Does it take you ages to build a PowerPoint presentation?

When it's done, does it look like a school project?

 

Microsoft PowerPoint has some powerful tools that can make your slides stand out, so lets make sure you’re not missing out. Take a look at the video and tips below.

 

 

Here's a video demonstration, we go fast, read below for details.

Tip 1 - Design Ideas

You can see throughout the video how we can utilise Microsoft PowerPoint’s design ideas to really speed up the process of getting a good looking slide without the design skills.

Just drop on text and images and let it suggest a good style of slide based on your current theme.

Shown below, you can locate design ideas on the Home ribbon bar on the far right. If the design ideas bar isn’t showing, click it to open the panel on the right hand side.

 

Tip 2 - Artificial Intelligence Icons

This works in conjunction with the design ideas option discussed above.

If you want to jazz up your slides, after placing some bullet points on a blank slide, you can use design ideas. It will often create icons for your bulleted text to make it less boring.

This is simple too, just start with some bullet points and take a look in the design ideas panel for a slide with icons as shown in the video below.

Tip 3 - Free Stock Images Directly in PowerPoint

Lots of people spend the bulk of their PowerPoint presentation design time looking on the internet for stock images. Then when you find one you like, you realise you have to pay for it.

Instead of hunting around in your web browser, stay exactly where you are in PowerPoint, click on Insert on the top menu bar, then choose the dropdown arrow under pictures and choose Stock Images.

Search the topic of the image which would suit your slide, select it and hit the Insert button. This will drop the image onto the slide. Now use design ideas to tidy up what it looks like to your requirements.

PowerPoint Stock Images

Tip 4 - Cutout people in Stock Images

Add some human elements to your slides without having to go find your own model.

Within the Stock Images section discussed above, there is also a tab for cut-out people.

This gives you several characters to choose from in poses which will lend themselves to being added to your slides. They’ve also got transparent backgrounds so can be placed on top of background images to add depth.

Take a look at our example of this in the video below which follows on from our previous stock image of the office background.

PowerPoint cutout people

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