layout of a good powerpoint presentation

Blog > How to structure a good PowerPoint Presentation

How to structure a good PowerPoint Presentation

08.09.21   •  #powerpoint #tips.

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

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

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

Plan your presentation

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

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

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

Typical Presentation Structure

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

Introduction

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

Personal Introduction

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

Introduce the topic

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

Mention the length

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

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

Icebreaker Polls

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

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

Get to know your audience

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

Include a quote

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

Present your topic

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

Length and Structure

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

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

Focus on the essentials

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

Make your presentation interactive

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

Repeat the main points

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

Include a Q&A part

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

Get Feedback

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

Presentation style

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

Short Presentation

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

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

Problem Solving Presentation

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

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

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

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

Tell a Story

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

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

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

Make a demonstration

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

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

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

Chronological structure

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

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

Nancy Duarte TED Talk

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

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

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

Related articles

About the author.

Helena Reitinger

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

Get 1 Month for free!

Do you want to make your presentations more interactive.

With SlideLizard you can engage your audience with live polls, questions and feedback . Directly within your PowerPoint Presentation. Learn more

Top blog articles More posts

How to find the best font for your PowerPoint presentation

How to create a custom Theme design in PowerPoint

Get started with Live Polls, Q&A and slides

for your PowerPoint Presentations

The big SlideLizard presentation glossary

A podcast is an audio or video contribution that can be listened to or viewed via the Internet. Podcasts can be used for information on specific topics but also for entertainment.

Slide Master

To create your own Template in PowerPoint it is best to use the Slide Master. After updating the Slide Master with your design, all slides (fonts, colours, images, …) adapt to those of the Slide Master.

Slide Layouts

PowerPoint has different types of Slide Layouts. Depending on which type of presentation you make, you will use more or less different slide layouts. Some Slide Types are: title slides, section heading slides, picture with caption slides, blank slides.

Eulogy Speech

A eulogy speech is given at a funeral. It is given by familiy members or friends of the deceased. The aim is to say goodbye and pay tribute to the person who has passed away.

Be the first to know!

The latest SlideLizard news, articles, and resources, sent straight to your inbox.

- or follow us on -

We use cookies to personalize content and analyze traffic to our website. You can choose to accept only cookies that are necessary for the website to function or to also allow tracking cookies. For more information, please see our privacy policy .

Cookie Settings

Necessary cookies are required for the proper functioning of the website. These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website.

Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies help provide information about the number of visitors, etc.

17 PowerPoint Presentation Tips From Pro Presenters [+ Templates]

Published: April 26, 2024

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

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

Download Now

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

Table of Contents

How to Make a PowerPoint Presentation

Powerpoint presentation tips.

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

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

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

Getting Started

1. open powerpoint and click ‘new.’.

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

10 Free PowerPoint Templates

Download ten free PowerPoint templates for a better presentation.

• Creative templates.
• Data-driven templates.
• Professional templates.

You're all set!

Click this link to access this resource at any time.

Creating PowerPoint Slides

3. insert a slide..

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

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

11. Try Using GIFs.

12 Free Customizable Resume Templates

Fill out this form to access your free professionally-designed templates, available on:

• Microsoft Word
• Google Docs
• Microsoft PowerPoint
• Google Slides

15. Embed multimedia.

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

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

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

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

16. Bring your own hardware.

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

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

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

To import your PowerPoint presentation into Google Slides:

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

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

17. Use Presenter View.

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

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

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

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

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

Your Next Great PowerPoint Presentation Starts Here

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

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

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

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

Don't forget to share this post!

Related articles.

How to Create the Best PowerPoint Presentations [Examples & Templates]

How to Write an Ecommerce Business Plan [Examples & Template]

How to Create an Infographic in Under an Hour — the 2024 Guide [+ Free Templates]

20 Great Examples of PowerPoint Presentation Design [+ Templates]

Get Buyers to Do What You Want: The Power of Temptation Bundling in Sales

How to Create an Engaging 5-Minute Presentation

How to Start a Presentation [+ Examples]

120 Presentation Topic Ideas Help You Hook Your Audience

The Presenter's Guide to Nailing Your Next PowerPoint

How to Create a Stunning Presentation Cover Page [+ Examples]

Marketing software that helps you drive revenue, save time and resources, and measure and optimize your investments — all on one easy-to-use platform

• Documentation

The Go-To Guide on How to Structure a PowerPoint Presentation

• Clarity for Your Audience
• Better Retention
• Confidence as a Presenter
• Introduction
• Create Slide Sections
• Use the Outline View
• Create a Table of Contents
• Common Pitfalls and How to Avoid Them
• Craft An Impactful PowerPoint Presentation

Think about a fancy building that looks incredible from the outside but lacks a strong foundation. It won’t last long or work well. Similarly, having beautiful slides is not enough in PowerPoint presentations if you don’t organize them properly.

In this article, we’ll talk about how to set up a PowerPoint presentation correctly. We’ll explain what important parts it should have and give you practical tips on arranging your slides to make them effective. These practical ideas will help you organize your slides better and make it easier to create them. 

Let’s dive in and understand why a good PowerPoint structure is so important.

Why Structuring PowerPoint Presentations is Important?

1. Clarity for Your Audience

Imagine telling a story with all the words mixed up. It would not be very clear. That’s how it feels for your audience when your slides are not structured. When your presentation has a clear beginning, middle, and end, people can follow along much better. They know where you’re starting, what’s coming next, and what you’ve concluded.

2. Better Retention

Research tells us that structured information is 40% more likely to be remembered than information everywhere. So, if you want your audience to remember your key points, structuring your slides is essential. It’s like putting important items in labeled boxes – easier to find and remember.

3. Confidence as a Presenter

A structure also benefits you as the presenter. It’s like having a map that guides you through the presentation. You know what’s coming next, which helps reduce nervousness and keeps you from getting lost in your talk.

4. Engagement

A well-structured presentation is more engaging. People are more likely to pay attention and stay interested when they can follow a clear flow of information. It’s like a good movie – it keeps you hooked because it makes sense.

Therefore, structuring your PowerPoint presentation is like giving your audience a clear roadmap. It helps them understand your message, remember it, and keep you on track as the presenter. So, if you want your presentation to succeed, take the important step of structuring it properly.

Typical PowerPoint Presentation Structure 

The introduction is like the opening act of a performance, and it’s super important because it tells your audience what they’ll learn from your presentation. Here are the different slides you need to include in the beginning:

• The Title: Start your presentation with a clear and captivating title. It sets the stage for what your audience can expect. You can add a brief description under the title.
• A Table of Contents / Main Menu: A table of contents or main menu slide is like the map of your presentation. It provides your audience with an overview of what topics you’ll cover. It is especially helpful for longer presentations. You can easily make your presentation more engaging by using hyperlinks. This means your viewers can pick which part they want to see next by clicking on it, just like choosing a chapter in a book.
• Objectives: Clearly state what you aim to achieve with your presentation. It’s like telling your audience what to expect and why it matters. For example, if you’re giving a presentation about a new project, your objective could be to gain approval and support from your team.
• Definitions (Optional): Consider including a definitions slide if your presentation involves specific terms or concepts your audience may not know.

Main Content : The body of your presentation is where the real meat of your topic resides. Here’s how you can structure it effectively:

• Introduction to Topics : Start by introducing the main topics or sections you’ll cover. Think of this as the roadmap within your presentation. For instance, if you’re discussing the benefits of a new product, you might have sections like “Product Features,” “Market Opportunities,” and “Customer Feedback.”
• Content Slides : Each main topic or section should have its series of content slides. These slides delve into the details, providing information, examples, and visuals. 
• Numbering:  You should number your points according to priority. (1,2,3..)
• Narration: Narrate each slide like a story from beginning to end. 
• Time Frame: You should place the slides in the time frame (Past, Present, Future)
• Problem-Solving : Explain a problem, talk about how it affects things, and then offer solutions to fix it.
• Transitions : Use transitional slides to guide your audience smoothly between sections or topics. 
• Visuals : Incorporate visuals like images, diagrams, and charts to enhance understanding and engagement. 

A strong conclusion wraps up your presentation nicely. It recaps the important things you discussed and reminds your audience what they should take away. Here are some slides you might consider including:

• Summary and Takeaways: The conclusion is where you tie everything together. Summarize the key points you’ve discussed in the body of your presentation. Reinforce your main message and objectives.
• Call to Action (Optional) : Depending on the nature of your presentation, you should include a call to action slide. It could be an invitation for questions, a request for feedback, or a specific action you want your audience to take after the presentation.
• Closing Remarks: End your presentation with some closing remarks. Thank your audience for their attention and participation. It helps create a sense of closure and leaves a positive impression.

Remember, while this structure is typical, it can be adapted to suit your specific presentation and audience. Flexibility is key. Ensure your slides are visually appealing, easy to read, and not overcrowded with text. Keep your audience’s attention by using a clear structure, engaging visuals, and a well-planned delivery. 

By following this structure and considering your audience’s needs, you’ll be well on your way to creating a successful PowerPoint presentation.

Technical Tips for Structuring in PowerPoint

1. Create Slide Sections

When dealing with a big PowerPoint presentation, organizing it into sections that you can easily collapse or expand is helpful. This makes it neater and easier to work on. Here’s how you can do it in simple steps:

Create a Section :

• Find the slide in your list where you want to start a new section.
• Right-click on that slide.
• From the menu that appears, choose “Add Section.” It will create a new section.
• You’ll see it’s named “Untitled Section.” To give it a proper name, right-click on it and select “Rename Section.” Then, type in the name you want.
• If you need more sections, you can repeat this process to create and name them.

Move Sections :

•   Sometimes, you might want to change the order of your sections.
•   To do this, right-click on the section name you want to move.
• You’ll see options to “Move Section Up” or “Move Section Down.” Choose the one that suits your needs to shift the section.

Collapse or Expand Section

•   If you have a lot of sections and want to focus on one, you can collapse the others.
• To collapse a section, click on the little collapse icon (usually a small triangle or arrow) to the left of the section name.
• You can collapse or expand all the sections by right-clicking on any section name and selecting “Collapse All” or “Expand All.”
• You can access these settings by going to the “VIEW” tab and choosing “Slide Sorter.” It’s like putting different presentation parts into folders to keep things tidy and organized.

 2. Use the Outline View

Another way to organize your PowerPoint presentation while editing it is by using “Outline View.” Here’s how you can use it in simple terms:

• You can find Outline View in the “VIEW” tab of PowerPoint.
• When you switch to Outline View, you won’t see the sections, but you will see each slide’s titles and main text. It gives you a quick look at what’s on each slide. You have the text on the left, and on the right, you see how your slides look.
• You can edit your presentation directly in this view. If you want to change the text, you can do it here without going to each slide.
• The text must be in a “text placeholder” to appear in the outline. A text placeholder is a box with text like “Click to add text” or “Click to add title.” These show up when you use a standard layout for your slides.
• You can also change the order of your text. For example, if you have a bullet point that you want to turn into a slide title or vice versa, you can do it. Just right-click on the title or text to see options like “Promote” and “Demote.” Promote moves text up, and Demote moves it down.
• One thing to be careful about is demoting a title. If you do this, it will delete the original slide and move the title and text to the slide next to it. So, make sure you want to do that.
• Unfortunately, you can’t change the order of your slides in Outline View. You can only promote or demote text within slides, not entire slides.

Think of Outline View as a way to quickly see and edit the text in your presentation without getting lost in all the slides. It’s like having a summary of your content that you can work with easily.

3. Create a Table of Contents

Creating a table of contents in a PowerPoint presentation can make it easy for your viewers to navigate through it. While PowerPoint doesn’t offer an automatic table of contents feature, you can create one manually with these steps:

• Insert a Table of Contents Slide : Start by inserting a table of contents slide on the title or a blank slide. Add a new slide by pressing “New Slide” on the ribbon. Once you’ve added the slide, select all its objects and delete them.
• Right-click anywhere in the outline pane.
• Choose “Collapse” and then “Collapse All.” It will show only the slide titles.
• Click Ctrl+A to select all the slide titles, then press Ctrl+C to copy them.
• Paste the Titles : Go to your table of contents slide and press Ctrl+V to paste the copied slide titles. If you have too many titles that don’t fit on one page, you can divide the table of contents into two columns or spread it across two slides.
• ·       Select the title of the first chapter on your table of contents slide.
• ·       Right-click and choose ” the link.”
• ·       Press “Place in This Document” on the left-hand menu in the open window.
• ·       Then, choose the slide corresponding to the first chapter and click “OK.”
• ·       You must repeat this procedure to link all the chapters to their respective slides.

Creating a manual table of contents ensures viewers can jump to different parts of your presentation by clicking on the linked titles. It’s a helpful way to enhance navigation in your PowerPoint presentation.

Common Pitfalls and How to Avoid Them 

• Overloading Slides with Text : One big mistake is cramming too much text onto slides. Use concise bullet points, visuals, and speaker notes for additional details to avoid this.
• Ignoring Visual Design : Neglecting visual appeal can make your presentation dull. Use consistent fonts, colors, and graphics to make your slides visually engaging but not overwhelming.
• Complex Charts and Graphs : Overly complex charts must be clarified for the audience. Simplify visuals and use clear labels. Consider breaking complex data into multiple slides if needed.
• Too Many Animations : Excessive animations can distract from your message. Use animations sparingly and purposefully to emphasize key points.
• Lack of Rehearsal : Not rehearsing leads to stumbling during the actual presentation. Practice your delivery multiple times to ensure a smooth flow.
• Ignoring Your Audience : Failing to consider your audience’s needs and knowledge level can result in a presentation that doesn’t resonate. Tailor your content to your audience’s background and interests.
• Skipping a Clear Structure : Your presentation can feel disjointed without a logical structure. Follow the introduction, body, and conclusion structure, and use transitions to connect ideas.
• Technical Glitches : Technical issues like malfunctioning equipment or unreadable fonts can disrupt your presentation. Always have a backup plan and test your setup beforehand.
• Reading Slides Aloud : Reading slides word-for-word is boring. Use slides as visual aids, and speak naturally to engage your audience.
• Neglecting Q&A Preparation : Not preparing for questions can leave you confused. Anticipate possible questions and rehearse answers.

In conclusion, structuring a PowerPoint presentation is as vital as its content. A well-organized presentation helps your audience understand and retain information while keeping you, the presenter, on track. 

Remember to create sections, utilize Outline View for efficient editing, and add a table of contents for easy navigation.

Avoid common pitfalls like information overload, design neglect, and technical glitches. Instead, focus on engaging visuals, practice, and audience-centered content.

By implementing these strategies and maintaining a clear structure, you can create compelling presentations that captivate your audience and effectively convey your message. Your next PowerPoint presentation can be a powerful tool that informs, persuades, and leaves a lasting impact.

Our blogs will land in your inbox & keep you updated about the latest tech developments in Education, Healthcare, and Recruitment.

Sign up to download

Recent blogs.

In the next decade, expect big changes in the fastest-growing job market. New job opportunities will emerge as technology advances and industries evolve. Some jobs may need to update. To stay ahead, being aware of the fastest-growing jobs is crucial. Succeeding in this dynamic environment depends on it. So, what should you do? We’re there…  Read More » 22 Fastest Growing Jobs Of The Upcoming Decade

After graduating, se­curing an initial job role seems ove­rwhelming at first. Additionally, the prospect of be­ginning a career fee­ls challenging. This is especially true if you need help knowing where to begin your search. The good news is that many online job boards are specifically designed to connect students and recent graduates with potential employers.…  Read More » Top 19 Job Boards For College And University Students

The job board industry is a thriving marketplace that connects employers with potential candidates.  But how exactly do these platforms make money? We will delve into job boards’ various profit-saving methods, from charging employers for listings to offering premium services.  By the end of this blog post, which will explore five business models job boards…  Read More » 5 Job Board Business Models To Earn Revenue

Technology Blogs

Did you know around 50% of the world’s digital media and marketing software market is currently controlled by Adobe?  However, there has been a significant change due to Adobe Flash Player’s discontinuation, leading to an increase in alternative multimedia solutions. This in-depth tutorial will review the dynamic options that have swept the web. Learn about…  Read More » 14 Handy Flash Alternatives To Play Media Files In 2024

In case you were unaware, 90% of the brain’s information is visual. It can be challenging to make captivating video presentations, especially if you need to familiarize yourself with the necessary tools and methods. You run the danger of losing your audience’s interest and needing help to communicate your idea properly. To help you out,…  Read More » Creating a Video Presentation in PowerPoint – A Complete Guide

Want to know about screen recording software but don’t know where to start? In this guide we’ll delve into the vast world of free and premium screen recording tools, uncovering their distinct features, benefits, and restrictions.  We aim to give you the knowledge to make informed decisions and discover the best screen recording software for…  Read More » 19 Best Screen Recording Software For Windows PC Users

Reach out to us!

• SUGGESTED TOPICS
• The Magazine
• Newsletters
• Managing Yourself
• Managing Teams
• Work-life Balance
• The Big Idea
• Data & Visuals
• Reading Lists
• Case Selections
• HBR Learning
• Topic Feeds
• Account Settings
• Email Preferences

How to Make a “Good” Presentation “Great”

• Guy Kawasaki

Remember: Less is more.

A strong presentation is so much more than information pasted onto a series of slides with fancy backgrounds. Whether you’re pitching an idea, reporting market research, or sharing something else, a great presentation can give you a competitive advantage, and be a powerful tool when aiming to persuade, educate, or inspire others. Here are some unique elements that make a presentation stand out.

• Fonts: Sans Serif fonts such as Helvetica or Arial are preferred for their clean lines, which make them easy to digest at various sizes and distances. Limit the number of font styles to two: one for headings and another for body text, to avoid visual confusion or distractions.
• Colors: Colors can evoke emotions and highlight critical points, but their overuse can lead to a cluttered and confusing presentation. A limited palette of two to three main colors, complemented by a simple background, can help you draw attention to key elements without overwhelming the audience.
• Pictures: Pictures can communicate complex ideas quickly and memorably but choosing the right images is key. Images or pictures should be big (perhaps 20-25% of the page), bold, and have a clear purpose that complements the slide’s text.
• Layout: Don’t overcrowd your slides with too much information. When in doubt, adhere to the principle of simplicity, and aim for a clean and uncluttered layout with plenty of white space around text and images. Think phrases and bullets, not sentences.

As an intern or early career professional, chances are that you’ll be tasked with making or giving a presentation in the near future. Whether you’re pitching an idea, reporting market research, or sharing something else, a great presentation can give you a competitive advantage, and be a powerful tool when aiming to persuade, educate, or inspire others.

• Guy Kawasaki is the chief evangelist at Canva and was the former chief evangelist at Apple. Guy is the author of 16 books including Think Remarkable : 9 Paths to Transform Your Life and Make a Difference.

Partner Center

How-To Geek

8 tips to make the best powerpoint presentations.

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

Quick Links

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Related: How to Burn Your PowerPoint to DVD

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You’re using an older browser version. Update to the latest version of Google Chrome , Safari , Mozilla Firefox , or  Microsoft Edge for the best site experience.

• eLearning Blog
• eLearning Basics
• Instructional Design
• Corporate Training
• Course Selling
• Manufacturing
• Products iSpring Suite iSpring Learn
• Use Cases Onboarding Compliance Training Induction Training Product Training Channel Partner Training Sales Training Microlearning Mobile Learning
• Company About Us Case Studies Customers Partnership Course Development Contact Us
• Knowledge Hub Knowledge Hub Academy Webinars Articles Guides Experts on iSpring
• Language EN English Français Deutsch Español Italiano Nederlands Português Polski 中文 日本語 العربية Indonesia
• Shopping Cart

How to Structure a PowerPoint Presentation

Table of Contents

This is the main part of your presentation, which should keep the promises you made in the introduction. This is where you explain your topic and present all your information. 

Depending on the nature of your presentation, divide it into segments/points. Arrange your points in a logical order and then provide information to support each of them. There are many different ways to organize your key points, for example:

• Number your points according to their priority (1, 2, 3, …)
• Place the points in a time frame (past, present, future)
• Use narration (tell a story from beginning to end)
• Present the points with a problem-solution dynamic (state a problem, describe its impact, offer ways to solve the issue)

A good conclusion summarizes the key points you made or highlights what the audience should have learned. It clarifies the general purpose of your presentation and reinforces the reason for viewing it. Here are the slides you may want to include:

• Summary. List what goals your audience have achieved, what knowledge they got, and how this information can help them in the future.
• Conclusion. Here you can thank your audience for viewing the presentation.

Tips for Structuring a Presentation in PowerPoint

Now that you know which parts a typical presentation should consist of, let’s see how to structure it in PowerPoint. 

1. Combine slides into sections

When working with a large PowerPoint presentation (PPT), you can create sections that can be collapsed and expanded. This will help you keep presentation slides organized and facilitate navigation in editing mode. To do that, follow these steps:

• To shift a section, right-click on its name and use the Move Section Up and Move Section Down options.
• To collapse or expand a certain section, click on the collapse icon to the left of the section name. You can also minimize and maximize all sections at once by right-clicking on the section name and choosing Collapse All or Expand All .

As well, you can access these settings by choosing Slide Sorter under the VIEW tab.

This kind of segmentation is a great way to overview the logical flow of your slides all at once and see if there are any changes required. For example, you may decide to break one slide into two or three, or the other way around.

2. Use the Outline View

One other way to structure a PowerPoint presentation in the editing mode is to use Outline View . You can choose it from the VIEW tab.

This view doesn’t display sections, but it shows the title and main text of each slide, which can give you a quick overview of the presentation contents. Here you can go through the entire text and edit it instantly. You can also work with text (on the left) and slides (on the right) simultaneously, as the latter is shown on the right side of your screen.

Note that, to be displayed in an outline, text needs to be typed in a text placeholder, not a text box . A text placeholder is a box with the words “Click to add text” or “Click to add title”, and it appears when you choose a standard layout.

You can also use Outline View to promote bullet text to titles and the other way around. To do that, right-click on a relevant title or text and select the Promote or Demote options.

Be attentive about demoting a title, as this will delete the original slide and move its title and text to the adjacent slide.

PowerPoint only allows users to promote and demote text, not entire slides. Therefore, there’s no possibility to change the hierarchical order of slides.

3. Create a table of contents

All the aforementioned tips help you organize a presentation when formatting it. However, it’s crucial that your viewers can easily navigate through entire presentation too. One sure way to provide them with this opportunity is to create an interactive and structured table of contents.

Though there’s no native automatic outline in PowerPoint, it can be created manually:

• Press Ctrl+A to select all the names, and Ctrl+C to copy them. 
• Then Press Ctrl+V to paste the copied titles on the desired slide. In case there are too many titles and they don’t fit onto a single page, you can divide the table of contents into two columns or place it on two slides.

You’ll need to repeat this procedure to link all the chapters to corresponding slides. For more information, read this step-by-step guide on how to add a hyperlink in PowerPoint .

Now all the chapters can be accessed from a single table of contents, which is very convenient. However, you will also need to link them back to that unifying page. You can do this by inserting an Action Button on every slide of your presentation in Slide Master mode:

Now there is a single page from which all the other pages can be easily accessed. As well, it’s possible to go back to the table of contents at any time with the intuitive Home button.

Depending on the size of your presentation, the time it takes to create an interactive outline may vary, as you will need to add hyperlinks to every chapter manually. Be aware that if you rename a slide or simply delete it, these changes will not be automatically registered in the table of contents. For example, if you delete a slide, its title will still be displayed in the table of contents, but clicking on it won’t lead the viewer to another point in the presentation.

This is what our sample presentation looks like:

A Better Way to Structure a PowerPoint Presentation

Creating a table of contents manually might be fine for a small presentation, but if you have 122 slides, it would require too much time and energy to do so. That’s why, instead of manually creating a table of contents, we took advantage of iSpring Suite and simply enabled the automatic outline.  

iSpring Suite

Fully-stocked eLearning authoring toolkit for PowerPoint. No training required to start!

Note: iSpring Suite turns slides into HTML5 format, so your audience can view them online, right in their browsers. 

As you can see, the new presentation has a pop-up outline and a navigation panel, which make it possible to move to any slide at any time without leaving the slide show mode. 

How to set up navigation

To create navigation in your presentation, follow these simple steps:

• Get a free trial of iSpring Suite.

• When you’ve configured the Slide Properties settings, click on Save & Close in the upper-left corner.

How to configure an outline

Whereas PowerPoint requires the outline to be designed manually, iSpring Suite has already prepared it for you. At the same time, you don’t have to stick with the standard outline template, as you can easily customize the player’s final look and feel:

We recommend leaving Enable Search marked, as this will allow viewers to search for any content at any time, including the texts on the slides. This is especially useful for large presentations with a lot of text.

If you have previously arranged slides into multiple levels in the Slide Properties, then leave Multilevel outline marked. That way, the outline will display the nesting structure of the presentation, facilitating navigation. You can learn more about the other outline options here .

• When you have finished configuring the player, click on Apply & Close in the upper-left corner.
• Now you can publish your enhanced presentation either to HTML5, to make it easily accessible via browser on any device, or MP4 video format. If you’re going to upload your presentation to an LMS, you can publish it to any eLearning format: SCORM, AICC, Tin Can, or cmi5. 

While a standard PowerPoint slideshow is straightforward and limited, iSpring Suite saves viewers from having to follow a strict slide order. An interactive and searchable outline allows non-linear navigation, where any information can be accessed at any time at a glance.

Also read : → How to Convert PowerPoint to MP4 Video

Also read : →  How To Record Presentations With Audio

Another perk

iSpring Suite comes with Content Library , which provides a great collection of presentation templates and allows you to create professional-looking presentations in a matter of minutes. Each template includes basic course elements: a title slide, a table of contents, chapters, a timeline, and info slides. Organize them in the order you prefer, populate them with your texts and images, and your presentation is ready to go.

We hope this article will help you develop an ideal structure for your PowerPoint presentation and do this quickly and easily. Captivate your audience with a powerful and persuasive presentation!

Do you have any other insights on how to simplify PowerPoint slides design? Please share them in the comment section. We’d like to hear from you. 

Fast course authoring toolkit

Create online courses and assessments in record time.

Content creator:

Helen Colman

She enjoys combining in-depth research with expert knowledge of the industry. If you have eLearning insights that you’d like to share, please get in touch .

You might also like this

Subscribe to our blog

Stay tuned to get our latest eLearning tips and tricks!

By clicking “Subscribe”, you agree to our Privacy Policy . All emails include an unsubscribe link, so that you can opt-out at any time.

We use cookies to give you the best possible experience on our website and also for analytics and marketing purposes. You can enable or disable optional cookies as desired. See our Cookie Policy for more details.

Manage your cookies

Essential cookies are always on. You can turn off other cookies if you wish.

Essential cookies

Analytics cookies

Social media cookies

This website uses cookies. Learn more

How to structure a PowerPoint presentation: A detailed guide

 · Create Courses

How do you structure a PowerPoint presentation?

Introduction , the body , the conclusion , powerpoint presentation examples , graphy, the all-in-one course creation platform.

In this blog, you’ll understand the step-by-step guide on how you can structure a PowerPoint presentation effectively.

You might be a great presenter but suck at creating a structured presentation. The idea of outlining, selecting the right templates, and adding transitions is way out of your league. 

However, creating a structured presentation is as important as the narration.  

When information is presented logically, the retention rate automatically goes up. It becomes easier for a viewer to understand the meaning behind the words and create a flow of information. 

Monetize your skills and extertise GOT YOUR CONTENT READY? GRAPHY IS ALL YOU NEED TO GET STARTED!

A report published by Standard Business says that people retain 40% more information when presented structurally. 

So, here we are to help you understand how you should structure your PowerPoint presentation to make it likable and easy to digest. 

Table of Contents

You can follow this standard structure while creating your PowerPoint presentations. A good presentation is always one that has a good storyline and narration. Let’s dive into detail on how to create a solid PowerPoint structure.

An introduction is the most crucial part of a presentation. It sets the tone for your audience and makes them comfortable. Before you start with your presentation, make sure to

• Introduce yourself
• Explain the purpose of this presentation
• And, what outcomes can your audience expect at the end of it? 

This doesn’t have to be super-detailed, but it should build a connection with the person. You can include storytelling to gather attention and further move on to introducing the topic. 

Here are some slides that you must include in your introduction:

• The title: Introduce the topic of the presentation and add a brief description 
• Challenges/ objectives: Explain the goals or challenges you will target in the presentation. For example, I’ll “compare,” “evaluate,” and “analyze” this topic. 
• Outcome: Your audience must know the results they can expect at the end of the presentation. For instance, at the end of this presentation, I hope to provide you with a….
• Table of Content: You can include a table of contents for your audience to know the topic of discussion in the presentation. 

In the introduction, you can also tell the length of the talk or whether you want audience participation. Clarifying such small things can make presentations smoother and less awkward. 

This is the part where you take your introduction forward and briefly discuss the key topics. You must organize these points to transition smoothly from one topic to another. The body of your presentation needs to be spot-on for your audience to understand the information given. 

Here are some tips to consider when creating the body of your presentation:

• The length and structure of your slides are crucial to the body of your presentation. You can use the 5-5-5 and 10-20-30 rules to structure a PowerPoint presentation. 

What is the 555 rule in PowerPoint?

The 555 rule says, to use at least

• 5 words on a single line.
• 5 lines of text on every slide
• 5 slides that use the mentioned rules in a row

The purpose of this 555 rule is to create a flow in presenting your information. This rule helps if you have to make a big presentation that requires heavy content and various slides. It will help you structure a presentation well and not overwhelm your audience with the information. 

What is the 10 20 30 rule in PowerPoint?

The 10 / 20 / 30 rule in PowerPoint is fairly simple. It says that no PowerPoint presentation should have over 10 slides, be longer than 20 minutes, and have fonts smaller than 30 points. 

Each of the rules helps the presenter form a balance between design and explanation. This helps to structure a PowerPoint presentation and create easy-to-digest slides. 

• Use images more than words. The human brain processes visual stimuli 60 times faster than text. So, instead of writing lengthy paraphs, add photos or videos. If you think a concept is explainable through a photo, use it. 
• Your presentation should be short and crisp. You don’t have to write everything about the topic in your slides. Include a few short-crisp sentences and use narration to explain the topic in depth. 
• Try to organize your topics well. List points in order of numbers or alphabets put them in a time frame, or use transition words like next, then, and another for easy understanding. No matter how well you explain concepts, if your presentation lacks the translation to move from one topic to another, then it might not work. 

In your conclusion, you can summarise the main points you have made and do a recap of what your audience has learned. Lastly, mention how this new information meets your objective for the presentation. 

In conclusion, you must state your sources of information, like books, articles, or interviews with people. 

Include a Q&A part to ask questions. This way, there isn’t any open-ended conversation, and your audience is clear about the points you made. If you cannot answer any question because of a lack of time, note it down to provide the solution through mail or phone. 

End your presentation by thanking your audience for their precious time and asking for their feedback.

See how simple it is to structure a PowerPoint presentation. Now, look at a few examples of PowerPoint structures for your reference. 

Powerpoint presentations are mostly referred to as bland and boring, but that’s not the case. If you structure it well, your presentations will become more like a learning opportunity than an endurance test. Here are some PowerPoint presentation examples you can refer to:

• Teacher education 

Look at this slide deck , created for teachers on how to use Google Slides. It’s not overloading with information nor holding it back; it’s simply perfect. Most of the slides are image-oriented with practical examples to help the audience understand the basics of creating presentations in Google Slides. 

• Zuroa sales deck 

To see how storytelling works in presentation, refer to Zuroa’s sales desk . These slides are a perfect example of how you can make your audience relate to your issues. Including metrics and messages from well-known CEOs makes the slides authoritative. 

• Trackmaven research deck 

Creating a data-heavy presentation is quite tricky. Your audience can quickly accelerate from engaging to boring. Trackmaven excellently presents its report on the best time to post on social media. The presentation has more graphs than numbers or text. If you are looking for a reference for creating such data extensive topic, then, indeed, check this out. 

• Officevibe collaboration examples 

This slide deck increases awareness of the problem faced because of a disengaged team. The presentation has bright colors and unique designs that draw attention. Plus, it’s filled with relevant data to ensure the authority and seriousness of the issue. 

They are excellent examples of how you can structure a PowerPoint presentation. If you notice, none of them are text-heavy. Instead, they have used visuals or videos to convey most of their information. Thus, the information presented is easy to digest and keeps the audience hooked until the end. 

If you are looking to create your online course and sell it with minimum effort and easy-to-use features, then Graphy is the best place for you. Graphy has thousands of active content creators who have created their own online courses and monetized their skills. You can also do the same, and the best thing is that you can start for free.

Graphy offers a load of features that will definitely add stars to your success, features like:

• Branded website and mobile app
• Advanced-level marketing and sales tools and features
• Multi-layer content security
• Rich multimedia
• 24*7 customer support
• Customizable landing/sales pages
• Personalized course completion certificates for your learners
• Integrated payment gateways and country-specific pricing

Isn’t it amazing?

So join Graphy , just like 40,000+ creators.

Course platform

create your online course

online course platform india

PowerPoint presentation

structure a PowerPoint presentation

Top creators use Graphy to sell courses and memberships

Join 100K+ creators who have launched their online knowledge business using Graphy

You may also want to read

Top 7 Christmas Marketing Strategies to Boost Sales

9 Telegram Bots Every Telegram Channel Owner Must Have (2024 Updated)

How To Create a Paid Telegram Channel In 2024 (Updated)?

How to Design a Professional PowerPoint Presentation

Our series of tips on presentation design outlined some generic rules and ideas that you can live by to create better, more professional presentations. Today we want to follow that up by taking you through the actual process of designing a presentation from start to finish.

We’ll break down every step of the design process, from choosing colors and images to using whitespace properly. After reading through this you should be all set to design your own beautiful presentation slides that will put your coworkers to shame.

Using a pre-built PowerPoint template can be a good starting point for many people (we collected some of the best PowerPoint templates for you!). But if you’re wanting to design your own from start-to-finish, you’re in the right place!

How Does Unlimited PowerPoint Templates Sound?

Download thousands of PowerPoint templates, and many other design elements, with a monthly Envato Elements membership. It starts at $16 per month, and gives you unlimited access to a growing library of over 2,000,000 presentation templates, fonts, photos, graphics, and more.

Pitch PowerPoint

Mystify Presentation

Explore PowerPoint Templates

A Word About Content

I usually make a big deal about content preceding design, and presentations are no exception. Ideally, you’ll have the topic and much or all of the content outlined before you even think about design. This will in every way shape the appearance of your design, which is why working from pre-built templates isn’t always the best move (though generic templates can and do work great in some circumstances).

The reason that I bring this up is that I don’t really have an actual presentation in mind for this project. I’ll be running with a basic theme, but the textual information will be entirely placeholder copy. Your image, font, color and layout selection shouldn’t necessarily match mine but instead reflect the topic and content you’re working with.

Choosing A Color Scheme

Before I even open Photoshop (yes, I design PowerPoint/Keynote slides in Photoshop and drop them in), I want to find a color scheme on which to base my entire design. When I need to quickly find several colors that go together I usually start with Adobe Color CC . Not only is it a great way to build your own color schemes, it’s an outstanding source to find schemes built by others that you can just grab for your projects.

As luck would have it, I liked the very first color scheme I saw upon opening Color. This scheme was featured on the home page and looked like a great place to start for our presentation design.

Now, if you wanted to get everything exactly right, you could make a list of the RGB or Hex values, but I prefer a quicker, more direct route. What I usually do is snap a screenshot of the color scheme, paste it into my document and stretch it across the canvas on its own layer for easy access. This way I can quickly activate the layer, eyedropper the color I want, then hide the layer and get back to work. It’s a bit like having a palette of colors to dip your paintbrush in.

Designing Your Cover Slide

Now that we have a color scheme, the design work is going to be much simpler. One trick that designers often use in presentations is to leverage the color scheme as heavily as possible. If you’re new to design, you’ll likely think that this is too easy, too plain or even that it’s cheating somehow, but trust me, it’ll be much more attractive and professional than that horrid Microsoft clipart library you love so much.

To start, simply grab one of your colors from the scheme you chose and flood the background of your slide with it (I chose #631c25). Good job, there’s your background. Don’t freak out. It’ll look great. Now let’s throw in some typography.

Choosing a Font

Font choice is a major issue for non-designers. The tendency is to think that most fonts are “boring” and to look around for something exciting and fun. This inevitably leads to the use of Comic Sans or some other equally hideous font.

Unless you’re an elementary school teacher, your presentations should never look like this. Instead, why don’t you try one of those “boring” fonts to see if you can come up with something you like.

Combining fonts can be a tricky task and can take a trained eye to pull off. Fortunately, font designers have already created collections that work well together and if you’re not a designer, they make it easy to pull off great typography. The trick is to just stay in a family. Again, I know this sounds lame, but it works really well if you make sure the two styles you choose are very different.

For instance, I chose a Helvetica Bold Condensed and a Helvetica Light for my cover slide. Notice how different the fonts are from each other in terms of thickness. Choosing two styles that are relatively close causes visual confusion and should be avoided as a general rule of thumb. Instead, what you want is contrast and plenty of it.

Alignment and Layout

Notice a few things about the way I set up this slide. First, I used a strong left alignment for the text. As I say in just about every design article I write, center alignment should be a last resort, not a first. It tends to be the weakest text alignment that you can choose, having a hard edge increases readability considerably (notice that book pages aren’t center-aligned).

Also, notice the generous whitespace that I used. Remember that you don’t have to eat up every inch of space. Giving your text room to breathe helps your layout immensely and gives the design a clean look.

Adding an Image

At this point you might be wondering why you wasted your time reading so I could give you such plain advice. The truth is, most people that create presentations could improve them by 100% from following the advice above. However, I realize minimalism may be too extreme for some folks so let’s throw in an image to make it look nice.

Since our text is on the left, I wanted to find something a little heavy on the right. The general theme that I’ll go for is “City photos” assuming I had some sort of architecture or city-centric presentation to give. Again, you’ll have to choose iamges relevant to your own topic.

I grabbed this Flickr Creative Commons image from photographer Ben Spreng .

Now, if we just made this image our background, the text would become unreadable and we would be ditching our color scheme. What we’re going to do instead is set it on top of the colored slide and set our blending mode to Overlay. Then throw your opacity to around 45%.

As you can see, this helps the slide look much more interesting but keeps the text and colors fairly intact. It’s a simple solution that adds a lot of interest to an otherwise plain design.

Adding Content Slides

The cover may seem like it’s only a tiny part of the battle, but you’ve actually already set the tone for the entire presentation. You’ve got your theme, color scheme and fonts already in place. Now you just need to set up a few different layouts for your content.

The thing to keep in mind is to keep everything extremely simple, and that includes the level of content that you include. Apart from design, these are just good presentation tactics that you’ll learn in every public speaking class. Filling your slides with everything you’re going to say makes you unnecessary. You could just email everyone the slides and shut up.

Instead, the slides are merely meant to be a visual aid. Show a slide with your overall topic or main point, then speak the rest, without reading. Nothing is worse than watching a guy read his note cards word-for-word for thirty minutes, except perhaps watching a guy turn his back to the audience so he can actually read his slides out loud to you the whole time! You may laugh, but I’ve seen it happen folks.

For our first content slide, we’ll grab another Flickr photo and set it to the bottom portion of our slide at full bleed. Then we’ll set the top to another color from our scheme and toss in some text using the same exact formatting that we used on the cover.

See how this closely resembles the theme we’ve already established while still looking significantly different? This is they key to good presentation design: cohesiveness without redundancy.

Now for our third slide, we can simply do the inverse of the second slide with a new color and a new image .

Adding Informational Elements

It would be nice if every slide ever presented could work in a full bleed image, but the truth is that this simply isn’t practical. It will often be the case that you’re presenting graphical information or some other item that isn’t necessarily a photo.

My advice here is to try to stick as close to your theme as possible. For the slide below I flooded the entire background with a solid color from our original scheme and made a quick 3D graph with white columns (I drew a few flat boxes in Illustrator and applied a 3D effect).

As you can see, this slide is very information-focused and yet it doesn’t sacrifice the aesthetics and simplicity we’ve already established.

You’re All Set

From here you might come up with one or two more alternate slide designs and then rotate between them for the duration of your speech. The result is a presentation that is beautiful, very readable and highly professional. The bonus is that the simple, straightforward design will probably result in less work than a clip-art-filled horror show.

Most of the time, great design doesn’t mean being particularly artistic or knowing how to create amazing complex layouts. Instead, it’s about presenting information in an attractive and user-friendly way. With this goal in mind you realize that you’re probably trying way too hard if your end result is ugly. Try cutting out half or more of the elements on one of your slides and giving what’s left a strong left or right alignment with plenty of whitespace.

I hope this article has convinced you to abandon that clip art gallery once and for all. The benefits of clean, minimal design in presentations are clear: the information is easier to take in and the end result is more professional than the mess of information you typically see in presentation slides.

Of course, if you’re looking to get started quickly, flick through our collection of the best PowerPoint templates to find a beautiful set of pre-made designs!

Slide Layouts in PowerPoint – Everything You Need to Know!

By: Author Shrot Katewa

If you want to make great presentations, and you are not a design wizard, slide layouts can come in really handy! It is a great place to start designing your presentation. If you are beginning your journey with PowerPoint, you may wonder, what is slide layout in PowerPoint?

Slide Layouts in PowerPoint are pre-created slide designs that allow you to quickly and easily add text, headings, images, tables, etc. By default, PowerPoint provides 9 slide layouts (including a blank slide). PowerPoint also allows you to easily add, edit and delete slide layouts.

So, where can you find these slide layouts? How do you format them? Well, in this article, I will share with you all the basic details that you need to know in order to get started with using and understanding the slide layouts in PowerPoint!

So, let’s get started!

1. What is a Slide Layout in PowerPoint? 

A slide on PowerPoint can contain several elements including text, shapes, tables, images, headers, footers. In fact, there may be more than one same type of element present on a single slide. When you start creating a presentation, you are basically using some of these elements to share an inspiring story or an important piece of information.

However, the aesthetics of the slide are determined by how well you lay out these elements on the slide. If you have fairly good design skills, you will easily be able to create an aesthetically pleasing slide! For the rest of us, slide layouts are the way to go!

In Microsoft PowerPoint, a “Slide Layout” refers to the way certain elements (such as text box, image, table, etc) are arranged on the slide. A slide layout is a pre-designed slide format with placeholders that allow you to add text, images, and other elements quickly to the slide.

Using slide layout and master slides, you can also control the color scheme of the presentation, type of fonts, effects, background, headers, footers, and other aspects of presentation design.

This functionality in PowerPoint that allows various pre-created designs to be added to a presentation is often leveraged by corporations. Organizations often create templates and not only control the way presentations look and feel, but also save time for their employees by providing them with various slide design options out of the box!

Pre-set slide layouts are amazing as they allow you to create or use PowerPoint presentation templates. These are pre-designed slide bundles that not only look great on a presentation even when used by a non-designer but also save time for the user of these templates.

For this article, I will be using one of the presentation templates from Envato Elements . With Envato Elements, you get access to thousands of presentation designs with unlimited downloads so you never run out of options again. Plus, you get free previews so you know exactly what you’re getting before buying! It is also very affordable.

2. Where is the Slide Layout in PowerPoint? 

To get quick access to the different layouts of your PowerPoint presentation, click on the ‘Layout’ button in the ‘Slides’ section of the ‘Home’ tab . By clicking on the ‘Layout’ button you will see the various slide layouts present in your presentation.

How to Access Slide Layouts in PowerPoint?

To get complete access to all the Slide Layouts in your PowerPoint so that you can edit them, you have to go to the ‘Master Views’ section under the ‘View’ tab. The whole process is described in the steps mentioned below.

Step-1: Go to the ‘View’ Tab

The first step is to go to the ‘View’ tab which is the second to last tab in the ribbon of your PowerPoint.

Step-2: Go to the ‘Slide Master’ view

In the next step, all you have to do is click on the ‘Slide Master’ view option in the ‘Master Views’ section which is located in the ‘Views’ tab.

By clicking on the ‘Slide Master’ viewing option, you will be taken to the Slide Layout view of the PowerPoint presentation.

Related Article – Slide View Options in PowerPoint! [A Complete Guide!]

Here, you will notice that the menu options change. Furthermore, you now have access to the different shape, image and text placeholders present on the slide. You will be able to move these placeholders and get complete access to the slide layout.

3. How to Change the Slide Layout in PowerPoint? 

You can change the Slide Layout of a slide in your PowerPoint presentation by using the Quick access ‘Layout’ option in the ‘Home’ tab of the ribbon. The process is described in 2 easy steps below.

Step-1: Select the Slide first

At first, you have to go to the slide you want to change the layout of and then click on the ‘Layout’ button in the ‘Slides’ section of the ‘Home’ tab. This will open a drop-down menu of all the slide layouts in your presentation.

Step-2: Click on Layout and Select a Different Layout

After clicking on the ‘Layout’ button, from the drop-down menu, simply select the layout that you want the slide to change into and the layout of that slide will be changed instantly.

4. How to Apply Slide Layout to All Slides? 

Applying slide layout to all slides could mean a couple of things –

• You want to make a change that applies to all slide layouts OR
• You want a specific slide layout to be applied to all slides.

Whatever the case may be, we shall understand both in greater detail below –

4.1 How to Make a Change that Applies to All Slide Layouts

There are certain changes that you sometimes need to apply to all slides. For instance, adding a slide number, adding a company disclaimer, or a company logo.

To apply a change to all slide layout, you will have to edit the ‘Master Slide’ .

You will first need to access the “ Master Slides ” using the “ Slide Master View “. To do that, simply click on “ View “, then click on “ Slide Master “. (as described in the previous sections)

It is the first slide in the ‘Slide Master’ view option which you can find, as discussed earlier, in the ‘Views’ tab.

By applying a change to the ‘Master Slide’ the change will be added to all the other slides in the presentation as well. After going to the ‘Slide Master’ views, follow the simple steps described below.

In the following example, I’m going to add a “Star” (that shall act as a logo) to the top-right corner of the master slide.

Step-1: Apply the change in the ‘Master Slide’ layout.

To apply slide layout to all the slides, make the change that you want to have on the ‘Master Slide’ . In this case I have added a star on the top right corner of the Slide.

Step-2: Send the applied changes to the background

To keep the change, you have made on the background of every slide as a layout, ‘Right click’ on the objects and click on the ‘Send to back’ option from the drop-down menu.

That way, the object will be applied to the background of all the slides and the texts will be visible on top of the logo or the element added.

4.2 How to Apply Specific Slide Layout to All Slides?

If you want to apply a particular slide layout to all slides, follow the below mentioned steps –

Step 1 – Select All Slides

The first step is to select all the slides. To do that, first click on any one slide. Then, press the “ Ctrl+A ” (Cmd+A for Mac) key combination on your keyboard to select all slides.

Step 2 – Change the Slide Layout

The next step is simply choosing the layout that you want to apply to all slides. To do that, first click on “Home”. Then, click on “Layouts” and choose a layout from the array of slide layouts presented by PowerPoint.

As soon as you select a slide layout, PowerPoint will apply it to all slides.

5. What is the Default PowerPoint Slide Layout? 

The default PowerPoint Slide Layout is the style of layout that the Microsoft PowerPoint software provides you out-of-the-box when you open a new PowerPoint file.

The default layout consists of 9 styles of slides which are:

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

6. How to Edit Slide Layout in PowerPoint? 

To edit a slide Layout, you have to use the ‘Slide Master’ view as discussed earlier in the article and follow the simple steps given below.

Step-1: Go to the layout you want to change in the ‘Master Slides’ view

The first step is to go to the ‘Slide Master’ view in the ‘View’ tab and click on the Layout that you want to edit.

Step-2: Make the preferred edits to the layout

Now, all you have to do is make the preferred edits in the selected layout. After making the edits, the element of the layout will be changed accordingly in the ‘Layout’ option in the ‘Slides’ section of the ‘Home’ tab and all the slides that are using that layout.

Related Article – How to Edit Background Graphics Using Slide Master in PowerPoint!

7. How to Create a New Slide Layout in PowerPoint? 

To create a new slide layout in PowerPoint, go to the ‘Slide Master’ view in the ‘Views’ tab in the ribbon and follow the 2 easy steps described below.

Step-1: Click on the position where you want to add the new slide layout

At first you have to click on the position where you want to add the new slide layout in the ‘Slide Navigation’ bar.

Step-2: ‘Insert Layout’ button at the ‘Edit Master’ section.

After you have clicked on the position where you want to add the new slide layout, all you have to do is click on the ‘Insert layout’ button located in the ‘Edit Master’ section of the ‘Slide Master’ view.

7b. How to Insert a Blank Slide Layout in PowerPoint? 

To insert a blank slide layout in PowerPoint, add a new layout and follow the simple steps given below.

Step-1: Select all the elements in the new slide layout

After inserting a new slide layout, select all the elements that are on the slide layout. You can do that by holding the ‘Left’ mouse button at one corner of the slide and dragging the selector cursor over all the elements of the slide.

Alternatively, you can also ‘left click’ on the elements one by one while holding the ‘Ctrl’ button on your keyboard or click on one of the elements in the slide layout and press the ‘ Ctrl + A ’ buttons on the keyboard of your computer.

Step-2: Delete the elements or object present on the slide

Finally, delete all the elements that you have selected on the new slide layout. You can do that by clicking on the ‘Backspace’ button or the ‘Delete’ button on the keyboard of your computer while keeping all the elements of the new slide layout selected. That way, the new slide layout will be blank.

Step-3: Rename the Slide Layout and Exit Slide Master

The last step is to rename the slide master so that you can easily identify the newly created slide layout in the layout menu. Once that’s done, simply click on “ Close Master View ” to exit the slide master.

8. How Many Types of Slide Layouts are There in PowerPoint?

In PowerPoint, there are 16 different types of slide layouts that you can apply to your presentation. All 16 of these layouts are divided into 4 categories. The categories and types of slide layouts is listed below.

• Title and Text
• Title and 2 Column Text
• Blank 
• Content 
• Title, Text, and Content
• Title and Text over Content
• Title and Content over Text
• Title, Text, and ClipArt
• Title, Text, and Chart
• Title, Text, and Media Clip
• Title and Table
• Title and Diagram or Organization Chart
• Title and Chart

More PowerPoint Related Topics

• How to Use a Presentation Clicker to Deliver Presentations Effectively!
• How to Crop a Picture in PowerPoint? [Complete Step-by-Step Tutorial!]
• How to Give a Presentation on Zoom? A Helpful Resource!
• How to Convert a PowerPoint to PDF? [A Simple Guide!]
• PowerPoint vs Google Slides: Which is Better? [ULTIMATE Test!]
• How to Change Bullet Style in PowerPoint? A Complete Guide

Credit to psh.vector (on Freepik) for the Featured Image of this Article

Improve your practice.

Enhance your soft skills with a range of award-winning courses.

How to Structure your Presentation, with Examples

August 3, 2018 - Dom Barnard

For many people the thought of delivering a presentation is a daunting task and brings about a  great deal of nerves . However, if you take some time to understand how effective presentations are structured and then apply this structure to your own presentation, you’ll appear much more confident and relaxed.

Here is our complete guide for structuring your presentation, with examples at the end of the article to demonstrate these points.

Why is structuring a presentation so important?

If you’ve ever sat through a great presentation, you’ll have left feeling either inspired or informed on a given topic. This isn’t because the speaker was the most knowledgeable or motivating person in the world. Instead, it’s because they know how to structure presentations – they have crafted their message in a logical and simple way that has allowed the audience can keep up with them and take away key messages.

Research has supported this, with studies showing that audiences retain structured information  40% more accurately  than unstructured information.

In fact, not only is structuring a presentation important for the benefit of the audience’s understanding, it’s also important for you as the speaker. A good structure helps you remain calm, stay on topic, and avoid any awkward silences.

What will affect your presentation structure?

Generally speaking, there is a natural flow that any decent presentation will follow which we will go into shortly. However, you should be aware that all presentation structures will be different in their own unique way and this will be due to a number of factors, including:

• Whether you need to deliver any demonstrations
• How  knowledgeable the audience  already is on the given subject
• How much interaction you want from the audience
• Any time constraints there are for your talk
• What setting you are in
• Your ability to use any kinds of visual assistance

Before choosing the presentation’s structure answer these questions first:

• What is your presentation’s aim?
• Who are the audience?
• What are the main points your audience should remember afterwards?

When reading the points below, think critically about what things may cause your presentation structure to be slightly different. You can add in certain elements and add more focus to certain moments if that works better for your speech.

What is the typical presentation structure?

This is the usual flow of a presentation, which covers all the vital sections and is a good starting point for yours. It allows your audience to easily follow along and sets out a solid structure you can add your content to.

1. Greet the audience and introduce yourself

Before you start delivering your talk, introduce yourself to the audience and clarify who you are and your relevant expertise. This does not need to be long or incredibly detailed, but will help build an immediate relationship between you and the audience. It gives you the chance to briefly clarify your expertise and why you are worth listening to. This will help establish your ethos so the audience will trust you more and think you’re credible.

Read our tips on  How to Start a Presentation Effectively

2. Introduction

In the introduction you need to explain the subject and purpose of your presentation whilst gaining the audience’s interest and confidence. It’s sometimes helpful to think of your introduction as funnel-shaped to help filter down your topic:

• Introduce your general topic
• Explain your topic area
• State the issues/challenges in this area you will be exploring
• State your presentation’s purpose – this is the basis of your presentation so ensure that you provide a statement explaining how the topic will be treated, for example, “I will argue that…” or maybe you will “compare”, “analyse”, “evaluate”, “describe” etc.
• Provide a statement of what you’re hoping the outcome of the presentation will be, for example, “I’m hoping this will be provide you with…”
• Show a preview of the organisation of your presentation

In this section also explain:

• The length of the talk.
• Signal whether you want audience interaction – some presenters prefer the audience to ask questions throughout whereas others allocate a specific section for this.
• If it applies, inform the audience whether to take notes or whether you will be providing handouts.

The way you structure your introduction can depend on the amount of time you have been given to present: a  sales pitch  may consist of a quick presentation so you may begin with your conclusion and then provide the evidence. Conversely, a speaker presenting their idea for change in the world would be better suited to start with the evidence and then conclude what this means for the audience.

Keep in mind that the main aim of the introduction is to grab the audience’s attention and connect with them.

3. The main body of your talk

The main body of your talk needs to meet the promises you made in the introduction. Depending on the nature of your presentation, clearly segment the different topics you will be discussing, and then work your way through them one at a time – it’s important for everything to be organised logically for the audience to fully understand. There are many different ways to organise your main points, such as, by priority, theme, chronologically etc.

• Main points should be addressed one by one with supporting evidence and examples.
• Before moving on to the next point you should provide a mini-summary.
• Links should be clearly stated between ideas and you must make it clear when you’re moving onto the next point.
• Allow time for people to take relevant notes and stick to the topics you have prepared beforehand rather than straying too far off topic.

When planning your presentation write a list of main points you want to make and ask yourself “What I am telling the audience? What should they understand from this?” refining your answers this way will help you produce clear messages.

4. Conclusion

In presentations the conclusion is frequently underdeveloped and lacks purpose which is a shame as it’s the best place to reinforce your messages. Typically, your presentation has a specific goal – that could be to convert a number of the audience members into customers, lead to a certain number of enquiries to make people knowledgeable on specific key points, or to motivate them towards a shared goal.

Regardless of what that goal is, be sure to summarise your main points and their implications. This clarifies the overall purpose of your talk and reinforces your reason for being there.

Follow these steps:

• Signal that it’s nearly the end of your presentation, for example, “As we wrap up/as we wind down the talk…”
• Restate the topic and purpose of your presentation – “In this speech I wanted to compare…”
• Summarise the main points, including their implications and conclusions
• Indicate what is next/a call to action/a thought-provoking takeaway
• Move on to the last section

5. Thank the audience and invite questions

Conclude your talk by thanking the audience for their time and invite them to  ask any questions  they may have. As mentioned earlier, personal circumstances will affect the structure of your presentation.

Many presenters prefer to make the Q&A session the key part of their talk and try to speed through the main body of the presentation. This is totally fine, but it is still best to focus on delivering some sort of initial presentation to set the tone and topics for discussion in the Q&A.

Other common presentation structures

The above was a description of a basic presentation, here are some more specific presentation layouts:

Demonstration

Use the demonstration structure when you have something useful to show. This is usually used when you want to show how a product works. Steve Jobs frequently used this technique in his presentations.

• Explain why the product is valuable.
• Describe why the product is necessary.
• Explain what problems it can solve for the audience.
• Demonstrate the product  to support what you’ve been saying.
• Make suggestions of other things it can do to make the audience curious.

Problem-solution

This structure is particularly useful in persuading the audience.

• Briefly frame the issue.
• Go into the issue in detail showing why it ‘s such a problem. Use logos and pathos for this – the logical and emotional appeals.
• Provide the solution and explain why this would also help the audience.
• Call to action – something you want the audience to do which is straightforward and pertinent to the solution.

Storytelling

As well as incorporating  stories in your presentation , you can organise your whole presentation as a story. There are lots of different type of story structures you can use – a popular choice is the monomyth – the hero’s journey. In a monomyth, a hero goes on a difficult journey or takes on a challenge – they move from the familiar into the unknown. After facing obstacles and ultimately succeeding the hero returns home, transformed and with newfound wisdom.

Storytelling for Business Success  webinar , where well-know storyteller Javier Bernad shares strategies for crafting compelling narratives.

Another popular choice for using a story to structure your presentation is in media ras (in the middle of thing). In this type of story you launch right into the action by providing a snippet/teaser of what’s happening and then you start explaining the events that led to that event. This is engaging because you’re starting your story at the most exciting part which will make the audience curious – they’ll want to know how you got there.

• Great storytelling: Examples from Alibaba Founder, Jack Ma

Remaining method

The remaining method structure is good for situations where you’re presenting your perspective on a controversial topic which has split people’s opinions.

• Go into the issue in detail showing why it’s such a problem – use logos and pathos.
• Rebut your opponents’ solutions  – explain why their solutions could be useful because the audience will see this as fair and will therefore think you’re trustworthy, and then explain why you think these solutions are not valid.
• After you’ve presented all the alternatives provide your solution, the remaining solution. This is very persuasive because it looks like the winning idea, especially with the audience believing that you’re fair and trustworthy.

Transitions

When delivering presentations it’s important for your words and ideas to flow so your audience can understand how everything links together and why it’s all relevant. This can be done  using speech transitions  which are words and phrases that allow you to smoothly move from one point to another so that your speech flows and your presentation is unified.

Transitions can be one word, a phrase or a full sentence – there are many different forms, here are some examples:

Moving from the introduction to the first point

Signify to the audience that you will now begin discussing the first main point:

• Now that you’re aware of the overview, let’s begin with…
• First, let’s begin with…
• I will first cover…
• My first point covers…
• To get started, let’s look at…

Shifting between similar points

Move from one point to a similar one:

• In the same way…
• Likewise…
• Equally…
• This is similar to…
• Similarly…

Internal summaries

Internal summarising consists of summarising before moving on to the next point. You must inform the audience:

• What part of the presentation you covered – “In the first part of this speech we’ve covered…”
• What the key points were – “Precisely how…”
• How this links in with the overall presentation – “So that’s the context…”
• What you’re moving on to – “Now I’d like to move on to the second part of presentation which looks at…”

Physical movement

You can move your body and your standing location when you transition to another point. The audience find it easier to follow your presentation and movement will increase their interest.

A common technique for incorporating movement into your presentation is to:

• Start your introduction by standing in the centre of the stage.
• For your first point you stand on the left side of the stage.
• You discuss your second point from the centre again.
• You stand on the right side of the stage for your third point.
• The conclusion occurs in the centre.

Key slides for your presentation

Slides are a useful tool for most presentations: they can greatly assist in the delivery of your message and help the audience follow along with what you are saying. Key slides include:

• An intro slide outlining your ideas
• A  summary slide  with core points to remember
• High quality image slides to supplement what you are saying

There are some presenters who choose not to use slides at all, though this is more of a rarity. Slides can be a powerful tool if used properly, but the problem is that many fail to do just that. Here are some golden rules to follow when using slides in a presentation:

• Don’t over fill them  – your slides are there to assist your speech, rather than be the focal point. They should have as little information as possible, to avoid distracting people from your talk.
• A picture says a thousand words  – instead of filling a slide with text, instead, focus on one or two images or diagrams to help support and explain the point you are discussing at that time.
• Make them readable  – depending on the size of your audience, some may not be able to see small text or images, so make everything large enough to fill the space.
• Don’t rush through slides  – give the audience enough time to digest each slide.

Guy Kawasaki, an entrepreneur and author, suggests that slideshows should follow a  10-20-30 rule :

• There should be a maximum of 10 slides – people rarely remember more than one concept afterwards so there’s no point overwhelming them with unnecessary information.
• The presentation should last no longer than 20 minutes as this will leave time for questions and discussion.
• The font size should be a minimum of 30pt because the audience reads faster than you talk so less information on the slides means that there is less chance of the audience being distracted.

Here are some additional resources for slide design:

• 7 design tips for effective, beautiful PowerPoint presentations
• 11 design tips for beautiful presentations
• 10 tips on how to make slides that communicate your idea

Group Presentations

Group presentations are structured in the same way as presentations with one speaker but usually require more rehearsal and practices.  Clean transitioning between speakers  is very important in producing a presentation that flows well. One way of doing this consists of:

• Briefly recap on what you covered in your section: “So that was a brief introduction on what health anxiety is and how it can affect somebody”
• Introduce the next speaker in the team and explain what they will discuss: “Now Elnaz will talk about the prevalence of health anxiety.”
• Then end by looking at the next speaker, gesturing towards them and saying their name: “Elnaz”.
• The next speaker should acknowledge this with a quick: “Thank you Joe.”

From this example you can see how the different sections of the presentations link which makes it easier for the audience to follow and remain engaged.

Example of great presentation structure and delivery

Having examples of great presentations will help inspire your own structures, here are a few such examples, each unique and inspiring in their own way.

How Google Works – by Eric Schmidt

This presentation by ex-Google CEO  Eric Schmidt  demonstrates some of the most important lessons he and his team have learnt with regards to working with some of the most talented individuals they hired. The simplistic yet cohesive style of all of the slides is something to be appreciated. They are relatively straightforward, yet add power and clarity to the narrative of the presentation.

Start with why – by Simon Sinek

Since being released in 2009, this presentation has been viewed almost four million times all around the world. The message itself is very powerful, however, it’s not an idea that hasn’t been heard before. What makes this presentation so powerful is the simple message he is getting across, and the straightforward and understandable manner in which he delivers it. Also note that he doesn’t use any slides, just a whiteboard where he creates a simple diagram of his opinion.

The Wisdom of a Third Grade Dropout – by Rick Rigsby

Here’s an example of a presentation given by a relatively unknown individual looking to inspire the next generation of graduates. Rick’s presentation is unique in many ways compared to the two above. Notably, he uses no visual prompts and includes a great deal of humour.

However, what is similar is the structure he uses. He first introduces his message that the wisest man he knew was a third-grade dropout. He then proceeds to deliver his main body of argument, and in the end, concludes with his message. This powerful speech keeps the viewer engaged throughout, through a mixture of heart-warming sentiment, powerful life advice and engaging humour.

As you can see from the examples above, and as it has been expressed throughout, a great presentation structure means analysing the core message of your presentation. Decide on a key message you want to impart the audience with, and then craft an engaging way of delivering it.

By preparing a solid structure, and  practising your talk  beforehand, you can walk into the presentation with confidence and deliver a meaningful message to an interested audience.

It’s important for a presentation to be well-structured so it can have the most impact on your audience. An unstructured presentation can be difficult to follow and even frustrating to listen to. The heart of your speech are your main points supported by evidence and your transitions should assist the movement between points and clarify how everything is linked.

Research suggests that the audience remember the first and last things you say so your introduction and conclusion are vital for reinforcing your points. Essentially, ensure you spend the time structuring your presentation and addressing all of the sections.

Find the images you need to make standout work. If it’s in your head, it’s on our site.

• Images home
• Curated collections
• AI image generator
• Offset images
• Backgrounds/Textures
• Business/Finance
• Sports/Recreation
• Animals/Wildlife
• Beauty/Fashion
• Celebrities
• Food and Drink
• Illustrations/Clip-Art
• Miscellaneous
• Parks/Outdoor
• Buildings/Landmarks
• Healthcare/Medical
• Signs/Symbols
• Transportation
• All categories
• Editorial video
• Shutterstock Select
• Shutterstock Elements
• Health Care
• PremiumBeat
• Templates Home
• Instagram all
• Highlight covers
• Facebook all
• Carousel ads
• Cover photos
• Event covers
• Youtube all
• Channel Art
• Etsy big banner
• Etsy mini banner
• Etsy shop icon
• Pinterest all
• Pinterest pins
• Twitter all
• Twitter Banner
• Infographics
• Zoom backgrounds
• Announcements
• Certificates
• Gift Certificates
• Real Estate Flyer
• Travel Brochures
• Anniversary
• Baby Shower
• Mother’s Day
• Thanksgiving
• All Invitations
• Party invitations
• Wedding invitations
• Book Covers
• Editorial home
• Entertainment
• About Creative Flow
• Create editor
• Content calendar
• Photo editor
• Background remover
• Collage maker
• Resize image
• Color palettes
• Color palette generator
• Image converter
• Contributors
• PremiumBeat blog
• Terms of use
• License agreement
• Privacy policy
• Social media guidelines
• Invitations

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:

And not like this:

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:

And avoid this:

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.

Slides should never have this much information:

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:

Stay away from color combinations like this:

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.

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. .

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 .

Recently viewed

Related Posts

How to Build a Brand Identity in 5 Easy Steps

Follow this guide to streamline the branding process and design an effective, professional brand identity ASAP.

Brand Colors: The How and Why of Picking the Right Colors

Whether you’re working on a major rebrand or just getting started at a new company, the impact that color has on your logo can make a huge difference.

Birthday Card Ideas: Pro Tips and Inspiration

Celebrate the ones you love with our birthday card ideas. Discover inspiring designs and tips for crafting personalized cards. Make each birthday special!

Inspiring Sketchbook Cover Ideas for Self-Publishing Artists

Check out these tried-and-true methods—and examples—for creating book covers that capture the mood of your art or photography book.

© 2023 Shutterstock Inc. All rights reserved.

We use essential cookies to make Venngage work. By clicking “Accept All Cookies”, you agree to the storing of cookies on your device to enhance site navigation, analyze site usage, and assist in our marketing efforts.

Manage Cookies

Cookies and similar technologies collect certain information about how you’re using our website. Some of them are essential, and without them you wouldn’t be able to use Venngage. But others are optional, and you get to choose whether we use them or not.

Strictly Necessary Cookies

These cookies are always on, as they’re essential for making Venngage work, and making it safe. Without these cookies, services you’ve asked for can’t be provided.

Show cookie providers

• Google Login

Functionality Cookies

These cookies help us provide enhanced functionality and personalisation, and remember your settings. They may be set by us or by third party providers.

Performance Cookies

These cookies help us analyze how many people are using Venngage, where they come from and how they're using it. If you opt out of these cookies, we can’t get feedback to make Venngage better for you and all our users.

• Google Analytics

Targeting Cookies

These cookies are set by our advertising partners to track your activity and show you relevant Venngage ads on other sites as you browse the internet.

• Google Tag Manager
• Infographics
• Daily Infographics
• Popular Templates
• Accessibility
• Graphic Design
• Graphs and Charts
• Data Visualization
• Human Resources
• Beginner Guides

Blog Graphic Design 31 Powerpoint Presentation Design Tips, Ideas [with Examples]

31 Powerpoint Presentation Design Tips, Ideas [with Examples]

Written by: Sara McGuire May 03, 2023

What’s worse than sitting through a boring presentation? Being the one to deliver a boring presentation. Presentation templates to the rescue!

Say goodbye to typical, boring PowerPoint slides, too. Instead,  create a presentation that will make a lasting impression with presentation templates like this one to engage your audience:

Just so you know, some of our templates are free and some require a small monthly fee to use. Signing up to Venngage is always free.

In this post, I’ll show you how to create a presentation that will not only grab the attention of your audience but hold onto it as well.

This post will offer tips for creating different types of presentations , including:

• Pitch decks
• Elearning slides
• Class presentations
• Webinar presentations
• Marketing presentations

I’ll also give you design tips to customize our presentation templates.

Click to jump ahead:

• Dedicate each slide to only one topic
• Start with presentation templates
• Don’t overburden your slides with text
• Establish a visual hierarchy on your slides
• Pick a visual motif that runs throughout your presentation templates
• Visualize data using charts and infographics
• Create custom illustrations using icons to help tell stories
• Highlight important information using big, bold colorful text
• Alternate between different slide layouts to keep your audience engaged
• Add a progress tracker to your presentation slides
• Download your presentation as a PDF

The example above shows how you can customize our templates and export them directly to PowerPoint. Click any of the presentation templates on this page, sign up for free and you’ll enter Venngage’s online presentation maker tool. It’s a drag and drop editor that anyone can use.

Design a presentation that engages your audience

Think about the last boring presentation you sat through:

• What did the slides look like?
• Did they have a bland color scheme?
• Were there too many points (or worse, paragraphs) crammed onto one slide?
• Were the charts and diagrams clunky and hard to understand?

When people see the same old boring PowerPoint themes, there’s a good chance they’re going to lose focus.

Rich media, like video, matters more than ever and there’s no better way to stand out than by creating creative and engaging visual content . If you want to really capture your audience’s attention, you need to design creative presentations , like this one:

That means incorporating eye-catching images, effective data visualizations, and bold typography into your slide decks.

This onboarding presentation, for example, strategically uses bright icons and illustrations to make the material more engaging. This is especially important when presenting to new hires, who are likely dealing with information overload on their first day. 

In this particular case, a more visual approach is not necessarily a matter of aesthetic preference, but a decision that can make your presentations more likely to stick. Pro Tip: Venngage has over 40,000 icons and illustrations you can use to spice up your presentations!

Need something more geared towards speaking? Our keynote presentation templates are all the rage.

11 tips to hold your audience’s attention

Many Venngage users have mentioned that they’re always looking for ways to make presentations more engaging. But most of them don’t have any formal design experience.

If you’re in the same boat, don’t worry–this guide is for you. You can also check out this video for all the highlights:

Here are my top tips for designing a presentation with impact:

1. Dedicate each slide to only one topic

Just as it’s important for your slides to not be cluttered, it’s also important for your slides to be cohesive.

Keep each slide focused on just one topic. The topic of each slide should be clearly stated in the slide title.

For example, this presentation template covers different ways to be creative. Each individual slide covers one approach:

This simple, straightforward slide pattern will help the audience follow along without any confusion.

Or take this presentation template that introduces some of this year’s biggest business trends. Rather than listing multiple trends on one slide, each trend is fleshed out in its own slide:

As a presenter, keeping your slide topics organized will help you organize your thoughts as well. Each new slide will signal a new topic.

2. Start with presentation templates

Before jumping into the other tips, let’s set the foundation.

You’ve decided to create something a little more interesting than a standard PowerPoint theme–good on you! But that doesn’t mean you have to start completely from scratch.

Instead, you can give yourself a head start by using creative presentation templates, like this one:

Or this one:

While most PowerPoint themes are fairly limited in how much you can customize them, freeform presentation templates will give you the freedom to alter the design as much as you want.

For example, let’s take this template:

I used Venngage’s My Brand Kit tool to efficiently apply our brand color palette to the Uber template in one click:

There are a ton of creative presentation templates. You can take a look at them in our presentations templates library .

Cool? Now let’s talk presentation design.

3. Don’t overburden your slides with text

Even if you decide to ignore most of the other tips in this guide, don’t skip over this one. This is presentation design 101.

When you flip to a slide covered wall-to-wall with text, there’s a good chance your audience is going to think:

• I don’t want to read all of that.
• This presenter isn’t well-prepared.

In fact, a study published in Business and Professional Communication Quarterly found that anxious presenters tended to use more text on their slides, usually because they used their slides as speaking notes.

Instead of using a bunch of text, look for ways to present information visually charts and infographics .

For example, this slide template uses brief text and some simple icons to summarize the presentation :

This startup pitch deck makes use of evocative images, icons and big text to help present its ideas:

4. Establish a visual hierarchy on your slides

When you flip to a new slide, your audience will be seeing it for the first time. Their eyes are going to naturally be drawn whatever the focal point on the page is.

The focal point is the most dominant area on your slide–the point that draws the most attention.

You can create a hierarchy of information on your slide by making the most important information the focal point of your slide. In most cases, the focal point will be the slide title, or a particular visual, or an important phrase or number.

There are a few ways you can create a visual hierarchy on your slides.

You can bold important phrases, like the word “Facebook” in this slide:

Icons also help to establish a reading order. They draw your eye from point to point. Placing icons beside headers and important points will make them stand out from the other information on the slide.

Icons can also be used to indicate where a new point begins:

Color selection can also be used to establish a visual hierarchy. Take a look at how the colorful blocks in this slide help to make the slide titles pop:

Your eyes are drawn first to the title text, then to the supporting information beside it.

5. Pick a visual motif that runs throughout your presentation templates

You can use visuals to pull your presentation design together and make it cohesive. Picking a visual motif will allow you to use consistent visuals throughout your presentation.

A visual motif is a repeated pattern, design, or image. In your presentation design, a motif can take many forms.

When it comes to infographic color selection , one of the simplest approaches is to use a consistent color motif (or color scheme). That could mean using one or two colors for all of your headers, background and borders.

For example, this presentation template uses two shades of purple for a modern design:

But combining different colors and patterns can also make for a more interesting design. For example, this presentation template uses a blue stripe motif to link the slides together visually:

You could also use a recurring shape or image, like the circle image frames in this presentation template:

Or you could use a motif that reflects the theme of your presentation. For example, this presentation template uses a recurring cloud motif throughout the presentation to reflect the “dream” theme of the brand:

This is a case where starting with a presentation template can really come in handy, because the template will already have a motif. Look for presentation templates with a motif that fits your topic and brand.

6. Visualize data using charts and infographics

Replacing text with visuals is one of the best ways to prevent your slide design from becoming cluttered. Charts and infographics present information in an engaging, digestible way.

I won’t go into too much detail here about what types of charts you should use for what data. We’ve got an in-depth guide to picking charts for that.

But I’ll give you a few ideas for some types of charts and infographics that work well in presentations.

Related : How to Make Better Infographics for PowerPoint

If you want to visualize steps in a process, the history of something, or a roadmap, use a timeline.

This slide template uses a simple timeline with complementary icons to emphasize each date:

To compare amounts or sizes, a bubble chart can help drive the point home:

Learn how to customize this template:

To create an infographic for geographic and demographic information , a map can make a big impact on your audience:

A classic pie chart or bar graph should be easily understood by your audience, provided you’re following  chart best practices .

This presentation template uses a bar graph, a pie chart and a line graph to show different metrics:

If you can, mix up the types of data visualizations you use. This will help prevent your audience from getting bored.

Those are just a few different ways you can use charts to visualize. For more ideas, check out our guide to picking the best charts for your data .

7. Create custom illustrations using icons to help tell stories

Custom illustrations are one of this year’s  biggest graphic design trends . They’re fun, quirky, and more exciting than a boring old stock photo.

Creating your own illustrations for social media graphics might seem like a costly and time-consuming undertaking. And it can be. But I’m going to offer you a hack:

Use icons to create illustrations.

You can arrange icons together to create a scene–like the pieces of a puzzle. (Venngage offers over 40,000 icons, so finding an image shouldn’t be too hard!) 

For example, this real estate presentation template uses icons to illustrate each real estate hack:

When picking ico ns or symbols for your illustrations , make sure that the icon style you use is consistent. For example, this presentation template uses line art icons for a scribbly youthful look:

For more ideas, read our guide to creating icon illustrations .

8. Highlight important information using big, bold colorful text

Returning to the idea or focal points on your slide: emphasize a key number or phrase when creating a persuasive presentation using big, bold text in a contrasting color.

This will communicate to your audience that if they take away one thing from your slide, it should be that piece of information.

For example, this presentation template uses bright colored font in several sizes larger than the rest of the text to emphasize important numbers on each slide:

But you could also pick one color to emphasize key information with. That way, your audience will catch on to the pattern and look for that color in upcoming slides.

Take a look at how this presentation uses teal to contrast with the other text and emphasize information:

9. Alternate between different slide layouts to keep your audience engaged

You may be tempted to use the same slide layout throughout your entire presentation–either for consistency or because you’re not sure how else to design your slide.

The problem is, using the same slide layout over and over again won’t do much to excite your audience.

There are other ways you can create consistency throughout your presentation, while also using different slide layouts–like through a visual motif.

For example, this presentation template uses five different slide layouts. The consistent color scheme, image style and font style pull the presentation together.

To come up with different slide layouts, try dividing your slide into columns. This can make it easier to arrange the elements in your slide.

This can make it easier to arrange the elements in your slide.

10. Add a progress tracker to your presentation slides

Creating a sense of forward movement will help keep your audience engaged.

Similar to how you would put the chapter title at the top of the pages in a book, you can track the progress of your presentations in your slides. This will let your audience know what stage you’re at in your presentation. Your audience will also be able to refer to the sections in your presentation more easily afterward.

That said, pacing your presentation thoughtfully with well-designed presentation slides also adds brownie points to your presentation. Check out the top qualities of awesome presentations and learn all about how to make a good presentation to help you nail that captivating delivery.

A simple progress bar at the bottom of your slide shouldn’t distract too much from the rest of your information.

11. Download your presentation as a PDF

It’s common for audience members to request a copy of your presentation for their reference. Make sharing your presentation easy by exporting it as a PDF or zipped file.

Now that you’re equipped with some fundamentals of presentation design, the best way to learn is by doing. It’s also the perfect time to upgrade your presentation skills  while you’re thinking about it too!

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to leave a comment below.

More presentation templates and design guides:

• 120+ Best Presentation Ideas, Design Tips & Examples  (+ Presentation Templates!)
• 12 Business Pitch Deck Templates and Design Best Practices to Impress Investors
• 5 Foolproof Presentation Layout Ideas  (+ Presentation Templates!)
• How to Get Featured on the Front Page of SlideShare [Infographic]
• What Is A Webinar & How Do They Work? [Beginners Guide]

Discover popular designs

Infographic maker

Brochure maker

White paper online

Newsletter creator

Flyer maker

Timeline maker

Letterhead maker

Mind map maker

Ebook maker

20 Really Good PowerPoint Examples to Inspire Your Next Presentation

By Sandra Boicheva

2 years ago

You may also like Show related articles Hide

You might have the most amazing idea that you wish to share with the world, but you might not get the results you want if the delivery isn’t good. Although as a tool, PowerPoint is pretty easy to use and intuitive, creating a good PowerPoint presentation is not a simple task. There is a lot of things to consider when designing your slides from the words you use, to the copy structure, data visualization, and overall design. This is why today we gathered 20 really good PowerPoint examples of presentations that flawlessly deliver their messages. These creative ideas will surely inspire you to make your next presentation your best one, as they all share good design and engaging storytelling.

“If you don’t know what you want to achieve in your presentation your audience never will.” – Harvey Diamond

1. Idea to Identify: The Design of Brand

This is a long one. Here we have a 242 slides presentation that exposes the myriad facets of design and how they impact the brand identity. The presentation has a lot of data to show and spreads it throughout more than 200 slides to make it easy to read and follow. In all, this is the best way to present a lot of information: instead of overwhelming the viewers with text walls, the presenter simply adds more slides.

• Author:   Sudio Sudarsan

2. Jeunesse Opportunity Presentation 2021

This is a great example of brand presentation with company profile, product system, plan, and reward. It gives a similar experience to browsing a website.

• Author:   DASH2 – Jeunesse Global

3. Accenture Tech Vision 2020

A short and sweet presentation about how companies prepare for data regulation and how this impacts the customer experience. 

• Author:   Accenture

4. APIs as Digital Factories’ New Machines

A comparison presentation of how companies capture most of the market value. It explains well how to view the economy from a different perspective and adopt customer-centric thinking. The presentation has a lot of value, it’s well structured and it’s a good read in only 28 slides.

• Author:  Apidays

5. 24 Books You’ve Never Heard Of – But Will Change Your Life

This is a great example of how repeating slides design for the same type of content isn’t a synonym for being unimaginative. It’s pretty straightforward: it promises 24 titles, an inspirational introduction, and a slide for each book that will change your life.

• Author:   Ryan Holiday

6. 10 Memorable David Bowie Quotes

Not always presentations must have a specific educational or conventional goal. Sometimes, it could be a cool personal project meant to inspire your audience. And let’s be honest, who doesn’t love David Bowie? A presentation with 10 memorable quotes by him is worth watching. 

• Author: Stinson

7. Creative Mornings San Diego 

• Author:   Anne McColl

8. Digital 2020 Global Digital Overview

A report heavy-data presentation about everything you need to know about mobile, internet, social media, and e-commerce use around the world in 2020. It’s a long read but comprehensive and well-illustrated with data visualization.

• Author:   DataReportal

9. Blitzscaling: Book Trailer

One of the most well-made presentations about informative topics such as startup’s life-cycle and where the most value is created. It’s designed as a book, consistent, with lesser text as possible, and imitates animation by adding new content on copies of the same slide. 

• Author:  Reid Hoffman

10. Poor Self-Esteem: Just Beat It!

A very valuable presentation that takes on the reasons for low self-esteem and how to overcome it. The design is very simple and comprehensive and even suitable for social media carousel posts.

• Author:   SlideShop.com

11. You Suck At PowerPoint!

This presentation is more than a decade old and still checks out. After all, you could expect great presentation design from someone who talks about design mistakes and how to overcome them.  61 slides of a fun experience and a great read.

• Author:  Jesse Desjardins

12. Pixar’s 22 Rules to Phenomenal Storytelling

Pixar’s 22 Rules to Phenomenal Storytelling, originally tweeted by Emma Coats, in a 24-slides presentation with a custom design. 

• Author:   Gavin McMahon

13. A Complete Guide To The Best Times To Post On Social Media

A fun little presentation with great value. It takes on the most effective times to post on social media, send an email, or publish a blog.

• Author:   TrackMaven

14. Fix Your Really Bad PowerPoint

The next presentation honors Seth Godin and his wisdom. It uses his book’s insights to visualize all the tips in 45 engaging slides.

• Author:   HighSpark

15. 10 Lessons from the World’s Most Captivating Presenters

This presentation is for presenters who wish to become better. And what better way than getting inspired by the world’s greatest presenters and accessing some of their secrets. 

• Author:   HubSpot

16. Crap. The Content Marketing Deluge

For starters, this presentation has a very captivating title and opening. Winning the attention from the very start, it continues with consistent clean design and great content. It delivers exactly what it promised. 

• Author: Velocity Partners

17. Displaying Data

More insightful advice and tips from professional presenters that check out to this very day. It’s a great presentation about visualizing your data in the best way possible and it also delivers it with design.

• Author:   Bipul Deb Nath

18. 5 Storytelling Lessons From Superhero Stories

Custom-made presentation with illustrations made specifically for the occasion, and brilliant execution. It shows it’s definitely worth it to spend time making your presentation more personal and from scratch. 

19. 10 Things your Audience Hates About your Presentation

Another custom presentation with icons-style illustrations about how to avoid cringe when making presentations. 

• Author:   Stinson

20. The Designer’s Guide to Startup Weekend

You will work hard all weekend long but you will also find new friends, mentors, and the chance to promote yourself. A pretty wholesome presentation with a custom design where the presenter shares her own experience in the world of startups.

• Author:  Iryna Nezhynska

That’s It!

These 20 presentations prove that PowerPoint is never out of date and it’s a great tool to deliver your message across. We hope you got inspired for your next presentation and make your audience fall in love with your concepts.

In the meantime, why not take a look at the related articles to get some more inspiration or grab a couple of freebies:

• [Freebies] 17 Really Good Sources For Free Vector Images For Commercial Use
• [Inspiration] 85 Really Good T-Shirt Design Ideas to Inspire You for Your Next Project
• [Insights] The 5 Top Online Tools for Custom YouTube Banners (and YouTube Thumbnails)

Share this article

You may also like ....

Illustration Inspiration

32 amazing children’s book illustrations for mega inspiration 32 amazing children’s book illustrations for mega inspiration.

By Ludmil Enchev

Graphic Design Inspiration

Small business website design: 40 real-life examples small business website design: 40 real-life examples.

30 Beautiful Mood Board Examples with Inspiring Aesthetics 30 Beautiful Mood Board Examples with Inspiring Aesthetics