A simple guide to slideshows
Learn what slideshows are, how they’re used, common features, and how to choose a slideshow maker. Get started creating your own slideshows today with Microsoft PowerPoint.
What is a slideshow?
What are slideshows used for?
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Meetings and presentations
Slideshows are most frequently used to create professional presentations for business meetings, conferences, and educational purposes. A slideshow program allows people to organize content, include visuals, and enhance the overall impact of their message.
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Visual storytelling
Because slideshows sequentially display engaging visuals, text, and other multimedia, they’re a strong way to tell a cohesive and compelling narrative from start to finish.
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Content creation
Slideshows give content creators a versatile and efficient way to organize information, increase visual appeal, and communicate effectively across different contexts.
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Photo and video sharing
Slideshow makers are popular for creating photo and video presentations, especially for events like weddings, birthdays, and vacations. People can add transitions, music, and captions to fully bring the photo-sharing experience to life.
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Training and tutorials
Slideshows help break down complex information into digestible chunks with the support of visuals and text, making them ideal for instructional materials, tutorials, and training modules.
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Collaborative projects
In collaborative settings, teams use slideshow makers to create joint presentations or reports. The best slideshow makers enable multiple contributors to add their content simultaneously, which helps ensure a cohesive and unified presentation.
What are the features of a slideshow creator?
Slideshow creators vary in what they offer but ideally include:
A library of templates, themes, and images.
If you’re not a designer, this feature is huge. Simply browse the options available in your slideshow maker library to create a polished, professionally designed presentation in a flash. Be sure to confirm that access to the library is free and the images are approved for unrestricted usage.
Audio and video compatibility.
Keeping your audience engaged is key to any successful slideshow presentation. To mix things up, being able to add a multimedia element—like a song or a video clip—will help people stay focused and interested.
Presentation tools.
Handy presenter tools go a long way toward making your slideshow experience seamless. For example, straightforward slide navigation, slideshow keyboard shortcuts, pen and highlighter markup, and adjustable resolution settings.
AI assistance.
With AI revolutionizing content creation, using a slideshow maker that has AI capabilities will enhance efficiency and innovation. Depending on the slideshow app you have, creating an entire slideshow could be as easy as a quick prompt, like “Make a presentation about the benefits of sustainable fashion that has 15 slides.”
Animations.
Like audio and video, animations give your audience a bit of sensory surprise that can capture their attention.
Slide transitions.
Add some pizzazz to how you change slides with visual effects like fading, wiping, and zooming.
Screen recording.
Being able to record your screen in a slideshow maker is helpful when giving an instructional talk, software demonstration, and other types of presentations that require visual aids.
A place to put speaker notes.
Having somewhere to jot a few notes down will help remind you of everything you want to cover as you present.
Different viewing options.
Looking at different views—for example, a presenter view, an audience view, and a high-level view of slide order—is useful when organizing your slideshow’s structure and understanding and preparing for what you’ll see versus what your audience will see.
How do I choose the right slideshow maker?
When choosing a slideshow maker, keep the following questions in mind to make sure you get the most for your money:
Is it scalable with your business?
As your organization grows and changes, it’s important to have flexible technology that adapts to new needs. Having certain features—such as cloud-based collaboration, compatibility with other work apps, and a mobile app—will help ensure that no matter how your business changes, the slideshow maker is up to the task. This also applies to pricing plans. Consider choosing a slideshow app that has a subscription plan (so the software is always up to date), volume-based pricing, or enterprise-level pricing.
Does it have a variety of visual elements?
It’s pretty much a given that a slideshow maker will allow you to add images, but think outside the JPEG box—what other visual elements are available to you? Features like preset themes, free templates, SmartArt, a built-in clip art library, shape tools, background styles, 3D models, and charts and graphs provide diverse ways to switch up how a slideshow looks without relying solely on adding your own images.
Is it easy to use?
You could have the most feature-rich slideshow maker on the market, but if it isn’t easy to use, you probably won’t use it. Or you will, but you’ll be frustrated, waste valuable time, and have difficulty convincing people you work with to use it. As you research slideshow makers, look for videos that show the apps’ interfaces in action to help you decide if they’re intuitive and will have a shorter learning curve.
Does it have collaboration and sharing options?
Because making a slideshow is often a collaborative effort, it’s worthwhile to find a slideshow creator that was designed with this in mind. Pick one that offers editing controls and commenting, as well as the ability to work on a slideshow at the same time as someone else. Having a cloud-based slideshow maker will be key here. You’ll not only save yourself time but also keep things simple by not having multiple versions of the same slideshow.
Explore more about slideshows and slideshow makers
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Frequently asked questions
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Making a good slideshow in PowerPoint is easy:
Plan what you’d like to include in your slideshow.
Launch your slideshow creator.
Choose the theme you’d like.
Import media.
Add text, music, and transitions.
Record, save, and share your slideshow.
Learn more about how to make a slideshow.
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To add music to a slideshow, first make sure that you’re using a slideshow maker with music compatibility. In PowerPoint, follow these steps:
Open your PowerPoint presentation and select the slide where you want to add music.
Click on the Insert tab in the ribbon menu.
Click on the Audio button and select Audio on My PC.
Browse to the folder on your computer where the audio file is located and select it.
Click on the Insert button.
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The steps for recording a slideshow in PowerPoint will vary depending on the version that you own. Get help with slideshow recording based on your version.
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File compatibility in PowerPoint includes the use of JPEGs, PNGs, TIFFs, GIFs, PDFs, MP3s, WAVs, MIDIs, MPEG-4 Videos, and Windows Media Videos.
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To share your PowerPoint slideshow, follow these steps:
Open your presentation and click Share at the top right of your screen.
If your presentation isn't already stored on OneDrive, select where to save your presentation to the cloud.
Choose a permission level, like Anyone with a link, or maybe just people in your company. You can also control if people can edit or just view the doc.
Select Apply.
Enter names and a message.
Select Send.
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