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PowerPoint offers many premade templates for presentations, with each template having four style variations.
Experts have different opinions about using these premade templates. However, everyone agrees that consistency is important - your slide design should remain the same throughout your presentation. Before creating your own design, check if your organization already has a template they use for all presentations.
When designing your own PowerPoint presentations, consider both the visualization tips in this guide and your own preferences. If you decide to use a premade template, select it before adding your content. This is important because when you apply a template later, PowerPoint will rearrange your text and images to fit the new design.
Garr Reynolds argues that the best PowerPoint slide actually contains no words, This means that the best PowerPoint presentation should require the presence of its presenter.
Compare these two options:
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Slide Option 1
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Slide Option 2
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Garr argues the second slide is more engaging, and less distracting for your audience, keeping the focus on you.
Your presentation should be a supplement to your speech, not a transcription of it. In other words, it shouldn’t be your speech, copied and pasted onto slides. Show your main points or ideas, but keep it brief and to the point. Use short phrases instead of full paragraphs. A few bulleted points or a short list can help your audience mentally organize your ideas. Decide what the single take-away key idea is for each slide and write a headline for each that summarizes that point.
Animations
The Animations tab selects how selected text behaves on the slide: Select the text > choose the animation you want to apply.
Animations can be used to:
Animations are also distracting and can get old quickly.
Animations may also appear slower on older computers, making the presentation look unprofessional.
Audio and Video
Videos and audio can effectively enhance your presentations. Videos are particularly useful as they engage both visual and auditory learning, promoting active information processing. They work well for showing cause-effect relationships or progressive sequences.
If you include audio elements, be selective—avoid unprofessional sound effects like applause sounds or "boing" noises during slide transitions.
Data
Data shown 
as graphs and charts helps people understand your content better and strengthens your message. Some websites offer downloadable slides, templates, and graphics like stylish pie charts, tables, and timelines. You can find these websites in the resources section of the Tips & Resources page.
Remember that simplicity works best. Use clean designs and don't put too much information in one chart. For better readability, remove unnecessary borders, outlines, and colors.
The first video shows humorous examples of good and bad PowerPoint design. Watch the second video to learn five helpful PowerPoint tips.
