is to connect with your audience and get them excited about your topic. If you speak freely, this is much easier than if you just read your text out. You want your audience to feel engaged in your talk. Involve them and tell your text in a vivid way.

2. Familiarize yourself with the technology

In order to be able to speak freely, it is important to prepare the text well and to engage with the topic in detail.

However, it is at least as important to familiarize yourself with the location’s technology before your presentation and to start your PowerPoint there as well. It is annoying if technical problems suddenly occur during your presentation, as this interrupts your flow of speech and distracts the audience from the topic. Avoid this by checking everything before you start your talk and eliminate any technical problems so that you can give your presentation undisturbed.

  • Don't forget the charging cable for your laptop
  • Find out beforehand how you can connect your laptop to the beamer. Find out which connection the beamer has and which connection your laptop has. To be on the safe side, take an adapter with you.
  • Always have backups of your presentation. Save them on a USB stick and preferably also online in a cloud.
  • Take a second laptop and maybe even your own small projector for emergencies. Even if it's not the latest model and the quality is not that good: better bad quality than no presentation at all.

3. Get the attention of your audience

Especially in long presentations it is often difficult to keep the attention of your audience. It is important to make your presentation interesting and to actively involve the audience. Try to make your topic as exciting as possible and captivate your audience.

Our tip: Include interactive polls or quizzes in your presentation to involve your audience and increase their attention. With the help of SlideLizard, you can ask questions in PowerPoint and your audience can easily vote on their own smartphone. Plus, you can even get anonymous feedback at the end, so you know right away what you can improve next time.

Here we have also summarized further tips for you on how to increase audience engagement.

Polling tool from SlideLizard to hold your audience's attention

4. Hold eye contact

You want your audience to feel engaged in your presentation, so it is very important to hold eye contact. Avoid staring only at a part of the wall or at your paper. Speak to your audience, involve them in your presentation and make it more exciting.

But also make sure you don't always look at the same two or three people, but address everyone. If the audience is large, it is often difficult to include everyone, but still try to let your eyes wander a little between your listeners and look into every corner of the room.

5. Speaking coherently

In a good presentation it is important to avoid jumping from one topic to the next and back again shortly afterwards. Otherwise your audience will not be able to follow you after a while and their thoughts will wander. To prevent this, it is important that your presentation has a good structure and that you work through one topic after the other.

Nervousness can cause even the best to mumble or talk too fast in order to get the presentation over with as quickly as possible. Try to avoid this by taking short pauses to collect yourself, to breathe and to remind yourself to speak slowly.

6. Matching colors

An attractive design of your PowerPoint is also an important point for giving good presentations. Make sure that your slides are not too colorful. A PowerPoint in which all kinds of colors are combined with each other does not look professional, but rather suitable for a children's birthday party.

Think about a rough color palette in advance, which you can then use in your presentation. Colors such as orange or neon green do not look so good in your PowerPoint. Use colors specifically to emphasize important information.

To create good PowerPoint slides it is also essential to choose colors that help the text to read well. You should have as much contrast as possible between the font and the background. Black writing on a white background is always easy to read, while yellow writing on a white background is probably hard to read.

Using colours correctly in PowerPoint to create good presentations

7. Slide design should not be too minimalistic

Even though it is often said that "less is more", you should not be too minimalistic in the design of your presentation. A presentation where your slides are blank and only black text on a white background is likely to go down just as badly as if you use too many colors.

Empty presentations are boring and don't really help to capture the attention of your audience. It also looks like you are too lazy to care about the design of your presentation and that you have not put any effort into the preparation. Your PowerPoint doesn't have to be overflowing with colors, animations and images to make it look interesting. Make it simple, but also professional.

avoid too minimalistic design for good presentation slides

8. Write only key points on the slides

If you want to create a good presentation, it is important to remember that your slides should never be overcrowded. Write only the most important key points on your slides and never entire sentences. Your audience should not be able to read the exact text you are speaking in your PowerPoint. This is rather annoying and leads to being bored quickly. Summarize the most important things that your audience should remember and write them down in short bullet points on your presentation. Then go into the key points in more detail in your speech and explain more about them.

Avoid too much text on your presentation slides

9. Do not overdo it with animations

Do never use too many animations. It looks messy, confusing and definitely not professional if every text and image is displayed with a different animation. Just leave out animations at all or if you really want to use them then use them only very rarely when you want to draw attention to something specific. Make sure that if you use animations, they are consistent. If you use transitions between the individual slides, these should also always be kept consistent and simple.

10. Use images

Pictures and graphics in presentations are always a good idea to illustrate something and to add some variety. They help keep your audience's attention and make it easier to remember important information. But don't overdo it with them. Too many pictures can distract from your presentation and look messy. Make sure the graphics also fit the content and, if you have used several images on one slide, ask yourself if you really need all of them.

example of good PowerPoint slide with image

11. Choose a suitable font

Never combine too many fonts so that your presentation does not look messy. Use at most two: one for headings and one for text. When choosing fonts, you should also make sure that they are still legible at long distances. Script, italic and decorative fonts are very slow to read, which is why they should be avoided in presentations.

It is not so easy to choose the right font. Therefore, we have summarized for you how to find the best font for your PowerPoint presentation.

How you should not use fonts in PowerPoint

12. Do not use images as background

In a good presentation it is important to be able to read the text on the slides easily and quickly. Therefore, do not use images as slide backgrounds if there is also text on them. The picture only distracts from the text and it is difficult to read it because there is not much contrast with the background. It is also harder to see the image because the text in the foreground is distracting. The whole thing looks messy and distracting rather than informative and clear.

Do not use images as a background in good PowerPoint slides

13. Never read out the text from your slides

Never just read the exact text from your slides. Your audience can read for themselves, so they will only get bored and in the worst case it will lead to "Death by PowerPoint". You may also give them the feeling that you think they are not able to read for themselves. In addition, you should avoid whole sentences on your slides anyway. List key points that your audience can read along. Then go into more detail and explain more about them.

14. Don't turn your back

Never turn around during your presentation to look at your projected PowerPoint. Not to read from your slides, but also not to make sure the next slide is already displayed. It looks unprofessional and only distracts your audience.

In PowerPoint's Speaker View, you can always see which slide is currently being displayed and which one is coming next. Use this to make sure the order fits. You can even take notes in PowerPoint, which are then displayed during your presentation. You can read all about notes in PowerPoint here.

keys to making a good powerpoint presentation

15. Do not forget about the time

In a good presentation, it is important to always be aware of the given time and to stick to it. It is annoying when your presentation takes much longer than actually planned and your audience is just waiting for you to stop talking or you are not able to finish your presentation at all. It is just as awkward if your presentation is too short. You have already told everything about your topic, but you should actually talk for at least another ten minutes.

Practice your presentation often enough at home. Talk through your text and time yourself as you go. Then adjust the length so that you can keep to the time given on the day of your presentation.

timer yourself to know how long your presentation takes

16. Avoid a complicated structure

The structure of a good presentation should not be complicated. Your audience should be able to follow you easily and remember the essential information by the end. When you have finished a part, briefly summarize and repeat the main points before moving on to the next topic. Mention important information more than once to make sure it really gets across to your audience.

However, if the whole thing gets too complicated, it can be easy for your audience to disengage after a while and not take away much new information from your presentation.

17. Choose appropriate clothes

On the day of your presentation, be sure to choose appropriate clothing. Your appearance should be formal, so avoid casual clothes and stick to professional dress codes. When choosing your clothes, also make sure that they are rather unobtrusive. Your audience should focus on your presentation, not on your appearance.

Choose appropriate clothing

18. Adapt your presentation to your audience

Think about who your audience is and adapt your presentation to them. Find out how much they already know about the topic, what they want to learn about it and why they are here in the first place. If you only talk about things your audience already knows, they will get bored pretty soon, but if you throw around a lot of technical terms when your audience has hardly dealt with the topic at all, they will also have a hard time following you. So to give a successful and good presentation, it is important to adapt it to your audience.

You can also ask a few questions at the beginning of your presentation to learn more about your audience and then adapt your presentation. With SlideLizard , you can integrate polls directly into your PowerPoint and participants can then easily answer anonymously from their smartphone.

19. Mention only the most important information

Keep it short and limit yourself to the essentials. The more facts and information you present to your audience, the less they will remember.

Also be sure to leave out information that does not fit the topic or is not relevant. You will only distract from the actual topic and lose the attention of your audience. The time your audience can concentrate and listen with attention is rather short anyway, so don't waste it by telling unimportant information.

20. Talk about your topic in an exciting way

Tell compelling and exciting stories to make your presentation really good. If you speak in a monotone voice all the time, you are likely to lose the attention of your audience. Make your narration lively and exciting. Also, be careful not to speak too quietly, but not too loudly either. People should be able to understand you well throughout the whole room. Even if it is not easy for many people, try to deliver your speech with confidence. If you are enthusiastic about the topic yourself, it is much easier to get your audience excited about it.

microphone for presentations

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About the author.

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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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11 Simple Tips to Make Your PowerPoint Presentations More Effective

Written by Jamie Cartwright @cart_writing

powerpoint presentation tips

After all, the skills needed to create good PowerPoint presentations —strong design, appropriate branding, concise content, well-placed visuals, and proofread copy—are the same skills that make or break a digital marketing campaign. I like to treat Microsoft PowerPoint as a test of basic marketing skills. To create a passing presentation, I need to demonstrate design skills, technical literacy, and a sense of personal style.

If the presentation has a problem (like an unintended font, a broken link, or unreadable text) then I’ve probably failed the test. Even if my spoken presentation is well rehearsed, a bad visual experience can ruin it for the audience. Expertise means nothing without a good presentation to back it up. Strong digital marketing requires a similar kind of attention to multiple forms of communication. Often, we think we need expert designers and writers to present our company in a professional light.

The truth is that PowerPoint enables non-experts to become strong presentation marketers, by providing user-friendly tools with little training needed. All you need is to learn how to let PowerPoint help you. Here are eleven key tips to get started.

No matter your topic, successful PowerPoint shows depend on three main factors: your command of PPT’s design tools , your attention to presentation processes , and your devotion to consistent style . If you can do all three effectively, you’ll find that your PowerPoint presentations won’t be the only pieces of your marketing toolkit improving!

Good style is the hardest and most important skillset to master. It’s more than design; it defines your vision for PowerPoint. Here's how to beef up your styling:

1) Keep a Natural Style

Human eyes aren’t used to seeing brilliant, out-of-this-world visual movement. Good presentations aim to comfort the viewer, not amaze. When you choose an overall style, try to envision your PowerPoint slides as one or many real objects. Imagine canvases, tabletops, landscapes, and shadow boxes. Here is an example of a stylized, blank PowerPoint Slide canvas:

blank powerpoint presentation

Then, imagine how you would arrange real text within these various media. You don’t need to constrain yourself to two-dimensional space (i.e. surfaces), but just remember, that real people don’t live in outer space… So, don’t take us there unless you need to.

2) Don’t Let PowerPoint Decide How You Use PowerPoint

Microsoft aimed to provide PowerPoint users with a lot of tools. This does not mean you should use them all. For example, professionals should never use PPT’s action sounds (please consider your audience, above personal preference). You should also make sure that preset PPT themes complement your needs before you adopt them. Consider it a mistake if your audience recognizes a PowerPoint theme as a preset. Be creative; don’t be a poser. Here are three key things to look out for:

  • PowerPoint makes bulleting automatic, but ask yourself: Are bullets actually appropriate for what you need to do? Sometimes, but not always.
  • Recent PPT defaults include a small shadow on all shapes. Remove if not actually needed. Also, don’t leave shapes in their default blue.
  • Try to get away from using Microsoft Office’s default fonts, Calibri and Cambria. Using these two typefaces can make the presentation seem underwhelming.

Presentation Process Tips

If you keep good style, then you don’t have to be an expert PPT designer. But you must know how to handle solid presentation process preparation.

3) Embed Your Font Files

One constant problem presenters have with PowerPoint is that fonts seem to change when presenters move from one computer to another. In reality, the fonts are not changing—the presentation computer just doesn’t have the same font files installed. If you’re using a PC and presenting on a PC, then there is a smooth work around for this issue. (When you involve Mac systems, the solution is a bit rougher. See Trick #4.) Here’s the trick. When you save your PowerPoint file (only on a PC), you should click Save Options in the "Save As…" dialog window. Then, select the Embed TrueType fonts check box and press OK. Now, your presentation will keep the font file and your fonts will not change when you move computers (unless you give your presentation on a Mac).

4) Save Your Slides as JPEGs

In PowerPoint for Mac 2011, there is no option to embed fonts within the presentation. Which means that unless you use ubiquitous typefaces like Arial or Tahoma, your PPT is likely going to encounter font changing on different computers.

The most certain way of avoiding this is by saving your final presentation as JPEGs, then inserting these JPEGs onto your slides. If you do not utilize actions in your presentation, then this option works especially well. If you do want action settings, you can also choose save partial portions of your PPT slides as JPEGs and overlay other elements on top.

On a Mac, users can easily drag and drop the JPEGs into PPT with fast load time. The compromising factor here is that if your PPT includes a lot of JPEGs, then the file size will increase, so make sure you can manage!

5) Embed Multimedia

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

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

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

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

6) Bring Your Own Hardware

Between operating systems, PowerPoint is still a bit jumpy. Even between differing PPT versions, things can change. One way to fix these problems is to make sure that you have the right hardware you need to always use your own portable computer.

7) Use Presenter View

In most presentation situations, there will be both a presenter’s screen and the main projected display for your presentation. PowerPoint has a great tool called Presenter View, which can be found in the Slide Show tab of PowerPoint 2010 (or 2011 for Mac). Included in the Presenter View is an area for notes, a timer/clock, and a presentation display.

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

powerpoint tips: presenter view

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

Design Tips

8) utilize the format menus.

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

powerpoint tips: format menus

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

  • Adjusting text inside a shape.
  • Creating a natural perspective shadow behind an object.
  • Recoloring photos manually and with automatic options.
  • Putting an object in a very precise location when PowerPoint auto-positions an object to align with another object or margin.

9) Use and Change PowerPoint’s Shapes

Many users don’t realize how flexible PowerPoint’s shape tools have become. In combination with the expanded format options released by Microsoft in 2010, the potential for good design with shapes is readily available. Unlike professional design programs like Adobe Creative Suite or Quark, PowerPoint provides the user with a bunch of great shape options, beyond the traditional rectangle, oval, and rounded rectangle patterns.

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

10) Create Custom Shapes

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

Another option is to combine two shapes together. When selecting two shapes, right-click and go to the Grouping sub-menu to see a variety of options. Combine will create a custom shape that has overlapping portions of the two previous shapes cut out.

Union makes one completely merged shape. Intersect will build a shape of only the overlapping sections of the two previous shapes. Subtract will cut out the overlapping portion of one shape from the other. By using these tools rather than trying to edit points precisely, you can create accurately measured custom shapes.

11) Present Webpages Within PowerPoint

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

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

By using LiveWeb, you don’t have to interrupt your PowerPoint, and your presentation will remain fluid and natural. Whether you embed a whole webpage or just a YouTube video, this can be a high-quality third party improvement.

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

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

For small design jobs not worthy of a graphic designer’s time (e.g. calls-to-action, small web graphics), consider having a free staffer use PowerPoint to do the job. Or if you’re in need of more social media content, try uploading a few good presentations to SlideShare as free resources. With the eleven tips I offer here and a little practice, PowerPoint can be a powerful tool you won’t want to stop using.

Jamie Cartwright is the Inbound Marketing Intern at Weidert Group . A senior at Lawrence University, Jamie studies human communication, anthropology, and social marketing.

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Originally published Dec 10, 2013 10:00:00 AM, updated November 07 2023

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How to Give a Killer Presentation

  • Chris Anderson

keys to making a good powerpoint presentation

For more than 30 years, the TED conference series has presented enlightening talks that people enjoy watching. In this article, Anderson, TED’s curator, shares five keys to great presentations:

  • Frame your story (figure out where to start and where to end).
  • Plan your delivery (decide whether to memorize your speech word for word or develop bullet points and then rehearse it—over and over).
  • Work on stage presence (but remember that your story matters more than how you stand or whether you’re visibly nervous).
  • Plan the multimedia (whatever you do, don’t read from PowerPoint slides).
  • Put it together (play to your strengths and be authentic).

According to Anderson, presentations rise or fall on the quality of the idea, the narrative, and the passion of the speaker. It’s about substance—not style. In fact, it’s fairly easy to “coach out” the problems in a talk, but there’s no way to “coach in” the basic story—the presenter has to have the raw material. So if your thinking is not there yet, he advises, decline that invitation to speak. Instead, keep working until you have an idea that’s worth sharing.

Lessons from TED

A little more than a year ago, on a trip to Nairobi, Kenya, some colleagues and I met a 12-year-old Masai boy named Richard Turere, who told us a fascinating story. His family raises livestock on the edge of a vast national park, and one of the biggest challenges is protecting the animals from lions—especially at night. Richard had noticed that placing lamps in a field didn’t deter lion attacks, but when he walked the field with a torch, the lions stayed away. From a young age, he’d been interested in electronics, teaching himself by, for example, taking apart his parents’ radio. He used that experience to devise a system of lights that would turn on and off in sequence—using solar panels, a car battery, and a motorcycle indicator box—and thereby create a sense of movement that he hoped would scare off the lions. He installed the lights, and the lions stopped attacking. Soon villages elsewhere in Kenya began installing Richard’s “lion lights.”

  • CA Chris Anderson is the curator of TED.

keys to making a good powerpoint presentation

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9 Tips for Making Beautiful PowerPoint Presentations

9 Tips for Making Beautiful PowerPoint Presentations

Ready to craft a beautiful powerpoint presentation these nine powerpoint layout ideas will help anyone create effective, compelling slides..

How many times have you sat through a poorly designed business presentation that was dull, cluttered, and distracting? Probably way too many. Even though we all loathe a boring presentation, when it comes time to make our own, do we really do any better?

The good news is you don’t have to be a professional designer to make professional presentations. We’ve put together a few simple guidelines you can follow to create a beautifully assembled deck.

We’ll walk you through some slide design tips, show you some tricks to maximize your PowerPoint skills, and give you everything you need to look really good next time you’re up in front of a crowd.

And, while PowerPoint remains one of the biggest names in presentation software, many of these design elements and principles work in Google Slides as well.

Let’s dive right in and make sure your audience isn’t yawning through your entire presentation.

1. Use Layout to Your Advantage

Layout is one of the most powerful visual elements in design, and it’s a simple, effective way to control the flow and visual hierarchy of information.

For example, most Western languages read left to right, top to bottom. Knowing this natural reading order, you can direct people’s eyes in a deliberate way to certain key parts of a slide that you want to emphasize.

You can also guide your audience with simple tweaks to the layout. Use text size and alternating fonts or colors to distinguish headlines from body text.

Placement also matters. There are many unorthodox ways to structure a slide, but most audience members will have to take a few beats to organize the information in their head—that’s precious time better spent listening to your delivery and retaining information.

Try to structure your slides more like this:

Presentation slide with headline template and beach images on the right

And not like this:

Presentation slide with headline template and beach images on the left

Layout is one of the trickier PowerPoint design concepts to master, which is why we have these free PowerPoint templates already laid out for you. Use them as a jumping off point for your own presentation, or use them wholesale!

Presentation templates can give you a huge leg up as you start working on your design.

2. No Sentences

This is one of the most critical slide design tips. Slides are simplified, visual notecards that capture and reinforce main ideas, not complete thoughts.

As the speaker, you should be delivering most of the content and information, not putting it all on the slides for everyone to read (and probably ignore). If your audience is reading your presentation instead of listening to you deliver it, your message has lost its effectiveness.

Pare down your core message and use keywords to convey it. Try to avoid complete sentences unless you’re quoting someone or something.

Stick with this:

Presentation template with bullet points

And avoid this:

Presentation template with paragraphs

3. Follow the 6×6 Rule

One of the cardinal sins of a bad PowerPoint is cramming too many details and ideas on one slide, which makes it difficult for people to retain information. Leaving lots of “white space” on a slide helps people focus on your key points.

Try using the 6×6 rule to keep your content concise and clean looking. The 6×6 rule means a maximum of six bullet points per slide and six words per bullet. In fact, some people even say you should never have more than six words per slide!

Just watch out for “orphans” (when the last word of a sentence/phrase spills over to the next line). This looks cluttered. Either fit it onto one line or add another word to the second line.

Red presentation slide with white text stating less is more

Slides should never have this much information:

Presentation slide with paragraphs and images

4. Keep the Colors Simple

Stick to simple light and dark colors and a defined color palette for visual consistency. Exceptionally bright text can cause eye fatigue, so use those colors sparingly. Dark text on a light background or light text on a dark background will work well. Also avoid intense gradients, which can make text hard to read.

If you’re presenting on behalf of your brand, check what your company’s brand guidelines are. Companies often have a primary brand color and a secondary brand color , and it’s a good idea to use them in your presentation to align with your company’s brand identity and style.

If you’re looking for color inspiration for your next presentation, check out our 101 Color Combinations , where you can browse tons of eye-catching color palettes curated by a pro. When you find the one you like, just type the corresponding color code into your presentation formatting tools.

Here are more of our favorite free color palettes for presentations:

  • 10 Color Palettes to Nail Your Next Presentation
  • 10 Energizing Sports Color Palettes for Branding and Marketing
  • 10 Vintage Color Palettes Inspired by the Decades

No matter what color palette or combination you choose, you want to keep the colors of your PowerPoint presentation simple and easy to read, like this:

Red presentation slide with white text stating keep the colors simple

Stay away from color combinations like this:

Gray presentation slide with black and neon green text examples

5. Use Sans-Serif Fonts

Traditionally, serif fonts (Times New Roman, Garamond, Bookman) are best for printed pages, and sans-serif fonts (Helvetica, Tahoma, Verdana) are easier to read on screens.

These are always safe choices, but if you’d like to add some more typographic personality , try exploring our roundup of the internet’s best free fonts . You’ll find everything from classic serifs and sans serifs to sophisticated modern fonts and splashy display fonts. Just keep legibility top of mind when you’re making your pick.

Try to stick with one font, or choose two at the most. Fonts have very different personalities and emotional impacts, so make sure your font matches the tone, purpose, and content of your presentation.

Presentation slide with various examples of fonts

6. Stick to 30pt Font or Larger

Many experts agree that your font size for a PowerPoint presentation should be at least 30pt. Sticking to this guideline ensures your text is readable. It also forces you, due to space limitations, to explain your message efficiently and include only the most important points. .

Red presentation slide with 30 point white text

7. Avoid Overstyling the Text

Three of the easiest and most effective ways to draw attention to text are:

  • A change in color

Our eyes are naturally drawn to things that stand out, but use these changes sparingly. Overstyling can make the slide look busy and distracting.

White presentation slide with black text and aerial view of a pool

8. Choose the Right Images

The images you choose for your presentation are perhaps as important as the message. You want images that not only support the message, but also elevate it—a rare accomplishment in the often dry world of PowerPoint.

But, what is the right image? We’ll be honest. There’s no direct answer to this conceptual, almost mystical subject, but we can break down some strategies for approaching image selection that will help you curate your next presentation.

The ideal presentation images are:

  • Inspirational

Ground view of palm trees and airplane flying over

These may seem like vague qualities, but the general idea is to go beyond the literal. Think about the symbols in an image and the story they tell. Think about the colors and composition in an image and the distinct mood they set for your presentation.

With this approach, you can get creative in your hunt for relatable, authentic, and inspirational images. Here are some more handy guidelines for choosing great images.

Illustrative, Not Generic

So, the slide in question is about collaborating as a team. Naturally, you look for images of people meeting in a boardroom, right?

While it’s perfectly fine to go super literal, sometimes these images fall flat—what’s literal doesn’t necessarily connect to your audience emotionally. Will they really respond to generic images of people who aren’t them meeting in a boardroom?

In the absence of a photo of your actual team—or any other image that directly illustrates the subject at hand—look for images of convincing realism and humanity that capture the idea of your message.

Doing so connects with viewers, allowing them to connect with your message.

Silhouettes of five men standing on a bridge on a foggy day

The image above can be interpreted in many ways. But, when we apply it to slide layout ideas about collaboration, the meaning is clear.

It doesn’t hurt that there’s a nice setting and good photography, to boot.

Supportive, Not Distracting

Now that we’ve told you to get creative with your image selection, the next lesson is to rein that in. While there are infinite choices of imagery out there, there’s a limit to what makes sense in your presentation.

Let’s say you’re giving an IT presentation to new employees. You might think that image of two dogs snuggling by a fire is relatable, authentic, and inspirational, but does it really say “data management” to your audience?

To find the best supporting images, try searching terms on the periphery of your actual message. You’ll find images that complement your message rather than distract from it.

In the IT presentation example, instead of “data connections” or another literal term, try the closely related “traffic” or “connectivity.” This will bring up images outside of tech, but relative to the idea of how things move.

Aerial view of a busy highway

Inspiring and Engaging

There’s a widespread misconception that business presentations are just about delivering information. Well, they’re not. In fact, a great presentation is inspirational. We don’t mean that your audience should be itching to paint a masterpiece when they’re done. In this case, inspiration is about engagement.

Is your audience asking themselves questions? Are they coming up with new ideas? Are they remembering key information to tap into later? You’ll drive a lot of this engagement with your actual delivery, but unexpected images can play a role, as well.

When you use more abstract or aspirational images, your audience will have room to make their own connections. This not only means they’re paying attention, but they’re also engaging with and retaining your message.

To find the right abstract or unconventional imagery, search terms related to the tone of the presentation. This may include images with different perspectives like overhead shots and aerials, long exposures taken over a period of time, nature photos , colorful markets , and so on.

Aerial view of a cargo ship

The big idea here is akin to including an image of your adorable dog making a goofy face at the end of an earnings meeting. It leaves an audience with a good, human feeling after you just packed their brains with data.

Use that concept of pleasant surprise when you’re selecting images for your presentation.

9. Editing PowerPoint Images

Setting appropriate image resolution in powerpoint.

Though you can drag-and-drop images into PowerPoint, you can control the resolution displayed within the file. All of your PowerPoint slide layout ideas should get the same treatment to be equal in size.

Simply click File > Compress Pictures in the main application menu.

Screenshot of how to compress a picture

If your presentation file is big and will only be viewed online, you can take it down to On-screen , then check the Apply to: All pictures in this file , and rest assured the quality will be uniform.

Screenshot of how to compress an image

This resolution is probably fine for proofing over email, but too low for your presentation layout ideas. For higher res in printed form, try the Print setting, which at 220 PPI is extremely good quality.

For large-screens such as projection, use the HD setting, since enlarging to that scale will show any deficiencies in resolution. Low resolution can not only distract from the message, but it looks low-quality and that reflects on the presenter.

If size is no issue for you, use High Fidelity (maximum PPI), and only reduce if the file size gives your computer problems.

Screenshot of compression options for your image

The image quality really begins when you add the images to the presentation file. Use the highest quality images you can, then let PowerPoint scale the resolution down for you, reducing the excess when set to HD or lower.

Resizing, Editing, and Adding Effects to Images in PowerPoint

PowerPoint comes with an arsenal of tools to work with your images. When a picture is selected, the confusingly named Picture Format menu is activated in the top menu bar, and Format Picture is opened on the right side of the app window.

Editing a PowerPoint slide with an image of a businessman walking up stairs

In the Format Picture menu (on the right) are four sections, and each of these sections expand to show their options by clicking the arrows by the name:

  • Fill & Line (paint bucket icon): Contains options for the box’s colors, patterns, gradients, and background fills, along with options for its outline.
  • Effects (pentagon icon): Contains Shadow, Reflection, Glow, Soft Edges, 3-D Format and Rotation, and Artistic Effects.
  • Size & Properties (dimensional icon): Size, Position, and Text Box allow you to control the physical size and placement of the picture or text boxes.
  • Picture (mountain icon): Picture Corrections, Colors, and Transparency give you control over how the image looks. Under Crop, you can change the size of the box containing the picture, instead of the entire picture itself as in Size & Properties above.

The menu at the top is more expansive, containing menu presets for Corrections, Color, Effects, Animation, and a lot more. This section is where you can crop more precisely than just choosing the dimensions from the Picture pane on the right.

Cropping Images in PowerPoint

The simple way to crop an image is to use the Picture pane under the Format Picture menu on the right side of the window. Use the Picture Position controls to move the picture inside its box, or use the Crop position controls to manipulate the box’s dimensions.

Screenshot of picture format options

To exert more advanced control, or use special shapes, select the picture you want to crop, then click the Picture Format in the top menu to activate it.

Screenshot of how to crop an image

Hit the Crop button, then use the controls on the picture’s box to size by eye. Or, click the arrow to show more options, including changing the shape of the box (for more creative looks) and using preset aspect ratios for a more uniform presentation of images.

Screenshot of how to change the shape of an image

The next time you design a PowerPoint presentation, remember that simplicity is key and less is more. By adopting these simple slide design tips, you’ll deliver a clear, powerful visual message to your audience.

If you want to go with a PowerPoint alternative instead, you can use Shutterstock Create to easily craft convincing, engaging, and informative presentations.

With many presentation template designs, you’ll be sure to find something that is a perfect fit for your next corporate presentation. You can download your designs as a .pdf file and import them into both PowerPoint and Google Slides presentation decks.

Take Your PowerPoint Presentation to the Next Level with Shutterstock Flex

Need authentic, eye-catching photography to form the foundation of your PowerPoint presentation? We’ve got you covered.

With Shutterstock Flex, you’ll have all-in-one access to our massive library, plus the FLEXibility you need to select the perfect mix of assets every time.

License this cover image via F8 studio and Ryan DeBerardinis .

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10 PowerPoint Tips for Preparing a Professional Presentation

Use these Microsoft PowerPoint tips to avoid common mistakes, keep your audience engaged, and create a professional presentation.

Professional presentations are all about making an impact. Your slides should look the part. Once you know what makes a presentation look professional, you can customize any half-decent PowerPoint template or create your own custom slides.

Our PowerPoint tips will help you avoid common mistakes, keep your audience engaged, and create a professional presentation, in form and content.

PowerPoint Slide Design

The design can leave a first and lasting impression. Give it a professional touch to win your audience's trust and attention.

1. Carefully Compose Your Slides

Don't copy and paste slides from different sources. You don't want your presentation to look like a rag rug. What you're aiming for is a consistent look. This will help your audience focus on the essential; your speech and the key facts you're highlighting on your slides.

To that end, use a basic template or make your own . PowerPoint comes with a wide selection of professional PowerPoint presentation templates , but you can also find free ones online.

PowerPoint Tip: When you open PowerPoint, note the search field at the top. One of the suggested searches is "presentations". Click it to see all of PowerPoint's default presentation templates. Choose a category on the right to narrow down your search.

An overview of PowerPoint's default presentation templates.

Pick an easy to read font face . It's hard to get this right, but these professional-looking Google fonts are a safe bet. Unless you're a designer, stick to a single font face and limit yourself to playing with safe colors and font sizes.

If you're unsure about fonts, refer to "The 10 Commandments of Typography" shown below for orientation.

The 10 Commandments of Typography

Carefully select font sizes for headers and text. While you don't want to create a wall of text and lose your audience's attention, you do want them to be able to read what you've highlighted. So make your fonts large enough.

PowerPoint Tip: PowerPoint offers several different slide layouts. When you add a new slide, choose the right layout under Home > New Slide . To switch the layout of an existing slide, use Home > Layout . By using the default layouts, you can make coherent design changes across your presentation anytime you want.

PowerPoint slide layout selection

Leave room for highlights, such as images or take home messages. Some elements should stand out. So try not to bury them in background noise but give them the space they need. This could be a single quote or a single image per page with nothing but a simple header and a plain background.

Decorate scarcely but well. If you have good content, you won't need decoration. Your template will be decoratively enough.

Note: Restrict the room your design takes up, and don't ever let the design restrict your message.

2. Use Consistency

Consistently use font face and sizes on all slides. This one goes back to using a template. If you chose a professional presentation template, the designer would have taken care of this aspect. Stick to it!

Match colors. This is where so many presentations fail. You might have chosen a funky template and stuck to the designer's color profile, then you ruin it all with ugly Excel charts .

Take the time to match your visuals to your presentation design.

Text and Background Colors

A poor choice of colors can ruin your presentation.

3. Use Contrast

Black text on a white background will always be the best, but also the most boring choice . You're allowed to use colors! But use them responsibly.

Keep it easy on the eyes and always keep good contrast in mind. If you're color-challenged, use one of the many online tools to select a good looking color palette. Or just use a template and stick to its default colors.

PowerPoint Tip: Use PowerPoint's Design menu to quickly change the font and color palette of your entire presentation using preset design layouts.

PowerPoint slide layout selection

4. Apply Brilliance

Carefully use color to highlight your message! Colors are your friends. They can make numbers stand out or your Take Home Message pop.

Don't weaken the color effect by using too many colors in too many instances . The special effect only works if used scarcely. Try to limit pop colors to one per slide.

Make a brilliant choice: match colors for design and good contrast to highlight your message . Use a professional color palette, to find which color will work best with your theme. Use The 10 Commandments of Color Theory shown below to learn more about colors:

The 10 Commandments of Color Theory Infographic

Text on PowerPoint Slides

K eep I t S traight and S imple. That means...

  • Keywords only on your slides.
  • Absolutely no full sentences!
  • And never read your slides , talk freely.

Remember that your slides are only there to support, not to replace your talk! You want to tell a story, visualize your data, and demonstrate key points. If you read your slides, you risk losing your audience's respect and attention.

PowerPoint Tip: Afraid you'll lose your train of thoughts? Add notes to your slides. Go to View and under Show click Notes to make them show up under your slides while editing. When starting your presentation, use PowerPoint's presentation mode (go to Slide Show and under Monitors , check Use Presenter View ), so you can glance at your notes when needed.

PowerPoint presentation notes

6. Take Home Message

Always summarize your key point in a Take Home Message. Ask yourself, if your audience learned or remembered one single thing from your presentation, what would you like it to be? That's your Take Home Message.

The Take Home Message is your key message, a summary of your data or story. If you're giving an hour-long presentation, you might have several Take Home Messages. That's OK. Just make sure that what you think is key, really matters to your audience.

Make your Take Home Message memorable. It's your responsibility that your audience takes home something valuable. Help them "get it" by making your Take Home Message stand out, either visually or through how you frame it verbally.

Presentation Visuals

Images are key elements of every presentation. Your audience has ears and eyes, they want to see what you're talking about, and a good visual cue will help them understand your message much better.

7. Add Images

Have more images in your slides than text. Visuals are your friends. They can illustrate your points and support your message.

But do not use images to decorate! That's a poor use of visuals because it's just a distraction.

Images can reinforce or complement your message. So use images to visualize or explain your story.

Use a sufficient image resolution. Your visuals might look good on your desktop, but once blown up by a projector, low-resolution images will make your presentation look anything but professional. So choose a resolution that matches the projector's resolution. If in doubt, don't go below a resolution of 1024 x 768 pixels (XGA) and aim for 1920 x 1080 pixels (FullHD).

Always maintain your image's aspect ratio. Nothing looks more awkward than a distorted image. Whatever you do, don't stretch images. If you have to resize them, do so with the aspect ratio intact, even if that means dropping slightly above or below your target resolution.

PowerPoint Tip: Need a visual, but don't have one at hand? PowerPoint is connected to Bing's library of online images you can use for your presentations. Go to Insert and under Images select Online Images . You can browse by category or search the library. Be sure to set a checkmark for Creative Commons only , so you don't accidentally violate copyrights.

Insert online pictures into PowerPoint

Note: Yes, a picture is worth a thousand words. In other words, if you don't have time for a thousand words, use a picture!

PowerPoint Animations and Media

In animations, there is a fine line between a comic and a professional impression. But animations can be powerful tools to visualize and explain complicated matters. A good animation can not only improve understanding, it can also make the message stick with your audience.

8. Don't Be Silly

Sparingly use animations and media. You should only use them in one of two cases:

  • To draw attention, for example, to your Take Home Message.
  • To clarify a model or emphasize an effect.

Embed the media in your presentation and make sure it works in presentation mode. Testing your presentation at home will save you time and avoid embarrassment.

Target Your Presentation Content

Your target, i.e. your audience, defines the content of your presentation. For example, you cannot teach school kids about the complicated matters of the economy, but you may be able to explain to them what the economy is in the first place and why it is important.

9. Keep Your Audience in Mind

When you compile your PowerPoint presentation, ask yourself these questions:

  • What does my audience know?
  • What do I need to tell them?
  • What do they expect?
  • What will be interesting to them?
  • What can I teach them?
  • What will keep them focused?

Answer these questions and boil your slides down to the very essentials. In your talk, describe the essentials colorfully and use your weapons, i.e. text, images, and animations wisely (see above).

Note: If you fail to hit the target, it won't matter how ingenious your design is or how brilliantly you picked colors and keywords. Nothing matters more than your audience's attention.

10. Practice Your Presentation Like a Professional

A well-practiced and enthusiastic talk will help you convince your audience and keep their attention. Here are some key points that define a good talk:

  • Know your slides inside out.
  • Speak freely.
  • Speak with confidence, loud and clear.
  • Speak at a steady pace, better too slow than too fast.
  • Keep eye contact with your audience.

Bonus: Implement the 10/20/30 Rule

The 10/20/30 rule is a concept brought forward by Guy Kawasaki:

It’s quite simple: a PowerPoint presentation should have ten slides, last no more than twenty minutes, and contain no font smaller than thirty points.

A similar concept is PechaKucha , a storytelling format limited to 20 slides and 20 seconds per slide, i.e. less than seven minutes to conclude the presentation.

Now there's a challenge! Telling your story succinctly, might help you get through to some of the busiest and most distracted people on the planet.

One Final PowerPoint Presentation Tip

I've shown you how to think through your entire presentation, from choosing a design to speaking to your audience. Here's a mind trick: never try to interpret the looks on your listeners' faces. Chances are, you're wrong. Just assume they're focused and taking notes.

You've done your best to create a professional PowerPoint presentation that will help your audience focus on the content and learn new things. The looks on their faces aren't doubt or confusion. It's focus! Well, d'oh! Obviously, you're the expert, and they're the learners. If you can get into this mindset, you can relax and perform at your best.

Critical PowerPoint Shortcuts – Claim Your FREE Training Module and Get Your Time Back!

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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.

Example of the six slides you'll learn how to create in this tutorial

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.

In the backstage view of PowerPoint you can create a new blank presentation, use a template, or open a recent file

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

Picture of the different parts of the PowerPoint layout, including the Ribbon, thumbnail view, quick access toolbar, notes pane, etc.

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 PowerPoint Ribbon in the Microsoft Office Suite

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).

Example of the Shape Format tab in PowerPoint and all of the subsequent commands assoicated with that tab

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

The slides pane in PowerPoint is on the left side of your workspace

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 .

Right clicking a PowerPoint slide in the thumbnail view gives you a variety of options like adding new slides, adding sections, changing the layout, etc.

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.

Content added to your PowerPoint slides will only display if it's on the slide area, marked here by the letter A

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 in PowerPoint is located at the bottom of your screen and is where you can type your speaker notes

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 click and drag to resize the notes pane at the bottom of your PowerPoint screen

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 .

Click into your content placeholders and start typing text, just as the prompt suggests

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.

Example of typing text into a content placeholder in PowerPoint

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.

Use the formatting options on the Home tab to choose the formatting of your text

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 .

Hitting the reset command on the home tab resets your slide formatting to match your template

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.

To insert a new slide in PowerPoint, on the home tab click the New Slide command

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.

Opening the new slide dropdown you can see all the slide layouts in your PowerPoint template

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.

Example of a number of different blank slide layouts inserting in a PowerPoint 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.

Use the icons within a content placeholder to insert things like tables, charts, SmartArt, Pictures, etc.

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.

Example typing bulleted text in a content placeholder in PowerPoint

Slides 3 and 4 only have text placeholders, so I’ll go ahead and add in my text into each one.

Examples of text typed into a divider slide and a title and content slide in PowerPoint

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

A picture placeholder in PowerPoint can only take an image or an icon

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.

To insert a picture into a picture placeholder, click the picture icon, find your picture on your computer and click insert

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.

Example slides using PowerPoint icons and background pictures

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 .

To use Designer on your slides, click the

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 change your slide size, click the Design tab, open the slide size dropdown and choose a size or custom slide size

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.

All PowerPoint presentations start with the default Microsoft Office theme

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 .

On the Design tab you will find all of the default PowerPoint templates that come with the Microsoft Office Suite

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.

Example choosing the Frame PowerPoint theme and the third variant of this powerpoint 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.

To change the background style of your presentation, on the Design tab, find the Background Styles options and choose a style

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)

What our PowerPoint presentation looks like now that we have selected a theme, a variant, and a background style

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.

You can either right-click a PowerPoint slide and select format background or navigate to the design tab and click the format background command

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.

Example of the theme colors we are currently using with 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.).

To change the theme color for your presentation, select the Design tab, open the Colors options and choose the colors you want to use

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.

Example of custom theme fonts that might come with a powerpoint template

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.

To change the default fonts for your presentation, from the design tab, find the fonts dropdown and select the pair of fonts you want to use

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 an animation to an object in PowerPoint, first select the object and then use the Animations tab to select an animation type

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

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 .

The Animations tab allows you to adjust the effects and timings of your animations in PowerPoint

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

You can see the animations applied to your objects by the little numbers in the upper right-hand corner of the objects

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 slide, select the slide, navigate to the transitions tab in PowerPoint and select your transition

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 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.

Click the file tab, select Save As, choose where you want to save your presentation and then click save

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.

The save shortcut is control plus s in PowerPoint

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.

The print shortcut is control plus P in PowerPoint

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

In the Print dialog box, make your selections for how you want to print your PowerPoint presentation, then click 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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keys to making a good powerpoint presentation

What Makes a Good PowerPoint Presentation? (The Essential Checklist)

We’ve all been there.

Sitting in a meeting or lecture, watching a PowerPoint presentation that seems to go on and on without a clear direction or purpose.

It is essential to know how to create an effective PowerPoint presentation, one that is engaging and informative to your audience.

In this article, we will discuss the essential checklist for creating a good PowerPoint presentation, including structuring your presentation, designing an attractive presentation, providing clear and concise information, and more.

With this checklist, you can create an effective presentation that will leave your audience wanting more.

Table of Contents

Short Answer

A good PowerPoint presentation should have a clear structure, a well-defined purpose, informative and relevant content, and visuals that support the content.

It should also use elements like fonts, colors, and images to create a visually appealing presentation.

Additionally, the presenter should use a variety of presentation techniques and delivery styles to engage the audience and keep them interested in the material.

Structuring your Presentation

Creating a well-structured PowerPoint presentation is key to engaging your audience and delivering the information in an effective manner. A good structure will ensure that the presentation is easy to follow and that the main points are clear. Here are a few tips to keep in mind when structuring your presentation:

Start with a strong introduction.

Make sure to capture the attention of your audience and clearly explain the purpose of the presentation.

Break down the presentation into logical sections.

Use headings and subheadings to clearly communicate the main topics of the presentation.

Use visuals and multimedia to support your points.

Visuals can help the audience better understand the key points of the presentation.

Use transitions between slides to keep the presentation flowing.

Transitions can help maintain the audiences attention and keep them engaged.

End with a strong conclusion.

Make sure to summarize the main points of the presentation and provide a call to action.

By following these tips, you can ensure that your presentation has a strong structure and that the audience is able to easily follow along.

With a well-structured presentation, you can make sure that your message is delivered in an effective and engaging manner.

Attractive Design

When it comes to creating an effective PowerPoint presentation, having an attractive design is key.

The design of a PowerPoint presentation can make or break it, so it is important to ensure that the visuals are aesthetically pleasing and engaging.

The design should be consistent throughout the presentation, with a unified color palette, fonts, and graphics.

It is also important to avoid using too many visuals, as this can be overwhelming for the audience.

Additionally, it is important to use visuals that complement the text and add to the overall message of the presentation.

This can be done by using vibrant colors, relevant images, and illustrations that make the content more accessible.

Finally, including interactive elements, such as polls, quizzes, or videos, can help to keep the audience engaged and create a more interactive experience.

Clear and Concise Information

When it comes to creating a good PowerPoint presentation, it is important to provide clear and concise information.

Presentations should be easy to follow and understand, without being overly wordy or filled with unnecessary jargon.

Proper structure and formatting are also key to making sure that the presentation flows smoothly and is easy to follow.

To ensure that the information is clear and concise, it is important to use simple language and keep sentences short.

Avoid using overly-complicated words or phrases, and focus on providing only the most relevant and important information.

It is also important to use visuals that complement the text, such as charts, graphs, and diagrams.

These visuals can help to better illustrate the point being made and make it easier for the audience to understand the information.

It is also important to make sure that the presentation is organized in a logical manner.

Presentations should have an introduction, body, and conclusion, and the information should be presented in a way that is easy to follow and understand.

By following these tips, you can make sure that your presentation is clear and concise, and that the audience will be able to easily follow and understand the information you are presenting.

Relevant Examples

When it comes to creating a successful PowerPoint presentation, one of the key elements is to ensure that the presentation includes relevant examples that are tailored to the audience.

This means that the examples should be related to the topics discussed in the presentation and should help to illustrate the points being made.

Examples can be used to demonstrate how certain concepts work, provide evidence to back up claims, or even to provide a real-world context to the presentation.

When selecting relevant examples for a PowerPoint presentation, it is important to consider the audience and the topics being discussed.

For example, when giving a presentation on marketing, it would be wise to provide examples of successful marketing campaigns that were successful in a similar demographic.

Additionally, it is important to make sure that the examples are well-suited to the audience for example, an example of a successful marketing campaign that was used by a company in a different industry may not be the best example for a presentation on a different industry.

The use of multimedia can also be a great way to add relevance to a presentation.

For example, videos or animations can be used to illustrate the points being made in the presentation, and can make the presentation more engaging and memorable.

Additionally, interactive elements such as quizzes or polls can be a great way to get the audience involved in the presentation and ensure that the information is being retained.

By including relevant examples, multimedia, and interactive elements in a PowerPoint presentation, it will be more interesting, engaging, and effective for the audience.

This will help to ensure that the presentation is successful and that the audience is making the most of the information being presented.

Effective Use of Multimedia

Using multimedia effectively in a PowerPoint presentation can be a great way to engage your audience and add an extra layer of interest to your presentation.

Multimedia elements such as videos, animations, audio clips, and images can be used to add visual interest and create a more immersive experience for the audience.

When selecting multimedia elements to use in a presentation, it is important to ensure that the content is relevant, appropriate, and engaging.

It is also important to consider how the multimedia elements will be used in the presentation.

For example, if you are using audio clips, make sure that the volume is set to a comfortable level, and that the audio does not distract from the presentation.

If you are using videos, make sure that the video quality is good and that the video plays smoothly.

Additionally, consider how the multimedia elements will be used to support or enhance the message of the presentation.

Finally, when it comes to using multimedia in your PowerPoint presentation, be sure to use visuals that complement the text.

For example, if you are discussing a particular topic, consider using visuals that illustrate the topic, rather than visuals that distract from the main message of the presentation.

This will help ensure that the audience is focusing on the content of the presentation, rather than the multimedia elements.

Complementary Visuals

When it comes to creating an engaging and effective PowerPoint presentation, visuals are key.

While text can provide the audience with the necessary information, visuals can help to bring the presentation to life and provide an engaging and interactive experience.

It is important to select visuals that accurately represent the message you are trying to convey and complement the text without overshadowing it.

This can be done through the use of diagrams, charts, graphs, photographs, and other visuals.

Additionally, the visuals should be designed in a way that is easy to understand and engaging for the audience.

For example, using bright colors, interesting shapes, and creative fonts can help to draw the audience’s attention and keep them interested in your presentation.

Additionally, incorporating interactive elements such as animation, videos, and quizzes can help to keep the audience engaged and give them a more immersive experience.

By taking the time to create visuals that accurately represent the message of your presentation and incorporating interactive elements, you can ensure that your PowerPoint presentation is effective and successful.

Interactive Elements

When creating a good PowerPoint presentation, it is important to include interactive elements.

This can include interactive prompts, slideshows, and other visuals that engage the audience.

Interactive elements can help to keep the audience engaged throughout the presentation as they are invited to participate.

This can be done by including questions during the presentation, having interactive visuals such as polls or surveys, or even providing a live demonstration.

By doing this, the audience is more likely to pay attention as they have the chance to respond and interact with the material.

Interactive elements can also be used to help the presenter emphasize key points or deliver a more dynamic presentation.

When used correctly, interactive elements can help to keep the audience engaged and the presentation lively and interesting.

Give an Engaging and Interactive Experience

Giving an engaging and interactive experience to your audience is essential for a good PowerPoint presentation.

An effective presentation should captivate the audience with visuals, animations, and multimedia that complement the text.

Additionally, interactive elements should be utilized to keep the audience engaged and actively involved in the presentation.

For instance, incorporating interactive elements such as polls, surveys, and quizzes can help make the presentation more interesting and engaging.

Furthermore, you can also include multimedia elements such as videos, images, and audio clips to make the presentation more engaging.

Additionally, you can use animations to draw attention to important points and make the presentation more dynamic.

In addition, it is important to use visuals that are relevant to the content of the presentation.

Making sure that the visuals are relevant will help keep the audiences attention on the content and make the presentation more impactful.

Additionally, using visuals that are visually appealing and easy to understand will also help make the presentation more engaging.

Finally, making sure that the presentation is well-structured and organized will help the audience to understand the content better.

You should also make sure that the presentation is concise and to the point so that the audience can easily follow along.

By following these tips, you can ensure that your PowerPoint presentation is effective and successful.

Final Thoughts

By following the essential checklist outlined in this article, you can create an effective and successful PowerPoint presentation that engages your audience.

Start by structuring your presentation and creating an attractive design.

Make sure that the information is clear and concise, and includes relevant examples.

Add multimedia for an effective presentation, and use visuals that complement the text.

Include interactive elements to provide an engaging and interactive experience.

By taking these steps, you can create a presentation that is sure to impress your audience and make your message memorable.

James Wilson

James Wilson has extensive knowledge in the information technology industry.His second love, besides dealing with computers, is smart home technology. He is continually updating information to better comprehend this problem and has a deep understanding of the apartment’s support system.

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12 PowerPoint Tips to Make Your Slides More Effective

keys to making a good powerpoint presentation

The design of your PowerPoint presentation is often underestimated. Everyone knows the saying, “a picture is worth a thousand words,” but in PowerPoint land, it seems to be quite the contrary.

 “A thousand words are worth a single picture” would seem to be a more fitting slogan. Slides are often filled to the brim with text, which the presenter literally reads out loud. And that’s why PowerPoint has a reputation for being dusty and static. A missed opportunity!

A well-designed PowerPoint presentation can help deliver your message to the audience. We talked to PowerPoint expert Ferry Pereboom, who shared 1 2 PowerPoint tips and tricks to help you steer your presentation in the right direction. 

You can go through the following list to improve your entire presentation quickly with these tips. It’s a good idea to use it as a checklist to ensure that your slides are alright in three major aspects: text, design, and navigability. 

Now, let’s cover recommendations for each of these aspects in more detail.

Texts on slides support your oral presentation and aim to emphasize the key points. It’s common knowledge that using too much text on slides is a sure sign of a bad PowerPoint presentation.

 However, many speakers still try to cram a truckload of information into their slideshows. That makes it especially important to do a good job on the text aspect in the first place. 

1. Keep it short and to the point

As mentioned, one of the most important things to remember is that PowerPoint is a tool made to support your story. So, it’s wise to avoid putting the entire text on the screen, because your audience will prefer listening to, and not reading the things you plan to say. 

Instead, try to reduce the text, shorten your bullet points, and keep them short and sweet.  You can use the 5×5 rule as a reference: have up to 5 text lines on each slide, each of them with no more than 5 words per line.

Keeping your texts concise will help engage your audience and make them focus on you instead of the slides on the screen.

keys to making a good powerpoint presentation

Pro tip : Optimize the use of white space – that’s what we call empty space, that’s devoid of any color, text, and other elements. Keeping it empty helps to direct the viewer’s gaze. 

In the realm of texts, you can bring a breath of fresh air to your slides by adding extra margins, splitting up long paragraphs, and generally trying to place objects in no more than half of the slide.  

2. Choose the appropriate font

Try to pick a classic font instead of a creative one. Choosing the wrong font can easily make your text unreadable to your audience. And besides, if the computer you are presenting on doesn’t have the font you used installed, PowerPoint will replace it with another one at random. 

Sans serif fonts like Verdana, Calibri, and Helvetica are all safe choices. These fonts are quite popular and available on all computers.

keys to making a good powerpoint presentation

3. Enhance readability with the proper font size 

Generally, for more effective PowerPoint presentations, it’s always a good idea to make important lines of text and facts look bigger, bolder, and brighter than the others. Fonts can help with this as well. But picking the right font size can be difficult. 

On the one hand, your audience needs to be able to read the slide. And on the other hand, you don’t want your text to dominate the space, as you’d probably like to add some visuals to your slide as well. 

Still, there are quite precise font sizes that you can refer to in order to make good PowerPoint presentations. 

For headers, the minimum is around 20pt, while for the body you can have a minimum of 18pt. With these sizes, you can be assured your text will be legible in every situation. Learners will feel comfortable viewing your presentation on laptops, computers, tablets, TVs, and large screens.

keys to making a good powerpoint presentation

Pro tip : You can manage the hierarchy of headings and subheadings on your slides with the Slide Master feature. Here you can also apply color schemes and a logo to any number of slides and achieve a consistent, unified look. 

Slide Master PowerPoint

Design 

Simple, yet brilliant design can enhance your message and facilitate communication. So, when you design your slides, try to find balance and remember that less is more. 

It’s always better to use 3 or a maximum of 4 colors that you know will combine well, instead of an entire palette, and align objects to establish symmetry. 

Below are a few more simple PowerPoint design tips that will help you create a good presentation.

4. Increase contrast

Besides the look and size of your font, it is important to take contrast into account to facilitate reading. It’s natural to use dark text on a light background, and vice versa. But if you’re using text on a photo, things can get a little more tricky. 

 It’s a good idea to either place a border or cast a shadow around the text to ensure that it’s readable. Or you can place text in one of the PowerPoint shapes. 

keys to making a good powerpoint presentation

5. Use coloring wisely

Colors are often used to give the slide some ‘flair’ and manage attention. When picking colors, it’s important to keep your audience in mind and define the purpose of the actual presentation. 

For instance, it’s good to use vibrant colors in a presentation for a primary school. However, if you prepare your presentation for business professionals to deliver it in a formal setting, you’ll need to define your colors according to your target audience.

keys to making a good powerpoint presentation

6. Select relevant, adequate visuals

When people are talking about a car, we often see that the first picture is taken from Google images, or even worse, that clip art is being used. 

This results in inconsistency because some images tend to be illustrations and drawings, making your presentation look unprofessional or simply ruining the viewer’s impression of it. 

To make your PowerPoint presentations effective, don’t use low-quality visual aid. Make sure you select good quality images that support your message.

keys to making a good powerpoint presentation

7. Use mock-ups instead of screenshots and diagrams 

Diagrams, schemes, and screenshots usually don’t help your presentation. Although this information is usually quite important to your story, it can be excessive. 

 To turn the slides into a good PowerPoint presentation, it’s a good idea to combine the diagram, scheme, or screenshot with an image, such as an image of an iPad, laptop, digital projector, or computer.  

In the example below, you can see that the slide looks much tidier when an image is added.

keys to making a good powerpoint presentation

8. Present data visually as much as possible

Whenever your presentation contains a lot of data, it might be easier to communicate this data by using visual formats instead of just using text. 

Graphs might give you the results you’re looking for. PowerPoint offers a wide variety of ‘doughnut’ charts, which are ideal for making comparisons.

For example, pick the doughnut graph to show your percentages in the middle of the graph. That way, your audience immediately understands your message.

keys to making a good powerpoint presentation

9. Simplify your tables as much as possible

Tables are usually crammed with information and numbers. This causes a slide to look crowded and chaotic. In this case, it is important to make the tables as simple as possible.

 Delete unnecessary outlines, colors, and borders. Again, “keep it simple” and “less is more” are key phrases to keep in mind when designing tables.

keys to making a good powerpoint presentation

Navigability

Navigability applies more to the way you deliver slides to the audience and manipulate the playback. However, you need to plan this in advance as well, and pay attention to transitions, notes, animation, and other aspects that will result in an effective slideshow and save you time. 

Here are a few essential PowerPoint tips for easy navigation in your presentation slides. 

10. Minimize the variety of transitions in your PowerPoint presentation 

After creating a PowerPoint slide show, people usually conclude that the presentation comes across as boring or static. So, they start to use transitions. Different transitions are then used to ‘breathe life’ into the presentation. 

However, this is not the way to go. PowerPoint offers the most diverse transitions, which are usually experienced as distracting and unsophisticated. A simple ‘fade’ effect to segue from slide to slide is sufficient.

11. Rely on Presenter View in PowerPoint

Presenter View can help you greatly when delivering your presentation to viewers. With this functionality, you don’t have to keep everything in your head or question your own presentation skills. 

When presenting to the audience with Presenter View activated, you’ll be able to see what’s on the next slide, keep track of the time, use a laser pointer and/or pen, and be able to see your speaker notes. 

You can also paste your script or lecture notes here and avoid making your slides text heavy.

Presenter View in PowerPoint

12.  Provide an outline of the presentation

Giving an outline at the beginning of your presentation will help you start off on the right foot, especially if it’s long or you deliver it with other speakers.  It’s good form to include at least these three types of slides:

  • Welcome slide .  Presenters typically place the title and description of the presentation and their credentials here. 
  • Menu slide . You can place the contents of your presentation here to jump to the needed part quickly when needed (e.g., to refer to a particular idea during a Q&A session).
  • Summary slide . This will summarize the ideas you’ve presented and will be of great help when you’re wrapping up your presentation.

Here are a few more effective tips to structure your presentation – check them out.

Unlock Learner Engagement with iSpring 

Over the years, PowerPoint presentations have made their way out of classrooms and conference rooms to different audiences and evolved into truly informational products that people download, study, and share. That’s why searching for the best PowerPoint presentation tips is as relevant as ever. 

If you rely heavily on PowerPoint in your work, you can improve your slides greatly with iSpring Suite – an authoring toolkit that works in Microsoft PowerPoint.

iSpring Suite PowerPoint

iSpring Suite can replace several design tools and PowerPoint add-ins at once. It provides hundreds of design templates, color schemes, and visual elements, allowing you to create compelling presentations and gain and maintain an audience’s attention. The software comes with Content Library, which offers access to over 89,000 slide templates, backgrounds, and characters.

iSpring Suite Slide Templates

In addition to the pre-designed characters, iSpring Suite also allows you to create your own unique ones. You can change their hairstyles, pick accessories, and choose clothing that matches your brand or storyline and resonates with your learners.

Character Builder

Since you already know how to use PowerPoint, it won’t take much time at all to master iSpring Suite and create an engaging presentation or a full-fledged online course. You can populate it with quizzes, interactions, web objects, quality audio narrations, and videos in a breeze.

Also read:   How to Convert PowerPoint to MP4 Video on Windows & macOS

With iSpring Suite, you can convert your slides into HTML5 format, so your audience can view them online, right in their browsers, with no downloading necessary.   You can also share your presentation as a YouTube video in a click. 

Try iSpring Suite and create a stellar presentation now!

FAQ on How to Make an Effective PPT Presentation 

People often look for some ready-made formulas of a great PowerPoint presentation on the Internet. We’ve found several of them for your quick reference. Feel free to use these rules along with our tried-and-true PowerPoint tips. 

What is the 5–5–5 rule in PowerPoint presentations? 

The 5-5-5 rule stands for having a maximum of 5 text lines on a slide with no more than 5 words in each, and up to only 5 slides in a row that use that format.  Apparently, this encourages creators to reflect on the way they’re making slides, be concise, and do so knowingly. 

What is the 5–second rule in PowerPoint?

The five-second rule prescribes that it should take no more than 5 seconds to grasp the idea of a slide.  You can ensure that this happens by using brief and clear text lines, and convincing design. 

What is the 10-20-30 rule in a presentation? 

The 10-20-30 rule is a fun rule that Guy Kawasaki, a Silicon Valley venture capitalist, introduced after watching hundreds of exhausting presentations and pitches.  The rule says that a presentation should be strictly 10 slides and 20 minutes long, with a 30-point font size. Learn more about this rule and how it was devised on Kawasaki’s website . 

Which PowerPoint tips and tricks do you know? Which one is your favorite?  Feel free to share with us below!

About the author

Ferry Pereboom is co-founder of PPT Solutions, a design agency in the Netherlands.

The company specializes in developing inspiring PowerPoint presentations. PPT Solutions has approximately 1,500 clients, and 28 PowerPoint specialists, and delivers work to clients in about twelve countries around the globe. Ferry is mainly responsible for helping both new and existing clients overcome their presentation challenges.

Please check the website www.pptsolutions.nl  for more information on professional PowerPoint tips.

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Content creator:

Paulina Fox

Passionate about design and tech, Paulina crafts content that helps customers delve deeper into iSpring products.

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keys to making a good powerpoint presentation

10 Expert Tips to Make Your PowerPoint Presentations More Engaging and Effective!

  • Sathish Shanmugam
  • January 8, 2023
  • No Comments

PowerPoint presentations are an essential part of many business meetings, conferences, and even online classes. However, while PowerPoint can be a great tool to get your message across, it can also easily become boring and unengaging if not done right. Luckily, you can use plenty of tips and tricks to make your presentations more effective and engaging. 

powerpoint presentation

Here are ten expert tips to help you create powerful and engaging PowerPoint presentations.

Table of Contents

1. Organize your content for maximum impact

Use 10-20-30 rule, use colors, shapes, and images effectively to draw attention, ensure design consistency, use visuals to support the narrative, benefits of using animation, things to consider when using animation, incorporate audio, video, and interactive elements, balance multimedia content with other elements, use charts and graphs to illustrate data points, understand the audience, utilize a logical structure, incorporate design templates and slideshows, prepare a script to help you stay on track, 8. consider using presentation platforms, 9. encourage audience participation, ask for feedback, review the notes, check the presentation, follow up with the audience.

Organizing content for PowerPoint presentations is important as it helps to keep the presentation focused and engaging. When organizing content, it is important to create an introduction, body, and conclusion that flow logically. Additionally, it is important to use visual cues such as headings and images to help the audience follow the presentation. Finally, it is important to use a consistent color palette, font, and style to help create a cohesive presentation that is visually appealing and easy to understand.

2. Choose an engaging visual design

When it comes to making a PowerPoint presentation engaging, visuals are key. Visual designs can help set the tone of your presentation and get your message across. Here are some tips on choosing an engaging visual design for your PowerPoint presentations .

This rule suggests that you should have no more than ten slides, 20 minutes of content, and 30-point font size. This is important because too many words or slides can be overwhelming and distracting. Instead, focus on the most important points and let visual elements do the work.

Consider using abstract shapes, large-high-quality photos, and vibrant colors to ensure that the visuals you choose are appealing and draw attention. Additionally, make sure that the visuals you choose are relevant to your message. For example, use visuals to show off its features if you’re discussing a product. You can also embed attractive QR codes with logos to provide more information on that product by linking to external resources.

To ensure that you keep your design consistent throughout the presentation, you must use similar colors and font sizes throughout. To make this easier, you can use dynamic presentation software or a template with hundreds of example slides that all follow the same design theme.

Visual design is an incredibly powerful tool for enhancing the narrative of a PowerPoint presentation. With the right elements, visuals can help to make a presentation more interesting and memorable for the audience. Visuals should be used strategically to support the narrative. Using visuals that reflect the presentation’s theme will help create a cohesive story that resonates with the audience.

Check out the video to learn about the core prinicple of visual design:

3. Enhance the presentation with animation

Animation can enhance a PowerPoint presentation by making it more visually engaging and helping control information flow.

  •   Animation can add energy to static images and text and can also be used to add surprise elements that help make the content more memorable.
  • Animations can help to draw your audience’s attention, making it easier for them to stay focused and remember the key points of your presentation. 
  • It is important to use animations sparingly, as too many animations can detract from the main message of your presentation. So, make sure to use animation to control the presentation’s pace and keep the audience engaged.
  • When adding animations, wait until you have added all the information and objects to the slides.
  • Ensure that animations are visible and clear in a PowerPoint presentation to help the audience follow the content.
  • Animations should also be used to keep the audience on track and help them to jump back into the topic at any time.

How to make animated powerpoint slide?

4. Include multimedia components

Including multimedia components in PowerPoint presentations is an effective way to make them more engaging. Multimedia combines different types of media, such as audio, video, animation, and images, which can help capture and maintain your audience’s attention.

powerpoint presentation

Including multimedia components in Powerpoint presentations is quite easy. For example, you can crop images to fit shapes, play music in the background, embed YouTube videos , insert screenshots or screen clippings, remove background from pictures, combine shapes to create a custom shape, add sound effects to animations, etc.

Multimedia content can be a great way to bring your presentation to life, but it should not be the only element you use. While multimedia content can be eye-catching, too much of it can distract from the message you are trying to convey.

 Instead, try to use a mix of multimedia content, text, images, and diagrams that will help ensure that your presentation is visually appealing and informative. For example, if you have a video clip, don’t just rely on it to convey the message, but rather provide some additional information in the form of a text block or image that summarises the key points of the clip. This will provide context and help support the message you are trying to get across.

 Additionally, consider using multimedia content and other elements such as text, images, and diagrams to create a more interactive presentation. This will help keep the audience engaged and allow them to better understand the message you are trying to communicate.

5. Utilize data visualization and infographics

Utilizing data visualization and infographics in PowerPoint presentations can be beneficial for a few reasons. First, data visualization and infographics can help to illustrate complex concepts in an easy-to-understand way. Additionally, data visualization and infographics can help to make the content more engaging and visually appealing. Furthermore, data visualization and infographics can help ensure the audience can retain the information presented. Finally, data visualization and infographics can help to add a professional look to the presentation.

Charts and graphs are powerful tools to make your PowerPoint presentations more engaging and effective. Not only do they help to break up the presentation to make it easier for the viewers to digest, but they also allow you to provide a visual representation of complex data that is easy to understand.

Here are some tips on how to use charts and graphs effectively in your PowerPoint presentations:

  • Choose the right type of chart or graph: You have to choose the right charts or graphs depending on your data. For example, bar graphs are better suited for categorical data, while pie charts are better for numerical data.
  • Keep it simple: Avoid overloading your charts and graphs with too much information, as this can make them difficult to read. Stick to just one or two key points you want to illustrate, and choose colors and fonts that are easy to read.
  • Label your axes: Make sure your x and y axes are clearly labeled so audiences can easily follow the data points.
  • Make sure your data is accurate: Before you present it, double-check to ensure it is accurate and up-to-date. This will ensure that your conclusions are reliable.
  • Use the right scale: When creating your chart or graph, make sure that the scale is appropriate. If the scale is too large or small, it can be difficult to interpret the data.

How to make good infographic?

 6. Create an effective structure and flow

Creating an effective structure and flow to make your PowerPoint presentation more engaging is key to captivating your audience. Here are a few ways to create a flow and structure for your PowerPoint presentation .

The first step is understanding your audience and what their needs are. Knowing your audience’s interests can help you tailor your presentation to be more engaging and interactive. Once you have a good idea of who you’re speaking to, create an outline that will focus on the important points of your presentation.

powerpoint presentation

A logical structure helps to organize the information clearly and logically, making it easier for the audience to follow and understand. It also helps to keep the presentation focused and on track, preventing it from becoming disorganized or tangential. A logical structure can be achieved through the use of clear headings and subheadings and visual aids such as charts and diagrams to illustrate key points.

Use design templates and slideshows to keep the look of your presentation consistent and visually appealing. Ensure to align all objects with the grid to ensure your visuals are perfectly in line.

7. Rehearse and practice

Preparing and rehearsing your presentation allows you to get comfortable with the material and will help you convey your message in a more confident and engaging way.

Having a script for your PowerPoint presentation can be an invaluable tool to ensure that you stay on track and keep to the main points you want to make. In addition, by preparing a script, you can ensure that your presentation runs smoothly and is more engaging and effective.

powerpoint presentation

Here are some tips to help you write an effective script:

  • Start with an outline of your presentation. This will help you organize your thoughts and ensure you don’t forget any important points.
  • Write down the main points you want to make. Think about what information you want to convey in each section and decide how to present it.
  • Include visuals. Think about how visuals or diagrams can help illustrate your points.
  • Make sure your language is clear and concise. Avoid jargon and long sentences.
  • Keep it conversational. Speak to your audience as if you are having a conversation with them.
  • Become familiar with it and make sure you don’t forget any important points
  • Timing yourself is an important factor in creating a good PowerPoint presentation. It is important to allocate enough time to cover all the necessary information but not so much time that the presentation becomes tedious for the audience. When practicing, note how long it takes to go through each slide. This will allow you to adjust the length of the presentation as needed and ensure that it flows smoothly.

Presentation platforms offer a wide range of features to help you create an interactive, visually appealing experience for your viewers. Many of these platforms have built-in templates and tools that make it easy to customize the look and feel of your slides. They also provide interactive elements such as quizzes, videos, audio clips, and animations that can add life to your presentation and keep your viewers engaged.

Encouraging audience participation is key to making a PowerPoint presentation more engaging. There are several techniques that can be used to foster engagement with the audience during a PowerPoint presentation.

  • Firstly, maintaining eye contact, smiling, and using dynamic gestures and facial expressions will help make your message more memorable and engaging.
  • Secondly, hosting an expert discussion panel or inviting guest appearances on stage can add an extra layer of engagement for the audience.
  • Thirdly, you can use props or tangible objects to demonstrate ideas and allow the audience to engage with them.
  • You can ask questions to keep your audience engaged with your PowerPoint presentations. Questions help to build suspense for the next slide, engage the audience in real time, and make people pay closer attention. It also causes people to reflect rather than merely take in the information one way.
  • You can use live polling tools to get real-time feedback.

Effective methods to engage an audience in a presentation

10. Follow-up and review

Following up and reviewing a PowerPoint presentation is important in ensuring that the presentation is effective and that the audience understands the main points. There are several ways to follow up and review a presentation:

Ask the audience for feedback on the presentation, including what they found most useful or interesting and what they would like to see more of in the future.

Go over the notes you made during the presentation to see if there are any areas you may have missed or could have explained more clearly.

Review the presentation and make any necessary edits or updates based on the feedback you received.

Follow up with the audience after the presentation to see if they have any additional questions or concerns and to address any issues that may have come up during the presentation.

Creating engaging and powerful presentations with PowerPoint doesn’t have to be daunting. With the right tips and tricks, you can create presentations that will grab and hold your audience’s attention. Try out some expert tips to take your PowerPoint presentations from boring to brilliant! You can also take the help of professional designers to help you out with the visual aspect of  your presentation.

At Graphically.io , we are your go-to for all your creative needs! Our global network of customers can enjoy unlimited, custom-designed graphics and illustrations for one flat rate. We are committed to delivering exceptional and affordable designs, always ready for when you need them, no matter how soon. We also offer video creation in our standard package at no extra cost that can capture and captivate the attention of your clients and potential customers.

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How to Create a 5 Minutes Presentation

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Giving a 40-60-minute speech isn’t a synonym for success. Sticking to shorter presentation formats can increase the impact of large-format events. Among its many advantages, allowing multiple speakers to give their insights rises above everything. Still, presenters often struggle to be concise, as they aim to disclose as much content as possible, ending up overdoing the allotted time or delivering rushed-up presentations.

In this article, we’ll share our experience on how to master the art of 3-5 minute presentations, keeping your speech concise while using powerful graphics to connect with the audience.

Table of Contents

What is a 5 Minutes Presentation?

What are the requirements of 5 minutes presentations, how many slides for a 5 minute presentation, 5 minute presentation ideas, how to make a 5 minute presentation, common mistakes to avoid in 5-minute presentations, recommended templates for 5 minute presentations, final words.

A 5-minute presentation is a short talk designed to convey a specific message, idea, information, or argument within a limited timeframe, between three to five minutes – the latter being the average duration. Due to the brevity, these presentations require careful planning and preparation to ensure the content is concise, focused, and impactful. 

We can define a five-minute presentation’s must-have(s) in seven different categories.

Objective Definition

The purpose of your talk has to be clear from the presentation planning phase. This implies acknowledging whether you intend to inform, persuade, inspire, or instruct your audience on a given topic.

On this behalf, we made a list of frameworks to help you pinpoint the core objective of your presentation:

  • SPIN (Situation, Problem, Implication, Need-payoff): Intended for sales strategy or customer-driven presentations. The focus is set on understanding the audience’s situation, presenting the problems, implications, and potential benefits of a proposed solution.
  • AIDA (Attention, Interest, Desire, Action): The AIDA framework is extremely popular in marketing campaigns and sales presentations. You can learn more about this approach for engaging presentations by checking our guide on the AIDA model .
  • SCQA (Situation, Complication, Question, Answer): Intended for problem-solving meetings and business presentations. The SCQA framework establishes a context and its challenges, raises a question, and provides solutions for it.
  • Minto Pyramid Principle: This unconventional approach is used for business presentations and reports, and was developed by Barbara Minto at McKinsey & Company in the 1970s . We start by stating the conclusion or core recommendation, then organize the information that supports your statement in a logical flow. By implementing this approach, you inspire the audience to think critically about the presented scenario, while discussing complex ideas in an easier-to-digest format due to its hierarchical organization of ideas.
  • Monroe’s Motivated Sequence: A framework with a focus on persuasive presentations. It is structured by five pillars recognized by its author, Alan H. Monroe : Attention, Need, Satisfaction, Visualization, and Action. 

SCQA slide in 5 Minute Presentation preparation

Concise Content

“How many words in a 5-minute speech” is a commonly asked question by beginner presenters. The average range for seasoned speakers is 130-150 words per minute in a fluent speech, and depending on the topic, that can go slower (technical-based presentations) or faster (motivational presentations, like the ones delivered by Tony Robbins ). 

Therefore, for a 5-minute speech, you might aim for:

  • At 130 words per minute: 130×5=650 words
  • At 150 words per minute: 150×5=750 words

That calculation can help you curate the script for your speech. In general lines, our expertise tells us that selecting a topic that can be covered within 5 minutes is roughly 60% of the job. After effectively selecting a topic, you must restrict the content to 2-3 main points to remain within the time limit and end your presentation in style. 

Presentation Structure

In more laid-back scenarios, presentations can lean toward a conversational mode rather than a strict agenda. Still, we ought to ensure the presentation structure contains an Introduction, a Body, and a Conclusion. 

The Introduction helps us familiarize the audience with what’s expected out of your presentation. Additionally, it is our chance to make a good first impression . Knowing how to start your presentation guarantees audience engagement from the initial moments of your delivery.

Moving to the Body, this is where facts are laid out and backed up using evidence or examples to support your view. Visual aids can contribute to minimizing the need for lengthy text walls. 

Finally, the Conclusion summarizes the key takeaways and, when applicable, brings a call to action in the format of thought-provoking statements, data shared, an irresistible offer, and plenty of other scenarios.

Audience Engagement

Connecting with the audience is vital, especially in short formats like Pecha Kucha presentations . Your speech pace and body language are significant factors that contribute to how the audience perceives your interest in their time. 

Aim for a relaxed but confident attitude, as if you were passionately talking about a topic with a group of acquaintances. This reinforces your authority in the topic you deliver, as being anxious or rushing through the presentation only speaks of a lack of interest.

Apply professional presentation techniques like storytelling for presentations or harnessing the power of visual communication strategies to make your message memorable. 

Usage of storytelling metaphors in 5 minute presentation

Audience Acknowledgement

Tailoring your presentation for the audience’s interest is the first step every presenter must take to guarantee success, especially if we’re another speaker in large-scale events. In some niches, like academic presentations, it is vital as some of the audience may not feel connected with your research topic. 

Based on information gathered from our customer’s feedback, a good recipe to connect with your audience is to work with a sales approach in mind and create your “ideal audience persona.” This would be your attendee who’s 100% connected with what you intend to share. Compare and contrast demographics with the public you know will attend, and find the common points and where you need to adjust your expectations to meet the audience’s interest.

If the event format allows for it, be ready to present questions at the end of your presentation that may drive the interest of a Q&A session.

Visual Aids

Slides featuring infographics , dashboards , or storytelling-based illustrations help to attract the spectator’s interest and increase the retention rate, as research proves it’s easier to recall pictures than words . As previously mentioned, leveraging graphics helps us reduce our slides’ word count.

Infographics in 3-5 Minutes Presentation

Other presentation aids , like videos, audio, and even sensory elements such as smells, can drive a broad range of emotional responses within the audience. It’s worth exploiting this route if your presentation aims to persuade or motivate the spectators. 

Time Management

Last but not least, time management is an etiquette rule of respect for fellow presenters. Your content has to fit within the 5-minute limit, including transition times and variations in your delivery speed.

A good presenter is an adaptable one. Be ready to adjust your speech on the fly if you find yourself running short or long on time or if the audience’s interest drives the conversation briefly away from your intended destination.

Defining how many slides is a 5 minute presentation isn’t an automatic task. Some topics can be quickly resolved following the premises of the 1-2-3 rule for presentations, applying:

  • One main message: Your presentation should center around a single, clear main message or idea. This ensures focus and helps your audience grasp the core of your presentation without getting lost in details. 
  • Two supporting points: Support your main message with two strong, relevant points or arguments. This structure helps provide depth to your presentation without overwhelming your audience with too much information. 
  • Three examples or pieces of evidence: For each supporting point, provide three examples, pieces of evidence, or data points to substantiate your arguments. This reinforces your message and helps in making your case more convincing.

In short, implementing this practice can result in a range between 5 and 10 slides in your 5-minute presentation. More complex topics, like medical presentations or scientific conferences, cannot be summarized easily, as graphs require one full slide for accurate data visualization. In this case, weigh the critical points your presentation must cover, assign a maximum of 3 slides per crucial point, and avoid filler content.

Googling around you can come across lists with 200, 60, 40, and plenty other title combinations referring to 5 minute presentation ideas. Despite it being a good starter to brainstorm potential topics or angles for your presentation, we shall introduce our method to implement AI tools to come up with 5 minute presentation topics. The following instructions apply to ChatGPT , Gemini (Bard) or Bing.

  • Consider the niche in which you want to deliver a 5 minute presentation. 
  • Gather the main keywords around the topic you intend to present. For example, if you want to deliver a presentation about artificial intelligence, the following keywords may suit your needs as well: AI, artificial intelligence chatbot, types of artificial intelligence, artificial intelligence solutions, what is artificial intelligence.
  • Open your AI tool of preference and write the following prompt: “Give me a list of 20 5-minute presentation ideas in the IT niche that fit these keywords: AI, artificial intelligence chatbot, types of artificial intelligence, artificial intelligence solutions, what is artificial intelligence.”

ChatGPT generated 5-minute presentation ideas

And this is the list generated by ChatGPT-4

  • Introduction to Artificial Intelligence: Basics of AI, its history, and evolution.
  • Exploring AI Technologies: A dive into machine learning, neural networks, and deep learning.
  • Types of Artificial Intelligence: From narrow (or weak) AI to general (or strong) AI, and superintelligence.
  • AI Chatbots: Revolutionizing Customer Service: How chatbots are changing the customer service landscape across industries.
  • Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare: Discussing AI solutions for diagnostics, treatment recommendations, and patient care.
  • The Role of AI in Autonomous Vehicles: Examining how AI technologies power self-driving cars.
  • Ethical Considerations in AI: The moral implications of AI in decision-making and privacy concerns.
  • AI in Cybersecurity: Using artificial intelligence to predict, detect, and respond to cyber threats.
  • The Impact of AI on Job Markets: How AI is reshaping employment opportunities and the workforce.
  • Machine Learning Algorithms Explained: An overview of popular algorithms and their applications in AI.
  • AI and Big Data: How AI algorithms process and analyze large datasets to extract meaningful insights.
  • Natural Language Processing (NLP) in AI: Understanding how AI interprets, understands, and generates human language.
  • AI in Finance: The use of artificial intelligence in fraud detection, algorithmic trading, and personalized banking.
  • Artificial Intelligence for Environmental Sustainability: Exploring AI solutions for climate change, conservation, and sustainable energy.
  • AI and Robotics: How AI is applied in robotics for automation, exploration, and manufacturing.
  • Deep Learning and Neural Networks: An introduction to the architecture of neural networks and their significance in AI.
  • Implementing AI Solutions in Small Businesses: Practical AI applications for improving efficiency and productivity in SMEs.
  • The Future of AI: Predictions and emerging trends in artificial intelligence technologies.
  • AI in Education: Personalized learning, automated grading, and AI’s role in educational institutions.
  • Ethics and Bias in AI: Addressing the challenges of bias in AI algorithms and ensuring ethical AI development.

In this section, we will apply the explained suggestions earlier, approaching a real use case of a motivational speaker addressing an audience of marketing professionals. The speaker has to deliver a 5 minute presentation for a large onsite event.

Defining the Objective & Core Message

Our presenter is faced with the challenge of highlighting the importance of data analysis in marketing these days, and why marketing professionals should be adaptable to the latest trends. Therefore, using Minto’s Pyramid Principle, the presenter who already knows the answer – that hunch-based decisions need to be turned into data-driven decisions – plans how to convey the importance of that statement into the presentation’s flow.

Then, a powerful hook comes to mind on how to start this presentation: “Today, I want to share why embracing change isn’t just necessary; it’s our most powerful tool for growth in the marketing world.” Since that statement can sound somewhat vague, the presenter opts for a quote to impact the audience. A definition of what Social Listening is, indicating the connection between data and consumer behavior analysis.

Using an intro slide with quote as a hook for 5-minute presentation

Concise Content Tailored for the Audience

Research or inquire about the audience’s background in marketing. Are they novices or seasoned professionals? What challenges are they facing? Use this information to shape your presentation content.

In our presenter’s case, the event’s organizer gave some basic information about the demographics and audience’s background. Returning to the “ideal audience persona” concept, this presenter’s audience consists of mid-level marketing professionals facing rapid industry changes. Some already have experience working with data analytics but couldn’t extract the full potential. Therefore, rather than losing time with basics, the presenter prepares a compelling dashboard slide showing metrics of how working with data helped a client grow its revenue rate by 19% in three months.

Dashboard slide in 3-5 minutes presentation

The time limit for this presentation is 6 minutes in total, as a 1-minute Q&A session is contemplated. Therefore, using our word-per-minute calculation, the presenter opts for a 5 minute speech word count of 600 words, as it’s best to impact with powerful visuals and data storytelling rather than to rush the speech. As the recommended slide deck length for this presentation format is between 5 and 10 slides, the presenter opts for 3 extra slides, totaling 13 slides, since the two main points require 2-3 slides each.

The Introduction for this presentation is a powerful statement, as we mentioned above, taking one full minute to deliver the phrase and share the information that backs up such a statement.

The Body will take 3 minutes to be presented, and it shall cover a three-tier structure with the following premises:

  • Challenge: “The digital marketing landscape is evolving faster than ever before, leaving many behind.”
  • Strategy: “Yet, some marketers are thriving by adopting agile methodologies and data-driven strategies.”
  • Success Story: “Take, for example, a small business that doubled its online engagement and grew its revenue rate by 19% in three months just by simply listening to its audience through social media analytics.”

The Conclusion takes another minute, using a powerful slide to leave a lasting thought that the audience can dwell on.

Conclusion slide in a 5 minute presentation

As the format is brief, the presenter will use powerful graphics to boost audience engagement. Additionally, there’s a short exercise at the beginning of the presentation where the speaker promptly says: “Turn to the person next to you and share one change you’ve embraced in your marketing strategy this year that made a difference.” This is a fine example of how to implement interactive presentation techniques to boost audience engagement.

Leveraging this kind of strategy helps the audience to connect with the importance of making changes in the marketing strategy of their work environments, but not just any change, something that’s measurable and has a significant impact. The presenter expects that not many members can successfully relate to change with results due to their inexperience in marketing data analytics – a piece of information disclosed by the event’s organizer – so the remaining of the presentation consists of ‘wowing’ the audience on the importance of data and how to measure that impact to stay tuned with the latest trends.

Although it seems an easy-to-adapt format, presenters working under 5-minute presentation can face some challenges that affect the overall outcome of their presentation delivery. Most of these presentation mistakes apply to any kind of presentation. In particular, we consider the following list as beginner mistakes we can easily prevent.

  • Using Jargon or Complex Language: This can alienate your audience. Use clear, accessible language.
  • Reading from Slides: This is literally “death by PowerPoint.” Use slides as a visual aid, not a script.
  • Overuse of Animations or Transitions: While they can be engaging, too many can be distracting and appear unprofessional.

Check the following slide decks and PPT templates to maximize your performance in 3-5 minute presentations.

1. 5 Minute Business Marketing Presentation Template

keys to making a good powerpoint presentation

Create eye-catching marketing presentations by using this best PPT template with a clean layout and wavy backgrounds. The information can be structured around the included icons, maximizing the retention rate by giving an area to focus on just the core information to be disclosed.

Use This Template

2. Business Executive 5-Minute Presentation Template

keys to making a good powerpoint presentation

Geared toward business presentations, this slide deck layout contains cutting-edge graphics that grab your audience’s interest. It can be easily customized to speak about your company’s growth process, reach out to potential investors, or even for non-business topics.

3. Modern Hexagon 5-Minute Pitch Deck PowerPoint Template

keys to making a good powerpoint presentation

Another clean layout template with vivid colors to highlight the information shared. This professional PPT slide deck helps us discuss data or compare features between competitor products in the blink of an eye. The color palette uses gradients to transition between sections smoothly.

4. Kaleidoscope 5-Minute Company Profile PowerPoint Template

keys to making a good powerpoint presentation

Although it is intended for company profiles or company overview presentations, this highly visual PPT template can be repurposed for many niches. Due to its limited-space placeholder text areas, the 5 minute speech word count can be significantly reduced, aiming for concise content.

5. Academic 5-Minute Presentation Template

keys to making a good powerpoint presentation

An ideal template for presenting thesis dissertations, this slide deck features designs to introduce the scope of our research, problem statement, methodology used, outcomes, and their significance while preserving a cohesive aesthetic.

As we can see, concise presentation formats like the 5 minute presentation have their own challenges when we strive for quality. Consider rehearsing your presentation multiple times, opting for the slideshow mode , to spot any areas where you can trim the speech or change text for graphics. 

Speak reasonably, and remember it’s best to fall short some seconds and allow for a Q&A session rather than rushing and not giving a proper closure to your speech.

keys to making a good powerpoint presentation

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