A well-prepared presenter can use PowerPoint to build charts and graphs, for example.
In this PowerPoint tutorial for beginners, I ‘ll help you get up and running in Microsoft PowerPoint. You ‘ll learn how to use PowerPoint to build a presentation in less time than you ever thought possible. We ‘ll besides cover some PowerPoint best practices to make sure you ‘re doing things the comfortable way .
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What You’ll Learn About MS PowerPoint in This Guide
This template is packed with information that helps you learn how to use PowerPoint to build a presentation. Building beautiful skid decks takes a few steps, but each of these sections will help you address those steps.
Jump ahead to any part of this tutorial guide to start learning PowerPoint specifics :
How to Learn PowerPoint Quickly (Beginner Tutorial With Tips Video)
Are you ready to start learning PowerPoint ? Watch this immediate screencast to learn all about what PowerPoint is and how to use it .
Or, study the complete written tutorial below .
What Is PowerPoint?
Microsoft PowerPoint is undoubtedly the most popular app used to give presentations. You ‘re likely to see PowerPoint presentations being used for everything from presentations at the world ‘s largest companies to grade schoolteachers sharing lessons .
PowerPoint is frequently the butt of the joke. many condemn PowerPoint as bore and a crutch for ailing cook speakers .
merely a bad carpenter blames the tools. And like any tool, PowerPoint is fabulously utilitarian when used by rights. Use it as an aid on your speaking engagements to build comfort and repel points visually with your audience .
.Once you learn how to use PowerPoint you can apply an easy-to-edit theme like the Simplicity for PowerPoint.
In this tutorial, we ‘re going to focus on working inside of PowerPoint to build a presentation. This PowerPoint guide has everything you need to get comfortable in the app. To master the app, we ‘ll talk about and cover the most common steps a cub PowerPoint exploiter needs to know .
here are the key actions you ‘ll need to take to build a PowerPoint display :
- You’ll need to add slides, the individual pages in the presentation.
- You’ll add content to the slides, such as text boxes, images, charts and graphs.
- Change themes and styles to make your presentation look professional and fit the occasion at hand.
- Prepare presentation aids like Speaker Notes and Presenter View to help you feel comfortable with presenting.
We ‘ll cover each of these in this PowerPoint tutorial indeed that you can get up and running quickly .
How to Use PowerPoint’s Ribbon
To get up to speed with PowerPoint, it helps to understand the layout of the app. Let ‘s walk through the key menu options so that you can learn PowerPoint promptly. If you understand the way that the app is laid out, you ‘re likely to find any sport you need quickly .
This partially of the PowerPoint guide will focus on the interface :
1. The Ribbon
The ribbon menu is found across many of Microsoft ‘s apps, such as Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. It lives above the main area of the application .
The PowerPoint ribbon lets you switch between various tabs.
The decoration contains a series of tabs that you can switch between. Each of these have a alone set of tools to work with your presentation differently. When you switch tabs on the decoration, you ‘ll see new buttons and options to change your presentation :
- File. Save, share, and export your presentation.
- Home. A general-purpose collection of the most common tools that you’ll use in PowerPoint.
- Insert. An all-in-one tool to add every imagine-able type of content, such as tables, pictures, charts, video, and more.
- Design. Controls the look and feel of your presentation with theme and style settings.
- Transitions. Add animations when you switch slides.
- Animations. Controls the order and style that objects will enter or exit your slide with.
- Slide Show. Control settings related to the way your presentation appears when sharing it with an audience.
now that you understand the layout, you ‘ve got a better mind of how you can jump to the feature you need. Let ‘s dive a bit deeper into how you can use several of these key tabs .
2. The Home Tab
Use it for: a general selection of the most popular tools in PowerPoint .
I normally stay on the Home pill when I ‘m working in PowerPoint. The reason is because it ‘s got practically every joyride you need. From adding a new slide to changing text and paragraph settings, the Home pill is the default option for most users .
The Home tab has many of the most used tools, all in one bar.
3. The Insert Tab
When you ‘re working on adding content to a swoop, the Insert pill has every possible tool to add raw capacity to a skid. Choose one of these types of objects to add it to the slide .
The Insert tab has the tools you need to add tables, pictures, charts, and more.
4. Views
PowerPoint has a diverseness of views that are plainly unlike ways to work with the lapp presentation. Change the view to get a different position on your capacity .
Use views for a different way to edit and build your PowerPoint display .
The Views tab changes the perspective on your PowerPoint presentation.
In the screenshot below, you can see the deviation between the default Normal view and Slide Sorter view. Normal see shows each slither front and center. Slide Sorter view creates thumbnails that you can drag and drop to reorder the presentation .
Normal view is the default presentation view in PowerPoint. An alternate view like Slide Sorter allows you to re-sequence your presentation by dragging and dropping the slide thumbnails.
5. The Design Tab
An attractive presentation can actually grab your audience ‘s attention. We use themes and styles in PowerPoint to add ocular solicitation to the display, and the Design check truly controls these settings .
Click on one of the theme thumbnails to transform the look and feel of the presentation.
On the Design pill, click one of the themes to restyle the presentation. Or, try out a different Style thumbnail to overhaul the color theme .
The Steps to Create a PowerPoint Presentation for Beginners
We ‘ve tackled the interface of PowerPoint, so you should be feeling pretty comfortable with how to get around the app. nowadays, let ‘s talk about the actions you ‘ll find yourself using repeatedly and how you can do that in PowerPoint .
1. How to Add Slides
think of slides as the individual units in your display that you can fill with contented. To insert a new slide, go to the Insert tab key on PowerPoint ‘s ribbon. then, click on the New Slide button to add a new slide to your display .
A new slide will have basic placeholders to add your content to in PowerPoint.
Each of the thumbnails that you ‘ll see on the sidebar represents a slide. then, you ‘ll add content to each slide .
There ‘s no practical specify to the total of slides that your PowerPoint file can contain. But you should consider how many slides it actually takes to make your luff. It ‘s much the
2. How to Add Content
contentedness is what defines each slide. PowerPoint accommodates a across-the-board range of content like text, graph, tables, charts, and more .
The easiest way to add contentedness is to start off by choosing a Layout, which you can choose from the Home pill .
Various PowerPoint layouts shown on the Home tab.
These layouts have contentedness boxes that are easily to add your own content to. Simply choose a layout, and then start adding your content .
3. How to Choose a Theme and Style
After you build out your presentation ‘s content, it ‘s a big theme to think about adding ocular style. For this, you ‘ll jump over to the Design pill, and snap on one of the thumbnails for a theme .
Use the Design tab to pick a theme.
Using a PowerPoint root is the prefer alternative to adding backgrounds, color and type styles to each slither. Changing the theme typically will adjust the integral presentation simultaneously. This greatly reduces the time involved with building a presentation .
With just these three steps, you ‘ve got the repeatable succession of actions needed to build a presentation .
How to Power Up PowerPoint
With every creative app I ‘ve ever learned, there are constantly those insider tricks of the trade wind that you learn many months late. They make you wish that you had known them all along and think about the many hours you wasted on the memorize wind .
PowerPoint is no exception to this rule. It ‘s particularly important that you can cut to the chase when you ‘re rushing to prepare for your presentation .
The best way to save time on your presentation is to start with a pre-built PowerPoint theme. And you can find those on Envato Elements, which is an inexhaustible download service for creatives .
Envato Elements includes hundreds of PowerPoint themes as part of its all-you-can-download flat rate service.
Discover simple PowerPoint template designs with powerful features on Envato Elements or GraphicRiver. The right premium PPT template will help you make a great presentation quickly.
Browse through these simple professional presentation designs that you can use today :
nowadays, most of the files that you ‘ll grab from the Elements PPTX themes will appear to be finished presentations. You might be wondering how to use these pre-built presentations for your own needs .
To use Elements themes, it ‘s in truth all about cutting it down to the skid designs that you ‘ll use. A premium theme is very about the ideas that are included as part of it. Simply use these ideas as starting points that you can add your own contented to .
The Volt PowerPoint theme is one of hundreds included as part of an Envato Elements subscription. It features 120 slide designs you can use for yourself.
again, the value of Elements is that you can download as many files as you want while you ‘re a subscriber. And if you stop subscribing, you ‘ll still have the proper to use the creative assets you grabbed. It ‘s much faster than construct every chute from scratch .
How to Customize a Premium PPT Template Quickly (In 5 Simple Steps!)
When you contemplate how to use PowerPoint, don ’ thymine imagine build slide decks from chicken feed. That ’ s where premium PPT templates come in. They take the hard study out of using PowerPoint.
You can take advantage of graphic designer styles in a simple format. That ’ s the ultimate PowerPoint lesson to take to heart. Let ’ s look at precisely how easy it is to customize agio PPT templates in this immediate PowerPoint education tutorial !
If you want to follow along, download the beautiful Agio PowerPoint template from Envato Elements .
With over 600 slides, Agio is the perfect way to build a PPT presentation.
Let ‘s get started :
1. Choose Slides for Your Presentation
premium PowerPoint PPT templates much include hundreds of handcraft slides. For you, it ’ south best to select merely a handful to build a swoop deck. In PowerPoint, find Slide Sorter on the View yellow journalism .
In Slide Sorter opinion, chink and drag on the chute thumbnails to reorder them. Hold down Shift, click, and weigh Delete to remove undesirable slides. Jump back and start working by clicking Normal on the View check .
As you’re learning how to use PowerPoint, focus your efforts on only the most important slides. Use the View > Slide Sorter option to select the slides you’ll work with.
2. Add Your Own Text
The PowerPoint basics include text and images. Adding custom text is one of the easiest and most coarse edits to make .
Pre-built layouts include text boxes already arranged on the swoop. To add your own words, highlight the contents of any text box. then, simply start typing. repeat throughout the presentation .
Learning how to create a PowerPoint presentation for beginners involves typing over simple text placeholders like these.
3. Add Images
Wondering how to add PowerPoint presentation images ? The easiest direction is to turn to premium templates with prototype placeholders. Identify them by finding the effigy icons on a given slither. jump to where images are stored on your calculator .
then, simply embroil and drop them onto the placeholder. not entirely will all your photos import automatically, they ’ ll besides size and scale to fit perfectly !
Click in the image placeholders, then browse to your favorite photos to update the slide.
4. Change Object Colors
Changing theme colors is a fast means to adjust the ocular expression of your slides. For exercise, change object colors to add a act of contrast .
To get started, snap on a chart segment to select it. On the Format yellow journalism, click on the Shape Fill dropdown. You ’ ll see a color picker, from which you can apply any color conceivable .
One of the most important PowerPoint basics is using the Shape Fill dropdown to update the color scheme.
5. Customize Fonts
No Microsoft PowerPoint tutorial would be complete without customizing fonts. sometimes, it ’ sulfur easy to overlook text as a design chemical element, but with a few promptly edits you can make your words in truth stand out .
Highlight a block of text, then go up to the Font segment of the Home check. You ’ ll examine dropdowns to change the baptismal font dash, size, and color. After that, add quick effects like bold letters, italics, and more !
The Font menu holds all the tools you need to customize your text to match your brand.
PowerPoint Tools to Learn (For Presenters)
The content and design will vary greatly from one presentation future. But, no count what the goal of your presentation is, there are common tools that every presenter can benefit from using. We ‘ve developed PowerPoint lessons for those tools .
Let ‘s focus on the most valuable tools for speakers in this PowerPoint tutorial. I always mention these tools as a way to build confidence and consolation for presenters .
1. Speaker Notes
Forget writing out note cards or keeping a print outline nearby. Speaker notes are a means to add the things you need to say to each slither .
Speaker notes are added to each individual slither, and the best way to add them is from Normal view. Click on Notes below the presentation area and type your slide-specific notes .
Speaker notes will show up in print copies of your display. so, it ‘s easier to build them into PowerPoint alternatively of scribbling note cards you may lose .
2. Presenter View
Another feature that ‘s a must-use is Presenter View, which is arrant for two screen door setups while presenting. While your audience will see the presentation you ‘ve built on the projector or LCD screen, you ‘ll have your own private view with speaker notes, upcoming slides, and more .
turn on Presenter View from the slideshow check by clicking Use Presenter View.
An example of PowerPoint Presenter View.
Check out a broad guide below on getting the most from Presenter View :
3. Spelling and Grammar Check
There ‘s nothing worse than missing a key misprint before you give your display. To avoid this problem, it ‘s a capital aid to run a spell and grammar hindrance before you give your presentation .
To check for common spelling issues, merely alternate to the Review pill and snap Spelling. PowerPoint will check for the most common issues and allow you to correct them as needed .
5 Tips and Tricks for a Successful PowerPoint Presentation
You ’ ve learned how to use PowerPoint display templates. We walked through a quick PowerPoint lesson to customize them. But you may be wondering : is that enough to deliver a succeed PowerPoint presentation ?
depart of PowerPoint training comes from adopting the tips and tricks used by the best presenters. Follow these, and you ’ ll have a happy ( and engaged ) audience every clock !
1. Have a Clear Objective
Let ’ s confront it : we ’ ve all endured drawn-out, boring PowerPoint presentations that seem to drift without a clear purpose. When you build your own PowerPoint, startle with a goal in mind. typically, that goal will be to inform or persuade an consultation. It pays to outline that goal in progress and work towards your objective with a series of clear and concise slides .
It may sound daunt, but you can learn the technique in moments with our entire PowerPoint train to help build persuasive slide decks :
2. Illustrate Concepts With Infographics
A key PowerPoint moral for beginners is this : never get bogged down trying to talk through concepts. ocular aids are essential, and audiences demand them today. Infographics are a successful donor ’ south best acquaintance. Infographics trust information and graphics to create stun visuals .
Learn to build them yourself. Or sample from the very best pre-built PPT templates today in our infographic-centric specify of PowerPoint instructions :
3. Use Subtle Animations and Transitions
Animations and transitions : fundamental elements of any pack of cards, they should be used meagerly. When carefully applied, they create beautiful segues between slides. They can besides help introduce modern ideas in demand sequence. But use excessively many, and they become objectionable distractions guaranteed to annoy an hearing .
temperance is the name of the game hera. Read our full Microsoft PowerPoint tutorial on animations to use them with confidence :
4. Be Interactive to Engage the Audience
No count how compelling your narrative, you can ’ metric ton merely talk to an audience and expect full participation. alternatively, you need to engage your consultation. A agile and fun manner is with a quiz slide. They get the audience involved and help your slide deck quell focused .
even better : pre-built templates make it a cinch. They ‘re PowerPoint instructions inside a PPTX charge. Get started building synergistic quizzes in PPT nowadays with our guide on how to create PowerPoint quizzes :
5. Close Strong for an Enduring Message
The very best PowerPoint presentations make a bang-up inaugural impression. But evenly ( and possibly evening more ) authoritative is the winning last impression. It ’ sulfur critical to conclude with a solid close. Leave on a memorable anecdote, recap your key points, or make a big “ ask. ” All these techniques and more serve to ensure a strong close .
Don ’ t go it alone. We ’ ve created technical PowerPoint educate on building a strong close. Check it out here :
More Beginner PowerPoint Tutorials (Free to Learn Online)
This PowerPoint tutorial helped you get off the grind with using Microsoft PowerPoint. You learned the steps for creating slides and the shortcut to a better display with pre-built themes .
At Tuts+, we ‘ve been building out a series of PowerPoint tutorials that can help you build your presentation skills. Check out all these PowerPoint tutorials for unblock. One ideal place to start is the PowerPoint Ultimate Tutorial Guide that we ‘ve developed. If you ‘re feeling aflutter about giving a presentation for your job or freelance practice, try out more of these tutorials like the ones below .
Microsoft PowerPoint Premium Online Courses
One of the best ways to learn is by watching a dispatch PowerPoint presentation built from start to finish. PowerPoint trail creates polished presenters. Seeing a presentation come together will teach you the tricks you need to confidently build your own presentations .
At Tuts+, we ‘ve built a library of courses that do equitable that. Think of them as the “ PowerPoint for dummies ” selections for beginners. These are arrant courses that include all the PowerPoint cognition you need to craft a swoop deck that tells your floor .
These PowerPoint tutorials are included for loose if you already subscribe to Envato Elements. The same subscription gives you PowerPoint instructions to become a presenter. You ‘ll learn to use templates that serve you jump ahead in building your presentation and build them in less time than you ever thought .
The Make Great Presentations Quickly with PowerPoint course will teach you to take a pre-built template and craft a slide deck in less time than you ever thought possible.
Need Help? Grab Our Making Great Presentations eBook (Free)
You can find more information in our raw eBook on making bang-up presentations. Download this PDF eBook immediately for FREE with your subscription to the Tuts+ Business Newsletter.
It’ll help you master the display process, from : initial creative ideas, through to writing, blueprint, and delivering with impingement .
Get Started Using PowerPoint Today
Presentations can be daunting to take on, but a bit of cognition about Microsoft PowerPoint can ease the action. We ‘ve got tutorials that show you how to create a PowerPoint presentation, for beginners. Jump to the following links to speed up your learning march and spend less time in PowerPoint :
- Envato Elements is the best place to grab premium PowerPoint templates that save you hours of design work and leave you with a finished presentation that you’ll feel confident in.
- Courses included with Envato Elements are complete walkthroughs of how to build a presentation. They’re perfect PowerPoint tutorials for beginners.
- The PowerPoint Ultimate Tutorial Guide is a complete learning resource with the top tutorials to take you from beginner to expert.
Editorial Note : This stake was primitively published in 2017. It ‘s been comprehensively revised to make it current, accurate, and up to date by our staff—with special aid from Andrew Childress .
