How to choose the right number of slides for a powerpoint presentation

Putting page numbers in a PowerPoint presentation can help you keep track of where you are when you’re presenting. It can also help if you’re printing your presentation, or if you’re dividing up the work between a few people and want each person to take a few specific slides.

Because it’s such a useful detail, adding page numbers to your PowerPoint slides should be easy — however, it’s a bit more complicated than it should be.

So, if you decide you want to add page numbers to your PowerPoint presentation, here’s how to do it the right way. This works for PowerPoint on your Mac or PC.

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How to add page numbers to PowerPoint presentations

1. In PowerPoint, click “View” in the list of options at the top of the window, and then click on “Slide Master.”

© Melanie Weir/Business Insider Open up your Slide Master. Melanie Weir/Business Insider

2. Click on the parent slide at the very top of the slide menu.

3. In the “Slide Master” tab, click “Master layout” to bring up a dialog box.

© Melanie Weir/Business Insider Click on the parent slide, then click Master Layout. Melanie Weir/Business Insider

4. In the “Master Layout” placeholders box, make sure you have “Slide Numbers” checked — it’s the default setting, but it may be turned off for some templates.

© Melanie Weir/Business Insider Check the box next to Slide Numbers. Melanie Weir/Business Insider

5. Your slide number placeholder will appear with a # symbol in it. Use your cursor to move it to the position you’d like it in — it shows up on all of your slides in the same position by default.

© Melanie Weir/Business Insider Use your cursor to position the slide number placeholder. Melanie Weir/Business Insider

6. Return to the Slide Master tab and click the red ‘X’ labeled “Close Master View.” This will close the Slide Master so you can go back to editing slides individually.

7. Next, go to the “Insert” tab and click “Slide Number,” under “Text,” to bring up the Header and Footer dialog box.

© Melanie Weir/Business Insider Insert a slide number. Melanie Weir/Business Insider

8. In the Header and Footer box, check the box next to “Slide Number” to have your numbers show, in the spot you indicated, on your slide.

You can also check the “Don’t Show On Title Slide” box if you don’t want your title slide to be counted as a numbered page.

9. When you’re finished, either click “Apply,” to apply the slide number to only the slide you’re currently working on, or “Apply to All” to apply slide numbers to all the slides in your presentation.

Note that even if you click Apply to All, slide numbers won’t appear on slides for which you’ve manually removed the slide number placeholder.

© Melanie Weir/Business Insider Check the box for Slide Number, then click Apply or Apply to All. Melanie Weir/Business Insider

Learn how to change the location of Slide Numbers in PowerPoint 2013 for Windows.

Author: Geetesh Bajaj

Product/Version: PowerPoint 2013 for Windows

OS: Microsoft Windows 7 and higher

Date Created: June 23, 2015
Last Updated: June 23, 2015

When you insert Slide Numbers on your slides, you may discover that the location of the Slide Number changes depending upon the active Theme of your slides. With some Themes, the Slide Number may be placed at the bottom right — with other Themes, it may be located at the top right (highlighted in blue within the slide on top in Figure 1, below), or even in some other place (highlighted in blue within the slide on bottom in Figure 1, below). The location of the Slide Number may seem to be influenced by the Theme — and that’s almost true. However, a Theme is a larger concept — it’s only the Slide Master, a subset of your Theme that’s influencing the position of your Slide Numbers.

Figure 1: Applying a different Theme may change the position of Slide Numbers

Follow these steps to change the location of Slide Numbers in PowerPoint 2013:

1. Launch PowerPoint. Within the Presentation Gallery that opens, select theВ Blank Presentation option. Typically the blank presentation will have the Office Theme applied — you can see the name of the active Theme within the Status Bar as highlighted in red within Figure 2, below. If you see another Theme name here, make sure you apply the Office Theme since this is a basic, clean Theme that lends itself best to changes and edits that we discuss later in this tutorial. If you do not know how you can apply a Theme, explore our Applying Themes in PowerPoint, Word, and Excel 2013 tutorial.
2. 
   Figure 2: Presentation based on the Office Theme
3. Next make sure that you insert Slide Numbers on your slide — this is an easy process already explained in our Working with Slide Number tutorial. You’ll end up with the slide number visible on your slide (highlighted in red within Figure 3, below).
4. 
   Figure 3: Slide Number on the slide
5. Now access the View tab of the Ribbon, and click the Slide Master button, as shown highlighted in blue within Figure 2 (show earlier on this page).
6. This opens the Slide Master view, as shown in Figure 4. Within Slide Master view, you’ll find that the left pane contains two distinctly different elements: a larger thumbnail representing the Slide Master (highlighted in red within Figure 4) and several smaller slide thumbnails below representing individual Slide Layouts (highlighted in blue within Figure 4).
7. 
   Figure 4: Slide Master view within PowerPoint

Tip: Cannot see any Slide Number placeholder? Make sure you select the larger thumbnail representing the Slide Master (highlighted in red within Figure 4, shown earlier on the page). Thereafter, within the Slide Master tab of the Ribbon, click the Master Layout button. In the resultant dialog box, select the Slide number check-box as shown in Figure 6, below.

Figure 6: Slide number check-box to be selected

Get Creative PowerPoint Ideas to Makeover Your Business Slides from Presentation Process

Do you know how to choose the right PowerPoint chart to convey your ideas effectively? Discover a simple way to select or create the right chart for your needs. This is the first of the two part article.

Is the tail wagging the dog?

We’ve seen many presenters cutting and chopping their ideas to fit them into a cool looking PowerPoint chart. The result usually is a messy chart and a tired presenter.

If you want to convey your message effectively, your ideas should determine the chart type and not the other way around. This article will show you how.

Inappropriate chart selection is usually the result of inadequate definition of the underlying relationship. Let’s discover a simple way to define the relationship right.

8 basic relationship categories:

Most relationships between elements fall under one of the 8categories. These categories are not exhaustive. But, they definitely cover the most common types. So, if you can recognize these basic relationships, you’ll more or less get your chart selection right. The basic relationship categories are:

1. Hierarchy
2. Cause and effect
3. Flow
4. Part – whole
5. Compare and Contrast
6. Filters and funnels
7. Matrix and
8. List

We will explore the first 4 relationships in this article and the next 4 in the second part.

In the following examples, we’ll use 5 random objects – A, B, C, D and E and define their relationships.

1. Hierarchy Relationship:

In this relationship type, objects differ in their levels. For example, A is at a higher level than B which in turn is at a higher level than C, D and E.

A common representation of this type of relationship is an organization chart. But, there are a number of variations to depict the levels. For example:

View more Pyramid Diagrams from CEO Pack here

The levels could be shown as steps in a pyramid, rungs in a ladder, discs arranged one on top of the other, steps leading to the top and so on.

Do the objects in your relationship fall at different levels? Then choose a chart that shows hierarchy.

2. Cause and effect

In this, the relationship between objects is cause and effect. For example, in the above chart – B, C, D and E cause A (effect).

The specific relationship could be convergence, divergence or linear impact. Take a look at some examples:

Is there are a cause and effect relationship in the objects you are trying to define? Then, choose a chart type that depicts the specific relationship.

3. Flow Relationship

This is probably the most common type of relationship. There are tons of variations in the relationship. You need to choose a chart that describes the specific flow type accurately.

In the above relationship – A, B, C, D and E represent 5 steps in a linear process flow. The flow could be a simple cyclical process or a complex looped process.

The operating words that describe this relationship are ‘change and movement’. There could be transformation in the nature of the object along the flow – like it happens in a brand transformation. There could be growth or decline in the object along the flow like in a spiral diagram. There could be just a movement from point A to point B along a path, like in bridge diagram:

Study your objects closely and define their specific flow type accurately.

4. Part – Whole

In this, one object is part of the other. For example take a look at this onion diagram:

E is part of D, which in turn is part of C and so on. The word that captures the relationship type is ‘Interdependency’.

There are many variations in this relationship type.

Some common variations are: Overlapping relationships like Venn diagram, Parts of an idea like a propeller diagram, Pillars of a temple diagram, Pieces of a puzzle diagram etc.

Browse more Pillar Diagrams from the PowerPoint CEO Pack

Take a careful look at the part – whole relationship between your objects and choose the chart type wisely.

Conclusion about PowerPoint Charts:

Thought there are a number of variations in the type of charts used, the underlying relationship is fairly simple. Defining the relationship right is the first step in choosing appropriate PowerPoint chart type.

April 18, 2016 Blog powerpoint templates, PowerPoint tip, powerpoint tutorial, presentation design, Rick Enrico, SlideGenius, template colors

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Your PowerPoint is your presentation visual aid. That’s why it should reflect your character as an organization or individual, from the deck’s content all the way down to the design. However, some presenters tend to overlook this aspect of PowerPoint and craft a deck that doesn’t match the message they want to convey.

If you want slides that will win your audience over, it’s best to have customized PowerPoint templates created specifically for your brand. However, if you’re pressed for time and budget, using templates with premade layouts can still do the trick, but that doesn’t mean choosing a generic design, though.

Choose the right PowerPoint template for your pitch by keeping three things in mind:

Make It Memorable

Compared to less strict occasions, presenting in a formal setup may call for a particular design. You’ll want to draw attention to your deck without being too loud or overly embellished. Experiment with various color schemes that will fit the essence of your pitch.

A combination of warm colors can attract your viewers’ gaze. On the other hand, cool colors will put them at ease. Although using these colors can evoke certain emotions in the viewer, the best way to get the audience to associate your brand with your deck is to use your company colors in your slides.

Select a template that already has your brand’s colors in it. If you can’t find one that exactly fits, you can change template colors without affecting the overall layout. PowerPoint provides an option under the Design tab that lets you do just that.

For Office 2013 users, simply click Colors under Variants group. A dropdown of various color combinations will appear. Change the template’s hues by clicking on the color scheme you want.

Engage the Audience

The success of your pitch lies in your audience’s response. Choose a template that resonates with your prospects to generate positive reactions. For example, most people want a deck with prominent visuals instead of blocks of text. In that case, you’ll be inputting more pictures and visual representations of data. Refrain from using templates that have elements such as frames and pre-installed illustrations. These graphics can clutter up your slide and distract your audience from your main point.

Leaving room for white space, or the absence of visible objects on your slide, relaxes the eyes and lets it focus on important points on your deck. Opt for cleaner slides you can overlap with big and bold images. If you’re planning to use images throughout your presentation, it’s best to do away with pre-installed graphics.

But if you’ve selected a template with illustrations and only want to remove them on a specific slide, take them out by going back to the Design tab.

Under Customize, click Format Background.

Select Hide background graphics to hide any pre-installed elements on the current slide.

Account for the Venue

Where your presentation is held can affect people’s perception of your pitch. Survey the area before the actual date of your presentation to get a good feel of what type of deck would suit the setting.

Consider things like lighting and the size of the place you’re presenting in. Your goal is to deliver your message in a readable and comprehensible deck. A template that’s already too bright in an open area may lose its visibility to any audience members sitting in the far back.

Conversely, a place where you can dim the lights gives you more leeway on saturating your template. Check that your slide elements are distinguished from their background. After all, contrast factors in greatly when it comes to readability. A slide with well-contrasted objects is visible from afar compared to slides with objects that are hardly distinct from one another. Use dark text on a light background, or vice versa, to highlight the slide object.

In Conclusion: Templates Can Work, If Used Well

A good template is the first step to a great deck design. Bright colors will grab attention, while subtler ones will relax the eyes. Avoid templates with distracting designs that will steal attention away from your key points. Choose a readable template that has high contrast to make your deck more viewer-friendly.

PowerPoint templates aren’t just a matter of playful design. Given the right template, you can interest and attract new clients. Make your pitch memorable with a deck that reflects your brand and fits the occasion.

Loop sounds to play across specific slides in PowerPoint 2016 for Windows.

Author: Geetesh Bajaj

Product/Version: Microsoft PowerPoint 2016

OS: Microsoft Windows 7 and higher

Date Created: August 02, 2017
Last Updated: August 02, 2017

Once you add a sound track, such as a music clip, to your PowerPoint presentation, you can let the inserted audio span across all your slides from the first one to the last by selecting the Play Across Slides option.

That’s great if you need the same music playing on all your slides. But what if you want the music to play only across some successive slides? What if you want the music to play from slide 1 to 12, and let all subsequent slides play without any music? Or you may want to add another audio clip for the next set of slides? Either way, it is possible to limit the number of slides that your music will play across.

Follow these steps to stop your music after specific number of slides in PowerPoint 2016:

1. We assume you have already added a music clip and set it to play across slides. In that case, proceed straightaway to Step 4 of this tutorial. Others can insert the audio clip in the slide where you want the music to start playing.
2. Now, select the music icon so that you can see the two contextual Audio Tools tabs in the Ribbon. These two tabs are Format and Playback. Click the Playback tab to activate it, as shown in Figure 1 (highlighted in red ).

Figure 1: Audio Tools Playback tab selected within the Ribbon
Within the Audio Tools Playback tab, select the Play Across Slides check-box as shown highlighted in red within Figure 2. Also select the Loop until Stopped (highlighted in blue within Figure 2) and the Hide During Show (highlighted in green within Figure 2) check-boxes.

Figure 2: Required check-boxes selected to play the sound across slides
Now, access the Animations tab of the Ribbon. Click the Animation Pane button, highlighted in red within Figure 3.

Figure 3: Animation Pane button
This bring up the AnimationPaneTask Pane, as shown in Figure 4.

Figure 4: Animation Pane Task Pane

Part 2: Change the Starting Slide Number

By default, PowerPoint starts the slide number from 1. Here is how to change the slide starting number to 0 or any number of your choice:

Select the Design tab on the ribbon. Click the “Slide Size” button and then choose “Custom Slide Size” from the drop-down menu.

The Slide Size dialog box will open. You can change the number in the “Number slides from” box from 1 to a different number.

Conclusion

So that is how you can easily add slide number to a PowerPoint presentation or change slide numbers to start with any number. If you want to show the total number of slides on every slide (such as “slide 2 of 16“), there is no automatic method and you have to do it manually by following this article.

Both Microsoft and Google offer presentation platforms with their Suites. Microsoft’s platform, PowerPoint, has more creative designs, but it does cost you something. However, Google Slides is free, although with less animation ability. In this tutorial, we compare PowerPoint and Google Slides.

First, we’ll cover how to use PowerPoint and Slides. Then we’ll review their main differences.

PowerPoint

First, when you open your PowerPoint document, pick a theme. Here the “Gallery” theme is chosen. However, if you want additional themes, click the bottom right “more themes” button.

Templates for PowerPoint

PowerPoint offers a small number of simple themes, but you can always use our database of professional free templates for Powerpoint:

Free PowerPoint Templates

Once you have your template chosen, just click on the boxes and fill them in as prompted.

Create new Presentation

Once you have your title and subtitle filled in, you can add notes to your presentation—for your eyes only. Do this by clicking the “notes” button on the bottom bar.

Notes in PowerPoint

Once you have a title page, you will want to add text slides. Click on the “Insert” tab, as shown below. Then hit “New Slide.” From there, you can choose the style of slide you want.

Add New Slide in PowerPoint Presentation

Now that you have a secondary slide fill in the title space and start filling in your main text.

Once you have filled those out, play around with the animations under the “Animations” tab. Here you can choose to have your titles or bullet points fly-in, fade-in, or simply appear.

Add Animation in PowerPoint

Now that you have your presentation ready, how about you check out transitions? Under the “Transitions” tab you can create different effects when giving your presentation. Having classy slides that fade into each other could be a nice touch. Be sure to click on whichever slide you want to have the entering transition.

Transitions in PowerPoint Slides

Now that you’re finished click on the “Slide Show” tab and start “From Beginning.” Your slideshow has just begun!

There is a lot more to PowerPoint that you can find by experimenting and trying new things out.

Google Slides

The first thing you see when opening Google Slides is very similar to PowerPoint.

Create new Presentation in Google Slides

However, the themes are on the right-hand side of the document. In this example, the “Focus” template was chosen. At the bottom of the page, you can also add in your speaker notes. You can also use free templates HiSlide.io for Google Slides.

Free Google Slides Templates

Once you have filled in the information, insert your additional slides under the “Insert” tab at the bottom.

Add new Slide in Google Slides Presentation

After you have finished your presentation, the “Present” button is at the upper right. The “Share” button is also next to it so that you can collaborate.

Present Google Slides Presentation

Again, there is so much more to explore in Google Slides.

Online vs. Desktop Access

PowerPoint is designed for PC usage. It has numerous templates, and themes, but they are all downloaded. You can create a creative or professional presentation. However, PowerPoint’s online version is oversimplified. It does not have the same variety or customizability.
Google Slides is designed for online use. Its collection of simple templates and many fonts are all stored in the cloud. However, the offline version of Slides is very similar to the online version of PowerPoint. Its capacities are cut in half.

Features

The features that each platform offers are heavily dependent upon whether they are online or offline.
PowerPoint – offline – provides a multitude of animated effects, varying from in-slide motion to transition animations. All these effects are well-designed.
Google Slides – online – presents simple templates and not many animations. However, since Google Slides is online, it also is a fantastic team-based platform. If you share your Google Slide, you can collaborate online with your colleagues and friends.
Comparing PowerPoint and Google Slides reveals both of their strengths and weaknesses. But whether you should get one of the other depends on your needs. If you want to create a solo professional, creative presentation, PowerPoint is the way to go. However, if you want a free platform that allows team-collaboration, Google Slides is your best option. Both platforms are geared toward different audiences.

Consider these slide-count variables as you’re creating your presentation:

No slides

If you need to make a very personal connection with your audience, or you’re delivering a short talk in a casual environment, go without slides. They don’t work in every situation. As Andrew Dlugan says in his “Six Minutes” blog about public speaking, presenters shouldn’t use slides in a commencement speech, a eulogy, a wedding toast, or a layoff announcement. If you’re unsure whether slides are appropriate, bring them with you but also carry a printout of your slide notes in case you decide when you arrive that it’s best to leave your laptop off.

Moderate slide count

Some experts recommend 1 to 2 slides per minute, or 30 to 60 slides for an hour-long talk. That’s about the average count in corporate presentations—but most of them cram too much information on each slide. If you’ve broken your content down to one idea per slide, you may end up with more than 60 slides.

High slide count

Some presenters use 5 slides per minute. This rapid-fire style keeps the audience extra alert because people will visually re-engage with each click—but it requires a lot of rehearsal and careful pacing. In a 40-minute talk, we typically use 150 slides. (If you count “builds” within each slide, we click up to 300 times.) But when we ask audiences how many slides they think we used, they usually say between 30 and 50.

Social media slide count
The most popular presentations on social media sites like slideshare.com have more than 75 slides but you can read them all in 2 to 3 minutes. They also tend to be built like children’s books—one clear sentence with one clear visual. The sparse format makes it so you click more often.

So…Don’t worry about slide count. Just make your slides count.

You’ve been asked to plan and present at an upcoming conference. This is an exciting opportunity. Someone has placed their trust in you, and has enough faith in your knowledge to put you in charge of leading an important conversation.

In some instances, the organizer will ask you to present in a specific way. But other times, you’ll be allowed to choose. If that’s the case, how do you choose the right presentation format to convey your information?

Below, I’ve outlined four different presentation formats for you to choose from, with pros and cons for each. As you make your decision, remember to keep these four factors in mind:

• Desired outcome: What’s the ultimate purpose? Is it solely to spread knowledge, or are you also hoping to work together to create new ideas and solutions?
• Length of the presentation: There’s a big difference between 20 minutes and 60 when it comes to planning content, delivering it, and keeping the audience’s attention.
• Your level of expertise: If you’re the sole presenter, you need to be an expert.
• Size of the audience: Is this just for your department or an auditorium full of people?

Expert lecture

A perfect example of an expert lecture presentation is a TED Talk. You’re the star of the show, and your job is to tell a story (or a series of stories) that shares information, lessons learned, and advice.

But remember: Lecture formats do not bode well after a certain amount of time. No one wants to listen to one person drone on non-stop for the better part of an hour (or longer). In fact, the desired length hovers right around 18 minutes. Beyond that, your audience will start zoning out. If your allotted time is longer than that, you probably want to choose a different format.

• You can plan the entire presentation, including flow, talking points, and relevant media
• The conversation is unlikely to get hijacked by questions or colloquial tangents
• You’re less likely to be caught off guard or be put on the spot

• You need to have a high-level of knowledge about what you’re talking about
• It’s up to you—and you only—to plan an engaging presentation
• The audience only gets one perspective
• There is limited opportunity for audience interaction

Panel discussion

With a panel discussion, you generally have two to five panelists who are experts in the topic. A panel moderator will drive the conversation, ask thought-provoking questions, and ensure each panelist gets adequate speaking time. This format is a great choice if you have a complicated or in-depth topic to explore and a good deal of time to fill.

• The audience gets to hear multiple viewpoints
• You are in control of the conversation but don’t have to know all the answers
• There’s more opportunity for audience interaction

• Coordination; you have to recruit, schedule, and possibly lodge panelists
• Moderating takes a good deal of research (on the topic and speakers) and preparation
• Panelist dynamics are unpredictable; if they’re bad, the whole session could be tense

Fireside chat

Fireside chats are similar to panel discussions, but more casual. Typically, there are two or three people sitting side by side. The intended effect is to make the guest feel comfortable enough to open up and share stories from their life, as well as insight on an array of topics.

• For the most part, you control where the conversation goes
• You can get more in-depth with this one person and explore
• You don’t have to be the expert

• The success of this format is reliant upon the guest speaker being willing to open up
• There’s some extra coordination involved here, but not as much as with a panel
• You need to do fairly extensive research in order to ask captivating questions
• You don’t have as many viewpoints as a panel discussion

Roundtable discussion

If the desired outcome of your presentation is knowledge sharing, collaboration, and idea generation, a roundtable discussion is a great fit. If you have 12 or less attendees, you can all participate in the same discussion. If there are more, you can break into smaller groups and provide each group with the same question set.

The hope is that each group member will participate equally, sharing their experience and asking their group mates questions. However, though you can have multiple groups, this format doesn’t really make sense for larger audiences, and the location is key, as everyone in a group needs to be able to see each other.

• Everyone has an equal chance to participate
• Attendees get to hear multiple perspectives
• Attendees can collaborate together and get feedback on ideas
• As with the panel and fireside chat, you don’t have to be the expert

• Someone might dominate the conversation
• If you have multiple groups, it’s harder to keep the different conversations on track
• Seating arrangement is a limiting factor

Being able to choose your own presentation format allows you the flexibility to choose the best fit. When deciding, make sure to consider your end goal, the potential number of attendees, and how comfortable you feel with the topic at hand.

No matter which format you choose, Poll Everywhere makes live audience feedback easy and efficient. Hear from the entire room in the time it would take one person to respond aloud.

Abby is a writer, career coach, and health educator living in Portland, Maine. When she’s not trying to make the world a happier and healthier place, you can find her snuggling with her cats, hunting down the city’s best coffee and grilled cheese, or dipping her toes in the Atlantic.

Video conferencing software provide a convenient way for businesses to make powerful presentations online and share files with a large number of participants. With a reliable cloud meeting software, you can make a PowerPoint presentation online quite effortlessly. The PowerPoint application allows users to create digital slides with text, images, graphs and other tools of information. When making online presentation over a video conferencing software, you can share PPT files in real-time with all attendees to help make you point clear. All you need to do is find the screen sharing button and make use of the application sharing option.

What’s the Importance of Making A PowerPoint Presentation Online?

When making a business or educational presentation over a video conference, it’s always important to use certain tools that will make participants understand your point clearly. Lucky enough, the latest video conferencing software come with screen sharing options that can allow you to share number applications. Some of the files and applications you can share online during a presentation include PDF, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Text, Images and more. When training new employees or teaching a class, PowerPoint can be the best tool to use. With customizable digital slides, you can create relevant text, images and graphical statistics to help make your presentation more practical.

In essence, an online PowerPoint presentation has the following benefits:

-Relays information in a concise manner using digital slides

-Allows attendees to get on the same page with the presenter

-Provides a platform where digital slides can be sent to attendees instantly or in real-time

-Allows participants to save files or record information given on slides for later review

ezTalks Meetings: A Powerful Online Software for Making PowerPoint Presentation

ezTalks Meetings is one of the most reliable video conferencing software that allows its users to make PowerPoint presentation online easier. You might be asking yourself a lot of questions. Where can I make a PowerPoint presentation online for free? Or how can I make a free PowerPoint presentation online? Well, ezTalks Meetings simplifies the whole concept of sharing applications such as PowerPoint, video and photos by offering cheaper and more convenient options.

ezTalks Meetings Free Plan gives a video conference presenter the opportunity of hosting up to 100 participants per meeting for free. That’s made possible through live broadcasting via a browser. While making a presentation online, you can instantly share relevant applications through the screen sharing feature on the ezTalks Meetings menu. This way, you can make a free PowerPoint presentation online while reaching out live to a huge number of participants.

Alongside that, ezTalks Meetings allows you to enjoy the following:

-Unlimited cyclical meetings;

-Full screen view of presentations and applications;

-PowerPoint presentation recordings and playback;

-Co-annotation on shared screen or application;

How to Make a PowerPoint Presentation Online through ezTalks Meetings

ezTalks provides a range of solutions that can be used for video conferencing. A business can choose to use video conferencing hardware, video conferencing software or a combination of both to make a presentation. Each of the solutions comes with its benefits and setbacks but the online video conferencing software tends to be more reliable, flexible and cost-effective.

When making a PowerPoint presentation over the internet, ezTalks Meetings software can be the best way to go. It offers you multi-functional features that will allow you to simplify your presentation online. So how do you make a PowerPoint presentation using ezTalks Meetings? We’ll take you through a step-by-step guide to help you get started. If you are interested in it, you can click here to free download and try it for free.

Step 1: Download and Launch the ezTalks Meetings Software

For you to be able to host a meeting online and invite participants, you need to first to download and launch the ezTalks Meetings software on your Windows or Mac computer. If it’s the first time you’re using the software, you’ll need to create an ezTalks account by clicking on the Sign Up button on the lower right corner of the software you downloaded. If you’re already registered, you can proceed to login using your ezTalks account, Google and/or Facebook account.

Step 2: Invite Participants to Join In the Meeting for a Presentation

Now that you’re logged in, you need to find the Start Meeting button which will allow you to enter into a virtual meeting room. Check whether the webcam and microphone are working properly. Then proceed to invite the attendees to join the meeting by sharing your room ID or sending them e-mails. Once they accept your invitation, you can go ahead and start making your presentation.

Step 3: Use the Screen Sharing Feature to Make A PPT Presentation Online

As you proceed with the meeting, you can use screen sharing button to share applications and files to make the presentation worthwhile. With this feature, you can share PowerPoint application where all attendees will be able to view digital slides in real time.

Simply click on the Share Desktop button and choose PowerPoint, the application will appear on each of the participant’s screen. That way, you can go ahead to explain your point or trigger further discussion.

Step 4: Use Other Designated Buttons to Pause, Stop and/Restart the PPT presentation

While making a presentation you can pause and restart the screen sharing to allow for annotation and discussion before resuming. You can also exit the screen sharing feature by clicking on Stop button when you’ve ended your PPT presentation. The stop, pause, share screen and annotate buttons will be available on your screen to help you execute a given command.

Conclusion

As you can see making a PPT presentation online is way easier than you thought. With ezTalks Meetings software, it’s more convenient to share applications like PowerPoint over an online video conference for others to view digital files. You don’t need a lot of resources to make PowerPoint presentation online. The ezTalks Meetings’ free plan can allow you to host up to 100 participants at once for free and have them view your presentation in real-time. This plan also includes instant screen sharing option, which allows participants to be at par with the presenter. ezTalks is simply packed with all the features you need to make a sales presentation, carry out employee training or host an entrepreneurship webinar presentation . If you would want to enjoy even more advanced or premium features, you can upgrade to the ezTalks Meetings’ paid plan that starts at $12.99 per host per month and accommodates up to 500 participants.

• When you convert Keynote files to PowerPoint , you can allow collaborators without Keynote to open presentations on non-Apple computers.
• Mac users can convert files from Apple ‘s presentation app Keynote to Microsoft Powerpoint through the exporting feature.

Mac users have access to several applications with similar functions to corresponding Microsoft programs. These include Pages (a word processor similar to Microsoft Word), Numbers (a spreadsheet application similar to Microsoft Excel), and Keynote (a presentation application similar to PowerPoint).

When sharing documents with non-Apple users and in general, converting your files to the more universal Microsoft applications helps to ensure that the recipient can open the file you send.

Converting your Keynote files to the corresponding Microsoft PowerPoint format takes just a few clicks. It saves Windows users the trouble of using a third-party app to open their Apple file. Advertisement

Here’s how to convert a Keynote presentation to PowerPoint.

Check out the products mentioned in this article:

Microsoft Office (From $149.99 at Best Buy)

Apple Macbook Pro (From $1,299.00 at Apple)

How to convert Keynote to PowerPoint

2. To convert to PowerPoint, click File in the app’s top menu bar.

3. Select Export To then PowerPoint.

4. Click Next.

5. Edit the name of your file in the Save As section, if needed. Advertisement

6. Choose where to save your file in the Where section.

7. Click Export. Advertisement

9. In the General Section under Kind, it should read Microsoft PowerPoint Document. Advertisement

Keep track of your progress using slide numbers

Just as you would add page numbers to a Word document to help readers keep track of their place, add page numbers in PowerPoint to help you and your audience keep track of where you are in the presentation.

Instructions in this article apply to PowerPoint 2019, 2016, 2013, 2010; PowerPoint for Microsoft 365, PowerPoint for Microsoft 365 for Mac, and PowerPoint 2016 for Mac.

How to Add Slide Numbers in PowerPoint on a PC

Open your PowerPoint presentation in Normal view.

Navigate to the first slide in your presentation.

Go to Insert and, in the Text group, select Slide Number.

In the Header and Footer dialog box, select the Slide tab.

In the Include on slide area, place a check next to Slide number. In the Preview area, you’ll see a representation of where the slide number will appear on your slide.

• If you want the slide number to appear only on the current slide, select Apply.

Navigate to each slide you want slide numbers to appear on and perform these steps again. For example, if you want slides 1, 3, and 5 to have slide numbers, repeat the process three times.

• If you want the slide number to appear on all slides, select Apply to All.
• If you want to apply slide numbers to all but the first slide, place a check next to Don’t show on title slide and select Apply to All.
• If you want to add slide numbers to your notes pages, select the Notes and Handouts tab, place a check next to Page number, and select Apply to All.

If you want the slide numbering to start with a number other than 1, go to Design and, in the Customize group, select Slide Size > Custom Slide Size. Under Number slides from, select the beginning number you want.

In PowerPoint 2010, go to Design and, in the Page Setup group, select Page Setup. Then, under Number slides from, select the beginning number you want.

How to Add Slide Numbers in PowerPoint on a Mac

Open your PowerPoint presentation in Normal view.

Go to Insert and select Slide Number.

In the Header and Footer dialog box, place a check next to Slide Number and enter the number you want the numbering to begin with. The Preview area shows how the slide number will appear on your slide.

If you don’t want numbering to appear on the first slide, place a check next to Don’t show on title slide.

Select Apply to apply only to the current slide or select Apply to All to apply to all slides.

A well-selected presentation topic can mean the difference between audience apathy and viewer veneration. Read on for our three-step guide to choosing the right topic for your talk.

Audience Issues

Before narrowing down your options, you’ll want to make sure that you’re well acquainted with the nature of your audience. This will allow you to select a theme that your viewers will be able to relate to, in turn creating the rapport that will secure their attention and ensure that your points are not only understood but remembered, too.

Let’s imagine that, while you’ve been allowed free rein over the actual contents of your talk, the subject itself has been limited to water-based pastimes. If your audience consists mainly of first-year students, a presentation on white-water rafting would doubtless go down better than a talk on, say, big-game fishing, which in its turn may turn out to be perfect for a convention of highly strung businessmen.

By delving a little deeper into your viewers’ circumstances, you’ll be able to modify your topic further for maximum effect. Background research may reveal, for example, that your class of eager young students have just had their fees increased, making a trip to a world-class rafting location impractical. In this case, you’ll want to focus your talk on local, more affordable hotspots.

And in the case of your businessmen, you’ll want to take practical and environmental issues into account before finalising your topic and suggesting sites for a good day’s fish. It’s no good having your entrepreneurs packing their rods for a trip to Italy when volcanic ash has just downed all flights to mainland Europe.

Knowledge and Passion

By selecting a topic about which you already hold a certain amount of knowledge, you’ll cut down on your research time and allow yourself to concentrate on making the presentation as stimulating as possible. Topics with which you are already well acquainted are also likely to be presented with a more natural confidence and, if you’ve had significant experience with the subject at hand, you’ll likely find a good opportunity to boost your credibility by mentioning one or two of your own personal achievements in the field.

It goes without saying that if you have been granted full freedom in selecting your topic you should pounce upon the chance of presenting on a subject on which you are truly passionate. Remember, enthusiasm is contagious, and the chances are that when you speak on a subject that really excites you, your inherent fervour will help to keep the audience alert and engaged. What’s more, by selecting a topic you love to talk about, you’ll be in a great position to defend your viewpoint if an unexpected debate arises during the Q&A session.

Bear in mind that the nature of the viewers should again be considered before settling upon your topic; if you’re fanatical about 1930s cinema and your audience’s interests lie in contemporary art, try to find a golden mean between both fields by choosing a topic that connects the two. A talk entitled “Snow White and the Seven Influences on Modern Art” might well satiate your audience’s desire to learn while simultaneously allowing you to explore new areas of your favourite subject.

Even if you have already been predesignated a subject to speak on, expanding your presentation to include sub-topics in which you are personally interested will give your pitch a far more breezy, personal feel. It may be that you’ve been asked to deliver a talk on the future of mobile technology; would it not be possible in this case to dedicate the topic – or at least a fair segment of it – to the iPhone apps to which you’ve recently contracted a hopeless addiction? In so doing, you’ll dilute the monotony of facts and statistics with a healthy dose of charisma.

Consider the Purpose

Reflect carefully on the purpose of your presentation before settling on a topic and title. What is it you want the audience to learn? Do you want to motivate them into personal action, or muster moral support for your latest project? Perhaps you want to deliver bad news with minimal upset, or shed positive light on an unfortunate turn of events.

Whatever the case, the approach you take to the subject matter can drastically affect the tone and air of the entire presentation; the wording of the title alone is likely to hugely affect your viewers’ attitude towards the pitch to come. Generally speaking, you’ll want to base your topic on a particular angle of the subject at hand. By developing a concrete set of views and crafting your topic in accordance with these, you’ll give your audience the chance to relate to your opinions far more effectively than they otherwise would.

Taking the subject of universal healthcare reform as an example, you’d be well advised to settle either in favour of the concept or against it, rather than dillydallying over the pros and cons. If you waver between perspectives throughout the talk and end with an indecisive conclusion, your audience will only be left confused and aimless. And remember that, whichever side of the fence you land on, data supporting your position should be cited throughout, and evidence for the opposing view should be exhibited and countered using strong statistics and examples.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the brain pays attention to the unexpected. When it comes to presenting unfortunate news to an anxious audience, the careful selection of focal points can help to euphemise an otherwise distressing state of affairs. If your line manager has asked you to prepare a talk concerning an impending redundancy consultation, try surprising your audience by focusing your topic chiefly on the moral and monetary support the affected can expect to receive. Giving comprehensive financial reasons for the lay-offs or repeating your speech on the company’s best interests will hardly help to motivate your staff at this sensitive time. Bearing in mind that the purpose of your talk is to soften a potentially devastating blow, the title should be worded as brightly as possible to inject some much-needed optimism into the situation.

Final Tips

Once you’ve chosen a topic, plan its contents from your audience’s perspective. Were you to attend a talk on the subject in question, what would you expect to learn, and by what means? It may be that the use of props, animation or a quiz could prove most helpful.

Remember that an audience’s concentration levels tend to fall off track shortly after the introduction, so you’ll not do yourself any favours by including abbreviations or corporate jargon into your topic title. Instead, make the title as enticing as possible, with clear hints as to the knowledge your viewers will acquire as payment for their continued attention.

Finally, when the presentation is prepared, test its relevance by rehearsing in front of a friend or colleague; it may be that you’ve left out an obvious discussion point, the absence of which will leave your audience scratching their heads. By covering as many potential query areas as possible in the presentation itself, you’ll leave your question and answer session time short and concise – a great hallmark of any effective presentation.

Topic sorted? Make sure your audience have something to remember you by with our ten tips for a great presentation handout…

In PowerPoint, there are three options when you want to select a group of slides to apply formatting, such as an animation effect or a slide transition to all of them. To select a group, use either the Slide Sorter or use the Slides Pane at the left of the screen. Toggle between these two views using the icons on the status bar at the bottom of the screen.

Instructions in this article apply to PowerPoint for Microsoft 365, PowerPoint 2019, PowerPoint 2016, and PowerPoint 2013.

Select All Slides

How you select all slides differs slightly depending on whether you are using the Slide Sorter or the Slides Pane.

Use the Slide Sorter: Select View > Slide Sorter. The first slide in the deck is selected. To select all of the slides in the presentation, press Shift and select the last slide.

Use Normal view: Select View > Normal. In the Slides Pane, select the first slide, press Shift, and select the last slide to select all the slides in the presentation.

Select a Group of Consecutive Slides

Select the first slide in the group of slides that you want.

Hold the Shift key and select the last slide you want to include in the group. This includes the first slide and the last slide you selected as well as all of the slides in between the two.

You can also select consecutive slides by dragging across the slides you want to select.

Select Non-Consecutive Slides

Select the first slide in the group you want. It doesn’t have to be the first slide of the presentation.

Hold the Ctrl key (Command key on a Mac) while you select each specific slide that you want. Slides can be chosen in random order.

Slide Sorter View

Use the Slide Sorter view to rearrange, delete, or duplicate your slides. You can also see any hidden slides.

Move a slide: Drag the slide from one position to another.

Delete a slide: Select the slide and press Delete.

Copy a slide: Select the slide and press Ctrl+C, or select Home > Copy.

Paste a copied slide: Select the desired insertion point and press Ctrl+V, or select Home > Paste.

Adjust the timing: Select the slides, go to Transitions, and change the time in the Duration text box.

Control transition effects: Select the slides, go to Transitions, and select Effect Options.

• You can record a voiceover in PowerPoint and insert it into your next presentation using the software’s Audio recording feature through the Insert menu.
• Recording and inserting a voiceover into PowerPoint is a relatively similar process on an Apple Macbook and Windows PC.
• Once you’ve recorded your audio, you can click the microphone icon that appears on your slide and playback your recording.

Public speaking is a valid and common fear. And although you might be trying to hone your public speaking with your free time at home, there’s a way you can incorporate your voice into your next PowerPoint presentation without the pressure of speaking on the spot.

How? Microsoft PowerPoint has a feature that lets you create narration for all slides as you see fit. This way, you can record — and re-record — voiceovers for your presentations that won’t make you cringe.

The process is virtually identical for both Mac and PC users and you can use your computer’s built-in mic or a headset. Whatever your operating system of choice is, easily record narration over a PowerPoint slide in a few quick steps. Advertisement

Check out the products mentioned in this article:

Microsoft Office (From $149.99 at Best Buy)

Apple Macbook Pro (From $1,299.00 at Apple)

Acer Chromebook 15 (From $179.99 at Walmart)

How to record a voiceover for PowerPoint on a PC

1. Open a new or existing or presentation in PowerPoint.

2. From the top toolbar, select “Insert.”

3. Toward the far right side, click “Audio.”

5. Name your audio file.

6. Click the circle icon when you’re ready to start recording. Advertisement

7. Select “OK” when you’re done recording.

8. A microphone icon will indicate the narration has been added to the slide.

How to record a voiceover for PowerPoint on a Mac

2. Find and select “Insert” from the top toolbar.

3. Toward the far right side, click “Audio.” Advertisement

4. Select “Record Audio…” 5. Name the audio file, and click the circle icon when you’re ready to start recording. Advertisement

6. Click “Insert” when you’re ready to finalize.

7. You can click the microphone icon on the slide to hear your recording.

Use our Dynamic TIME add-on and presentation to create your own PowerPoint countdown. PowerPoint countdowns are dynamic shapes for your slides, where you set a specific target or countdown date and time. Countdowns are great for counting down till New Year, for the opening of a new shop, the launch of a new product, and so on.

Count down to your target date with your viewers. Choose what to display; number of days, number of minutes, number of seconds and so on. Once that the target date is reached, your countdown slide is hidden and the slideshow jumps to a specific slide.

When you would search the internet for a countdown slideshow, then the only thing you will find, are instructions to display a presentation with a 10 minutes countdown. You will be instructed to set up a presentation with 10 slides. A slide per countdown minute, like 10, 9, 8, 7 and a slide display duration set to 60 seconds. That is a possibility for small and static countdowns. This Dynamic TIME implementation is much more dynamic and serve for longer countdown periods.

For this article, let’s use a sample countdown presentation where we promote the opening of a new hotel. The customer wants to display the total number of seconds till the official opening.

After installation of the Dynamic TIME add-on, you will have a new Dynamic ELEMENTS added to your Microsoft PowerPoint installation. Click the Dynamic ELEMENTS menu item and then click the TIME button.

This opens a panel on the right, with all the Dynamic TIME properties. The Dynamic TIME add-on allows you do use dynamic shapes or controls on your slide to display current time, current date, countdown or time counters.

Select the text box that will host the dynamic countdown on the slide.

Set the Mode to Count down.

Set the date to our target date. Optionally, you can set the time too.

At the Display combobox, choose Total seconds.

An optional setting, is to specify what to do when the target date/time is reached. Here in this sample, we set it to jump to the second slide, to announce the official opening.

Each time, you change a property, you will already see a preview at the text box.

Next, start the slideshow. The Dynamic TIME add-on will update the countdown control continuously, based on your settings. Note that the image below is an animated gif with limited images. It does not fully represent the dynamic slideshow as if it would be running as a PowerPoint slideshow.

When the countdown reaches the value 0, at the target date/time, then the slide will move on to the second slide, where we can officially announce the opening of our new hotel.

Several slide number options can be configured in PowerPoint in order to add the slide numbers to your slides.

Inserting a slide number in all the slides of a PowerPoint presentation is very easy. To insert the slide numbers, open the PowerPoint presentation and click Insert menu, then click Slide Number option.

The Header and Footer dialog box will be open with the options to insert the slide numbers in your current presentation. There are several options available besides the slide numbers. For instance, you can insert the current date and time, insert your company name or a footer text, etc. Also, you can control whether to insert the slide number in the cover slide or not.

Inserting Slide Number in PowerPoint for Mac

For the purpose of this demonstration, we have used the free Blue PowerPoint template that you can download from our site.

Here are the options where you can customize the slide numbers in Header and Footer. As you can see in the picture below, we have checked the Slide number checkbox and entered a Footer text. Also, you can check Don’t show on title slide, to prevent displaying the slide number on the cover slide. In some presentations, it is not desired to include a slide number in the first slide that is used as a cover slide, for instance.

If you need to start with a different number, you can specify the start number in Starts at textbox.

Customizing the Slide Numbers in Slide Master View

If you want to use a different format for the slide numbers, then a great way to apply the format to all the slides (existing and new slides) is using the Slide Master view. Under Slide Master view, you can control the styles for footer options and this way you can apply different styles to the slide numbers, or re-locate the slide number shape to any other position. The default place for the slide number is the bottom right corner, but some presentations might require to show the slide number in a different corner. This is especially useful if you have a background design for your slide with space to include the slide number.

Go to Slide Master view in PowerPoint.

Then, locate the shape containing the # character, this is the text shape used to insert the slide number. Move this shape to any desired position or change the shape properties (such as text color, font family, etc.).

Digital presentations have been around for a long time, but they’re as important as ever in 2020. And over the last 20 years, your presentations have evolved – today’s professional presenter has to be more polished and take advantage of all the digital tools available.

One way to level up your PowerPoint presentations is to add some music to all or some of your slides. An appropriate song can be effective in setting the tone of the presentation, retaining your audience’s attention, and making your project more memorable. Even better – a musical track playing along with your presentation can help you refine your timing when you prepare, so you’re on pace when you present.

It’s easy to add any music you have saved to your device, or even a track you found online, to your PowerPoint presentation. Here’s what you’ll need to know:

1. Adding a track from your computer
2. Adding a track from YouTube or SoundCloud
3. Editing the audio timing in PowerPoint

Adding a track from your computer

This is the easiest way to make your presentation musical: simply add a song that you’ve already saved on your computer. Open your presentation and select the slide where you’d like the track to begin playing. Select the “Insert” tab in the top toolbar and choose “Audio,” then “Audio from file.” When you’ve selected the file you want to use from your file browser, PowerPoint will add a small audio layer that looks like a speaker icon.

Even easier, you can simply find the right audio file in your file browser, then drag & drop it onto the correct PowerPoint slide. Once you’ve added it to your presentation, you’ll need to customize its timing and trigger so it works the way you want.

Adding a track from YouTube or SoundCloud

It’s simple to add any music you want to your presentation – not only the songs you already have saved on your computer. I recommend finding music on YouTube or SoundCloud: YouTube contains nearly every song you know, SoundCloud is perfect for discovering new music in pre-curated playlists, and both are completely free & accessible. Once you’ve found the track you want to use, right-click on the URL bar and copy the song’s link.

Next, head over to Kapwing.com, go to the “Tools” tab, and scroll down to find “Convert Video.” In the video converter tool, paste the link you copied and wait a few seconds while Kapwing uploads the file. Then, select “MP3” from the file options of the left and click “Create!” If you want to use just a specific part of the track, you can also trim the file while you’re in the Converter tool.

Once your music is finished processing, click “Download” to save it to your computer. Now, open your presentation and select the slide where you’d like the track to begin playing. Select the “Insert” tab in the top toolbar and choose “Audio,” then “Audio from file.” Alternatively, you can find the recently downloaded file in your file browser and drag & drop it directly into your PowerPoint window. Now you’re ready to customize your presentation’s timing!

Editing the audio timing in PowerPoint

Just adding music to your PowerPoint presentation isn’t enough – you’ll need to make sure it starts playing when you want it to, with the right triggers, and for the correct duration. Start by selecting the audio layer – it looks like a white speaker icon. With the track selected, choose “Animations” from the top toolbar.

Click the “Play” icon in the top toolbar to open the animations sidebar. Using the options in the sidebar, you can set the beginning of your audio track, the end trigger, the duration, and the media options. I recommend using the “After Previous” option for the beginning trigger, and setting the media duration using slide numbers – if you want the music to play automatically until the end, just set the duration to the remaining number of slides under the “Media Options” section.

Remember to tag us @KapwingApp whenever you share your content on social media– we love to see what our creators are passionate about! And be sure to subscribe to the Kapwing Resourcespage – we’re constantly writing new tutorial and features to help you make the most out of Kapwing.

Related Articles:
• How to Embed Any Video Into PowerPoint 2020
• How to Add Music to an Instagram Story
• How to Add Any Music to TikTok
• How to Add Music to Snapchat
• Add Music to Photos Using Kapwing

When your dream client signed on for a presentation, they weren’t expecting that their commitment would include all 4,201 slides in your deck. They were hoping that you would address their needs, share your ideas, and engage them in a dialogue.

If you have to present everything and the kitchen sink, you are really making the decision to present nothing.

Your slide deck needs to create the value your dream client needs and expects. It needs to provide enough value that it gains you the right to ask for the next commitment you need. It needs to open a conversation about how you can move your dream client’s business forward.

Here is how you can eliminate most of the slides in your deck and accomplish these goals.

Eliminate Who We Are

There are times when you need to share your company’s background with your dream client. But those occasions are more rare than you might believe, and there are other methods to provide that information, should your dream client need it.

The slides that show your company’s major milestones from the beginning of time to the present don’t add anything to your value proposition. The organizational chart that starts with your C-level executives doesn’t add any value either (although there may be a good reason to show them the members of the team that will work directly on their account). And unless the list of your locations is part of what’s being considered, it’s not going to do much to rev anybody up.

If you want to provide this information, it’s best provided as a supplemental handouts. If it isn’t necessary, cut it.

Eliminate Most of Your Offerings

Slide decks tend to get cluttered because one dream client asked a question, a slide gets built and added to the deck, and that slide lives in the deck for all eternity—even though it’s irrelevant to most of your dream clients.

The slide deck that you use to present to your dream client doesn’t have to include all of your service offerings, all of your processes and methodologies, or all of the details around your offerings or methodologies.

Here is the rule: Cut the slides that don’t add anything to the value proposition you are presenting now.

Anything That Doesn’t Fit

Have you ever seen a report embedded in a PowerPoint slide? It’s a thing of beauty, isn’t it?

There is content that just doesn’t belong in a slide. It doesn’t fit on a slide. It wasn’t designed for a slide. There really isn’t an effective way to use the information on a slide.

If it wasn’t made for a slide, it isn’t a slide. Cut it. It’s a handout.

Eleven Slides

Cut your slide deck to exactly eleven slides. Start by defining the value proposition of your sales call and your solution. If you had to choose only eleven slides to tell the story you need to tell, which eleven slides would you choose?

To cut slides, you have to ruthlessly determine what is essential to making your presentation valuable to your client, as well as what is essential to you being able to ask for and gain the commitment you need. The more slides you need to create this value, the less likely you have honed in on what is vitally important.

With so few slides (plenty!) you eliminate the opportunity to monologue and you ensure dialogue.

What To Do If You Need More Slides

I know. You’re frightened. What if you need slides that aren’t in your deck? No problem.

One way to ensure you have the slides that you need when you need them is to build a menu of supplemental material and bury your slides after your closing. If you need a few slides to support a point you are making, you have them available and can get to them quickly. But if you don’t need them, they don’t distract you—or your dream client—from your main points.

Go ahead and chop away.

Questions

How much of your presentation is truly necessary to achieving the outcome of your presentation?

Look at each slide. Does it create value for your dream client? Could you make your meaning without that slide?

Which slides in your deck should really be written handouts? What information might be presented in some other way?

Free online content available in this course.

Last updated on 3/31/20

Get the Most out of This Course

Welcome to this course about presentations!

Get Familiar With the Course Content

Part One: Creating Your Slide Deck

The course is made up of two parts, and each is split into multiple chapters. The first part will focus on the design and format of a slide deck using visual aids.

We’ll focus on the tools you’ll need to create slides. Everything you learn will apply to PowerPoint, Keynote on Mac, or free tools such as Google Slides or LibreOffice Impress.

Choose whichever tool you have available: this course is compatible with all four!

I’ll use the expression slide deck in this course, which is an alternative way of saying a collection of slides, commonly referred to as a PowerPoint presentation. I’ll avoid PowerPoints, however, because they are not the only tool out there 😊!

Although we won’t specifically go over tools other than slides in this course, a majority of the content regarding color choices, imagery or fonts, for example, is also even applicable to alternative tools which try and break the slide mold, such as Prezi.

Part Two: Delivering Your Presentation

The second part will focus on what methods to use when creating the speech to go with your presentation and advice on the actual delivery. We’ll go over storytelling and tips for getting over nerves.

Get Familiar With the Course Resources

Each chapter of this course contains:

Video: The videos are short, but cover the key concepts.

Text: The text recaps what is said in the video, but goes into further detail. You will also find links to resources as well a few extra videos in these parts.

In terms of assessments, there are two quizzes in this course; one per part.

Meet Your Teachers

My name is Stephane, and I’ve been working in business English training, media training and public speaking for a number of years and have trained hundreds of people on how to deliver a great presentation. Although I’m always the trainer, I love learning from my students and use my classes to see how different people react when discovering new information. I have a background in acting and film studies as well as foreign languages.

I created this course with Laurène Castor who is a designer by trade and has created a lot of courses on OpenClassrooms around graphic design. She created the course first in French, and many of the chapters in this English version are based on her content, but I’ve added several pieces of personal advice along the way!

So if you’re ready, let’s get started and head on to the first chapter! >_

Are you looking to create a PowerPoint presentation on your WordPress site, but not sure where to start?

What if we told you that you can now use WordPress to design and share presentations and leave PowerPoint behind.

In this article, we will show you how to use your WordPress website to deliver PowerPoint type presentations.

Why Create Presentations in WordPress?

A presentation on your website helps create visual appeal, keeps viewers on your pages longer, and boosts search engine optimization.

There are several different ways to add presentation slides to a WordPress website.

• Use a plugin like Embed Any Document.
• Copy and paste an embed code from Google Slides.
• Use a third-party service like SlideShare.

The problem with these methods is that you have to create your presentation in other software like PowerPoint, Keynote, or Google Slides. After that, you can embed the original document to your WordPress posts and pages.

These embeds sometimes don’t work with all devices, look ugly, difficult to browse, and not very SEO friendly.

An easier alternative is to create your presentation in WordPress using HTML 5 and JavaScript. It is SEO friendly, works with any device, and looks great.

It is also easy to share, which brings direct traffic to your website instead of a third-party service.

That being said, let’s take a look at how to easily create a presentation in WordPress without using external software.

How to Create a Presentation in WordPress

First, you need to install and activate the Slides & Presentations plugin. If you need help, we have written a handy step-by-step guide on how to install WordPress plugins.

Upon activation, you need to visit Presentation » Add New page to create your first presentation.

If you are familiar with making PowerPoint presentations, then the process of creating one using the Slides and Presentations plugin will be simple.

Your presentation will be made up of slides. The plugin comes with a Slide block which you can use to add more slides to your presentation.

First, you need to click on the Setup tab under the Document settings. From here you can select your presentation size by choosing either the standard 4:3 or widescreen 16:9.

Below that, you will find the options to set background color/image, font, transition effects, and controls for your entire presentation.

You can also change these settings for individual slides as you add them.

Now let’s start working on your slides.

In the content area, you will see a large box. This is where you will add your slide’s content.

Yes, this is the same WordPress block editor that you use to write blog posts. You can add text, headings, lists, images, media, and embeds to your slide.

If you are new to the WordPress editor, then see our complete WordPress block editor tutorial to familiarize yourself with the blocks.

While editing a slide, you will see a number of editing and formatting options in the right column. From here, you can change the background, font, and other settings for a specific slide.

Below each Slide, you’ll also see a small box to add speaker notes. This is where you’ll add anything you want to remember when giving your presentation.

You can add a new slide by clicking on the + icon or adding a new Slide block from the top similar to adding any other block when creating content in WordPress.

Once you are done working on your presentation, you can save and publish it. You can then copy the presentation link to share it or to view your presentation.

Presenting Your Slideshow

You can visit your presentation in a browser window. If you are logged in, then you’ll see the buttons to view your presentation in fullscreen and switch to the speaker view.

Switching to the speaker’s view will show speaker notes in a pop-up window showing speaker notes, the current slide, and the upcoming slide preview.

We hope this article helped you learn how to create presentations in WordPress. You may also want to see our list of the best WordPress plugins and tools for a business website.

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By default, every slide in a presentation has an associated set of up to four master slides. For most presentations, as we noted earlier, this configuration is perfectly adequate.

In some cases, however, you might want to associate certain slides in your presentation with a different set of masters than the standard Slide Master. For example, if you and a classmate or colleague are collaborating on a presentation, you might want to set up a “point/counterpoint” presentation, where your “point” slides all have one look, but your colleague’s “counterpoint” slides are different. The main part of the presentation would flip-flop between point and counterpoint slides, with each set of slides showing a different graphics designon the point slides, a woman facing to the right; on the counterpoint slides, a man facing left. To create this design, you would establish one set of masters for the point slides, and another set of masters for the counterpoint slides.

To create a second Slide Master, use either of these options:

Right-click any empty space below the current crop of masters and choose New Slide Master from the shortcut menu (or, alternatively, choose Insert, New Slide Master). This option produces a completely blank master that doesn’t incorporate any elements from the design you’ve used.

Right-click an existing Slide Master and choose Copy; then point to any empty space below the existing masters, right-click, and choose Paste. The new master slide is a perfect copy of the original, including design elements. For the new slide, PowerPoint adds a number and an underscore to the beginning of the name; if your presentation uses the Blends design, the new Slide Master is called 1_Blends Slide Master.

If you go to the trouble of creating and customizing master slides, take the final step and give each one a descriptive name. Right-click the master slide and choose Rename Master from the shortcut menu.

When you create a new presentation from scratch, all the slides are associated with one set of masters. If you want to use a second (or third, or fourth. . .) set of masters, you have to manually associate the slides in your presentation with the additional masters. The following steps assume you’ve already created a second Slide Master to use in your presentation:

In Normal view, click the Design button on the Formatting toolbar. This brings up the Slide Design pane. All existing master slides appear at the top of the Apply a Design Template box, under the heading Used In This Presentation.

Select the slides that you want to associate with the second set of masters.

Click the down-arrow to the right of the newly created Slide Master and choose Apply to Selected Slides.

Working with multiple masters can be a daunting and potentially confusing adventure, and we recommend it for experts only. For new slides, PowerPoint continues to use the original masters. If you change designs, slides created using the additional masters do not reflect the background, fonts, and colors of the new design.

Applies to: Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007

Have you made a PowerPoint slide show for celebration or photo album for memory? Are you searching the way to add music to your PowerPoint presentation to jazz it up further and make it more entertaining?

Here below is a tutorial about how to add music to your PowerPoint presentation and get it to span across multiple slides or the whole range of slides.

Step 1. Download or find the right MP3 or WAV music
We usually use music in MP3 or WAV format in our PowerPoint presentation. It is better to download or choose the music in MP3 format. This format has the smallest file size and good quality as well.

However, it is a pity that MP3 song cannot be embedded into PowerPoint presentation. It can only be linked.

Last but not the least, you need to make sure that you have all copyright permissions to include the song into your presentation.
Music is ready.

Step 2. Insert music

1. Open your presentation and display the slide you want to add music or sound effect.
2. From the Insert main menu ->Media Clip group ->Sound icon on the right side of the ribbon.

1. Click the drop down arrow of Sound and select Sound from File…. A window will appear allowing you to browse to music file that you want to associate with the slide. After choosing the right music, click OK.
2. You will be prompted to choose the way the music would play. Click Automatically to set it play automatically when you go to the slide. Click When Clicked to set it play only when you click the sound icon.
3. After this, an icon of a speaker will appear in the middle of your slide. You are allowed to move the icon to any location you desired on the slide.
4. Adding process completed. The music would only play for the single slide.

If you have PowerPoint 2003, the difference is that the operation directory is main menu Insert > Movies and Sounds > Sound from File…. The other sub-steps are nearly the same.

Step 3. Set its effect
How to set the music to play across multiple slides as it is useful especially the self-running slide show is prepared for a wedding, anniversary or trade show?

1. Open Custom Animation task pane from main menu Animations ->Custom Animation. It would appear on the right.
2. Click the drop down arrow of the music item you just added from the Custom Animation list and select Effect Options. A window named Play Sound is displayed.
3. Select After and then set the total number of slides the file should play on under Stop Playing part on Effect tab of Play Sound window. If the number of slides you assign here is the same with the whole number of your presentation, the music would play across your slide show as long as the music track’s duration is long enough.

Besides the stop time setting here, you can also double click the speaker icon to set other sound effect. After double click the speaker icon, the contextual menu displays. Options you can change are:

1. volume
   You can adjust the volume of the sound to Low, Medium, High, or Mute.
2. whether to loop (play continuously) the sound until the end of the presentation
3. hide the sound icon on the slide
4. maximum size of the sound file that can play
   It determines the file size that can be embedded to your presentation.
5. play automatically, across a specific number of slides or on click

Step 4. Embed music
When your presentation has linked audio file and you want to present it on another PC, you need to copy both the linked audio file and the presentation to another computer. You also need to check whether it plays correctly or not to make safe. Sometimes, you need to insert the music again if it does not play correctly.

Hence, you may choose to embed the audio file into your presentation. Then it would be contained in your presentation.
To embed WAV file, you need to follow a couple of steps.

1. First of all, you should make sure that the music file is in WAV format (MP3 file can only be linked, not embedded).
2. By default, the file which is smaller than 100 KB in size would be embedded. If you WAV file is larger than 100KB, you need to change the file size limitation first. It can be changed in the Sound Options group on the contextual menu when you double click the speaker icon on the slide.

That’s it! It’s not that difficult to add music to your PowerPoint presentation to make it more funny and entertaining. Enjoy it!

Tips:

1. MP3 is the best way to do this. If you are downloading music from the Apple iTunes service, you will need to convert them to mp3 format.
2. If you choose When Clicked play option, the sound will begin when you click on the sound icon that appears on the slide. This option should be used with much caution because you must click precisely on the sound icon for the sound to play. If you click on the slide by mistake, the presentation will advance to the next action.
3. If the path name of a linked file exceeds 128 characters, Microsoft Office PowerPoint is not able to find and play that linked file. In such a case, you can either rename the linked file, or shorten the path name by copying the linked file into the same folder where your presentation is located.
4. The embedded WAV files are limited within 50 Mb.

It is nearly the same to add video movie clip to your PowerPoint presentations. You may refer to the tutorial to put Youtube video to your PowerPoint presentations for details.

You may be interested in :

• You can create your own PowerPoint templates, which you can then open later and use.
• To create a PowerPoint template, create a new presentation and edit it however you like, and then save it as a “Powerpoint Template.”
• Making a PowerPoint template can save you time if you make many similar slideshows.
• Visit Business Insider’s Tech Reference library for more stories.

If you use PowerPoint often, and there isn’t an available template for the type of presentation you normally make, you probably wish that there were.

As it turns out, though, that’s an option — you can actually make your own PowerPoint template at any time, so that when you want to make a similar presentation again, all you have to do is open the template.

Once you make your PowerPoint template, you can even share it with colleagues, and make everyone’s life a little easier.

Here’s how to create your own template in Microsoft PowerPoint for Mac or PC.

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How to create a PowerPoint template

First, you have to create the template that you want. Here’s some tips on how to meaningfully set up a template.

1. Open PowerPoint on your Mac or PC and open a new, blank presentation.

2. Click “Design” at the top of the window, and choose a slide size and a theme. If you’d like, you can customize your theme using the Format Background button on the right.

3. Next, go to the “View” tab and select “Slide Master.” Doing this will allow you to view your master slide at all times, and use it to create other slides.

4. From here, you can edit any number of things about your PowerPoint. Play around with the different buttons and settings until you find a look that you like for your presentation.

One important thing to know how to do, though, is add a placeholder for an image, chart, or other piece of media you may need.

To add a placeholder, go to the Slide Master tab and click the button labeled “Insert Placeholder.” Select a type from the dropdown menu, then use your cursor to click and drag the placeholder to the spot you want it.

Once you’ve finished creating your template and are satisfied with its design and functionality, it’s time to save it.

To save your template on a PC:

1. Go to “File” and click “Save As” (or, if you’re using Office 365, “Save A Copy”), and click “Browse” to pick a place to save it.

2. Click the dropdown menu next to “File Type” in the pop-up, and from the list, select “Powerpoint Template.” When you do this, PowerPoint will automatically change the save location to the appropriate folder for you.

3. Give it whatever name you like, then click “Save.”

To save your template on a Mac:

1. Click “File” at the top of the screen, and then click “Save as Template. “

2. In the pop-up that appears, choose a name for the template and set where you’d like it to be saved. By default, it’ll be saved in a folder reserved for PowerPoint files.

3. Next to “File Format,” click “PowerPoint Template (.potx).” If your presentation contains macros (if you don’t know what this means, chances are you don’t have any), select “PowerPoint Macro-Enabled Template (.potm)” instead.

4. Click “Save.”

To use your template the next time you open PowerPoint, just open the template file, or select your template from the list when you open PowerPoint. You may need to click a tab labeled “Personal.”

Related coverage from Tech Reference:

How to download and access Microsoft PowerPoint on your Mac computer

How to embed a YouTube video into your Microsoft PowerPoint presentations using a Mac or PC

How to convert Google Slides to a PowerPoint presentation in 4 easy steps

How to convert a PowerPoint to Google Slides in 2 different ways

How to copy or duplicate a PowerPoint slide and put it anywhere in your slideshow

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