advance powerpoint presentation tutorial

• Get One: Tornado Alert Apps
• The Best Tech Gifts Under $100

Beyond the Basics in PowerPoint

These advanced features bring the Pow! to your presentation

• Brock University

In This Article

Jump to a Section

Insert Photos and Graphics

Add animations and transitions, embed music, narration, and timing, choose printing options, save time with macros and master slides, make presentations portable.

A deck of PowerPoint slides with standard formatting, minimal images, and basic transition effects is a passable visual presentation. But it's a conservative approach to sharing information visually. You can make presentations more appealing by employing advanced PowerPoint features.

Information in this article applies to PowerPoint 2019, 2016, 2013, and 2010 as well as PowerPoint for Mac and PowerPoint for Microsoft 365.

PowerPoint is well suited to the visual presentation of information. Your audience members get a different experience when they view slides summarizing key points instead of, for example, reading a white paper. So, take advantage of this fact by emphasizing images more than text. You can choose from your own photos, illustrations, and graphs, or online images.

If you're not used to thinking this way, try writing text for a slide and then finding an image to tell part or all of the same story.

You can also jazz up your presentations using animations . These fun special effects provide visual interest as audience members digest the information you've just discussed. Animations within a slide (for example, bullet points appearing one by one) help you avoid revealing information before you're ready to discuss it.

Did you know that you can embed music or play ambient sounds in the background to enhance your message? You can also add your narration to the presentation to ensure you make all your points or to prepare the presentation for upload to your website or YouTube channel. Finally, you can time the slides so they advance without you having to switch them manually, enabling you to focus on your own part of the presentation.

You can create hard copies of your slides for yourself or your audience. They can be used for a variety of purposes:

• Give you speaker notes to use while you present
• Provide a means for audience members to remember your points and take notes
• Give a co-worker an easy way to view your slides to offer comments

PowerPoint is optimized for on-screen viewing in Presentation Mode. However, you can choose one of the many printing options to print speaker notes or a variety of formats for audience notes.

In addition to the helpful features mentioned so far, PowerPoint includes some that can save you time. For example, you can create macros or your own design template complete with your company logo. Developing a template isn't as tricky as it sounds and PowerPoint excels at re-using content.

Presentations on the road can go wrong when an embedded sound or video file goes missing or the machine you're using doesn't have a modern version of PowerPoint loaded on it. Use PowerPoint's portability tools to pack your presentation for remote viewing, including PowerPoint Online and all the bells and whistles you included from your own desk.

Get the Latest Tech News Delivered Every Day

• Different Ways to View Slides in PowerPoint
• How to Lose an Audience and 10 Ways to Get Them Back
• How to Print PowerPoint Slides With Notes
• 10 Tips on Becoming a Better Presenter
• An Introduction to PowerPoint
• How to Do a Voiceover on PowerPoint
• How to Print PowerPoint Slides
• Converting PowerPoint Slides to Word Documents
• What Is an Animation in Presentation Software?
• The 10 Most Common PowerPoint Terms
• How to Place a Picture Inside a PowerPoint Shape
• Create a Simple PowerPoint Macro to Resize Photos
• PowerPoint Master Slide
• What Is Microsoft PowerPoint and How Do I Use It?
• How to Use Speaker Notes in PowerPoint
• 9 PowerPoint Presentation Tips for Students

PowerPoint for Windows training

Other versions

PowerPoint for Mac Help

Additional help

PowerPoint help

PowerPoint keyboard shortcuts

LinkedIn Learning

PowerPoint templates

Microsoft 365 templates

Accessible Microsoft 365 templates

Need more help?

Want more options.

Explore subscription benefits, browse training courses, learn how to secure your device, and more.

Microsoft 365 subscription benefits

Microsoft 365 training

Microsoft security

Accessibility center

Communities help you ask and answer questions, give feedback, and hear from experts with rich knowledge.

Ask the Microsoft Community

Microsoft Tech Community

Windows Insiders

Microsoft 365 Insiders

Find solutions to common problems or get help from a support agent.

Online support

Was this information helpful?

Thank you for your feedback.

15 PowerPoint Tutorials to Help You Master PowerPoint

• Share on Facebook
• Share on Twitter

By Iveta Pavlova

in How-To Tutorials

5 years ago

Viewed 20,513 times

Spread the word about this article:

Need PowerPoint Backgrounds? Read The Best Places to Find PowerPoint Backgrounds [+ Freebies]

PowerPoint is software for presentations that offers many opportunities for creativity. If you want to create visually appealing and engaging presentations, check out this collection of 15 beginner PowerPoint tutorials that will help you step up your game, no matter if you are a regular presenter or a beginner in the software.

In this selection of PowerPoint tutorials, we’ve included tutorials for beginners, intermediate and advanced users. Some are incredibly impressive and will teach you hacks that you never thought were possible in PowerPoint. Let’s begin!

*Last updated July 1st, 2022

2. Tips and Tricks for working with PowerPoint

Level: Intermediate / Advanced

A one-hour web session with PowerPoint guru Tess Ausman. In the video tutorial, she shares advanced tips and techniques for PowerPoint which will take your presentations to the next level. Animations, screencasts, and everything you need to know in order to use and master PowerPoint’s superpowers.

You may also want to check out these amazing  12 PowerPoint Presentation Tips .

3. How to add audio in PowerPoint?

Level: Beginners

PowerPoint is perfect for newbies and experienced presenters and it allows a lot of audio customization. Our guide shows you how to add audio to PowerPoint in a quick step-by-step guide. You will also see how to record yourself, to get the best results. All steps are explained with images, to ensure you understand the concept well. Adding audio is one of the first things you need to do to attract customers’ attention.

4. How to make photos 3D in PowerPoint?

It’s always a good idea to come up with interesting concepts. In this PowerPoint tutorial, you will learn how to use separate images and then add them to PowerPoint, to achieve a smooth 3D look. The video is quite long, so if you want to watch only the PowerPoint part, you can skip to 15:31.

5. How to collaborate in PowerPoint?

Level: Beginner / Intermediate 

Learning how to collaborate with your team is crucial. Fortunately, PowerPoint has advanced a lot over the years and nowadays it’s not hard to work together with your peers. There are many collaboration tutorials for PowerPoint but this one is extremely easy to apply.

6. How to Insert a GIF in PowerPoint?

Level: Beginner

GIFs are a very powerful method to deliver a message. They represent information in a more visual way. Our guide on how to insert GIFs into PowerPoint will help you insert simple animations and attract attention. On top of that, you will learn where you can find resources for inspiration. All steps are visualized for easy access.

7. How to Add Speaker Notes in PowerPoint?

Level: Intermediate

Speaker notes are crucial for all presenters. They let you memorize key phrases during the slides, and avoid any mishaps. In this PowerPoint video tutorial, you’ll learn not only how to add and show speaker notes, but also some of the reasons why people use them.

8. Microsoft PowerPoint Tutorial for Beginners Level 1

If you are a complete beginner to the software, we recommend to start off with a tutorial that covers the basics of working with PowerPoint. Jamie K. from Teacher’s Tech explains the basic functions and the interface options of the software and takes you through the process of creating a basic presentation.

9. Ten Powerful PowerPoint Tips

Level: Beginners / Intermediate

A video of PowerPoint hacks and tricks that will help you create a more appealing presentation design. Again created by Jamie K. from Teacher’s Tech, this video presents you to handy features in PowerPoint that reveal how to craft visually pleasing presentations more easily and quickly.

10. PowerPoint Slide Master tutorial – Placeholders & Basics

Working with Slide Master in PowerPoint requires you to be at least an intermediate user of the software, so we recommend you to check out the PowerPoint tutorials for beginners first. This great tutorial by Andrzej Pach introduces you to the Slide Master tool which will be really useful to you if you’d like to create custom presentation templates. His channel is full of useful videos, so we highly recommend you to check it out.

11. Three PowerPoint Hacks for Instant Improvement

Level: Advanced

A very insightful video tutorial by Leila Gharani who shares advanced hacks on how to instantly improve your presentations in PowerPoint. She talks about working with smart shapes, morph transitions, and advanced morph available in the newest version of PowerPoint. Every step is explained and the final result for your presentation is super impressive.

Need an amazing resume template? Take a look at these  Top Resume Powerpoint Templates to Help You Stand Out .

12. How To Make Videos in PowerPoint?

A tutorial by Michael Kinney who will teach you how to turn your PowerPoint slideshow into a narrated video. The tutorial assumes you are already familiar with the software and explains how to set up your mic, use the recording features in PowerPoint, and later on, export your presentation into a video.

13. Animated 3D Models in PowerPoint – Part 1, The Basics

Thanks to the evolving technologies, incorporation 3D objects in your PowerPoint presentation is now completely possible. The following video will introduce you to the basics of using 3D models in PowerPoint and is a part of a sequence, so if you feel impressed, you can check out the second video which will show you advanced tricks with 3D models in PowerPoint. The video tutorial is made by Lia from Spicy Presentations and for doing it, you will need to have the latest Microsoft Office 365.

You may also be interested in How to Add Audio to PowerPoint: The Quick Step-by-Step Guide

14. How To Create Parallax Effect PowerPoint Step-by-Step?

A video tutorial by One Skill who shows how to create a parallax effect in your PowerPoint presentation. The tutorial is suitable for users who are already familiar with the software and want to make their presentations more attractive and modern. This step-by-step narrated tutorial will help you get there easily!

15. 40 Best Animation Tutorials for PowerPoint

There are so many animation effects you can achieve with PowerPoint that they cannot possibly be gathered into one video tutorial. The YouTube channel The Teacher regularly uploads great PowePoint tutorials which can be achieved by users with at least intermediate knowledge of the software. In the video below, you will see previews of 40 great animation effects. If you like any, just look for it in the description of the video and head over the tutorial itself.

To wrap up,

PowerPoint is a software that offers a lot as long as you know how to use it right. We hope this collection of 15 PowerPoint tutorials was useful to you and helped you learn new tricks and tips. It certainly was useful to us! If you want to recommend PowerPoint tutorials that helped you master your skills, you are welcome to share them in the comments below.

You may also be interested in these related articles:

• The Best Free PowerPoint Templates to Download in 2022
• 35+ Free Infographic PowerPoint Templates to Power Your Presentations
• 50 Free Cartoon PowerPoint Templates with Characters & Illustrations

Add some character to your visuals

Cartoon Characters, Design Bundles, Illustrations, Backgrounds and more...

Like us on Facebook

Subscribe to our newsletter

Be the first to know what’s new in the world of graphic design and illustrations.

• [email protected]

Browse High Quality Vector Graphics

E.g.: businessman, lion, girl…

Related Articles

How to use google slides offline and work anywhere, 15 keynote tutorials to make sublime presentations [2022], how to create vector watercolor texture and elements in adobe illustrator, how to add fonts to google slides [quick guide], top 16 tutorials to learn adobe character animator [2022], 500+ free and paid powerpoint infographic templates:, enjoyed this article.

Don’t forget to share!

• Comments (0)

Iveta Pavlova

Iveta is a passionate writer at GraphicMama who has been writing for the brand ever since the blog was launched. She keeps her focus on inspiring people and giving insight on topics like graphic design, illustrations, education, business, marketing, and more.

Thousands of vector graphics for your projects.

Hey! You made it all the way to the bottom!

Here are some other articles we think you may like:

How-To Tutorials

Creating adobe character animator puppet from static character: the basics.

by Iveta Pavlova

by Nikolay Kaloyanov

How to Get Started with PowerPoint + Guide and Resources

by Al Boicheva

Looking for Design Bundles or Cartoon Characters?

A source of high-quality vector graphics offering a huge variety of premade character designs, graphic design bundles, Adobe Character Animator puppets, and more.

Advanced PowerPoint Presentation Tips and Hacks

Many have a love-hate relationship with Microsoft’s PowerPoint. While super flexible, the tool can also be manual, tedious, and all-consuming, especially for the uninitiated. Authored by a former management consultant and finance expert, this article will help every user—from the beginner to the advanced operator—smooth out some of their points of friction and become an expert-level user of the application.

By Melissa Lin

Melissa has worked in ECM, tech startups, and management consulting, advising Fortune 500 companies across multiple sectors.

Key Highlights

• Keep Your Presentations Simple: Minimize cluttered, distracting slide-decks that are overly saturated with content; they will lose or confuse your audience more often than not.
• Seek to Communicate One Takeaway per Slide: Streamline your message and its supporting content to one key takeaway per slide. Much more tends to reduce engagement, comprehension, and retention by your audience (think "diminishing economies of content").
• Leverage Illustrations in Place of Text: Prose-heavy presentations tend to induce content fatigue, which again induces a loss of engagement on the part of your audience. Relevant, high-quality images have proven themselves useful in maintaining engagement, especially for longer presentations.
• Understand That Formatting Is King: Clean, simple and consistent formatting, complete with discernible themes, colors, fonts, shapes and sizes perform wonders where creating a polished, professional, and finished product is concerned.
• Customize Your Quick Access Toolbar: The Quick Access Toolbar (QAT) is a customizable toolbar that sits above the PowerPoint ribbon, and where one can add frequently used commands. Effective use of the toolbar is a PowerPoint trick that eases friction for power users and saves hours in the long run.
• Use PowerPoint Shortcuts in Place of Your Mouse: Understand the functions that you use most frequently and memorize their keyboard shortcuts. This PowerPoint hack will cut hours of manual work from your PowerPoint experience.
• Create Your Own Go-to Templates: Using the "Slide Master" view in PowerPoint, you can create personal, pre-formatted, and pre-fabricated templates, complete with font choices, font sizes, color schemes, and more, that will minimize your formatting load in the "polishing" phase of your presentation.
• Work alongside you as a thought partner to design, create, and deliver a polished and professional PowerPoint presentation/pitch ahead of your meeting.
• Draft and clean up the content (literary) that will be featured in your slide deck, including your personal speaking points and audience takeaways.
• Create the financials, models, infographics, and outputs that will be featured in your slide deck.
• Assist you with dry-runs, rehearsals, and other preparation assistance ahead of the presentation date, with expert feedback and tips regarding performance.

Love It or Hate It…

Love it or hate it, PowerPoint is ubiquitous when it comes to formal presentations. Perhaps you are pitching a new proposal. Or perhaps you’ve spent weeks number-crunching or conducting intensive research and it’s time to communicate your findings to the relevant stakeholders. Whatever your purpose, PowerPoint is arguably one of the most important components of your success.

When I was a management consultant I lived in Microsoft Excel and PowerPoint, toggling between the two programs every day. I loved that PowerPoint’s flexibility allowed me to illuminate and transform data into a story—a story of financials, an industry’s growth trajectory, or recommendations for restructuring a business process. However, especially as I was just starting out, this flexibility often proved to be a double-edged sword. It was frustrating how tedious slide design could be, and how long it took to aesthetically perfect a slide. I often found myself choosing between effective slides that took hours to create and a more basic deck that was quick to produce but less effective in communicating the data and the message. It wasn’t until I mastered some essential PowerPoint tips and tricks that I no longer experienced this dilemma.

This article showcases a selection of advanced PowerPoint hacks and presentation tips and tricks that will enable you to use the tool with ease. It will hopefully also prevent you from sacrificing effective messaging in an effort to save time. While many PowerPoint articles provide qualitative advice around effectively delivering a message, this piece focuses on the technical components of how to make an advanced PowerPoint presentation. It utilizes functionalities and commands in Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2016 and 365 for PC. Let’s get started.

The Basics of Creating Effective PowerPoint Presentations

Though this article is designed for users with more advanced PowerPoint skills, it may be useful to kick off with a refresher of some basic do’s and don’ts for creating effective PowerPoint presentations. Subsequently, we may then delve into some of the nitty-gritty of PowerPoint’s more advanced features. Throughout my career, the following four rules have served me well:

Rule 1 - Keep Your Deck as Simple as Possible: Likely the most important PowerPoint rule, “less is always more” with great presentations. Avoid clutter; minimize flashy, complex slides with distracting clipart in motion; and always focus on delivering a clear and succinct message.

Rule 2 - Keep Each Slide to Just One Key Takeaway: Resist the temptation to throw the kitchen sink at your audience, in general, but especially on a per-slide basis. You will hold your audience’s attention far more easily and leave them with more tangible, digestible takeaways simply by limiting the scope of your content to just one key point per slide.

Rule 3 - Use Simple, High-Quality Graphics Often and in Place of Words: As an addendum to Rule 1, too many words on a page tend to be both tedious and a bore for your audience, often resulting in a loss of focus, or “content fatigue,” during your presentation. GIFs, graphs, charts, and other informative and relevant illustrations tend to be great ways to break up tedium and add dimension to your flow.

Rule 4 - Clean and Simple Formatting Will Take You Far: Clean bullet points, consistent color themes, soft font styles, and legible font sizes all go the distance in leaving a great, professional impression on your audience as you present a polished finished product. Calibri (font), in metallic grey (primary color), punctuated by sky-blues (secondary color) have worked wonders for me over my career. Feel free to adopt them.

Customizing the Quick Access Toolbar

The first step to becoming a PowerPoint expert is building your Quick Access Toolbar. It’s a customizable toolbar sitting above the ribbon, where you can add your favorite and most frequently used commands. Invest five minutes to set it up, and you won’t regret it—it’ll pay dividends each time you use PowerPoint thereafter. Here’s a quick lay of the land before we delve into the logistics:

To customize your toolbar’s functionality and ordering according to your preference, simply click the white downwards-facing arrow above your ribbon. Then click “More Commands” → Choose Commands from “All Commands” → Select and add your favorite commands. If you want to remove any commands, simply select the command and hit “Remove.”

My “must-haves” for the ultimate quick access toolbar (QAT):

Align: The alignment tool is hands-down my favorite tool in PowerPoint. Bypass the futile, manual effort and instead highlight the shapes you want to align, and choose which direction to align them. You can align objects to the middle, right, left, top, and bottom of each other. Keep in mind that the positions of the objects are all relative to each other.

If you want to use this tool outside of your QAT: Highlight your desired objects → Format tab in the ribbon → Click Align → Select your preferred alignment direction → The objects will be aligned.

Distribute: If you have multiple objects or shapes that you want to make equidistant from each other, this tool will be your new best friend. Before distributing objects, it’s best to first align them. Then, to distribute, simply highlight the objects you want to distribute, and select “distribute horizontally” or “distribute vertically.”

If you want to use this tool outside of your QAT: Highlight your desired objects → Format tab in the ribbon → Click Align → Select Distribute Horizontally or Distribute Vertically → The objects will be distributed.

Format painter: Allows you to copy the formatting from one object and apply it to another one. It is essentially copying and pasting , but for formatting and not content.

• One click on format painter: Applies the formatting from the original object to the next object you select/click on.
• Two clicks on format painter: Locks in the format painter. After double-clicking, any object you select will convert to the formatting of the first object. To unlock format painter, click on any white space on the slide (not an object).

If you want to use this tool outside of your QAT: Select the object you want to mimic → Click Format Painter once or twice in the Home tab in the ribbon → Click on the object you want to change → The formatting changes will be applied.

Rotate: As the name implies, this feature enables you to rotate objects, in increments of 90 or 180 degrees. You can rotate a text box, shape, WordArt, or picture. This includes rotations to the right 90 degrees, to the left 90 degrees, vertically, and horizontally.

If you want to use this tool outside of your QAT: Highlight your desired object(s) → Format tab in the ribbon → Click Rotate → Select your preferred rotation option → The objects will be rotated.

Life-changing PowerPoint Keyboard Shortcuts

You might think I’m exaggerating, but once you realize you don’t have to manually perform these actions, you won’t look back. Generally, utilizing PowerPoint does not require memorizing as many hot keys as Excel does , but there are a few that you should be aware of.

Easily change the order and indent level of bulleted text in text boxes:

• Change the order of bulleted text in text boxes: ALT + SHIFT + Up/Down Arrow Key
• Change the indent level of bulleted text in text boxes: ALT + SHIFT + Right/Left Arrow Key

Resize an object while keeping them regular and in proportion:

• Hold SHIFT while you’re resizing an object with your pointer/mouse

Micro-nudges (small nudges for your objects):

• Select the object and hold CTRL + Up/Down/Right/Left Arrow Key to move it

Duplicate your shape or object without copy & paste:

• CTRL + Drag the shape with your pointer/mouse

Ensure that your lines are actually straight:

• For vertical lines: Insert the shape → Right click → Format Shape → Size & Properties → Set “Height” to “0” → Perfectly straight line
• For horizontal lines: Insert the shape → Right click → Format Shape → Size & Properties → Set “Width” to “0” → Perfectly straight line

Transform a number into a footnote superscript:

• Type in the number of the footnote (e.g., 1, 2, 3) → Highlight the number → Hold CTRL + SHIFT + the equal sign (=) → Your number will now be a footnote superscript

Adjust the case of your text by toggling between text cases (lowercase, title case and all caps):

• Highlight the desired words and use the SHIFT + F3 shortcut. Each time you hit F3, the highlighted text will change to all lowercase, all caps, or title-style where only the first letter of a word is capitalized.

PowerPoint Design Tips for Common, Frustrating Situations

If you’ve worked in PowerPoint consistently, you’ve likely encountered the following conundrums. Instead of spending an unnecessary 15-30 minutes Googling the issue for a workaround, here’s how to navigate the situation every time:

How to convert text to SmartArt

Example Situation: I’ve got a list of boring bullets and I need inspiration to make them more polished.

Solution: Leverage the “Convert to SmartArt” tool.

Select the text box with the bullets → Under “Home” in the ribbon, Select “Convert to SmartArt” → Hover over different SmartArt options to see your bullets transformed → Select whichever SmartArt strikes your fancy, and continue to edit from there

How to Resize Multiple Objects/Shapes at Once

Example Situation: I used multiple shapes/images in the slide and I want to change their collective size without messing up the proportions.

First, group all the objects together. To group, highlight all objects and either right click → Group, or highlight and hit ALT + G.

Then, adjust the size with your mouse while holding SHIFT to keep the proportion. This will help you resize and fit multiple objects without distorting the original proportions and shapes.

How to Identify and Match Exact Colors

Example Situation: You need to utilize a specific, custom color but you can’t seem to find it in the color palette.

Solution: The eyedropper tool quickly identifies the exact color you are looking to match, and applies it to the text or object you are trying to change. While format painter can be helpful for applying the exact same formatting (size, coloring, etc.) from one object to another, sometimes you might only be looking to apply the same color. In these cases, the eyedropper tool is very helpful.

A common use case for this tool is for pitch decks. If you are looking to match the theme of the deck to the potential client/partner’s logo, the eyedropper tool can prove invaluable.

• Select the text box you want to change → Click on the coloring format → Select the eyedropper tool → Using the eyedropper tool, hover over the color you want to mimic → When the color’s identification appears, click the color you want

How to Leverage Arrows with Elbow Connectors

Example Situation: I’m trying to draw arrows from one shape to another, but the arrows are crooked and look unprofessional.

Solution: Use the arrows with an elbow connector (90-degree angles). They automatically snap to the center of an object and can be formatted in different colors and sizes. These are especially helpful when building organizational charts.

• Go to the Insert ribbon → Insert a shape → Under the “Lines” category, select the arrows with elbow connectors → Once selected, use the arrow to connect the center of one shape to the center of another shape → Repeat until completion

How to Fit Text into a Shape

Example Situation: I’m typing a text label into a shape, but the text doesn’t fit and breaks the word into two lines.

Solution: There are two ways to go about it:

• Option 1: Right-click the shape → “format the shape” → Change the text margins to “0” from the left, and “0” from the right. Nine times out of ten, this will solve your issue.
• Option 2: Forget about dealing with the original shape. Instead, insert a text box over the original shape (text box should use a transparent background) and type directly into the text box. The text will show up over the shape, but nobody will know it was a manual workaround.

How to Remove the Background of a Picture

Example Situation: I used an image from the web in a slide and I want to change the background image color but can’t figure out how to do it.

Solution: This technique is most effective when used on images with high contrast.

• First, you must remove the original background color of the image. Click on the image you want to change → Select the “Format” tab in the ribbon → Click “Remove Background” → Fix any portions that were not perfectly removed → Click outside the image when you’re ready
• Next, you will want to add in the new background color of the image. As you can see, the perfect execution of this does require a steady hand (that I clearly do not quite have). Still, it’s a helpful trick to have in your back pocket.

How to Convert a Table to Text Boxes

Example Situation: You want to convert a datatable into different formatting on another slide, but you don’t want to manually type the numbers in and risk a mistake.

Solution: Break your table into multiple text boxes and objects, which saves you the trouble of retyping the data and will be easier to manipulate

• Copy the entire table → Paste special (paste as picture enhanced metafile) → Ungroup it → Answer “yes” to the dialog box → Ungroup it again → Answer “yes” again.
• Voila, now your table has been broken into text boxes and shapes. You can now copy and paste the data you need into another slide and re-format as you like.

How to Make a Table’s Rows or Columns the Same Size

Example Situation: You’ve created and filled a table with data, but the size of some rows or columns do not match the others. Your OCD starts to kick in but you can’t figure out how to get them to match perfectly.

Solution: Use the “Distribute Rows” and “Distribute Columns” tools.

• Select the entire data table → “Layout” tab in the Ribbon → Click “Distribute Rows” and “Distribute columns.”

Other PowerPoint Features and Best Practices

Create custom deck templates using Slide Master, which can be found under the “View” tab in the ribbon. Slide Master allows you to quickly modify the slide design in your presentation. You can either customize the slide master, which will affect every slide in the presentation, or you can modify individual slide layouts, which will change any slides using those layouts.

Rely less on your eyesight when moving objects around with the Guides or Gridlines view. First, you should adjust your settings to utilize the “Snap-to-Grid” function. Here’s how to do so: “View” tab → Click on the “Grid Settings” next to the word “Show” → Enable “Snap objects to grid. If you’d like to view the actual guides or gridlines, you can select these options under the “View” tab in the ribbon; they can easily be turned on and off. Please note that you can move guides around, while gridlines are set.

Link a chart from your Excel workbook to your PowerPoint presentation to enable dynamic updating of numbers.

• When your chart is ready in Excel, copy the chart → Toggle to PowerPoint → In the “Home” tab in the ribbon, click “Paste” → Select “Paste Special” → Select “Paste Link” and “Microsoft Excel Chart Object” → Now when you update the numbers in Excel, the chart in PowerPoint will update dynamically. This feature works best when both programs are open in tandem.
• If you close the Excel document and then update the figures in the table, remember to go back to your PowerPoint chart, right-click the chart, and select “Update link” to ensure that the data is refreshed.

On busy slides crowded with data, visually highlight your main takeaway at the bottom. A rectangular box (as shown below) is common.

Remember to include keys with your graphs and charts to help orient your audience.

Slide Templates and Presentation Graphics for Common Concepts

Have you ever felt déjà vu when designing a new PowerPoint deck? It’s probably because we often create new slides to convey similar concepts, even if the content is different—be it a process, progress, or an organizational chart. At the end of the day, it makes sense to reuse a slide structure even if the actual content refreshes. To communicate these common concepts, many of the largest consulting firms repeatedly utilize the following slide components:

Project Schedule: Gantt Chart

Organizational Structure: Organizational chart

Process: Arrows leading into one another

Indicating the degree to which a particular item meets a criterion: Harvey Balls

Final Thoughts

Thus, As I began, so shall I finish. PowerPoint presentations don’t have to be painful. Like most personal and professional skills, practice, consistency, and attention will get you most of the way there. Once you become familiar with the application as a powerful productivity and storytelling tool, gain comfort with its nuances and logic/flow, and, dare I say, begin to leverage this article as a how-to companion, you might actually find yourself beginning to enjoy building PowerPoint presentations as you transition toward mastering them.

In the interim, if you are interested in reviewing some top consulting presentations that put a lot of my content into practice, feel free to browse 30 McKinsey presentations and a mix of Mckinsey, Boston Consulting Group and The Parthenon Group decks .

With that, happy building!

Understanding the basics

How do i customize the quick access toolbar in powerpoint.

• Click the white downward-facing arrow above your ribbon; 2. Click “More Commands”; 3. Choose Commands from “All Commands”; 4. Select and add your favorite commands; 5. If you want to remove any commands, simply select the command and hit “Remove.”

What makes for an effective PowerPoint presentation?

Adhere to the following: (1) Err toward simplicity, in message and illustration; (2) Limit the use of prose (bullets are more succinct); (3) Use high-quality illustrations in place of text; (4) Use video or audio; and (5) Be sure you have a clear objective, point, and/or use-case for the end output.

How do I link an Excel chart to PowerPoint?

• Copy your Excel chart; 2. In PowerPoint’s “Home” tab, click “Paste”; 3. Select “Paste Special”; 4. Select “Paste Link” and “Microsoft Excel Chart Object” → The numbers are dynamic; 5. If you close Excel and then update the raw data, right click the PowerPoint chart, and select “Update link” to refresh the data.
• BestPractices

World-class articles, delivered weekly.

By entering your email, you are agreeing to our privacy policy .

Toptal Finance Experts

• Blockchain Consultants
• Business Management Consultants
• Business Plan Consultants
• Business Process Optimization Consultants
• Certified Public Accountants (CPA)
• Economic Development Consultants
• Equity Research Analysts
• Excel Experts
• Financial Benchmarking Consultants
• Financial Forecasting Experts
• Financial Modeling Consultants
• Financial Writers
• Fintech Consultants
• FP&A Consultants
• Fractional CFOs
• Fundraising Consultants
• FX Consultants
• Growth Strategy Consultants
• Integrated Business Planning Consultants
• Interim CFOs
• Investment Managers
• Investment Thesis Consultants
• Investor Relations Consultants
• M&A Consultants
• Market Sizing Experts
• Pitch Deck Consultants
• Private Equity Consultants
• Procurement Consultants
• Profitability Analysis Experts
• Real Estate Experts
• Restructuring Consultants
• Risk Management Consultants
• Small Business Consultants
• Supply Chain Management Consultants
• Valuation Specialists
• Venture Capital Consultants
• Virtual CFOs
• Xero Experts
• View More Freelance Finance Experts

Join the Toptal ® community.

Deep Dive: Learn about Slide Master in PowerPoint - A Tutorial (1/2)

About this lesson, unlock the power of powerpoint master slides.

Learn how Master Slides drives the look and feel of EVERY PowerPoint slide deck.

What is the PowerPoint Slide Master?

It is hidden inside the menus, but once unlocked we will show you all the fundamental components and how they impact the overall presentation design.

Power Slide Master is the Key in ALL Versions of PowerPoint

Windows, Mac OS, old and new versions of PowerPoint.  This mode has been there from the beginning, and our tutorial will explain how and why these tools can improve your presentation and SAVE YOU TIME!

Tutorial One and Two

This is a deep dive into making master slides work for you. This is not a step by step guide, but a deep dive to teach you how to UNDERSTAND master slides and make them work for you. You will master Slide Master!

This is the first of two training videos on Master Slides. The second part can be found here .

Content with video timestamps:

• Intro: (0:00)
• Assumptions and Training Goals (1:24)
• Understanding the Elements of Master Slides (2:08)
• Relationship of Parent and Child Master Slides (5:59)
• Starting Off inside of Master Slide View (6:56)
• Insert Logo for “All” Slides (7:11)
• Where are Master Slide Logos Located? (9:11)
• Why do some master slides not show logos and images? (9:57)
• Sections and Master Slides (11:01)
• Scenario 2 – Change fonts, placeholder locations, colors (12:26)
• Scenario 3 – Mass updates of bullet animation and slide transitions (16:46)
• Scenario 4 – Creating from Scratch – a preview (19:31)
• Wrap Up (21:35)

Subject Microsoft PowerPoint

Software Compatibility All Versions of PowerPoint

Level Advanced

Course Completed Complete

PDF Files DOWNLOAD THE LESSON MATERIALS

TRAINING SERIES VIEW ALL

Related Videos

Remember to subscribe to our YouTube channel by clicking the AUTO SUBSCRIBE! button below

Subscriptions help us create more free video training for YOU!

Training Class Video Transcript “Learn about Slide Master in PowerPoint – A Tutorial”

(00:07): You want to be in control of PowerPoint. You want to get deep inside to control all the inner workings of PowerPoint, the color schemes, the backgrounds, the defaults images, and the transitions. All this magic happens in the hidden master slide mode. In this power advance training session. I’m going to explain how master slides interact with the slide layout and the individual slides change one element on the master slide and magic flows through all the resulting slides. Take control of PowerPoint and save time with master slide, power moves. Stay tuned and get powered up

(00:54): MUSIC

(01:01): This is our slide presentation that I will be operating on to demonstrate our deep dive into master slides. What you see is not an outstanding example of what a presentation should look like. It has issues, and we’ll fix some of these along the way. Maybe not all, but some as I get started, it’s good to know that slide masters have been part of PowerPoint from day one and can be applied to any version that you might be running. And I’m not expecting you to be a graphic designer. We’re going to work with the tools that Microsoft gives us to create solid presentations. Our training goals are not just to show you keystrokes, but to help you truly understand what master slides are all about. Once you’re grounded in the concept, then you can use your imagination to do so much more. And then once you have the understanding of the little concepts, we’ll be able to run through four scenarios to reinforce the concepts. In reality, these are the elements that you need to understand, but you’re not gonna understand them by just looking at them words on this page instead, let’s demonstrate them.

(02:20): Okay.

(02:21): Here are the components of the master slides. The slide is the easiest to understand. It is the individual page that you create in PowerPoint. And what is displayed when you run an on-screen presentation, the next element are called layouts. Each slide originates from a slide layout, which instructs, where to put each of the placeholder objects on the slide, placeholders are things like the title or the footers or the text box. And this specific slide example is based on the two content layout. The next element is slide collections in any PowerPoint presentation. There is a collection of the individual slides and the totality makes up the slide collection next to the design template, which controls the color schemes, the fonts, the fancy backgrounds, and more design templates are applied to the slide collection, which then flows all the way back to the individual slides. As a side note, there’s also a grouping called sections.

(03:36): You can highlight a subset of slides in the slide collection, right? Click on the group and create them as a section. And then you can apply a design template to just that section within the slide collection. Also note that the slide collection is really more than just a grouping of slides. Instead, let’s consider it a view. The design template is really being applied to the slide layouts and not the view of the slide collection and what controls the design template. The master slides. Oops, not really. While the design template is based on the master slides. They are just a mechanism to apply them to the layouts. And once applied, if you want to make changes to the whole presentation, you change the master slides and that is immediately updating the layout. Wow, that’s a lot going on. Let’s summarize this in a simpler term. Design templates are collected from slide masters. They provide a way to apply the master slide formatting to a presentation. So the basic user doesn’t need to know about the master slides, but you’re not a basic user, which is why you’re watching our training session. Slide masters are a collection of pre-formatted slide layouts, lots of layouts, like our two-column layout and each layout is individually formatted for reuse each slide originates from the slide layout. So we can apply mass changes at the master slide, and it will flow through the layout and onto our individual slides in this cascading fashion.

(05:34): What does slide masters control? I’m not going to read through this list, but basically the masters slide controls everything in your presentation. And I mean, everything. We are about to put this into action by demonstrating how to change almost everything listed here.

(05:56): But

(05:56): Before we do that, I have one more concept to share. The slide master group will always have a parent. Changes to the parent will flow down to all the children layouts. This is important. If you want to change the background color, you don’t want to have to touch all the individual slide. Instead change the parent with the parent. You can apply it at the top and it will flow down to the children based on the hierarchy. You can always override the flow farther down the chain by editing a specific child layout. Okay, enough chalk board talk, let’s get going and make it happen. I’m going to work through four different scenarios to highlight the different aspects and implications of this slide. Master our first scenario. We’ll see how changes flow through the presentation and why sometimes they don’t flow. Let’s go, let’s get started. We need to switch out of the standard slide view to the slide master view. We’re going to click on view and then we’re gonna go over and click on slide master. On the left side of this screen are our layouts. And at the very top is the parent slide. I’m going to make this a little bigger so we can see how the parent is out dented and all the children layouts are down below.

(07:27): Okay. one of our first task of inserting a logo, we have to make sure that we’re on the parent slide. Then we’ll go to insert pictures and we’ll choose something from my local computer. We’ll choose a power up logo. I’ll click on this when I click on OK. And insert, it’s going to drop it in the middle of our parents slide. You’ll see it’s showing on the left side of all our children. This particular image is a little too large. Oops. We flipped it over. Let’s slide it back down and flip it right side back up. We can then position. It is still a bit too big. So I’m going to make it just a touch smaller and get it exactly where I want on the parent slide. Once again, know, that make the changes. It shows up on the children’s lives down below.

(08:09): It’s a little more positioning and we should be good to go. Take a look at the logo on the parent does show up on many of the children below, but not all of them. And we’re going to examine why it’s not on our master title slide the second from the top. But hold on for a moment, let’s go into the slide master and exit out of this mode. So we’ll do slide master. We’ll close the master view. And now as we scroll up and down, we can see sure enough that the logo has been dropped into our existing presentation on almost all of the slides. But I do have a word of warning while the logo looked great on our title slide, note that in some of our presentation farther down, it does collide with our existing graphics. So if you do not create your masters slide from the beginning, you need to at least go back and review to see if any elements that you added in are not going to conflict with the existing slide. Since we’re in the existing slide management mode, we should be able to fix that easily. Wait, wait, wait. I can’t seem to click it. Notes I can click other items, but that is unclickable. Let’s see where we can get to it. Maybe it’s hiding back on the background. So we’ll go to design. Let’s go to format background, and we go there. Well, it’s still not clickable. Everything else is, but not that.

(09:39): So the lesson here is that any item added to the slide master are not touchable in the regular standard views. We’d have to go back into the layout and make changes at the masters slide level, but there’s still that mystery. Why do some of our slides have the logo and some do not have the logo. It’s a hard to understand what’s going on. So back to the slide master view, we’ll click on view and view. We’ll click on slide master. And we look at this live master. I’m going to go up to the parent when we click on the parent and look on the background. Notice that hide background graphics is grayed out. We can’t control that, but if we go into the title layout, you’ll see that is hiding the background. If I click on that and click it back off, we’ll see that the icon logo shows back up.

(10:36): So the answer is, is that specific layout has HIDE background graphics turned on, Mystery solved. Here’s a tip. Remember how we saw the logo conflicted with some of our individual slides. You might elect to find the layout. that is called a blank slide. And for that particular layout, tell it the hide, the background. I’m going to show you a second reason why the logo did not appear in all of our slides. There is this concept of sections, which I described earlier, and you can see here, I’ve actually created a collection of flies that fall under the scenarios. As a separate section. Once a section is created, it then has his own set of parent and children. Masters slides. Let’s take a look. If I scroll up to the very top, you’ll see the number one, which is applied to the first section. When I go farther down, I’m going to have a second set of parent and children.

(11:41): That is family number two. And it is that family that is applied to the section in our presentation, which is why we no longer see the logo watches change the color for this particular number two family. Once this changed, I’m going to close the master view. And once it’s closed, we can then scroll through our slide sorter. And you’ll see that that specific section jumps out that scenario section is now blue. So we’ve now learned another reason why things don’t always follow the single parent because you can have multiple families once you start to use sections within PowerPoint.

(12:25): Okay.

(12:26): We just finished with our first example, let’s switch to scenario number two, where we’re going to remodel an existing presentation. In this scenario, we’re going to actually remodel an existing presentation. We’re going to make changes to like where the titles are, the locations, formats, fonts, and along the way, we’re going to cover some issues, including how much time it takes and the impact of one change rippling through the presentation. So to do this, we’ve now switched back over into the slide master view of our same presentation. And I’m going to work on just one particular layout, not the whole presentation, just the layout of the two contents. So for this specific layout, we’re going to change the title. I do not like all caps. Let’s go into home and choose font. And from there, we’ll make the change from all caps to small caps. One of my favorites, we’ll also go in and see that we can make changes to the font style.

(13:25): We’re going to change it to bold. And along the way, we’re also going to change the color just so we can see this happening. I’m not saying this is a great looking design, but I want you to be able to visually see the changes as they flow through once I click on, okay. We are then through with title and can start to work on the two content placeholders as we go through here, making alterations. I want to point out how laborious this can become, where we’re now working at the slide layout level, which means that if we have multiple layouts, we’d have to make these changes at each level. It is possible that we want this to flow through the whole presentation. We’ve not be working on the layout level, but actually at the parent level. So you can see here that we’ve done some alterations.

(14:13): We did some and underlining. We made some color changes and we’re not going to copy that format to the second content window. Once that change is made, we can then go down and I want to show how we can impact each of the different levels. It’s important to recognize that our slide layouts have different levels for us to format so we can have different rules apply to all five levels here. I’m going to go in there and once again, make a change to the color just so we can see it. It is not a pretty look. And once we have the color change, we’re going to go in and fix the indentation just for the second level. Indentation and margins is a complicated topic itself. And we have covered that in a separate YouTube video. We can go in there in addition to making the margin changes and we can change the bullet type just for the second level on just a specific to content layout.

(15:12): I’m going to copy this across using the format painter, the format painter only works on the text. So I will have to go back and make the change to the bullet to match the left side of the screen. My next alteration has to do with the title area. It is a two line title area, and I try to keep all my titles to a single line. So it does not waste space. I’m going to make that smaller and then bring the two content items up taller so that it will flow through all of my two content layouts. Okay, let’s see this in action. We’re going to exit out of the slide master mode and take a look.

(15:53): So I’m going to scroll up to my two content slides in my presentation and we’ll see my wacky formatting, but it is very visible on how it touched only the two slide content slides. The customization was work, but you now see the dividends. It pays as it flows through a complete presentation and to drive home the point, let me actually add a new slide based off the two content layout you can see now that it followed all the formatting that we did earlier as it is applied, not only to existing slides, but all futures slides on that specific layout.

(16:38): At this point, your mind should be racing with the possibilities of how this is going to change the way you work with PowerPoint. Okay. Let’s switch to scenario three to where we can automate the use of bullet animations and transitions. Let’s go to once again to our two slide content and see about how we animate the bullets. Basically the way that they appear on the screen, I’m going to highlight them of the bullets. I’ll choose the animation. And just so we can see it happen is not one of my favorites, but we’re going to choose loading and you’ll see that they all floated in. If you look carefully, they float in with a single click and you’ll see the number one listed to each of the individual lines. I want to actually have them show up with each click. So I’m going to highlight the second level.

(17:22): Once I go over there, we can do the dropdown list and we’ll choose with on click instantly. All the bullet line numbers are numbered. One through five, meaning that they will advance. Only once you click within the presentation, let’s repeat this for the second content column for those bullet points. This time, we’re going to go ahead and choose a different format of just letting them wipe to so we can see the difference here. And we’ll make those also needing a click to show on the screen. Okay, let’s test this out. We’re going to go to slide master. We’re going to close the master view and we’re going to start the presentation from this page only. And once it fires up, we’ll see that I have to click, click, click through each of the bullet points. It’s going to happen on both the left column and the right column with lots of clicks.

(18:17): But if that’s what you wanted, younow got it on every single two content layouts, but in our quest to automate our presentation, we’re not stopping there. Let’s go back to the slide master view and use the same automation technique to work with our transitions. This is what happens when you go from slide to slide, I’m going to click on the slide master parent this time so we can apply it to everything. We’ll go to transitions. We have lots of choices. I want to show one. That will be obvious, not my favorite, but one that’s obvious. And there we’ll click on the dissolve choice before we test it out. I want to show you something subtle still on this slide master view. If we look at the very top parent, you see this little star that indicates that we have a transition applied to the whole presentation.

(19:07): Now let’s go and start the presentation from the beginning. And because we worked at the parent, we see that that slide transition happens with every single slide. Ashley one-click fixes everything throughout we’ve come a long way. And for the most part, we have been renovating existing presentations, but there may be scenarios where you want to create it from scratch. This is a scenario for, I am not going to go through every single steps because we have a completely separate YouTube video that walks through working with a blank screen and creating the whole presentation. Now, one of the items that we have to deal with is providing a unique look to our presentation. And I will show you in this tool, a technique to use office 365 to create, look that no one else has. This is truly cool. I will also go through and show you some of the deeper details that go beyond what we covered today with that said, the other technique that you’re going to need to learn, how to do is how to save this as a theme and as a template so that you can share with others. Go ahead and look on our YouTube channel to see this cool. There you go. You should now have a thorough understanding of how master slides can be used to better manage your presence in the comments below. Do let me know how your new skills are working out. And if this, this was useful, please like the video likes encourages to create more free training videos for you.

(20:52): We do have one more training video on masters slides. Part two, that goes deeper by teaching you how to build a slide presentation from scratch and share it as a template. And if you want to become a PowerPoint power user, consider this free six-part power masterclass click here to start the full training, YouTube playlist, subscribe and let my expertise become your expertise for free. Now power up

(21:28): MUSIC

Advanced PowerPoint Training

Improve the quality of presentations in your organisation – and gain the results you need – with our advanced PowerPoint training .

Our expert instructors will train your team on how to design and create clear and compelling slides. Our PowerPoint training covers layout and design, visualisation, graphs & charts, image manipulation, interactivity, templates & masters, multimedia, and animation. We’ll share some advanced tips to help you save time with PowerPoint, and best practices to ensure consistency and compatibility of slides across your organisation.

Advanced PowerPoint course details

Advanced powerpoint training learning objectives.

Explain the role of slides in a presentation

Apply the principles of professional presentation design

Construct and develop compelling visual slides for maximum audience engagement

Design and build slides effectively and efficiently for multiple uses.

What you’ll learn in our advanced PowerPoint training course

Tool navigation, application, & productivity hacks – Right from the very beginning we’ll be taking you through how to navigate PowerPoint more efficiently and effectively using crafty shortcuts and lesser-known tricks. Increasing the speed of your workflow and confidence within PowerPoint.

Visualisation – Why it works, how it works, and how you can harness the power of visual mind-control to turn tiresome data and uninspiring walls of text into engaging visuals and compelling stories.

Layout and design – We combine theory with easy-to-remember tips enabling you to create well-designed layouts that assist the audience in information assimilation. No design degree required.

Advanced tools – A deep-dive into the underside of PowerPoint, exploring the hidden tools that will help you wrest control over all things visual and give you the ability to develop your own unique elements and iconography.

Showing data effectively – Creating, editing, animating, and presenting both live and non-live charts, graphs & infographics in a way that will help your audience to understand and retain the information.

Animation – We’ll show you how to increase audience attention and eliminate distractions with compelling and well thought out use of animation. From the basics of identifying types of animation, through to advanced multi-stacking, we’ll even show you how to make best use of transition effects such as the powerful new Morph tool.

Advanced image manipulation – How to manipulate images and photographs without the need for specialist graphics software.

Interactivity, automation and media – We will cover how to create navigable menus, interactive elements, and self-running presentations in this section. On top of that we’ll show you how to import, edit, export, and make best use of media within the framework of PowerPoint itself.

Templates and masters – Setting backgrounds and templates to streamline the production of visually consistent presentations without any audience-distracting inconsistencies.

Anything else? – Like to know how to reduce your file size? How to export your presentation as a self-running movie? Would you like us to have a go at redesigning that troublesome slide in-person? Good news, this course has been designed with maximum flexibility in mind, if there’s any advanced PowerPoint functionality you’d like us to focus on in more detail please don’t hesitate to let us know.

Our Process

Our advanced PowerPoint training is modular. We discuss your needs, and agree which PowerPoint training modules to include. We can create bespoke training including storytelling or presentation skills alongside PowerPoint training too.

We can come to you for face-to-face training, or if you prefer, we can run a series of online PowerPoint training sessions for your far-flung teams. Before your training, we make sure we are clear on who is attending and their needs.

Part-toolkit, part-reference guide, part-workbook all in the form of a PowerPoint deck which builds alongside your skills and follows your design guidelines. This means that throughout the course you will be designing slides within your brand.

One of our experienced trainers runs your PowerPoint training. Our trainers work as presentation designers with some of the world's biggest brands, and know what works.

To ensure the training is as effective as possible, we provide online refresher PowerPoint training a few weeks after your initial training.

Sessions for more than 10 participants will incur surcharges as follows – 11-20 – 25%; 21-40 – 50%; 41-75 – 75%; 76 – 150 – 100%. Please contact us to discuss pricing for more than 150 participants.

A recording to be used for up to two weeks is included in our list pricing. If you wish to license use of a recording for a full year, a supplement is charged. Please contact us for any other licensing requirements.

Join the BrightCarbon mailing list for monthly invites and resources

We delivered this to over 100 people today, and everyone LOVED the presentation and story. We have received wonderful feedback, and have four opportunities already. Sarah Walker Softchoice

Welcome Back!

It looks like you already have created an account in GreatLearning with email . Would you like to link your Google account?

1000+ Courses for Free

Forgot password.

If an account with this email id exists, you will receive instructions to reset your password.

Get free access to

1000+ courses with certificates

Live sessions from industry experts

Industry salary insights and benchmarks

Have an account?

By signing up/logging in, you agree to our Terms and condition • Privacy Policy

We've sent an OTP to CHANGE

Setting up your account...

• Free Courses
• Powerpoint free courses

Free Powerpoint Courses

Learn new tools and techniques to create stunning PowerPoint presentations through Great Learning's free PowerPoint courses. Learn basics to advanced concepts and gain recognition for your abilities with free PowerPoint certificates of course completion. These online PowerPoint courses will equip you with all the necessary skills to create high-quality presentations and slides. With comprehensive, hands-on training, you will develop and hone your skills in Powerpoint, from creating spectacular slides and smooth transitions to more advanced features and functions. Improve your PowerPoint presentation skills through these free courses and earn free certificates.

• IT & Software
• ChatGPT and Generative AI
• Intermediate
• 30 mins - 1 hour
• 1 - 3 hours

PowerPoint for Beginners

Microsoft powerpoint tutorial, chatgpt for microsoft powerpoint, google bard for microsoft powerpoint.

Education is one of the easy keys to be industry fit. But picking up the domain that suits you best from the pool of options? That’s a bit confusing. Great Learning offers you a plethora of choices in the fields of your interests. You can walk through the courses, understand what pleases your specifications and choose the best that suits you. Each of these courses will help you be ready by offering you the best of content. You will gain degree and PG certificates from recognized universities on successful completion of the registered course. We wish you happy learning!

Scholarships upto ₹25K

University of Texas - McCombs

PGP in Data Science and Business Analytics

Dedicated Career Support

PES University

M.Tech in Data Science and Artificial Intelligence

DEDICATED CAREER SUPPORT

Great Lakes Executive Learning

PGP in Strategic Digital Marketing

Career Support

Success stories

SecOps Engineer

Bandhan Bank

Team Trainer

Altem Technology

Soft Talk India

And thousands more such success stories..

Popular Upskilling Programs

PG Program in Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning

#1 Ranked AI Program

Scholarships upto ₹50K

PGP in Data Science and Engineering (Bootcamp)

Dedicated Placement Assistance

Post Graduate Diploma in Management (Online)

Scholarships upto ₹15K

PG Program in Cloud Computing

360° Cloud Learning

Generative AI for Business with Microsoft Azure OpenAI Program

Artificial Intelligence PG Program for Leaders

No Programming Exp Required

MS in Data Science Programme

Live Sessions

Design Thinking: From Insights to Viability

Live Faculty Interaction

Learn PowerPoint & Get Completion Certificates

PowerPoint - An Essential Software Program

PowerPoint has become an essential skill to have in the modern workplace. It is a powerful tool used in many different industries to create presentations, campaigns, and multimedia experiences that are both visually appealing and interactive. With the evolution of technology, PowerPoint has become an increasingly important tool for professionals.

You can learn this in-demand software program through Great Learning's free PowerPoint courses and gain renowned skills. Here's an overview of why learning to use this popular software program is essential in today's business world.

Professionals of all stripes need to know how to use PowerPoint. Employers are looking for job candidates who can create professional presentations to showcase their ideas and expertise. Students will benefit from understanding the basics of PowerPoint, as they may need to create presentations for class projects and assignments. Entrepreneurs need to know the basics of creating visually appealing presentations to showcase their products and services. In short, anyone working in the corporate world needs to know how to use PowerPoint to communicate their message effectively.

Great presentations can capture an audience and help engage them more effectively in the messages you're trying to convey. PowerPoint is a very effective way to present complex information, turning it into digestible pieces of information that the audience can understand. PowerPoint also allows users to add visuals, animations, and other multimedia elements to make the presentation look more professional and engaging.

PowerPoint is a fast and simple way to create visually appealing presentations. You can use the various features of the program to create your own custom slides or use the various templates available to help streamline the process. You can even upload images, audio, and video clips and add animation and other visuals to make your presentation truly unique.

In addition to creating professional presentations for the workplace, PowerPoint is also used for more creative projects. Musicians, filmmakers, and other professionals are using this powerful program to create multimedia experiences that help tell stories in a visually captivating way.  

PowerPoint is a valuable tool for anyone looking to communicate their message. It's an effective way to create visually appealing and engaging presentations and is key to success in many industries. No matter the field, learning how to use PowerPoint is an important skill in the modern business world.

Benefits of Learning PowerPoint

PowerPoint is an essential business tool for creating and delivering presentations. But the use of this software extends beyond the work environment. Learning PowerPoint can offer personal and professional benefits that can help you achieve success in your professional and personal life. 

1. Improved Visual Representation of Ideas

PowerPoint allows users to create visuals that effectively convey their ideas or thoughts. These visuals can be used to enhance presentations, speeches, and reports. You can use PowerPoint to create a variety of visuals, such as tables, graphics, and visuals to help communicate your message effectively.

2. Streamlined Professional Communication

PowerPoint enables users to communicate more effectively with their work colleagues or supervisors. You can use PowerPoint to create a presentation quickly and efficiently. You can add graphics, images, and videos to your presentation to help illustrate your points. In addition, PowerPoint can also be used to create professional-looking documents.

3. Enhanced Job Performance

Knowing how to use PowerPoint can help make you an asset to your company. You can use this powerful tool to create attractive and engaging presentations to share with your organization's clients and other key stakeholders. With the help of PowerPoint, you can present your ideas cohesively and get your point across more effectively. This can help you stand out from your colleagues and get ahead in your profession.

4. Easier Data Analysis PowerPoint also offers the ability to analyze data quickly. You can use the graphing and charting functions to create visuals that can help you to understand the data better. This visualization of the data can make it easier for you to make sense of it and draw meaningful conclusions.

Learning the basics of PowerPoint is a great way to improve your professional and personal life. Whether you need to create an engaging presentation for a client or analyze data to make an important decision, PowerPoint can help you do it quickly and effectively. Learn this impressive software program from scratch through Great Learning's free PowerPoint courses that cover basic to advanced concepts. Want to upskill in your software skills? Great Learning's Best Software Engineering Courses are the right option for you to get familiar with in-demand industry skills and earn a certificate of course completion that aid in securing better job opportunities.

Explore new and trending free online courses

Getting Started with Bard

Generative AI for beginners

ChatGPT for HR

Artificial Intelligence with Python

Introduction to Cyber Attacks

Microsoft Azure Application

Business Intelligence using Excel

SQL for Data Science

Complete TOEFL Prep Course

Interview Preparation using Bard

Introduction to Claude

Customer Service Essentials

Introduction to Google Ads Campaign

TallyPrime Tutorial

Google Bard for Coders

Basics of Data Visualization for Data Science

Complete IELTS Prep Course

GRE Prep Course

Data science, data analyst, it & software, data manager.

BUSINESS & ADMINISTRATION

• Business Analyst

Account Manager

Frequently Asked Questions

Great Learning offers free PowerPoint courses, which address basic to advanced concepts. Enroll in the course that suits your career goals through the pool of courses and earn free PowerPoint certificates of course completion.  

With the support of online learning platforms, it is now possible to learn concepts on your own. Great Learning Academy is a platform that provides free PowerPoint courses where learners can learn at their own pace.    

These free PowerPoint courses offered by Great Learning Academy contain self-paced videos allowing learners to learn necessary PowerPoint skills at their convenience.  

Yes. You will have lifelong access to these free PowerPoint courses Great Learning Academy offers.  

You can enroll in Great Learning's Full Stack Development Course by IIT Roorkee, which will help you gain advanced software skills in demand in industries. Complete the course to earn a certificate of course completion.

Yes, it is worth learning PowerPoint. It is a highly versatile and valuable tool that can create compelling presentations while allowing you to easily share online and collaborate with others. Learning PowerPoint can also increase your productivity and make it easier to communicate ideas visually.  

PowerPoint is a popular presentation software because it is easy to use and can be quickly adapted to meet the needs of almost any presentation. It also has a wide range of features, including various transitions and animations, which allow for more engaging and visually appealing presentations. Additionally, PowerPoint's ability to embed video and audio clips help to keep audiences engaged. Many people are accustomed to PowerPoint's user interface, making it easier to learn and use.  

You will be awarded free PowerPoint certificates after completion of your enrolled PowerPoint free courses.  

Through these free PowerPoint courses, you will gain essential PowerPoint features and techniques that help make your presentation more engaging.  

These PowerPoint courses are provided by Great Learning Academy for free, allowing any learner to learn PowerPoint and gain crucial skills for free.

Learners, from freshers to working professionals who wish to gain essential PowerPoint skills, can enroll in these free PowerPoint courses and earn certificates of course completion.  

Choose the free PowerPoint courses you are looking for and click on the "Enroll Now" button to start your PowerPoint learning journey.

Great Learning Academy is the farsighted initiative by Great Learning, the leading e-Learning platform, to offer free industry-relevant courses. Free PowerPoint courses contain courses ranging from beginner-level to advanced-level to help learners choose the best fit for them.  

There are several jobs that require you to learn PowerPoint, including:

• Sales Representative
• Graphic Designer
• Project Manager
• Education Coordinator
• Multimedia Designer 
• Content Manager  

Refer & Win >

Premium course worth ₹15,000/-

Oops!! Something went wrong, Please try again.

*Students less than 14 years of age are not eligible

By submitting this form, you consent to our Terms of Use & Privacy Policy and to be contacted by us via Email/Call/Whatsapp/SMS.

Form submitted successfully

We are allocating a suitable domain expert to help you out with your queries. Expect to receive a call in the next 4 hours.