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Computers and Electronics
Presentation Software
PowerPoint Presentations

Simple Steps to Make a PowerPoint Presentation

Last Updated: July 23, 2024 Fact Checked

Creating a New PowerPoint

Creating the title slide, adding a new slide, adding content to slides, adding transitions, testing and saving your presentation.

This article was co-authored by wikiHow staff writer, Darlene Antonelli, MA . Darlene Antonelli is a Technology Writer and Editor for wikiHow. Darlene has experience teaching college courses, writing technology-related articles, and working hands-on in the technology field. She earned an MA in Writing from Rowan University in 2012 and wrote her thesis on online communities and the personalities curated in such communities. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 4,355,781 times. Learn more...

Do you want to have your data in a slide show? If you have Microsoft 365, you can use PowerPoint! PowerPoint is a program that's part of the Microsoft Office suite (which you have to pay for) and is available for both Windows and Mac computers. This wikiHow teaches you how to create your own Microsoft PowerPoint presentation on a computer.

How to Make a PowerPoint Presentation

Open the PowerPoint app, select a template and theme, then like “Create.”
Click the text box to add your title and subtitle to create your title slide.
Click the “Insert” tab, then “New Slide” to add another slide.
Choose the type of slide you want to add, then add text and pictures.
Rearrange slides by dragging them up or down in the preview box.

Things You Should Know

Templates make it easy to create vibrant presentations no matter your skill level.
When adding photos, you can adjust their sizes by clicking and dragging in or out from their corners.
You can add animated transitions between slides or to individual elements like bullet points and blocks of text.

If you don't have a Microsoft Office 365 subscription, you can use the website instead of the desktop app. Go to https://powerpoint.office.com/ to use the website version.
You can also use the mobile app to make presentations, though it's easier to do this on a computer, which has a larger screen, a mouse, and a keyboard.

If you don't want to use a template, just click the Blank option in the upper-left side of the page and skip to the next part.

Skip this step if your selected template has no themes available.

If you're creating a PowerPoint presentation for which an elaborate title slide has been requested, ignore this step.

You can change the font and size of text used from the Home tab that's in the orange ribbon at the top of the window.

You can also just leave this box blank if you like.

You can also click and drag in or out one of a text box's corners to shrink or enlarge the text box.

On a Mac, you'll click the Home tab instead. [1] X Research source

Clicking the white slide-shaped box above this option will result in a new text slide being inserted.

Title Slide
Title and Content
Section Header
Two Content
Content with Caption
Picture with Caption

Step 4 Add any other slides that you think you'll need.

Naturally, the title slide should be the first slide in your presentation, meaning that it should be the top slide in the left-hand column.

Skip this step and the next two steps if your selected slide uses a template that doesn't have text boxes in it.

Text boxes in PowerPoint will automatically format the bulk of your text for you (e.g., adding bullet points) based on the context of the content itself.
You can add notes that the Presentation will not include (but you'll still be able to see them on your screen) by clicking Notes at the bottom of the slide.

You can change the font of the selected text by clicking the current font's name and then clicking your preferred font.
If you want to change the size of the text, click the numbered drop-down box and then click a larger or smaller number based on whether you want to enlarge or shrink the text.
You can also change the color, bolding, italicization, underlining, and so on from here.

Photos in particular can be enlarged or shrunk by clicking and dragging out or in one of their corners.

Step 7 Repeat this for each slide in your presentation.

Remember to keep slides uncluttered and relatively free of distractions. It's best to keep the amount of text per slide to around 33 words or less. [2] X Research source

Slide content will animate in the order in which you assign transitions. For example, if you animate a photo on the slide and then animate the title, the photo will appear before the title.
Make your slideshow progress automatically by setting the speed of every transition to align with your speech as well as setting each slide to Advance . [3] X Trustworthy Source Microsoft Support Technical support and product information from Microsoft. Go to source

If you need to exit the presentation, press Esc .

Step 5 Make any necessary changes before proceeding.

Windows - Click File , click Save , double-click This PC , select a save location, enter a name for your presentation, and click Save .
Mac - Click File , click Save As... , enter the presentation's name in the "Save As" field, select a save location by clicking the "Where" box and clicking a folder, and click Save .

Community Q&A

If you save your PowerPoint presentation in .pps format instead of the default .ppt format, double-clicking your PowerPoint presentation file will prompt the presentation to open directly into the slideshow view. Thanks Helpful 6 Not Helpful 0
If you don't have Microsoft Office, you can still use Apple's Keynote program or Google Slides to create a PowerPoint presentation. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0

Your PowerPoint presentation (or some features in it) may not open in significantly older versions of PowerPoint. Thanks Helpful 1 Not Helpful 2
Great PowerPoint presentations avoid placing too much text on one slide. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0

↑ https://onedrive.live.com/view.aspx?resid=DBDCE00C929AA5D8!252&ithint=file%2cpptx&app=PowerPoint&authkey=!AH4O9NxcbehqzIg
↑ https://www.virtualsalt.com/powerpoint.htm
↑ https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/set-the-timing-and-speed-of-a-transition-c3c3c66f-4cca-4821-b8b9-7de0f3f6ead1#:~:text=To%20make%20the%20slide%20advance,effect%20on%20the%20slide%20finishes .