Great PowerPoint Presentations

Master the art of making great presentations with PowerPoint. In this comprehensive guide, we cover five easy to follow steps to design and present like a pro.

This article is part of a series called How to Use PowerPoint (Ultimate Tutorial Guide).

Understanding the Importance of PowerPoint Presentations

Mention the terms public speaking or presentation, and you’re likely to evoke an emotional response from anyone nearby. That strong response is usually rooted in our personal horror stories, like an embarrassing slip-up in a presentation for a class, or a talk at work that fell flat. Giving a great PowerPoint presentation is a skill. And it’s one that anyone can build and improve upon.

Giving presentations can feel overwhelming. It’s hard to know where to start, even if you’re willing to put in the time. This tutorial can help:

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Becoming a motivational speaker or renowned presenter doesn’t have to be your main goal. You can become a proficient and effective speaker in a variety of contexts. You can learn a professional process that’ll help you make a great presentation and present like a pro. That’s why I’ve broken down the art of building a presentation into lists and actionable steps you can readily follow in this tutorial.

We combine technical skills in Microsoft PowerPoint with best practices for presenting information. This tutorial explains how to do a PowerPoint presentation step by step.

Step 1: Content Comes First

The first part of writing a successful PowerPoint-based presentation has nothing to do with PowerPoint. It’s all about the content that you’ll put inside of it.

You’re making a mistake if you start by looking at the design of your PowerPoint presentation or by making animations for your slides. Instead, prioritize writing the content for your presentation first. Write your content before you even open PowerPoint.

In summary, keep these two simple points in mind when you start writing the content for your presentation:

1. Bad. You start off creating a PowerPoint presentation by opening the app and choosing a theme and your favorite colors.
2. Good. Put yourself in your audience’s shoes. Decide what they should feel and know at the end of your presentation.

I use a simple note-taking app like Notes for Mac or Evernote to help me organize my thoughts. I also jot down my content ideas on a spare napkin or the back of a notebook. For this exercise, grab a piece of paper and follow each of the content-writing steps.

Remember: The point is that we decide on what we want to say before we begin saying it in PowerPoint.

Step 1. Write Down Your Presentation’s Goal

I’ve been guilty of throwing all my data or ideas into a PowerPoint file and seeing what it looks like when I’m finished. This directionless wandering is a surefire recipe for presentations that’ll bore your audience and lose their attention. That’s why it’s so important to set your presentation goal first.

Here are some examples of goal setting for a presentation:

• To educate the audience on the latest developments with the Swift programming language.

• To update my team on the progress of a major project at the company.

• To persuade the audience to use your product to grow their own freelance business.

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Before you start writing your presentation or pulling together all the data and visuals do this. Write the goal for your presentation on a piece of paper, or the app taking note of choice. Put it in front of you throughout the content writing process so you won’t lose track of your ultimate goal for your presentation.

Step 2. Define Your Audience

Who will you be speaking to? What do they already know about the topic at hand?

It seems so obvious, but many presenters use a one-size-fits all approach to sharing information. Instead, you’ve got to tailor your content to who will hear it and what they know about the topic beforehand.

A presentation about the future of blockchain should be different if I’m speaking to a room of PhD economists than it would be if I were presenting to a group of high school students. Tailoring your content to the audience helps them get the most from your presentation.

Do This: Describe your primary audience below the goal you wrote in step one. Write down what their level of familiarity with the topic is, and anything they might have in common.

Consider all the following when defining your audience:

• What do they know about the topic before attending your presentation?
• What do they know about you coming into the presentation? Your presentation could range from your daily colleagues to a complete group of strangers.
• Decide upon their expectations for the presentation. Are they coming to find a solution to a problem, learn something new, or to be entertained?

Best of all, you can create many versions of your presentation if your audience changes. Each time your audience changes, you can tweak the presentation to match.

Step 3. Set Your Key Presentation Points

We’ve defined the presentation’s goal and considered our audience. Now, it’s time to write a presentation outline that fits with both.

I used to blow off the idea of writing an outline for my presentations. I thought I had all the ideas and key points clearly defined in my own mind. Unfortunately, this is a false sense of clarity. We’re biased to understand our own ideas far better than anyone else is.

Below the audience we defined, start writing down the key supporting ideas for your presentation. Aim for four to five major points that’ll be the cornerstone of your presentation.

If I’m writing a persuasive speech each of the major bullet points will be key ideas that reinforce my goal. Again, tie everything you write back to that original goal.

Step 4. Build Your Supporting Points

Let’s keep working on that outline. We’ve identified the main points. It’s time to go one level deeper.

For each of our major ideas, let’s add a second level of detail. These are the supporting points for each of the major ideas, or basically the second level of your outline.

In many ways, the hard work is finished. We now have all the pieces to build a great PowerPoint presentation. We just need to assemble them.

Step 2: Add Your Content

At this point, you should have four key items written down. Now we’re ready to use them to start putting together our presentation. These key items are:

• The Presentation Goal. The driving force of why you’re presenting and what your audience should understand at the end.
• The Audience Defined. Who are you presenting to? What do they know coming into this presentation?
• The Outline. The road map for your presentation, the guideposts that keep us on track when designing and giving a presentation.
• The Support. The individual facts, ideas, and data that build the case for what you’ll share with your audience.

With that in hand, it’s now time to jump over to PowerPoint and start building your presentation. Let’s open PowerPoint and start working.

Step 1. Work With PowerPoint’s Outline View

So far, we’ve been building an outline on paper or in another app. But PowerPoint actually allows you to build a presentation from outline view. Take the outline you’ve written down on paper and start loading it into your PowerPoint presentation.

To switch to outline view, find the View tab on the PowerPoint ribbon and click on Outline View. On the left side of the window, click next to one of the white boxes to get started.

Press Control + Enter to add a second level of outline points. Type your outline points, and PowerPoint will populate the slides with your data.

Use the outline you wrote in the first half of this tutorial to build the content on your PowerPoint slides. Of course, you’ll want to rewrite what’s in your outline in a presentation-friendly way. For example, keep the bullet points short and succinct to hold your audience’s attention.

Step 2. Use Short Tips for Each Slide

We’ve all sat through enough presentations where the speaker read the contents of a presentation word-for-word. This is the fastest way to lose your audience’s attention. Bullet points shouldn’t be full sentences, pulled from your outline. They should be summaries of your ideas that you’ll elaborate on while speaking.

Step 3. Put Layouts in PowerPoint to Use

Layouts are the preset combination of elements like content boxes and placeholders for images and media. There are several choices to work with. When used well, they can make a good PowerPoint presentation great.

To choose a layout, find the Layout button on the Home tab of the PowerPoint ribbon. Click on the dropdown option to choose a different layout for a different arrangement of the content on your slides.

These layouts are different ways to adapt your content. Depending on the PowerPoint presentation theme you’re using, you should select a layout that gives you the elements that you want.

Step 3: Build the Look of Your PowerPoint Presentation

You’ll be much more confident if you know that your presentation’s theme looks great. PowerPoint has some built-in themes that are a good starting point. But there are much better alternatives that are unique.

Step 1. Work With a Custom PowerPoint Theme

My favorite resource right now for giving a PowerPoint presentation is Envato Elements. This is really an incredible, all-you-can-eat buffet of great looking PowerPoint presentation themes.

That access includes hundreds of PowerPoint templates that you can use. If you’re a subscriber, you can download an unlimited number of great PowerPoint presentation themes for your next big presentation.

Step 2. Change Themes and Styles for Your Presentation

To change your PowerPoint theme, navigate to the Design tab on PowerPoint’s ribbon. Click the drop-down arrow. Choose one of the thumbnails to change your PowerPoint theme to the best one for your presentation.

Using themes and adding your content goes hand-in-hand. As you change your theme, you might need to rework the content so that it appears correctly.

Step 4: Add Visualizations to Your Presentation

Visualizations are a great way to break up the monotony of bullet points in your PowerPoint presentation. A well-placed chart or stunning image can hold your audience’s attention or provide a visual representation of a fact.

Check out the tutorials below to learn about several key visualization techniques in PowerPoint.

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Step 5: Prepare in PowerPoint and Then Present

It’s finally showtime. All your hard work to write your content and package it into an attractive presentation is about to pay off.

Step 1. Prepare Your Speaker Notes

Since our slides don’t contain exactly what we’ll say while presenting, the Speaker Notes is where to place that information.

At the bottom of PowerPoint is a Notes button. Click it to open the speaker notes. This is a great place to type in and capture your cues or key speaking points for your presentation.

Step 2. Work With Presenter View in PowerPoint

Presentation mode is perfect for those times when you’ve connected your device to an external display. What you see on your own screen can be different than what your audience sees.

To enter this mode, check the Use Presenter View box on the Slide Show tab of PowerPoint’s ribbon.

When you enter the Slide Show view, you’ll have a different view on your own monitor, complete with the speaker notes below.

Quick PowerPoint Presentation Tips

Now that you know how to make and give great PowerPoint presentations for class or work, here are a few extra tips. These will help you nail down your presentation and leave a great impression on your audience.

1. Use Legible Fonts

The first tip is to use legible fonts. This will ensure that your audience can read the contents of your presentation without having to squint their eyes.

2. Make Eye Contact With Your Audience

Maintaining eye contact with your audience is a great way to establish a connection with them and keep them interested.

3. Be Careful With Colors

It goes without saying that your presentation should include your brand or company colors. But, be careful not to overdo it.

4. Embrace White Space

Ensure that there’s plenty of space between different elements on your slides. This will help them stand out more instead of making your slide appear cluttered.

5. Use Visual Aids

Finally, don’t be afraid of using visual aids to help present information and data in your presentation.

Find More Great PowerPoint Templates

Finding a great PowerPoint template isn’t hard once you know where to go. We’ve mentioned earlier that Envato Elements has thousands of great PowerPoint templates to choose from.

1. Sparrow - Creative Agency PowerPoint Template

The Sparrow is a creative and colorful PowerPoint template best suited for agencies or freelancers such as designers or artists.

2. Yura PowerPoint Template

Yura is a clean and minimal PowerPoint template.

3. Cleira - Elegant PowerPoint Template

The Cleira template is a perfect choice if you need to create a stylish and elegant presentation.

4. Mild - Vibrant PowerPoint Template

The Mild is a vibrant PowerPoint template.

5. Lekro PowerPoint Template

The Lekro is a professional PowerPoint template.

To see even more great PowerPoint templates, be sure to check out these roundups:

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Download Our Free eBook on Making Great Presentations

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Also, we’ve been building a library of PowerPoint and presentation skills here on Envato Tuts+. Check out more great PowerPoint tutorials to keep learning:

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