how to make a powerpoint presentation cool

HUGH CULVER

Author, speaker, coach, 10 easy ways to make any powerpoint presentation awesome.

Updated to Speaking on May 3, 2023.

This post was updated in 2023.

It was 20 minutes before lunch, my client was frantically looking at the clock, and the audience was squirming. We had suffered through endless forgettable PowerPoint slides and were all hoping for a merciful end. That’s when the presenter announced, “I see I’m running out of time, so I’ll just hurry through my last 30 slides.”

We’ve all suffered through slide shows with long lists of unreadable bullets, unnecessary YouTube clips, and overuse of graphics. Instead of holding our attention and making their point even stronger, each slide distracts the audience with more content they don’t need. Bad slides are agnostic. You can use PowerPoint, Keynote, Prezi, Google Slides, or hold up a piece of paper – it’s all a distraction if you don’t do it well.

Done well, a thoughtfully prepared slide deck can be the perfect slide dish for your full meal presentation. Done poorly and your audience will feel like they made one too many trips to the buffet table. This post will help you do it well.

For the first years of my speaking career, I presented with 35mm slides. You know, the photographs framed by cardboard that got jammed in the projector? That was me – hauling out the projector, clicking in the carousel, and praying that tonight it would all work. I soon learned that the more slides I showed the less the audience listened to me. So I cut back on the slides. I also noticed that when I switched to a black screen (see #9) the audience turned all their attention to me. So I practiced fading to black whenever I told a story or had an important point to make.

How I started

When I switched to PowerPoint I suddenly had a candy shop full of treats to sweeten my presentations with. And I started making all the same mistakes again: too many slides, too much content on each slide, and too distracting. After every presentation I always do a quick debrief – what worked, what needs to change? And slowly I developed a checklist for slide presentations.

I have shared with checklist with hundreds of speakers to help put the spotlight on them. Some were designing a new speech, some were preparing for a webinar and others needed slides to back up a video presentation. In every case, this checklist made their presentation better. They sold more products, got more referrals, and, in most cases, spent a lot less time working on their slide deck.

If you’ve ever struggled to create interesting slides or worry your slides are too wordy or you have too many of them, this will help.

Here are my 10 easy ways to make any PowerPoint presentation awesome.

1. Build your slides last

This might be the most important rule on the list. Don’t build your slide deck until you build your presentation.

You could be tempted to start monkeying with slides early in your speech writing process – after all, it’s a fun way to procrastinate from all that hard thinking – don’t. Building your slide deck before you build your presentation is like building a road before you know where it’s going.

Your slides are there to ADD to a well-designed speech, not to replace it.

2. Don’t try to replace you

People come to hear you. If you are launching your service on a webinar, they want to know how this solution has helped you and whether is it right for them. If you are delivering a keynote speech or workshop, they want a glimpse into your solutions that can help move them forward in their work or in life.

Fancy transitions, superfluous video clips, and endless bullet points will get your audience’s attention, but take their attention off of you. Every time you hit the clicker the audience leaves you and goes to the screen.

Your goal for every presentation is to deliver the goods, not the slides.

3. Use a consistent theme

We are easily distracted and confused. That’s why brands always anchor advertising on their unique colors, fonts, slogan, or a jingle. They know that consistency in their brand theme builds recognition and puts more attention on the message. You should do that with your slides.

Start with a simple, white background and san serif fonts.

A consistent, simple theme helps your audience focus on the content of each slide. Watch TED talks that have gone viral to see how simple a slide theme can be, like the ones by Dan Pink The puzzle of motivation (30M views), and Shawn Achor The happy secret to better work (25M views).

4. More images, less text

Want to quickly reenergize a tired slide deck? Make your images larger ( in this post I share where to get free images ) and reduce the text size. Remember, the theme in this post is that you are the presentation, not your slides.

Your brain can process images 60,000 times faster than text. When you use images (and less text) you allow your audience to process the image without distracting them away from your powerful story, or making a critical point. Like subtle mood music in the background of a dramatic movie scene, images can augment and enhance what you are saying without stealing the show.

5. One story per slide

When I started using PowerPoint I would have 60 to 80 slides for a 60-minute speech. It was a lot of work to prepare each deck and when I was deep into the speech I would sometimes forget where I was and have to jump forward a couple of slides.

Then it became 30-35 slides and I could breathe easier, knowing that fewer clicks meant less to worry about. As my confidence grew it became 10-12 slides and each slide became a key part of storytelling or point-making—they had to earn their place.

I might use a slide as a backdrop to a story or for a short list that supports a lesson I’m delivering. Either way, it’s always on ‘story’ per slide. If I don’t need a slide, I fade to black (#9).

But, I always stick to one story per slide.

6. Reveal one bullet at a time

This is an easy one – reveal one bullet at a time. The function of bullets is to reinforce (not replace) what you are delivering. That’s why they need to be short (see the 2/4/8 rule, below). A good bullet point is complete on it’s own, but much better when combined with a live presentation of it. Here’s an example from a list of (very wordy) time management strategies:

• Infrequent visits to your Inbox give you more time for deep work
• time blocking allows you to protect time for important work
• the Pomodoro technique can help you focus with fewer distractions

A better list – like one you might use on a PowerPoint slide – would be:

• visit your Inbox less often
• block time for important work
• the Pomodoro technique helps you focus

To reveal one bullet at a time in PowerPoint, right-click on your text box, select Custom Animation > Add Entrance Effect and then choose the effect you want. In Keynote, click Animate > Build in and choose the effect you want.

7. Leave the fireworks to Disney

It’s great that you know how to turn text into flames and make images spin with the click of your mouse – but leave those fireworks to Disney. Your job is to make your content the star of the show. Every time you haul the audience’s attention away to some animation you lose a truckload of opportunity to help them.

Your slides can still be amazing and helpful, but that should always be secondary to your primary purpose of helping people. Simple transitions, clean, san serif fonts, and large, attractive graphics trump PowerPoint tricks, every time.

8. The 2/4/8 rule

When I am advising other speakers I often don’t know their topic—certainly not as well as they do. So I rely on certain rules I have developed over many years. For slide decks, I use my 2/4/8 rule. Here’s how it goes…

• about every 2 minutes I have a new slide (that’s 30 slides for a 60-minute speech),
• no more than 4 bullets per slide, and
• no more than 8 words per bullet.

Just like any recipe, you can mess with the ingredient a bit. If your content is more technical, you might need more slides. Sometimes I need 5 or 6 bullets. I use the 2/4/8 rule to remind me that slides are there to support what I have to say, not replace me.

9. Fade to black

The last time I was shopping for a car, I noticed the salesperson had a clever technique. While he asked how I liked the car and if I had any questions, he kept his sales offer face-down on the table. Because there were no other distractions, he had my full attention. And when it was time to reveal his offer, it was much more dramatic (so was the price!) Use the same technique with your slides.

When you fade to black you regain your audience’s attention. For example, after I present a solution, I’ll fade to black while I expound on how to apply that solution in my audience’s work/life. When I’m finished, I turn black off and go to the next point. Or if I’m halfway through a story I’ll fade to back before the punchline so I know I have everyone’s attention.

It’s no different than a close-up scene in a movie—the director wants you to focus only on the speaker. Note that if you are shopping for a slide remote, be sure that yours has the black screen feature.

10. When in doubt, delete

This might be the most advice I can leave you with. When in doubt, delete it.

There is a weird attraction to more. Authors add more pages thinking it makes the book more valuable. Sales people who talk too much miss the opportunity to ask for the sale. And presenters add more slides thinking it will make them look better. Wrong.

When you are doing the final edits on your slide deck, the ultimate question you should be asking about each slide is, “Will it make my speech better?” If not, dump it.

Remember, nobody will miss what isn’t there. Also fewer slides allows you more time for side stories, spontaneous thoughts or even time for Q&A.

Remember this…

I’ve said it numerous times in this post, but it’s worth repeating. You are the show, not your slides. More slides means more time your audience is not paying attention to you. Fewer (and better) slides means you have more time to build rapport, share memorable stories, explain your solutions and motivate your audience to action. You are there for a reason. Now go and deliver.

One last thing. Spend the $80 and pack a remote (with spare batteries.) Nothing’s worse than watching a speaker repeatedly lean over, hunt for the right key, and then peck away to advance the slides.

If you enjoyed this article, here is more about presentation skills:

How the experts create world-class PowerPoint Slides (and you can too) PowerPoint Primer – the only 3 slides you’ll ever need How to add video to PowerPoint and Keynote like a pro

Slide by  Nathan Anderson  on  Unsplash

Related Posts

End procrastination. Start taking action.

Get your FREE 30-page guide now.

• The Spiral and the Flywheel
• The magic of boring routines
• How to get started on your goals with small wins
• Goodbye 2023
• I am a volunteer
• My cartoons are (yikes!) online.

Home Blog Presentation Ideas 23 PowerPoint Presentation Tips for Creating Engaging and Interactive Presentations

23 PowerPoint Presentation Tips for Creating Engaging and Interactive Presentations

PowerPoint presentations are not usually known for being engaging or interactive. That’s often because most people treat their slides as if they are notes to read off  and not a tool to help empower their message.

Your presentation slides are there to help bring to life the story you are telling. They are there to provide visuals and empower your speech.

So how do you go about avoiding a presentation “snoozefest” and instead ensure you have an engaging and interactive presentation?  By making sure that you use your slides to help YOU tell your story, instead of using them as note cards to read off of.

The key thing to remember is that your presentation is there to compliment your speech, not be its focus.

In this article, we will review several presentation tips and tricks on how to become a storytelling powerhouse by building a powerful and engaging PowerPoint presentation.

Start with writing your speech outline, not with putting together slides

Use more images and less text, use high-quality images, keep the focus on you and your presentation, not the powerpoint, your presentation should be legible from anywhere in the room, use a consistent presentation design, one topic per slide, avoid information overwhelm by using the “rule of three”.

• Display one bullet at a time

Avoid unnecessary animations

• Only add content that supports your main points

Do not use PowerPoint as a teleprompter

• Never Give Out Copies of the Presentation

Re-focus the attention on you by fading into blackness

Change the tone of your voice when presenting, host an expert discussion panel, ask questions, embed videos, use live polling to get instant feedback and engage the audience.

• He kept his slides uncluttered and always strived for simplicity
• He was known to use large font size, the bigger, the better.
• He found made the complex sound simple.

He was known to practice, practice, and keep on practicing.

Summary – how to make your presentation engaging & interactive, fundamental rules to build powerful & engaging presentation slides.

Before we go into tips and tricks on how to add flair to your presentations and create effective presentations, it’s essential to get the fundamentals of your presentation right.

Your PowerPoint presentation is there to compliment your message, and the story you are telling. Before you can even put together slides, you need to identify the goal of your speech, and the key takeaways you want your audience to remember.

YOU and your speech are the focus of this presentation, not the slides – use your PowerPoint to complement your story.

Keep in mind that your slides are there to add to your speech, not distract from it.  Using too much text in your slides can be distracting and confusing to your audience. Instead, use a relevant picture with minimal text, “A picture is worth a thousand words.”

This slide is not unusual, but is not a visual aid, it is more like an “eye chart”.

Aim for something simpler, easy to remember and concise, like the slides below.

Keep in mind your audience when designing your presentation, their background and aesthetics sense. You will want to avoid the default clip art and cheesy graphics on your slides.

While presenting make sure to control the presentation and the room by walking around, drawing attention to you and what you are saying.  You should occasionally stand still when referencing a slide, but never turn your back to your audience to read your slide.

You and your speech are the presentations; the slides are just there to aid you.

Most season presenters don’t use anything less than twenty-eight point font size, and even Steve Jobs was known to use nothing smaller than forty-point text fonts.

If you can’t comfortably fit all the text on your slide using 28 font size than you’re trying to say and cram too much into the slide, remember tip #1.4 – Use relevant images instead and accompany it with bullets.

Best Practice PowerPoint Presentation Tips

The job of your presentation is to help convey information as efficiently and clearly as possible. By keeping the theme and design consistent, you’re allowing the information and pictures to stand out.

However, by varying the design from slide to slide, you will be causing confusion and distraction from the focus, which is you and the information to be conveyed on the slide.

Technology can also help us in creating a consistent presentation design just by picking a topic and selecting a sample template style. This is possible thanks to the SlideModel’s AI slideshow maker .

Each slide should try to represent one topic or talking point. The goal is to keep the attention focused on your speech, and by using one slide per talking point, you make it easy for you to prepare, as well as easy for your audience to follow along with your speech.

Sometimes when creating our presentation, we can often get in our heads and try to over-explain. A simple way to avoid this is to follow the “ Rule of Three ,” a concept coined by the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle.

The idea is to stick to only 3 main ideas that will help deliver your point.  Each of the ideas can be further broken into 3 parts to explain further. The best modern example of this “Rule of Three” can be derived from the great Apple presentations given by Steve Jobs – they were always structured around the “Rule of Three.”

Display one sentence at a time

If you are planning to include text in your slides, try to avoid bullet lists, and use one slide per sentence. Be short and concise. This best practice focuses on the idea that simple messages are easy to retain in memory. Also, each slide can follow your storytelling path, introducing the audience to each concept while you speak, instead of listing everything beforehand.

Presentation Blunders To Avoid

In reality, there is no need for animations or transitions in your slides.

It’s great to know how to turn your text into fires or how to create a transition with sparkle effects, but the reality is the focus should be on the message. Using basic or no transitions lets the content of your presentation stand out, rather than the graphics.

If you plan to use animations, make sure to use modern and professional animations that helps the audience follow the story you are telling, for example when explaining time series or changing events over time.

Only add engaging content that supports your main points

You might have a great chart, picture or even phrase you want to add, but when creating every slide, it’s crucial to ask yourself the following question.

“Does this slide help support my main point?”

If the answer is no, then remove it.  Remember, less is more.

A common crutch for rookie presenters is to use slides as their teleprompter.

First of all, you shouldn’t have that much text on your slides. If you have to read off something, prepare some index cards that fit in your hand but at all costs do not turn your back on your audience and read off of your PowerPoint.  The moment you do that, you make the presentation the focus, and lose the audience as the presenter.

Avoid Giving Out Copies of the Presentation

At least not before you deliver a killer presentation; providing copies of your presentation gives your audience a possible distraction where they can flip through the copy and ignore what you are saying.

It’s also easy for them to take your slides out of context without understanding the meaning behind each slide.  It’s OK to give a copy of the presentation, but generally it is better to give the copies AFTER you have delivered your speech. If you decide to share a copy of your presentation, the best way to do it is by  generating a QR code  for it and placing it at the end of your presentation. Those who want a copy can simply scan and download it onto their phones.

Tips To Making Your Presentation More Engaging

The point of your presentation is to help deliver a message.

When expanding on a particularly important topic that requires a lengthy explanation it’s best to fade the slide into black.  This removes any distraction from the screen and re-focuses it on you, the present speaker. Some presentation devices have a built-in black screen button, but if they don’t, you can always prepare for this by adding a black side to your presentation at the right moment.

“It’s not what you say, it’s how you say it.”

Part of making your presentation engaging is to use all the tools at your disposal to get your point across. Changing the inflection and tone of your voice as you present helps make the content and the points more memorable and engaging.

One easy and powerful way to make your presentation interactive is experts to discuss a particular topic during your presentation. This helps create a more engaging presentation and gives you the ability to facilitate and lead a discussion around your topic.

It’s best to prepare some questions for your panel but to also field questions from the audience in a question and answer format.

How To Make Your Presentation More Interactive

What happens if I ask you to think about a pink elephant?  You probably briefly think about a pink elephant, right?

Asking questions when presenting helps engage the audience, and arouse interest and curiosity.  It also has the added benefit of making people pay closer attention, in case they get called on.

So don’t be afraid to ask questions, even if rhetorical; asking a question engages a different part of our brain. It causes us to reflect rather than merely take in the information one way. So ask many of them.

Asking questions can also be an excellent way to build suspense for the next slide.

(Steve Jobs was known to ask questions during his presentations, in this slide he built suspense by asking the audience “Is there space for a device between a cell phone and a laptop?” before revealing the iPad) Source: MacWorld SF 2018

Remember the point of your presentation is to get a message across and although you are the presenter, it is completely fine to use video in your PowerPoint to enhance your presentation.  A relevant video can give you some breathing time to prepare the next slides while equally informing the audience on a particular point.

CAUTION: Be sure to test the video beforehand, and that your audience can hear it in the room.

A trending engagement tool among presenters is to use a live polling tool to allow the audience to participate and collect immediate feedback.

Using a live polling tool is a fun and interactive way to engage your audience in real-time and allow them to participate in part of your presentation.

Google Slides has a built-in Q&A feature that allows presenters to make the slide deck more interactive by providing answers to the audience’s questions. By using the Q&A feature in Google Slides, presenters can start a live Q&A session and people can ask questions directly from their devices including mobile and smartphones.

Key Takeaways from one of the best presenters, Steve Jobs

He kept his slides uncluttered and always strove for simplicity.

In this slide, you can easily see he is talking about the battery life, and it uses a simple image and a few words. Learning from Jobs, you can also make a great presentation too. Focus on the core benefit of your product and incorporate great visuals.

Source: Macworld 2008

SlideModel.com can help to reproduce high-impact slides like these, keeping your audience engagement.

He was known to use large font sizes, the bigger, the better

A big font makes it hard to miss the message on the slide, and allows the audience to focus on the presenter while clearing the understanding what the point of the slide is.

He found made the complex sound simple

When explaining a list of features, he used a simple image and lines or simple tables to provide visual cues to his talking points.

(This particular slide is referencing the iMac features)

What made Steve Jobs the master of presentation, was the ritual of practicing with his team, and this is simple yet often overlooked by many presenters.  It’s easy to get caught in the trap of thinking you don’t need to practice because you know the material so well.

While all these tips will help you create a truly powerful presentation , it can only achieve if applied correctly.

It’s important to remember when trying to deliver an amazing experience, you should be thoroughly prepared. This way, you can elevate your content presentation, convey your message effectively and captivate your audience.

This includes having your research cited, your presentation rehearsed.  Don’t just rehearse your slides, also take time to practice your delivery, and your tone.  The more you rehearse, the more relaxed you will be when delivering. The more confident you will feel.

While we can’t help you with the practice of your next presentation, we can help you by making sure you look good, and that you have a great design and cohesiveness.

You focus on the message and content; we’ll focus on making you look good.

Have a tip you would like to include?  Be sure to mention it in the comments!

Like this article? Please share

Audience, Engaging, Feedback, Interactive, Poll, Rule of Three, Steve Jobs Filed under Presentation Ideas

Related Articles

Filed under Presentation Ideas • November 29th, 2023

The Power of Audience Engagement: Strategies and Examples

As presenters, captivating the interest of our viewers is the most important thing. Join us to learn all that’s required to boost audience engagement.

Filed under Business • April 30th, 2020

A Manager’s Guide to Interpersonal Communication

People are promoted to management positions for a variety of reasons. For many, they rise to the top because of their knowledge, technical skills, and decision-making capabilities. As a manager, your effectiveness also strongly depends on your ability to communicate well with your team members and other stakeholders. Here is a quick guide on Interpersonal Communication for Managers.

Filed under Business • June 27th, 2019

Using 360 Degree Feedback in Your Organization

Many organizations use 360 degree feedback to provide assessment for employees via multiple sources to analyze the knowledge, skill and behavior of employees. It is also known as multi-rater feedback, multi-source feedback, 360 Degree Review and multi-source assessment, since it is used frequently for assessing the performance of an employee and to determine his/her future […]

2 Responses to “23 PowerPoint Presentation Tips for Creating Engaging and Interactive Presentations”

Very great advices!

Greetings ! A compact composed communication for the host to have an impact -VOICE

Thank You ?

Leave a Reply

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

• Images home
• Curated collections
• AI image generator
• Offset images
• Backgrounds/Textures
• Business/Finance
• Sports/Recreation
• Animals/Wildlife
• Beauty/Fashion
• Celebrities
• Food and Drink
• Illustrations/Clip-Art
• Miscellaneous
• Parks/Outdoor
• Buildings/Landmarks
• Healthcare/Medical
• Signs/Symbols
• Transportation
• All categories
• Editorial video
• Shutterstock Select
• Shutterstock Elements
• Health Care
• PremiumBeat
• Templates Home
• Instagram all
• Highlight covers
• Facebook all
• Carousel ads
• Cover photos
• Event covers
• Youtube all
• Channel Art
• Etsy big banner
• Etsy mini banner
• Etsy shop icon
• Pinterest all
• Pinterest pins
• Twitter all
• Twitter Banner
• Infographics
• Zoom backgrounds
• Announcements
• Certificates
• Gift Certificates
• Real Estate Flyer
• Travel Brochures
• Anniversary
• Baby Shower
• Mother’s Day
• Thanksgiving
• All Invitations
• Party invitations
• Wedding invitations
• Book Covers
• Editorial home
• Entertainment
• About Creative Flow
• Create editor
• Content calendar
• Photo editor
• Background remover
• Collage maker
• Resize image
• Color palettes
• Color palette generator
• Image converter
• Contributors
• PremiumBeat blog
• Invitations
• Design Inspiration
• Design Resources
• Design Elements & Principles
• Contributor Support
• Marketing Assets
• Cards and Invitations
• Social Media Designs
• Print Projects
• Organizational Tools
• Case Studies
• Platform Solutions
• Generative AI
• Computer Vision
• Free Downloads
• Create Fund

9 Tips for Making Beautiful PowerPoint Presentations

Ready to craft a beautiful powerpoint presentation these nine powerpoint layout ideas will help anyone create effective, compelling slides..

How many times have you sat through a poorly designed business presentation that was dull, cluttered, and distracting? Probably way too many. Even though we all loathe a boring presentation, when it comes time to make our own, do we really do any better?

The good news is you don’t have to be a professional designer to make professional presentations. We’ve put together a few simple guidelines you can follow to create a beautifully assembled deck.

We’ll walk you through some slide design tips, show you some tricks to maximize your PowerPoint skills, and give you everything you need to look really good next time you’re up in front of a crowd.

And, while PowerPoint remains one of the biggest names in presentation software, many of these design elements and principles work in Google Slides as well.

Let’s dive right in and make sure your audience isn’t yawning through your entire presentation.

1. Use Layout to Your Advantage

Layout is one of the most powerful visual elements in design, and it’s a simple, effective way to control the flow and visual hierarchy of information.

For example, most Western languages read left to right, top to bottom. Knowing this natural reading order, you can direct people’s eyes in a deliberate way to certain key parts of a slide that you want to emphasize.

You can also guide your audience with simple tweaks to the layout. Use text size and alternating fonts or colors to distinguish headlines from body text.

Placement also matters. There are many unorthodox ways to structure a slide, but most audience members will have to take a few beats to organize the information in their head—that’s precious time better spent listening to your delivery and retaining information.

Try to structure your slides more like this:

And not like this:

Layout is one of the trickier PowerPoint design concepts to master, which is why we have these free PowerPoint templates already laid out for you. Use them as a jumping off point for your own presentation, or use them wholesale!

Presentation templates can give you a huge leg up as you start working on your design.

2. No Sentences

This is one of the most critical slide design tips. Slides are simplified, visual notecards that capture and reinforce main ideas, not complete thoughts.

As the speaker, you should be delivering most of the content and information, not putting it all on the slides for everyone to read (and probably ignore). If your audience is reading your presentation instead of listening to you deliver it, your message has lost its effectiveness.

Pare down your core message and use keywords to convey it. Try to avoid complete sentences unless you’re quoting someone or something.

Stick with this:

And avoid this:

3. Follow the 6×6 Rule

One of the cardinal sins of a bad PowerPoint is cramming too many details and ideas on one slide, which makes it difficult for people to retain information. Leaving lots of “white space” on a slide helps people focus on your key points.

Try using the 6×6 rule to keep your content concise and clean looking. The 6×6 rule means a maximum of six bullet points per slide and six words per bullet. In fact, some people even say you should never have more than six words per slide!

Just watch out for “orphans” (when the last word of a sentence/phrase spills over to the next line). This looks cluttered. Either fit it onto one line or add another word to the second line.

Slides should never have this much information:

4. Keep the Colors Simple

Stick to simple light and dark colors and a defined color palette for visual consistency. Exceptionally bright text can cause eye fatigue, so use those colors sparingly. Dark text on a light background or light text on a dark background will work well. Also avoid intense gradients, which can make text hard to read.

If you’re presenting on behalf of your brand, check what your company’s brand guidelines are. Companies often have a primary brand color and a secondary brand color , and it’s a good idea to use them in your presentation to align with your company’s brand identity and style.

If you’re looking for color inspiration for your next presentation, check out our 101 Color Combinations , where you can browse tons of eye-catching color palettes curated by a pro. When you find the one you like, just type the corresponding color code into your presentation formatting tools.

Here are more of our favorite free color palettes for presentations:

• 10 Color Palettes to Nail Your Next Presentation
• 10 Energizing Sports Color Palettes for Branding and Marketing
• 10 Vintage Color Palettes Inspired by the Decades

No matter what color palette or combination you choose, you want to keep the colors of your PowerPoint presentation simple and easy to read, like this:

Stay away from color combinations like this:

5. Use Sans-Serif Fonts

Traditionally, serif fonts (Times New Roman, Garamond, Bookman) are best for printed pages, and sans-serif fonts (Helvetica, Tahoma, Verdana) are easier to read on screens.

These are always safe choices, but if you’d like to add some more typographic personality , try exploring our roundup of the internet’s best free fonts . You’ll find everything from classic serifs and sans serifs to sophisticated modern fonts and splashy display fonts. Just keep legibility top of mind when you’re making your pick.

Try to stick with one font, or choose two at the most. Fonts have very different personalities and emotional impacts, so make sure your font matches the tone, purpose, and content of your presentation.

6. Stick to 30pt Font or Larger

Many experts agree that your font size for a PowerPoint presentation should be at least 30pt. Sticking to this guideline ensures your text is readable. It also forces you, due to space limitations, to explain your message efficiently and include only the most important points. .

7. Avoid Overstyling the Text

Three of the easiest and most effective ways to draw attention to text are:

• A change in color

Our eyes are naturally drawn to things that stand out, but use these changes sparingly. Overstyling can make the slide look busy and distracting.

8. Choose the Right Images

The images you choose for your presentation are perhaps as important as the message. You want images that not only support the message, but also elevate it—a rare accomplishment in the often dry world of PowerPoint.

But, what is the right image? We’ll be honest. There’s no direct answer to this conceptual, almost mystical subject, but we can break down some strategies for approaching image selection that will help you curate your next presentation.

The ideal presentation images are:

• Inspirational

These may seem like vague qualities, but the general idea is to go beyond the literal. Think about the symbols in an image and the story they tell. Think about the colors and composition in an image and the distinct mood they set for your presentation.

With this approach, you can get creative in your hunt for relatable, authentic, and inspirational images. Here are some more handy guidelines for choosing great images.

Illustrative, Not Generic

So, the slide in question is about collaborating as a team. Naturally, you look for images of people meeting in a boardroom, right?

While it’s perfectly fine to go super literal, sometimes these images fall flat—what’s literal doesn’t necessarily connect to your audience emotionally. Will they really respond to generic images of people who aren’t them meeting in a boardroom?

In the absence of a photo of your actual team—or any other image that directly illustrates the subject at hand—look for images of convincing realism and humanity that capture the idea of your message.

Doing so connects with viewers, allowing them to connect with your message.

The image above can be interpreted in many ways. But, when we apply it to slide layout ideas about collaboration, the meaning is clear.

It doesn’t hurt that there’s a nice setting and good photography, to boot.

Supportive, Not Distracting

Now that we’ve told you to get creative with your image selection, the next lesson is to rein that in. While there are infinite choices of imagery out there, there’s a limit to what makes sense in your presentation.

Let’s say you’re giving an IT presentation to new employees. You might think that image of two dogs snuggling by a fire is relatable, authentic, and inspirational, but does it really say “data management” to your audience?

To find the best supporting images, try searching terms on the periphery of your actual message. You’ll find images that complement your message rather than distract from it.

In the IT presentation example, instead of “data connections” or another literal term, try the closely related “traffic” or “connectivity.” This will bring up images outside of tech, but relative to the idea of how things move.

Inspiring and Engaging

There’s a widespread misconception that business presentations are just about delivering information. Well, they’re not. In fact, a great presentation is inspirational. We don’t mean that your audience should be itching to paint a masterpiece when they’re done. In this case, inspiration is about engagement.

Is your audience asking themselves questions? Are they coming up with new ideas? Are they remembering key information to tap into later? You’ll drive a lot of this engagement with your actual delivery, but unexpected images can play a role, as well.

When you use more abstract or aspirational images, your audience will have room to make their own connections. This not only means they’re paying attention, but they’re also engaging with and retaining your message.

To find the right abstract or unconventional imagery, search terms related to the tone of the presentation. This may include images with different perspectives like overhead shots and aerials, long exposures taken over a period of time, nature photos , colorful markets , and so on.

The big idea here is akin to including an image of your adorable dog making a goofy face at the end of an earnings meeting. It leaves an audience with a good, human feeling after you just packed their brains with data.

Use that concept of pleasant surprise when you’re selecting images for your presentation.

9. Editing PowerPoint Images

Setting appropriate image resolution in powerpoint.

Though you can drag-and-drop images into PowerPoint, you can control the resolution displayed within the file. All of your PowerPoint slide layout ideas should get the same treatment to be equal in size.

Simply click File > Compress Pictures in the main application menu.

If your presentation file is big and will only be viewed online, you can take it down to On-screen , then check the Apply to: All pictures in this file , and rest assured the quality will be uniform.

This resolution is probably fine for proofing over email, but too low for your presentation layout ideas. For higher res in printed form, try the Print setting, which at 220 PPI is extremely good quality.

For large-screens such as projection, use the HD setting, since enlarging to that scale will show any deficiencies in resolution. Low resolution can not only distract from the message, but it looks low-quality and that reflects on the presenter.

If size is no issue for you, use High Fidelity (maximum PPI), and only reduce if the file size gives your computer problems.

The image quality really begins when you add the images to the presentation file. Use the highest quality images you can, then let PowerPoint scale the resolution down for you, reducing the excess when set to HD or lower.

Resizing, Editing, and Adding Effects to Images in PowerPoint

PowerPoint comes with an arsenal of tools to work with your images. When a picture is selected, the confusingly named Picture Format menu is activated in the top menu bar, and Format Picture is opened on the right side of the app window.

In the Format Picture menu (on the right) are four sections, and each of these sections expand to show their options by clicking the arrows by the name:

• Fill & Line (paint bucket icon): Contains options for the box’s colors, patterns, gradients, and background fills, along with options for its outline.
• Effects (pentagon icon): Contains Shadow, Reflection, Glow, Soft Edges, 3-D Format and Rotation, and Artistic Effects.
• Size & Properties (dimensional icon): Size, Position, and Text Box allow you to control the physical size and placement of the picture or text boxes.
• Picture (mountain icon): Picture Corrections, Colors, and Transparency give you control over how the image looks. Under Crop, you can change the size of the box containing the picture, instead of the entire picture itself as in Size & Properties above.

The menu at the top is more expansive, containing menu presets for Corrections, Color, Effects, Animation, and a lot more. This section is where you can crop more precisely than just choosing the dimensions from the Picture pane on the right.

Cropping Images in PowerPoint

The simple way to crop an image is to use the Picture pane under the Format Picture menu on the right side of the window. Use the Picture Position controls to move the picture inside its box, or use the Crop position controls to manipulate the box’s dimensions.

To exert more advanced control, or use special shapes, select the picture you want to crop, then click the Picture Format in the top menu to activate it.

Hit the Crop button, then use the controls on the picture’s box to size by eye. Or, click the arrow to show more options, including changing the shape of the box (for more creative looks) and using preset aspect ratios for a more uniform presentation of images.

The next time you design a PowerPoint presentation, remember that simplicity is key and less is more. By adopting these simple slide design tips, you’ll deliver a clear, powerful visual message to your audience.

If you want to go with a PowerPoint alternative instead, you can use Shutterstock Create to easily craft convincing, engaging, and informative presentations.

With many presentation template designs, you’ll be sure to find something that is a perfect fit for your next corporate presentation. You can download your designs as a .pdf file and import them into both PowerPoint and Google Slides presentation decks.

Take Your PowerPoint Presentation to the Next Level with Shutterstock Flex

Need authentic, eye-catching photography to form the foundation of your PowerPoint presentation? We’ve got you covered.

With Shutterstock Flex, you’ll have all-in-one access to our massive library, plus the FLEXibility you need to select the perfect mix of assets every time.

License this cover image via F8 studio and Ryan DeBerardinis .

Recently viewed

Related Posts

Birthday Card Ideas: Pro Tips and Inspiration

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

Inspiring Sketchbook Cover Ideas for Self-Publishing Artists

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

Why Monochromatic Color Palettes Are a Hack for Elegant Designs

A monochromatic color palette is a simple yet sophisticated way to create your next design. Here’s what you need to know.

How to Make a Flyer for Free, Even with No Design Experience

Wondering how to make a flyer? This guide explains the whole process in 4 easy steps, with 10 designer-made templates to help you get started.

© 2023 Shutterstock Inc. All rights reserved.

• Terms of use
• License agreement
• Privacy policy
• Social media guidelines

Blog > Tips for good PowerPoint Presentations

Tips for good PowerPoint Presentations

08.14.21   •  #powerpoint #tips.

If you know how to do it, it's actually not that difficult to create and give a good presentation.

That's why we have some examples of good PowerPoint presentations for you and tips that are going to make your next presentation a complete success.

1. Speak freely

One of the most important points in good presentations is to speak freely. Prepare your presentation so well that you can speak freely and rarely, if ever, need to look at your notes. The goal is to connect with your audience and get them excited about your topic. If you speak freely, this is much easier than if you just read your text out. You want your audience to feel engaged in your talk. Involve them and tell your text in a vivid way.

2. Familiarize yourself with the technology

In order to be able to speak freely, it is important to prepare the text well and to engage with the topic in detail.

However, it is at least as important to familiarize yourself with the location’s technology before your presentation and to start your PowerPoint there as well. It is annoying if technical problems suddenly occur during your presentation, as this interrupts your flow of speech and distracts the audience from the topic. Avoid this by checking everything before you start your talk and eliminate any technical problems so that you can give your presentation undisturbed.

• Don't forget the charging cable for your laptop
• Find out beforehand how you can connect your laptop to the beamer. Find out which connection the beamer has and which connection your laptop has. To be on the safe side, take an adapter with you.
• Always have backups of your presentation. Save them on a USB stick and preferably also online in a cloud.
• Take a second laptop and maybe even your own small projector for emergencies. Even if it's not the latest model and the quality is not that good: better bad quality than no presentation at all.

3. Get the attention of your audience

Especially in long presentations it is often difficult to keep the attention of your audience. It is important to make your presentation interesting and to actively involve the audience. Try to make your topic as exciting as possible and captivate your audience.

Our tip: Include interactive polls or quizzes in your presentation to involve your audience and increase their attention. With the help of SlideLizard, you can ask questions in PowerPoint and your audience can easily vote on their own smartphone. Plus, you can even get anonymous feedback at the end, so you know right away what you can improve next time.

Here we have also summarized further tips for you on how to increase audience engagement.

4. Hold eye contact

You want your audience to feel engaged in your presentation, so it is very important to hold eye contact. Avoid staring only at a part of the wall or at your paper. Speak to your audience, involve them in your presentation and make it more exciting.

But also make sure you don't always look at the same two or three people, but address everyone. If the audience is large, it is often difficult to include everyone, but still try to let your eyes wander a little between your listeners and look into every corner of the room.

5. Speaking coherently

In a good presentation it is important to avoid jumping from one topic to the next and back again shortly afterwards. Otherwise your audience will not be able to follow you after a while and their thoughts will wander. To prevent this, it is important that your presentation has a good structure and that you work through one topic after the other.

Nervousness can cause even the best to mumble or talk too fast in order to get the presentation over with as quickly as possible. Try to avoid this by taking short pauses to collect yourself, to breathe and to remind yourself to speak slowly.

6. Matching colors

An attractive design of your PowerPoint is also an important point for giving good presentations. Make sure that your slides are not too colorful. A PowerPoint in which all kinds of colors are combined with each other does not look professional, but rather suitable for a children's birthday party.

Think about a rough color palette in advance, which you can then use in your presentation. Colors such as orange or neon green do not look so good in your PowerPoint. Use colors specifically to emphasize important information.

To create good PowerPoint slides it is also essential to choose colors that help the text to read well. You should have as much contrast as possible between the font and the background. Black writing on a white background is always easy to read, while yellow writing on a white background is probably hard to read.

7. Slide design should not be too minimalistic

Even though it is often said that "less is more", you should not be too minimalistic in the design of your presentation. A presentation where your slides are blank and only black text on a white background is likely to go down just as badly as if you use too many colors.

Empty presentations are boring and don't really help to capture the attention of your audience. It also looks like you are too lazy to care about the design of your presentation and that you have not put any effort into the preparation. Your PowerPoint doesn't have to be overflowing with colors, animations and images to make it look interesting. Make it simple, but also professional.

8. Write only key points on the slides

If you want to create a good presentation, it is important to remember that your slides should never be overcrowded. Write only the most important key points on your slides and never entire sentences. Your audience should not be able to read the exact text you are speaking in your PowerPoint. This is rather annoying and leads to being bored quickly. Summarize the most important things that your audience should remember and write them down in short bullet points on your presentation. Then go into the key points in more detail in your speech and explain more about them.

9. Do not overdo it with animations

Do never use too many animations. It looks messy, confusing and definitely not professional if every text and image is displayed with a different animation. Just leave out animations at all or if you really want to use them then use them only very rarely when you want to draw attention to something specific. Make sure that if you use animations, they are consistent. If you use transitions between the individual slides, these should also always be kept consistent and simple.

10. Use images

Pictures and graphics in presentations are always a good idea to illustrate something and to add some variety. They help keep your audience's attention and make it easier to remember important information. But don't overdo it with them. Too many pictures can distract from your presentation and look messy. Make sure the graphics also fit the content and, if you have used several images on one slide, ask yourself if you really need all of them.

11. Choose a suitable font

Never combine too many fonts so that your presentation does not look messy. Use at most two: one for headings and one for text. When choosing fonts, you should also make sure that they are still legible at long distances. Script, italic and decorative fonts are very slow to read, which is why they should be avoided in presentations.

It is not so easy to choose the right font. Therefore, we have summarized for you how to find the best font for your PowerPoint presentation.

12. Do not use images as background

In a good presentation it is important to be able to read the text on the slides easily and quickly. Therefore, do not use images as slide backgrounds if there is also text on them. The picture only distracts from the text and it is difficult to read it because there is not much contrast with the background. It is also harder to see the image because the text in the foreground is distracting. The whole thing looks messy and distracting rather than informative and clear.

13. Never read out the text from your slides

Never just read the exact text from your slides. Your audience can read for themselves, so they will only get bored and in the worst case it will lead to "Death by PowerPoint". You may also give them the feeling that you think they are not able to read for themselves. In addition, you should avoid whole sentences on your slides anyway. List key points that your audience can read along. Then go into more detail and explain more about them.

14. Don't turn your back

Never turn around during your presentation to look at your projected PowerPoint. Not to read from your slides, but also not to make sure the next slide is already displayed. It looks unprofessional and only distracts your audience.

In PowerPoint's Speaker View, you can always see which slide is currently being displayed and which one is coming next. Use this to make sure the order fits. You can even take notes in PowerPoint, which are then displayed during your presentation. You can read all about notes in PowerPoint here.

15. Do not forget about the time

In a good presentation, it is important to always be aware of the given time and to stick to it. It is annoying when your presentation takes much longer than actually planned and your audience is just waiting for you to stop talking or you are not able to finish your presentation at all. It is just as awkward if your presentation is too short. You have already told everything about your topic, but you should actually talk for at least another ten minutes.

Practice your presentation often enough at home. Talk through your text and time yourself as you go. Then adjust the length so that you can keep to the time given on the day of your presentation.

16. Avoid a complicated structure

The structure of a good presentation should not be complicated. Your audience should be able to follow you easily and remember the essential information by the end. When you have finished a part, briefly summarize and repeat the main points before moving on to the next topic. Mention important information more than once to make sure it really gets across to your audience.

However, if the whole thing gets too complicated, it can be easy for your audience to disengage after a while and not take away much new information from your presentation.

17. Choose appropriate clothes

On the day of your presentation, be sure to choose appropriate clothing. Your appearance should be formal, so avoid casual clothes and stick to professional dress codes. When choosing your clothes, also make sure that they are rather unobtrusive. Your audience should focus on your presentation, not on your appearance.

18. Adapt your presentation to your audience

Think about who your audience is and adapt your presentation to them. Find out how much they already know about the topic, what they want to learn about it and why they are here in the first place. If you only talk about things your audience already knows, they will get bored pretty soon, but if you throw around a lot of technical terms when your audience has hardly dealt with the topic at all, they will also have a hard time following you. So to give a successful and good presentation, it is important to adapt it to your audience.

You can also ask a few questions at the beginning of your presentation to learn more about your audience and then adapt your presentation. With SlideLizard , you can integrate polls directly into your PowerPoint and participants can then easily answer anonymously from their smartphone.

19. Mention only the most important information

Keep it short and limit yourself to the essentials. The more facts and information you present to your audience, the less they will remember.

Also be sure to leave out information that does not fit the topic or is not relevant. You will only distract from the actual topic and lose the attention of your audience. The time your audience can concentrate and listen with attention is rather short anyway, so don't waste it by telling unimportant information.

20. Talk about your topic in an exciting way

Tell compelling and exciting stories to make your presentation really good. If you speak in a monotone voice all the time, you are likely to lose the attention of your audience. Make your narration lively and exciting. Also, be careful not to speak too quietly, but not too loudly either. People should be able to understand you well throughout the whole room. Even if it is not easy for many people, try to deliver your speech with confidence. If you are enthusiastic about the topic yourself, it is much easier to get your audience excited about it.

Related articles

About the author.

Helena Reitinger

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

Get 1 Month for free!

Do you want to make your presentations more interactive.

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

Top blog articles More posts

How to show PowerPoint slides in Portrait orientation

5 ways to insert PDFs into PowerPoint

Get started with Live Polls, Q&A and slides

for your PowerPoint Presentations

The big SlideLizard presentation glossary

Interpersonal communication.

Interpersonal communication is face-to-face communication. It means that people exchange information and feelings through verbal and non-verbal messages.

Tutorials are videos with instructions that show how for example a product or a software works.

Valedictory Speech

A valedictory speech is given in order to say goodbye, usually at graduation. It should inspire listeners and functions as a send-off into "real life".

Panel Discussion

A panel discussion is a structured conversation in front of an audience on a given topic between several people.

Be the first to know!

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

- or follow us on -

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

Cookie Settings

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

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

60+ Best Cool PowerPoint Templates (With Awesome Design)

PowerPoint slideshows used to be the boring part of a meeting or presentation. But now, with the help of cool PowerPoint templates, everyone can make presentation slideshows look more interesting and attractive, even if you don’t have any experience in PowerPoint slideshow design.

For this collection, we gathered some modern and stylish PowerPoint presentation templates you can easily customize to make your slideshows look cooler. Download one of these cool PowerPoint templates, open it up, and start customizing right away!

Plus, we’re featuring our tips for making a cool PowerPoint template that stands out from the crowd!

How Does Unlimited PowerPoint Templates Sound?

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

Business PPT Templates

Corporate & pro.

BeMind Minimal Template

Minimal PPT Templates

Clean & clear.

Explore PowerPoint Templates

Spectrum – Colorful PowerPoint Presentation Template

Spectrum not only comes with a cool and colorful design but it also features a massive collection of over 100 unique slide designs.

It includes lots of multipurpose slides with charts, graphs, icons, vector shapes, and much more. As a bonus, you’ll also get an Apple Keynote version of the template as well.

Why This Is A Top Pick

Being able to choose from so many cool slide designs is only one of the many benefits of this template. The multipurpose design also makes it suitable for all sorts of presentations.

Trato – Cool PowerPoint Portfolio Template

This PowerPoint template comes filled with lots of cool colors that give it a fun and creative feel. It will fit perfectly for your portfolio presentations, especially for creators, artists, freelancers, and small agencies. The template has 24 customizable slide layouts with editable graphics.

Convita – Cool PowerPoint Pitch Deck Template

Are you a fan of gradient colors, creative geometric shapes, and uncommon content layout designs? Then this PPT is for you. It has one of the coolest designs of all the templates on our list. And there are more than 30 different slide designs in this template for you to choose from.

Maroon – Minimal & Cool Powerpoint Template

Maroon is a minimalist PowerPoint template that uses some cool shapes and graphics to make each slide look cooler than the other. You get 40 different slide layouts that are available in 50 color themes as well as in dark and light versions.

Shinos – Cool Dark Pitch Deck PowerPoint Template

If you look closer, you’ll notice the creative approach used in this PowerPoint template. It uses a very pitch-black dark background to clearly highlight all of the other graphics and typography. It’s a great template for making pitch decks for marketing presentations.

Bell Curve – Free Cool PowerPoint Template

Marketers will surely appreciate this free PowerPoint template as it comes with some useful slide layouts filled with charts and graphs. It includes 25 slides with cool designs and editable elements. You can download it for free.

Telo – Cool Business PowerPoint Template

Telo is another cool and creative PowerPoint template you can use for business presentations. It has lots of modern slide layouts that are most suitable for product and startup slideshows. There are 39 unique slides in this template.

Baekju – Cool Business Presentation PPT

This PowerPoint template comes with 25 carefully crafted slide designs. These slides feature clean and minimal designs with an aesthetic feel. It’s ideal for creative agencies and lifestyle businesses. The template includes image gallery slides, charts, graphs, and more.

Expro Studio – Colorful Business PPT Template

If you’re working on a presentation for a modern agency, conference, or event, this template will help you craft a cool slideshow for your project. There are 36 slides in this template with easily customizable shapes, fonts, colors, and image placeholders.

Bida – Agency Portfolio Cool PowerPoint Template

Bida is a cool PowerPoint presentation with a bold design. This template is perfect for crafting modern slideshows for businesses in the lifestyle, sports, luxury watches, and men’s products industries. The template has 39 unique slides that you can customize to your preference.

Free Cool Acid Graphics Style PowerPoint Template

You can download this PowerPoint template for free to create a cool and groovy presentation for a modern agency. It features 24 unique slides with acid graphics-style objects, shapes, and elements.

Lelelike – Cool PowerPoint Templates

Lelelike is a cool and creative PowerPoint presentation that can be fully customized to meet your requirements. Whether you want to create a pitch deck, startup investment presentation, or a personal portfolio, Lelelike is your sure-fire bet.

Karbon – Cool PowerPoint Templates

If you’re looking for a colorful and trendy PowerPoint template that really helps you make an impression, consider Karbon, a modern and unique ppt design featuring 100 plus slides, high contrast color schemes, and much more.

Ciri – Minimal Cool PowerPoint Template

Sometimes the coolest things come in simple designs. This PowerPoint template is just like that. It features a calm yet cool design that’s ideal for designing both professional and creative presentations. It includes 59 unique slides with editable charts, graphs, and animations.

Source Exclusive – Cool PowerPoint Templates

An absolute dapper of a presentation, Source Exclusive comes with a cool and stylish design that perfectly fits a range of creative applications. It offers 36 unique slides, drag and drop image placeholders, free fonts, and editable graphics.

Mooshie – Free Cool PowerPoint Templates

Check out Mooshie, a cute, and pretty-looking presentation featuring a dazzling design inspired by pop art culture. It offers an array of beautiful slides, fully customizable graphics, and virtually everything you’d express in a cool, and innovative PowerPoint template.

XGDragon – Free Cool PowerPoint Templates

Wanting an edgy, unconventional PowerPoint template for your next fashion or photography presentation? Look no further than XGDragon, a ppt that reflects style and personality in every slide. The best part? It’s available for free download.

Mevla – Creative PowerPoint Template

Featuring a dark and creative color theme, this PowerPoint template comes with 30 unique slides. You can also choose from 5 different color schemes to customize the design of this template. It includes lots of editable graphics and shapes as well.

Onfire – Creative PowerPoint Template

This is a modern and creative PowerPoint template that certainly does justice to its name. It features a set of 30 unique slides that feature attractive designs filled with shapes that allows you to showcase information is a professional way. The template is available in 5 different color schemes as well.

Neaches – Minimal PowerPoint Template

Featuring a minimal and stylish slide design, this PowerPoint template comes with a total of 150 slides that are ideal for making presentations for creative brands and agencies. The template also includes lots of editable vector graphics, illustrations, and image placeholders for easier editing.

Clover – Modern PowerPoint Template

Clover is an attractive PowerPoint template that comes with a set of creative slides that are designed for promoting apps, services, and products. The template is easily customizable and comes with 3 different color schemes as well as in light and dark background themes.

Dotto – Cool Free PowerPoint Template

This modern and free PowerPoint template features a cool and stylish design that lets you create unique slideshows for creative presentations. The template includes 20 unique slide designs with fully editable content layouts.

Free Business PowerPoint Presentation Template

Another great free PowerPoint template featuring a set of colorful and creative slides. It’s perfect for making a simple presentation for business and branding projects. The template includes 22 unique slides.

Blurry Night – Innovative PowerPoint Templates

Blurry Night is a bold, and stylish presentation template that offers 22 gorgeously designed slides, fully editable in Microsoft PowerPoint. It provides you with everything that you might need to deliver a stand out presentation and impress your audience.

Tesla – Cool PowerPoint Templates

If you’re looking to hunt down cool PowerPoint templates, Tesla is well worth checking out. It features 76 slides that can be molded to your specific requirements in just a few easy clicks.

Morning – Modern PowerPoint Templates

Morning is a clean, and creative PowerPoint template that will make your presentation next level attractive. It’s a must-have product in your PowerPoint collection if you truly value standing out from the pack.

WaterColor – Cool PowerPoint Templates

WaterColor is an effortlessly stylish, and unique Powerpoint template that will instantly draw your audience’s attention, and keep it there. It features 80 unique slides that can be fully customized to your heart’s content.

Koffee – Cool PowerPoint Templates

Koffee is a solid choice for anyone looking to create a cool, and innovative presentation. It’s a multipurpose template that can be used for nearly any business, or industry under the sun. Check it out now.

Comersa – Multipurpose PowerPoint Template

This modern PowerPoint template is perfect for making a presentation to showcase your portfolio and fashion designs. The template includes 30 unique slides with multipurpose design and features image placeholders as well.

Lawyero – Law Firm PowerPoint Presentation

If you’re working on a presentation for a law firm or a lawyer, this creative PowerPoint template will help you design an effective presentation that attracts attention. The template includes 40 unique slides with vector icons.

Karpetian – Colorful PowerPoint Template

Karpetian PowerPoint template features a modern and colorful design that also features a professional content arrangement for making presentations for all types of events and purposes. The template includes a total of 150 slides.

Nilo – Education PowerPoint Template

This stylish PowerPoint template has been designed specifically for making presentations for schools and education-related businesses. The template comes with 25 unique slides featuring creative illustrations and transition animations.

Lefite – Magazine PowerPoint Template

A modern and minimalist PowerPoint template ideal for creative professionals and freelancers for making convincing presentations to win more clients. This template includes 30 unique slides featuring customizable vector graphics and image placeholders.

Free Multipurpose PowerPoint Template

A multipurpose PowerPoint template you can use for free to design various presentations. This template comes with 22 stylish slide layouts with animations and transitions. It also features image placeholders as well.

Free Minimalist Style PowerPoint Template

This free PowerPoint template is most suitable for designing clean and simple presentations for creatives and professionals. It includes 30 unique slides you can easily customize to your preference.

Moisture – Modern PowerPoint Template

This PowerPoint template has also been designed with creative agencies and freelancers in mind. It comes with a set of slides you can use to showcase your services, skills, and portfolio in a professional way. The slides are available in 5 different color schemes as well.

Markethy – Marketing PowerPoint Template

You can use this cool PowerPoint template to design an attractive slideshow for all kinds of marketing and sales presentations. The template is fully customizable and features 3 premade color schemes to choose from with dark and light themes.

MILD – Minimal & Cool PowerPoint Template

Mild comes with a set of 35 unique slides featuring modern and cool designs. It also includes 50 different color themes with light and dark styles. The multipurpose design of the slides will allow you to create any kind of creative, business, or corporate slideshow using this PowerPoint template.

Maximus – Modern & Cool PowerPoint Template

Maximus is a cool PowerPoint template made for business and corporate presentations. It comes with 30 unique slides that are available in 5 different color schemes, making a total of 130 slides. The template includes a unique infographic and lots of other vector elements.

Voda – Creative Cool PowerPoint Template

Voda features a dark and cool color theme that better highlights your content in each slide. The template includes 80 unique slides and a total of 240 slides. You can also choose from 5 different color themes for the slides, including a multi-colored version.

Colors – Free Colorful PowerPoint Template

This colorful and free PowerPoint template comes with 60 unique slide layouts featuring unlimited color options, image placeholders, editable shapes, and much more you can use to create cool and stylish presenattions.

Look – Free Cool PowerPoint Template

Look is a cool free PowerPoint template you can use to make stylish presentations for showcasing fashion brands and designs. The template includes 55 unique slides with fully customizable layouts.

Color FUN – Cool PowerPoint Template

This PowerPoint template comes with a colorful design filled with attractive designs, icons, vector shapes, infographics, and more. The template includes more than 50 unique slides. You can customize and resize everything in the template and change colors however you like.

F2 & Black End – Cool PowerPoint Template

If you’re looking for a multipurpose PowerPoint template you can use for creative, business, or personal presentation designs, this template is a must-have. It comes in both light and dark color themes as well as a cool design featuring easily customizable vectors and image placeholders.

RAVI – Cool PowerPoint Template

Ravi is a minimal and modern PowerPoint template that comes with plenty of cool slides for creating a professional presentation slideshow. The template includes 100 unique slides featuring 40 curated colors. It also comes with lots of infographics, vector shapes, charts, graphs, and more.

Meldow – Cool PowerPoint Template

Meldow is a clean and stylish PowerPoint template featuring more than 150 slides. The template is available in 5 different premade color schemes. Each template comes with 30 unique slides. It’s perfect for business and agency presentations.

Yellow – Cool Creative PowerPoint Template

Just as the name describes, this cool PowerPoint template features lots of yellow throughout the design. This makes it a great choice for creating marketing and creative presentations. Of course, the colors can also be easily customized to your preference as well.

Wagner – Free Cool PowerPoint Template

Wagner is a free PowerPoint template featuring a set of modern slides you can use to design different types of business and creative presentations. The template comes with editable shapes and vectors as well.

UCorporate – Cool Business PowerPoint Template

Who says corporate presentations shouldn’t look cool? With this stylishly modern PowerPoint template, you can design cool and interesting slideshows for corporate and business meetings without affecting the professionalism. The template is available in light and dark color themes.

SOFT – Minimal & Cool PowerPoint Template

Minimalism is a part of making things look cool. Soft PowerPoint template will make any kind of a creative, business, or professional presentation look cool with its clean design. The template 70 unique slides in multipurpose design featuring data charts, portfolios, gallery slides, and more.

Trending – Cool PowerPoint Template

Trending is a PowerPoint template you can use to design a cool slideshow presentation for business and corporate meetings. It comes with many useful slides such as business model slides, marketing strategy, traction, projections, and more. It includes a total of 420 slides featuring 6 colors.

KEPO – Minimal Cool Powerpoint Template

Kepo is a stylish and creative PowerPoint template that comes with a minimal design. This template is most suitable for educational presentations as it features a design that effectively highlights content. It includes 65 unique slides with 50 curated colors.

Motion – Cool Powerpoint Template

Motion PowerPoint template comes with creative slides filled with stylish graphics, vector shapes, and icons. The template featuring 30 unique slides in 5 premade color schemes. It also includes gallery and portfolio slides as well as image placeholders for easier customization.

Sweet – Cool Powerpoint Template

This PowerPoint template comes with a feminine design that makes it most suitable for fashion and beauty related presentations. It also includes vector graphics, infographics, creative icons, and much more.

Bravo – Modern & Cool Powerpoint Template

Bravo is a minimal and colorful PowerPoint template featuring a total of 225 slides. The template is available in 5 different color schemes with 45 slides in each template. You can use this template to create professional and agency presentations related to design and marketing.

Dilanova – Cool Fashion Powerpoint Template

Dilanova is a cool PowerPoint template made for promoting fashion related brands and businesses. You can use it to promote clothing brands as well as fashion photography. The template includes 30 unique slides and they are available in 2 different color themes.

Creative – Cool Powerpoint Template

Just as the name suggests, this PowerPoint template comes with lots of slides featuring creative designs. It includes 25 slides in 5 color designs, making it a total of 120 slides. It also comes with a handcrafted infographic, gallery and infographic slides, and more.

Agency Portfolio- Cool Powerpoint Template

This PowerPoint template is made for creating presentations for agencies and creative professionals. It features 50 unique slides featuring cool and clean designs. The slides also include lots of charts, graphs, icons, and more for creating more compelling presentations as well.

Wordsmith – Cool Creative PowerPoint Template

Wordsmith PowerPoint template comes with 20 unique slides based on master slide designs. The template uses a dark color theme for creating much cooler and professional presentation slideshows.

FAB – Powerpoint Presentation Template

Fab is the perfect PowerPoint template you can use to create a modern and cool slideshow for photography and fashion related presentations. It comes with 35 unique slides featuring various vector elements. The templates are available in both PPT and PPTX formats for older and new PowerPoint versions.

FLOW- Cool Powerpoint Template

Flow is a cool and creative PowerPoint template that features clean slide designs. The template comes with 40 unique slides with customizable designs and resizable vector elements. You can use it to create pitch decks, business presentations, professional slideshows, and much more.

Carezo- Creative Powerpoint Template

Creating a presentation from scratch can be quite labor-intensive. This cool PowerPoint template is beneficial. It saves time, provides good visual design, and means that you can primarily spend your time and attention on the content of your presentation.

Toddlera – Kindergarten Powerpoint Template

The Toddlera Kindergarten Presentation Template for Microsoft PowerPoint is a modern and sleek professional presentation that will give a boost to your business meetings and lectures. It contains 30 beautifully designed slides that can be easily edited and adjusted to suit all of your professional and business needs.

Braze – Innovative Powerpoint Template

If you were a manager, who wants to present the potential of a company, a lecturer who is eager to attract attention, or a student who wants to present a report – don’t hesitate, Braze is developed just for you!

5 Tips for Making a Cool PowerPoint Presentation

Not sure about how to make your PowerPoint presentation look cool to attract young audiences? Start by following these simple tips.

1. Make It Colorful

Colorful slides not only make your presentation look cooler but also help make it much easier to highlight specific parts of your slide content.

However, making a colorful slideshow is not just about adding lots of colors. You should consider creating a color palette based on a theme like flat color or material color design to create consistency across the presentation.

2. Add Lots of Visuals

Needless to say, using images is one of the most effective ways of creating more impactful presentations that grab everyone’s attention. And it’s not just images that make your slideshow look cooler.

You can also use infographics, icons, and device mockups to show off your designs and visualize data to make your presentation look more visually appealing.

3. Make Creative Layouts

As you browse through our templates collection you’ll notice how the content layout of each PowerPoint template changes from one another. Some feature layouts made with unique shapes, backgrounds, and formatting. Make sure to pick a content layout that helps your presentation stand out from the crowd.

4. Use Bold Fonts

Changing from default fonts to a custom font can drastically improve the look and feel of your entire presentation design. Invest in a pair of premium fonts if you can to create more attractive headings and paragraphs. You can also use great free fonts as well. Just search for free fonts in our archives.

5. Take Advantage of Master Slides

Master slides are pre-made layouts that allow you to create new blank slides with already formatted designs. Most premium templates come with multiple master slides. Use them to your advantage to create cooler presentations with unique designs of your own.

Also, check out the animated PowerPoint templates and minimal PowerPoint templates collections for more.

How-To Geek

6 ways to create more interactive powerpoint presentations.

Engage your audience with cool, actionable features.

Quick Links

• Add a QR code
• Embed Microsoft Forms (Education or Business Only)
• Embed a Live Web Page
• Add Links and Menus
• Add Clickable Images to Give More Info
• Add a Countdown Timer

We've all been to a presentation where the speaker bores you to death with a mundane PowerPoint presentation. Actually, the speaker could have kept you much more engaged by adding some interactive features to their slideshow. Let's look into some of these options.

1. Add a QR code

Adding a QR code can be particularly useful if you want to direct your audience to an online form, website, or video.

Some websites have in-built ways to create a QR code. For example, on Microsoft Forms , when you click "Collect Responses," you'll see the QR code option via the icon highlighted in the screenshot below. You can either right-click the QR code to copy and paste it into your presentation, or click "Download" to add it to your device gallery to insert the QR code as a picture.

In fact, you can easily add a QR code to take your viewer to any website. On Microsoft Edge, right-click anywhere on a web page where there isn't already a link, and left-click "Create QR Code For This Page."

You can also create QR codes in other browsers, such as Chrome.

You can then copy or download the QR code to use wherever you like in your presentation.

2. Embed Microsoft Forms (Education or Business Only)

If you plan to send your PPT presentation to others—for example, if you're a trainer sending step-by-step instruction presentation, a teacher sending an independent learning task to your students, or a campaigner for your local councilor sending a persuasive PPT to constituents—you might want to embed a quiz, questionnaire, pole, or feedback survey in your presentation.

In PowerPoint, open the "Insert" tab on the ribbon, and in the Forms group, click "Forms". If you cannot see this option, you can add new buttons to the ribbon .

As at April 2024, this feature is only available for those using their work or school account. We're using a Microsoft 365 Personal account in the screenshot below, which is why the Forms icon is grayed out.

Then, a sidebar will appear on the right-hand side of your screen, where you can either choose a form you have already created or opt to craft a new form.

Now, you can share your PPT presentation with others , who can click the fields and submit their responses when they view the presentation.

3. Embed a Live Web Page

You could always screenshot a web page and paste that into your PPT, but that's not a very interactive addition to your presentation. Instead, you can embed a live web page into your PPT so that people with access to your presentation can interact actively with its contents.

To do this, we will need to add an add-in to our PPT account .

Add-ins are not always reliable or secure. Before installing an add-in to your Microsoft account, check that the author is a reputable company, and type the add-in's name into a search engine to read reviews and other users' experiences.

To embed a web page, add the Web Viewer add-in ( this is an add-in created by Microsoft ).

Go to the relevant slide and open the Web Viewer add-in. Then, copy and paste the secure URL into the field box, and remove https:// from the start of the address. In our example, we will add a selector wheel to our slide. Click "Preview" to see a sample of the web page's appearance in your presentation.

This is how ours will look.

When you or someone with access to your presentation views the slideshow, this web page will be live and interactive.

4. Add Links and Menus

As well as moving from one slide to the next through a keyboard action or mouse click, you can create links within your presentation to direct the audience to specific locations.

To create a link, right-click the outline of the clickable object, and click "Link."

In the Insert Hyperlink dialog box, click "Place In This Document," choose the landing destination, and click "OK."

What's more, to make it clear that an object is clickable, you can use action buttons. Open the "Insert" tab on the ribbon, click "Shape," and then choose an appropriate action button. Usefully, PPT will automatically prompt you to add a link to these shapes.

You might also want a menu that displays on every slide. Once you have created the menu, add the links using the method outlined above. Then, select all the items, press Ctrl+C (copy), and then use Ctrl+V to paste them in your other slides.

5. Add Clickable Images to Give More Info

Through PowerPoint's animations, you can give your viewer the power to choose what they see and when they see it. This works nicely whether you're planning to send your presentation to others to run through independently or whether you're presenting in front of a group and want your audience to decide which action they want to take.

Start by creating the objects that will be clickable (trigger) and the items that will appear (pop-up).

Then, select all the pop-ups together. When you click "Animations" on the ribbon and choose an appropriate animation for the effect you want to achieve, this will be applied to all objects you have selected.

The next step is to rename the triggers in your presentation. To do this, open the "Home" tab, and in the Editing group, click "Select", and then "Selection Pane."

With the Selection Pane open, select each trigger on your slide individually, and rename them in the Selection Pane, so that they can be easily linked to in the next step.

Finally, go back to the first pop-up. Open the "Animations" tab, and in the Advanced Animation group, click the "Trigger" drop-down arrow. Then, you can set the item to appear when a trigger is clicked in your presentation.

If you want your item to disappear when the trigger is clicked again, select the pop-up, click "Add Animation" in the Advanced Animation group, choose an Exit animation, and follow the same step to link that animation to the trigger button.

6. Add a Countdown Timer

A great way to get your audience to engage with your PPT presentation is to keep them on edge by adding a countdown timer. Whether you're leading a presentation and want to let your audience stop to discuss a topic, or running an online quiz with time-limit questions, having a countdown timer means your audience will keep their eye on your slide throughout.

To do this, you need to animate text boxes or shapes containing your countdown numbers. Choose and format a shape and type the highest number that your countdown clock will need. In our case, we're creating a 10-second timer.

Now, with your shape selected, open the "Animations" tab on the ribbon and click the animation drop-down arrow. Then, in the Exit menu, click "Disappear."

Open the Animation Pane, and click the drop-down arrow next to the animation you've just added. From there, choose "Timing."

Make sure "On Click" is selected in the Start menu, and change the Delay option to "1 second," before clicking "OK."

Then, with this shape still selected, press Ctrl+C (copy), and then Ctrl+V (paste). In the second box, type 9 . With the Animation Pane still open and this second shape selected, click the drop-down arrow and choose "Timing" again. Change the Start option to "After Previous," and make sure the Delay option is 1 second. Then, click "OK."

We can now use this second shape as our template, as when we copy and paste it again, the animations will also duplicate. With this second shape selected, press Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V, type 8 into the box, and continue to do the same until you get to 0 .

Next, remove the animations from the "0" box, as you don't want this to disappear. To do this, click the shape, and in the Animation Pane drop-down, click "Remove."

You now need to layer them in order. Right-click the box containing number 1, and click "Bring To Front." You will now see that box on the top. Do the same with the other numbers in ascending order.

Finally, you need to align the objects together. Click anywhere on your slide and press Ctrl+A. Then, in the Home tab on the ribbon, click "Arrange." First click "Align Center," and then bring the menu up again, so that you can click "Align Middle."

Press Ctrl+A again to select your timer, and you can then move your timer or copy and paste it elsewhere.

Press F5 to see the presentation in action, and when you get to the slide containing the timer, click anywhere on the slide to see your countdown timer in action!

Now that your PPT presentation is more interactive, make sure you've avoided these eight common presentational mistakes before you present your slides.

9 Cool PowerPoint Slides You Can Make From Scratch

Yousef "yoyo" abu ghaidah.

• March 13, 2018
• One Comment

The idea of having the coolest PowerPoint slides in the office is getting trendier by the year, which I think is great. People are  finally acknowledging that SmartArt and bullet points just won’t do it anymore. It makes sense too; as the years go by, we witness more and more stunning presentations at our meetings, conferences and other events, and we continuously look for ways to incorporate the beautiful stuff we see into our work.

There’s still a problem, though: nobody knows how to design slides that are made to impress. 

Slide Cow: Creating Cool PowerPoint Slides Since Inception

A while ago, I started a video series called Design a Good Slide. The premise was simple. I asked day-to-day presenters to email me their dull, boring slides (no offense, everyone) so that I can base a tutorial on beautifying them. It’s sort of like your local home makeover TV show, except with PowerPoint.

There was only one caveat: I never sent the redesigned slide back to the original sender. I’m a believer that knowledge is meant to be shared and practiced, and that the only way to get people to understand something is to make them do it.

Although the first season of the series has ended, it still would be worth your while to watch how every-day slides that you’re used to can be transformed into something truly epic. I even made sure that these tutorials are straightforward. This means that anybody, even those that are new to PowerPoint, can recreate the results that they see.

So, without further ado, here are nine cool PowerPoint slides that you can make from scratch right now. If all you’re after is sneak peaks, then you can see the original slides on the left and Slide Cow’s redesigned slides on the right.

The Wedding Planner’s Social Media Slide

Jen wanted a way to illustrate the different likes and followers that her wedding planning company attains on various social media platforms. She went for a bullet-point format because of course she would. Everyone does it anyway, right?

I wanted something different, so I tried to create something that doesn’t only express her message, but her company’s too. Her slide went from boring to awesome in no time.

Learn how to make this dazzling social media slide by clicking here.

The Quote Slide (ft. Steve Jobs)

Sandeep was tasked with presenting Steve Job’s biography to his classmates. He wanted a fancy way to illustrate one of the late tech mogul’s quotes. The slide he sent me is pretty much what you’d expect: images of Steve Jobs left, right and center with a quote plastered in the middle.

I opted for something more minimal while upholding layers of emotion . I wanted the slide to speak to the audience, and I think I achieved that. You can too.

Learn how to feature a sleek quote on your slide by clicking here.

The Emoji Bar Chart Slide

John had a slide featuring a bar chart. He claims that it was “boring.” He asked for help to make his slide look more “creative” and fun.”

Fun’s my middle name.

I added life to his bar chart by throwing in a few icons and playing with a few shapes, all while staying consistent with John’s original theme. Sure, the thought of your bar charts growing eyes and arms is terrifying, but I made sure to make this tutorial as adorable as possible. Cool PowerPoint slide overall, don’t you think?

Learn how to bring life to your bar charts by clicking here.

The ‘Keys To Success’ Slide

Ben wanted to base his PowerPoint slide on the idea of success connecting to specific attributes. In layman’s terms, he needed his picture of a key to talk to the text, and vice versa.

I don’t like using generic images of things to highlight important messages, so I opted for making an infographic of a key instead. I didn’t do anything fancy, either. All I used were a few shapes and some built-in PowerPoint features. Result: a cool PowerPoint slide where everything talks to each other.

Learn how to design a key infographic (from scratch) by clicking here.

The Valuable Star Slide

Tiffany sought to express a list of points as being valuable. She went for the infamous bullet-point method because she had trouble finding the right way to design her slide.

I’ll admit, it took me a while to find the best way to express her message. I ended up going for a star infographic. I mean, stars are valuable … right?

Learn how to create a star infographic in PowerPoint by clicking here.

The Vertical Agenda Slide

Melanie designed an agenda slide that, at least in my eyes, was pretty damn good. She even themed it to Slide Cow’s brand colors! She was looking for a “wow-effect” to take her design skills to the next level, though.

This tutorial was one of the most challenging ones I’ve ever published. I didn’t want to drift too far away from the original concept. The only things I could think of was restructuing the content and adding a few icons. Sometimes simple approaches can lead to a cool PowerPoint slide, too!

Learn how to make an awesome agenda slide by clicking here.

The Happy and Creative Front Cover Slide

Stacy wanted a front cover that was simple and effective. She got the simple part right, but the effectiveness could have been worked on a little more.

I stayed true to Stacy’s message by adding a different picture and playing around with different fonts, shapes and colors until I hit the right note. The biggest challenge was making sure everything was working together, which I think I achieved.

Learn how to bring joy to your front cover slides by clicking here.

The Rotating Medical Heart Slide

This one was the toughest of them all.

Sanjay had a medically-themed PowerPoint slide that needed some serious rework. Since his topic is quite niche, it took me days to find something that would work for him. I almost gave up.

I finally opted to go for a heart being the centerpiece of the slide. To seal the deal, I designed a heartbeat in the heart itself, rotated it, and made his points come out from either side. The end result looks fantastic, and I think you can achieve something similar.

The Tinder PowerPoint Template

Oh boy, the story behind this tutorial is EPIC.

Niket Biswas was looking for a way to stand out from the hundreds of thousands of guys on Tinder. Yes, I’m referring to the dating app. Want to have a guess at what he did?

He turned his Tinder Profile into an epic PowerPoint pitch.

I reached out to Niket and asked if I could redesign his slides and feature him on a Slide Cow tutorial. He graciously agreed, and thus, the Tinder PowerPoint tinder template was born!

Learn how to use PowerPoint to get more matches on Tinder by clicking here.

Learned Enough? Now Get To Work

If you want to learn how to create cool PowerPoint slides, then you’re going to have to keep your head down and work your butt off. This sort of thing takes a lot of time because you have to find a way to balance your requirements with your sense of design, all while translating a message into something visually expressive. It took me years to get here, and I still have a long way to go to get to where I want to be.

My advice would be to watch these tutorials, take note of the various principles, learn from them, and keep practicing. You’ll end up creating mouth-watering pieces in no time.

A nice collection of before and after slides you have put up to illustrate how one can “really” improve a dead ppt set. Thanks a lot for the demo!!!

Got a project for us?

© Slide Cow. All rights reserved.

Session expired

Please log in again. The login page will open in a new tab. After logging in you can close it and return to this page.

15+ Cool PowerPoint Templates to Make Your PPT Presentation Shine in 2020

Looking for the best cool PowerPoint templates? Here are the best templates Envato Elements offers.

When preparing for a presentation, you need all the help you can get to launch your slide deck into success. If you're investing your time into content that will help drive your point to the audience, it helps to hand off the slide designs to the pros that can do it best.

Throughout this tutorial, we're going to survey 10 of the best cool PowerPoint templates that can help you skip the work of designing a presentation from scratch. With PowerPoint templates, you open the source file, add your design specifics, and create your finished presentation in less time than ever before.

How to Use Templates to Design Your Presentation

First, let's look at why templates are so useful in designing your presentation.

If you haven't used PowerPoint templates to build out your presentation before, it might feel like a learning curve to take on. How do you use the pre-built slides in a template, and how can you customize PowerPoint templates to match your ideas?

As you download cool presentation templates, you'll find that the included presentation formats already have slides designed for practically every purpose. It's this collection of pre-built ideas that make using templates so helpful. You don't have to design on a blank canvas to bring your presentation to life, thanks to templates.

Here's how you can use PowerPoint templates to save you time when designing your next presentation:

• Start with a template, like one of the examples featured below.
• Choose the slides in the presentation deck that fit with your content goals, setting aside those slides for use in your presentation.
• Add your content specifics to those starter slides to customize the PowerPoint presentation to your needs.
• Save and export the finished PowerPoint presentation with your details built-in, ready to present to an audience.

If you want to save time and create PowerPoint presentations, the solution is clear: start with a cool PowerPoint template. Let's see some of the best examples.

Top 10 Cool PowerPoint Templates

Here's a list of 10 of our favorite great PowerPoint templates that you can use to design your next presentation and the reasons why you should choose them.

1. Iconic PowerPoint Template

Iconic is a cool PowerPoint template that you can use to design your next presentation. It has all the elements that you're likely to find in the top presentation templates, including easily scalable icons that can add graphic explanations to your presentation.

2. Believe: Multipurpose PowerPoint Presentation

The best PPT templates feature the ability to re-use the designs over and over across multiple presentations. Believe embodies this idea beautifully thanks to over 200 unique slide designs and 10 color schemes that are easy to work with. Build out your presentation using this PowerPoint template.

3. The X Note: PowerPoint Template

The X Note always has a corner as one of the most popular PowerPoint templates thanks to its slick design options. It's an awesome presentation template that you can use to build out a professional slide deck that would feel right at home in the boardroom.

4. Buxe Creative and Multipurpose Template

One of the best ways to build an informative presentation is by mixing in infographics that explain ideas with graphics. Buxe really captures this principle using easy-to-customize infographic objects; it's packed full of easy-to-customize infographics that make it one of the best PPT templates around.

5. Baldo PowerPoint

Choosing an awesome PowerPoint presentation comes down to selecting slides that will stand out from the crowd. Your audience has likely seen the same built-in Microsoft templates too many times, so using a cool and colorful template like Baldo is an easy way to set your upcoming presentation apart from the crowd. It's easy to customize thanks to the drag-and-drop format.

6. Social Media Trends: PowerPoint Template

There's truly an awesome PowerPoint template for every purpose, including this Social Media Trends option. Use this cool PowerPoint template to show off your social channel trends and how you can improve on key platforms.

7. Startup Plan PowerPoint Template

Every startup needs a cool PowerPoint presentation to get off the ground, and this template could be the perfect way to do it. Pitching your idea to potential investors and employees is about putting your best foot forward, and this awesome template full of clean slides and clear ideas will help you showcase your startup.

8. Marketing Plan PowerPoint Template

No matter what type of app, product, or service you run, a marketing plan can help you capture your key ideas in how you'll spread the word. Use an awesome PowerPoint template like this one to capture all your key marketing ideas in one place.

9. Hush PowerPoint Template

Hush is a flexible PowerPoint template that works for a wide variety of presentation purposes. More than 90 finely tuned slide designs are a breeze to update with your details to make your next PowerPoint presentation shine. Open the template, add your details, and present it with confidence knowing you have an eye-catching set of slide designs.

10. Project Proposal PowerPoint Template

When you're pitching your brand-new project, it helps to capture the idea in a PowerPoint presentation. This slide deck will help you do just that in less time than ever before, thanks to easy-to-customize starter slides.

11. Portofolio Agency---PowerPoint

A portfolio is a document that gives you a chance to put your best work forward. When you use awesome PowerPoint templates like Portfolio Agency, it's easy to show pieces that are sure to land you more clients and projects.

It's an image-focused PowerPoint template that's perfect for pitching yourself. Just open the PowerPoint template, add your specifics, and you're ready to present confidently to a potential client. Invest in templates like this one, and you're sure to reap the rewards by landing more clients and growing your business.

12. BLOCKCHAIN PowerPoint Template

There are Envato Elements templates for every occasion. If you're a blockchain expert, you'll likely be asked to share what you know. A presentation to share your knowledge and explain this technology can help you grow your presence as an expert.

This template has the visuals you need to show that you understand the new and evolving world of cryptocurrency. Use the 135 unique slide designs to explain ideas and keep your audience up-to-date in the latest on the blockchain. It's also adaptable to other content thanks to the simple and straightforward design.

13. MINI PowerPoint Template

This Envato Elements PowerPoint template might be called "MINI," but the impact is mighty. Minimalist templates are beloved by pro presenters because they put content front and center. MINI is a case study for minimalism, as the slides make wise use of white space and alignment.

You're sure to make a cool PowerPoint presentation with the help of this template because you won't distract the viewer. With 110 unique slides, you have every design you might need. Instead of drawing a slide layout from scratch, just pick a similar slide from MINI and fill in your content.

14. Financial Blog Media Kit

Finance is one of the largest sectors in the modern economy. Why not use a PowerPoint template to explain advanced financial concepts intuitively? When you use a presentation like this, you might be surprised by how easy it is to condense complex ideas into easy-to-follow visuals.

This presentation template has clean and data-driven slides that make financial points easy to understand.

15. Slipper---PowerPoint Template

No matter what topic you're covering, awesome PowerPoint presentations follow many of the same principles. That's why a PowerPoint template like Slipper makes sense: it's well-designed and can be used for practically any topic. This image-centric template has the placeholders you need to create a visual presentation.

Best of all, it includes five color schemes so you can match the presentation to your brand. Use the infographic designs to explain advanced ideas to your audience in a way that's easy to follow. The best PPT templates like Slipper help your content take center stage.

16. Bucharest---Creative PowerPoint Template

Bucharest is a great example of how bold typography can carry a cool presentation. Smooth, modern fonts combined with your images are more than enough to create a modern presentation. It's the perfect PowerPoint template for presenting work like a creative portfolio or pitch deck.

Remember that the best PowerPoint templates stay out of the way of your content. They help you put your ideas in the spotlight without focusing too much on the design itself. The slides in Bucharest fit the bill perfectly by leaving plenty of space for the slide specifics.

17. Creative PowerPoint Template

This template is proof that you can outsource creativity. PowerPoint slide design isn't everyone's forte. Luckily, there are Envato Elements templates that help you hand off the heavy lifting to talented designers.

The Creative PowerPoint Template has 25 unique slide designs in five color schemes that are easy to customize. It's another example of an awesome PowerPoint template from Envato Elements that is flexible for many types of presentations. Since device mockup slides are included, one great use of this is showing off your new mobile app or website in the real world.

Just add your screenshot to the mockup, and you're ready to present.

18. Summon---PowerPoint Template

Summon your audience's attention with this aptly-named PowerPoint template! Business professionals always need presentation templates to put their best ideas forward. With the help of an Envato Elements template like Summon, you have all the slide designs you need to pitch a project or new company concept.

Many presentations rely on data-driven slides to show growth and opportunities. This template addresses that need perfectly thanks to slides that include easy-to-edit charts and graphs. Plus, you can use infographics to show off advanced concepts in a visual format. Use this cool presentation template to set the stage for your next big idea.

Design Isn't Everything

We're major proponents of using awesome PowerPoint templates to create presentations. But here's a secret: presentation design isn't everything.

PowerPoint sometimes gets a bad reputation. It's well-deserved because we've all sat through a boring lecture where the presenter read directly from the slides. Even the best PPT templates can't completely carry a disengaged speaker.

Strong presentation design is a major advantage, sure. But it must be supported by a confident presenter. When you start by learning the skills the pro presenters use, you're sure to feel inspired to deliver an captivating presentation of your own.

This TED playlist about making great presentations has a list of helpful resources that help you hone your presentation. If you want to sharpen your speaking skills, this playlist is the perfect start.

Here are the key lessons from these videos:

• Use a tried-and-true structure: Learning how to sequence and showcase your content can help you conquer the presentation writing stage.
• Utilize data visualizations: Work with intuitive formats (like the ones included in these Envato Elements templates) to explain data, visually. Inspire to action---most presentations ask something of the audience. Learn how this works in Simon Sinek's lesson.

Are You Still Struggling With Your Presentation?

Presentations aren't easy. No matter how many tutorials you read or inspirational presentations you check out, they can still seem daunting.

Since presentations are both seen and heard, the way you deliver the presentation matters. Great slide designs are a must, but you also have to perfect the way you present. After all, slides are just supporting visuals.

Who knows more than TED about how to give a great presentation? Many of the most iconic presentations take place at its annual conference. There, a number of presenters use minimalist slides and focus on their delivery instead. Check out this TED Talk for powerful speaking points.

Keep these concepts from the video in mind while you prepare for your next presentation:

• Be mindful of your speaking voice: It's an easy habit to speak from your throat or from your nose. Instead, focus on driving your vocals from your diaphragm to sound more meaningful and confident.
• Remember the HAIL principle: Be honest, authentic, have integrity, and show love to the audience by sharing your story.
• Exude positivity: No matter how serious your presentation is, there's always a way to find a positive approach. Give the audience the silver lining to a serious issue, or provide ways to help dire situations.

Building confidence in your speaking skills is a process. But with practice and inspiration, you're sure to improve your results. The best way to study that is by watching confident speakers and tapping into their years of expertise.

All-You-Can Download PowerPoint Templates

Great PowerPoint presentations take on a variety of formats and styles. And if you want the most variety and options for building your next presentation, the best platform to source templates is Envato Elements .

If you checked out all 10 cool PowerPoint templates in this roundup, you may have noticed that they're all sourced from Envato Elements. Even better, all the templates are included as a part of a flat-rate Elements subscription.

However, that's not the only reason that you should try out an Elements membership if you regularly build PowerPoint presentations.

In fact, a subscription to Elements includes all the complementary assets that can really fill out your next PowerPoint presentation. Envato Elements offers stock photos and graphics that you can add to your presentation to set it apart from the PowerPoint presentations your audience is accustomed to seeing.

Don't forget that these assets are a part of the all-you-can-download Envato Elements subscription package. A few key stock photos or added graphics can round out a presentation nicely, and the advantage of subscribing is that there's no added cost to including these in your presentation whenever you see fit.

Go Design a PowerPoint Presentation Now

When it comes to designing awesome PowerPoint presentations, there's nothing wrong with borrowing the hard work of others to skip ahead. Using a cool PPT template can help you avoid reinventing the wheel as you're building your presentation.

No matter which template you choose, there are three key principles to keep in mind while designing a PowerPoint presentation with a pre-built template:

• Use only the relevant slides: Most of the PowerPoint templates in this roundup feature dozens of built-in slides. The key is to sample from and use only the slides that pertain to your final presentation, deleting the unused slides.
• Customize the built-in slides to your style: A PowerPoint template serves as a great starting point. But you don't have to give up using a template to completely customize it to your style; add your branding, color scheme, and content to completely transform it for your purposes.
• Mix and match presentations: In the 10 slide deck examples featured, you might find cool slides that you want to use from a variety of pre-built templates. You can use individual slides from each of these and combine them to build a winning presentation by copying and pasting slides between decks.

Consider using any and all of the Envato Elements templates covered in this roundup as a starting point for your presentation. Try out one of the templates so that you spend less time designing in PowerPoint and more time prepping to deliver your presentation with an impact.

Got any suggestions?

We want to hear from you! Send us a message and help improve Slidesgo

Top searches

Trending searches

teacher appreciation

11 templates

66 templates

memorial day

12 templates

21 templates

17 templates

School Presentation templates

Use the best school powerpoint templates and google slides themes to engage your students and educators with your presentations. all slide designs are easy to edit and 100% free to use..

Notebook Lesson

These are the last days before the Summer break! We know that there are some pending lessons that you need to prepare for your students. As they may be thinking about their friends and their holidays, catch their attention with this cool template!

Ballpoint Pen Planner

The ballpoint pen is considered one of the most important inventions of history. Did you know that Ladislao Biro, its inventor, got the idea from a group of children that were playing in the street? They were rolling a ball trough a puddle, and it would leave a trace. That...

Premium template

Unlock this template and gain unlimited access

Dividing Integers

Download the "Dividing Integers" presentation for PowerPoint or Google Slides and teach with confidence. Sometimes, teachers need a little bit of help, and there's nothing wrong with that. We're glad to lend you a hand! Since Slidesgo is committed to making education better for everyone, we've joined hands with educators....

Team Building Class for Elementary

Your students spend most of their days at school, so building a good atmosphere in the class is vital for their happiness. Why don’t you dedicate a day to team building activities? This will help new students make friends and older students create deeper relationships with their classmates. It that...

Ideas for Incorporating Movement in the Classroom

Download the "Ideas for Incorporating Movement in the Classroom" presentation for PowerPoint or Google Slides and teach with confidence. Sometimes, teachers need a little bit of help, and there's nothing wrong with that. We're glad to lend you a hand! Since Slidesgo is committed to making education better for everyone,...

Fun Elementary Activities for April Fools' Day

Download the "Fun Elementary Activities for April Fools' Day" presentation for PowerPoint or Google Slides and easily edit it to fit your own lesson plan! Designed specifically for elementary school education, this eye-catching design features engaging graphics and age-appropriate fonts; elements that capture the students' attention and make the learning...

No More Interrupting

Download the "No More Interrupting" presentation for PowerPoint or Google Slides and teach with confidence. Sometimes, teachers need a little bit of help, and there's nothing wrong with that. We're glad to lend you a hand! Since Slidesgo is committed to making education better for everyone, we've joined hands with...

World Health Day Activities for Middle School

Download the "World Health Day Activities for Middle School" presentation for PowerPoint or Google Slides. If you’re looking for a way to motivate and engage students who are undergoing significant physical, social, and emotional development, then you can’t go wrong with an educational template designed for Middle School by Slidesgo!...

Pretty Aesthetic Notes for School

You've seen many notebooks. Now, you'll see the ultimate one! Well, we may be exaggerating a bit, but we're very proud of the aesthetics of this new template! Each slide looks like a page of a notebook, complete with doodles, some stickers and a handwritten font for the titles. It's...

Discrete Mathematics: Graph Theory and Networks - 12th Grade

Download the "Discrete Mathematics: Graph Theory and Networks - 12th Grade" presentation for PowerPoint or Google Slides. High school students are approaching adulthood, and therefore, this template’s design reflects the mature nature of their education. Customize the well-defined sections, integrate multimedia and interactive elements and allow space for research or...

Displacement in Physics

Download the Displacement in Physics presentation for PowerPoint or Google Slides. The education sector constantly demands dynamic and effective ways to present information. This template is created with that very purpose in mind. Offering the best resources, it allows educators or students to efficiently manage their presentations and engage audiences....

World Art Day Activities for Middle School

Download the "World Art Day Activities for Middle School" presentation for PowerPoint or Google Slides. If you’re looking for a way to motivate and engage students who are undergoing significant physical, social, and emotional development, then you can’t go wrong with an educational template designed for Middle School by Slidesgo!...

Science Subject for Elementary: Human Digestive System

Download the Science Subject for Elementary: Human Digestive System presentation for PowerPoint or Google Slides and easily edit it to fit your own lesson plan! Designed specifically for elementary school education, this eye-catching design features engaging graphics and age-appropriate fonts; elements that capture the students' attention and make the learning...

Elegant Education Pack for Students

The way in which we study has changed drastically in the last year, that's why we need to be more organized than ever. In Slidesgo we want to help your students and have designed this elegant template full of resources for your classes. We added everything you could possibly ask...

History Subject for High School in Spain: Constitution Day Infographics

Download the "History Subject for High School in Spain: Constitution Day Infographics" template for PowerPoint or Google Slides and discover the power of infographics. An infographic resource gives you the ability to showcase your content in a more visual way, which will make it easier for your audience to understand...

Project Evaluation in Pre-K and Elementary

Download the "Project Evaluation in Pre-K and Elementary" presentation for PowerPoint or Google Slides and prepare to receive useful information. Even though teachers are responsible for disseminating knowledge to their students, they also embarked on a learning journey since the day they decided to dedicate themselves to education. You might...

Multiplying Integers

Download the "Multiplying Integers" presentation for PowerPoint or Google Slides and teach with confidence. Sometimes, teachers need a little bit of help, and there's nothing wrong with that. We're glad to lend you a hand! Since Slidesgo is committed to making education better for everyone, we've joined hands with educators....

Meet Our Professors

The beginning of the school year is always synonymous with nerves for teachers and students. To break the ice, why not introduce your professors in a different way? We propose you this original template with a dark background and abstract and colorful shapes. It features doodle-style illustrations related to teaching,...

• Page 1 of 157

New! Make quick presentations with AI

Slidesgo AI presentation maker puts the power of design and creativity in your hands, so you can effortlessly craft stunning slideshows in minutes.

Register for free and start editing online