Slide decks are widely used in the business world to present strategies, sell products and convey any information in a visually appealing way.
Google Slides is a powerful presentation tool. It’s free, connected to the cloud, and included with your Gmail account. If you don’t have a Gmail account, you can make one easily.
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Start from Scratch or import slides from a PowerPoint presentation
Here are a few tips on how to create stunning Google Slides presentations and engage your audience:
- Use a professionally designed template.
- Crop or cover the image.
- Get creative with fonts.
- Background image.
You can also check out our previous post on how to convert PowerPoint presentations to Google Slides.
Use professionally designed templates
Instead of starting from scratch, choose one of Google Slide’s designs and customize it to meet your needs.
- Sign in to your Google account to get started. In the top right corner of the screen, next to your profile picture, click Driver (under the grid icon).
- Option New in the top left corner of the Google Drive dashboard, click Google Slides and choose From a sample to see sample gallery.
- Choose the template you like and click it to open it in your drive.
- The first thing you want to do is rename the file by clicking on the title in the top left corner and entering the name of your new project.
- Change the theme at any time by tapping Topic at the top right of the navigation bar.
- Scroll through the available themes to change the layout and look of your presentation.
- Click the one you want to use. It will change everything in your presentation to match the theme.
Here are a few screenshots of the title slide for the same presentation using different themes.
Notice how changing the theme for the three slides above completely changes the design.
For additional topics, visit Ski festivalA website that offers free professional designs that are fully customizable and easy to edit.
- Search through the templates and choose the one you want, click on it and choose Use as Google Slides theme.
- The theme will automatically open in Google Slides and include all slides from the selected template.
Edit the slides you want to use and delete the ones you don’t want to use.
Themes from the Slides Festival are free to share, copy, and edit with attribution. All they ask is that you provide a link back to their website. Leverage designs created by experts that will allow you to create beautiful presentations to wow your audience.
Crop or mask images
Once you’ve found a good source for high-quality images or have produced your own, you can focus on the relevant parts of the image or graphic using the crop tool.
Crop the edges of an image, remove unwanted parts, or add a consistent design by cropping all of your images into one shape (masking).
- Select or upload an image to your slide. To insert an image, click Insert on the menu bar, hover over Pictureand choose Upload from computer.
- Double-click the image you want to use. To crop the image, double-click it again and drag the black tabs to crop the parts of the image you don’t want to use. Don’t click the blue tabs; they will resize your image.
- To cover an image, highlight it and click the arrow next to it Crop image tool.
- Option Shape, then select a mask shape and press enter to set the image to the shape of the mask.
Cropped images can make your presentation more fun, creative, and engaging.
Get creative with Fonts
In addition to changing the font size, style, and color, you can use other creative ways to make your text stand out. You can also create your own fonts to import into your project.
Next, get creative and try adding a drop shadow to the text that might draw attention to it.
Follow the steps below to create a text drop effect using two text boxes.
- Highlight the text you want to add a shadow to and click One icon from the top toolbar.
- This will open a palette for you to choose from. Choose a dark color as this will become the shadow of the effect.
- Highlight and reselect the text. Use the keyboard shortcut to copy it to your clipboard. For PC, click CTRL + C. For Mac, use Command +.
- Draw a new text box on the slide by clicking Insert from the top navigation bar and select Text box. Use CTRL + DRAW (PC) or Command + DRAW (Mac) to copy your text into the text box.
- Select the copied text by highlighting it. Click One in the toolbar to change the color of the text. A bright color works well.
- Drag the second text box over the first and position it slightly above or below and slightly to the side of the first text box.
Background image
The Google Slides background image can be color or image. An image illustrates a point, engages your audience, and is used as a symbol to represent a concept – often better than plain text.
Use an image as a background to make your Google Slides presentation more visually appealing by:
- Open the slide
- Hover To slide and click Change background
- From the pop-up, click Select image.
- For this article, we will choose Upload right to buy. Click Choose an image to uploaddouble-click the image you want to use, then click Accomplished.
Important note: As you can see in the screenshot above, pay attention to image copyright.
Use only images for which you have a license or images that are free or free to use with attribution required. You can run reverse image search to learn more about whatever caching image you’re using to make sure you’re allocating properly.
You may need to change the position and color of the text to make it stand out from the background.
The wallpaper cannot be resized or moved. However, they can be adjusted for transparency, brightness, and contrast.
Click on the slide, not on an element. Select Format Options. On the right sidebar that opens, click Adjust. Try with these and other settings seen in the image above to get the desired results.
Presentations don’t have to be dull and boring. Use a few tips to create stunning Google Slides that capture your audience’s interest.
