A slideshow has become the standard component of the majority of presentations around the world. Whether you’re in a business meeting or in a classroom, you probably have seen a slideshow presentation or you have made one or two yourself. When making those presentations you have probably used Microsoft’s PowerPoint. The popular slideshow presenter can be downloaded for free with Microsoft’s 365 trial offer for Windows or Macs. I will go over the necessary steps to access and download PowerPoint free trial.

Here is something unique you will learn by reading this article:

• You will find out that you can no longer download old versions of the application online.
• PowerPoint can NOT be downloaded as a single application.
• You will also learn a method to avoid adding/using your credit card when signing up for the trial promotion.

What is PowerPoint

Microsoft PowerPoint is considered one of the most well-known programs that creates slideshow presentations. PowerPoint creates slides with written content, images, videos and graphics. The application is a visual aid tool that can be used to exhibit information in a visually pleasing way.

The definition above is a technical way of defining the software but most of us know it as the tool we use during class and work presentations. PowerPoint is an application from a suite of apps from what is now called Microsoft 365. You’re more likely going to remember the bundled applications called Microsoft Office which included Word, Excel, Outlook and of course, PowerPoint.

The well-known slide presentation program was created in the early 90’s by Dennis Austin and Thomas Rudkin. Initially, PowerPoint was first called “Presenter” and was originally designed for Macintosh computers. The name was later changed due to copyright issues and the software was bought out by Microsoft for $14 million dollars in 1987. A few years later, the presentation software was launched to the public at the same time Windows 3.0 was released.

Fast forward to 2015 and PowerPoint is still the top searched presenter program online. On top of that, according to Wikipedia the program is also installed on over a billion computers worldwide. That’s a lot of slides.

Why use it?

Users rely on PowerPoint to create a professional presentation. The easy-to-use tools and functions can be used to create visually appealing slides. Each slide can have different attachments of graphics, animations, and multimedia. There are multiple ways you can present your slides to a group of people. Traditionally, a PowerPoint presentation is shown on a video projector but now, it is common to be seen during webinars.

Besides the visual aid add-ons you can start off your presentation with unique templates making the slides stand out. There is no need to make a boring presentation for business meetings or class assignments. There a plenty of free templates you can download directly from Microsoft or from dedicated PowerPoint enthusiast websites like this one.

How much does it cost?

The PowerPoint application doesn’t come on its own but is part of the Office 365 suite. This suite from Microsoft comes at different price points based on various plans. You can no longer purchase the Office software without paying a yearly or monthly fee, unlike previous versions (2010, 2011, 2012). However, if you want to buy old versions of PowerPoint you can browse on Amazon or eBay. Many sellers list official product keys that can be purchased and redeemed online to download older versions of the suite.

There are different versions of MS Office catered towards personal use, school or business. Office 365 is also available on Macs, iPhones and iPads. This is also true for Android devices as well. So not only are they offered for all realms of work/school life but they also have mobile apps which sync up with other devices like your desktop.

The breakdown of each plan and key features can be reviewed in more detail at the Microsoft Store. Or, if you want to review Office for Mac you can find more information here: http://www.microsoft.com/mac/buy.

Trial Offer Details

The free PowerPoint trial offer is for a 30 day period. Once the trial ends you will be charged a fee based the plan you chose. If you are unsatisfied with the PowerPoint or anything you can cancel your subscription at any time. Make sure to cancel your subscription before the 30 day trial ends if you don’t want to be charged the monthly fee.

How to download PowerPoint free trial

PowerPoint is available online to download for free with their trial offer. To download the program you must sign up for Office 365 Home or Business trial. The offer will last for one month in which you will not only have full access to PowerPoint but also the full set of applications that come with it, such as: Microsoft Office, Skype and online versions of the suite.

The steps are the same regardless if you want to download PowerPoint for Windows or for Macs. Just make sure to select which operating system you want the free trial on.

Here are the necessary steps to take to download the program for free.

Requirements: Microsoft account (email) and a Credit Card or PayPal account.

1. Head over to the official Office 365 website. The page has a large amount of information on their applications. You can read in more detail about their services, applications and help section but if you want to jump into the trial offer then click on either the “Home” or “Business” button. In this case I will go through the process of downloading and installing the Home version.
2. Once you have clicked on Home you will land on the “Choose your office” page. Here you will see a breakdown of the different plans that are offered. You will have to select Home, Personal or Online. Both Home and Personal plans come with a monthly cost and a free trial offer. Select either the “Home” or “Personal” plan by clicking the button that reads “try it free”.
3. From this point you will be directed to the sign in page for your Microsoft account. Go ahead and login with your existing account or create one. This is a mandatory step and cannot be skipped.
4. Once you have logged in you will have to enter in your billing information. To continue with the process of downloading PowerPoint free trial you will have to enter in your credit card information. If you don’t have a credit card on hand you can also use PayPal to continue with the billing process. It’s also important to remember that your credit card or PayPal account will NOT be charged during the 30 day trial period.
5. Now that you have added your billing information you can continue to the installation page. Here you will download Microsoft Office 365.

Installing the software is straightforward and not much of a guidance is needed.

After you have downloaded and installed Office 365 you will have access to all the applications in the suite, including PowerPoint. You can now use the latest PowerPoint (2015) for a full month. If you are satisfied with the suite I would highly recommend that you continue the subscription.

Alternate programs

If you have read the guide above and thought it was too much of a tedious task to complete then you should know that there are other alternatives that are just as good. One of them is Google Docs. With Google Docs you can create the same documents such as spreadsheets, presentations, and written documents, all for free.

With Google Docs you won’t need to download any software or application because the applications are web-based. Simply log into your Google account and start creating. You can also access, edit and share your documents anywhere from both Macs and Windows.

Did I mention that you can also collaborate on documents in real-time? This is certainly a neat feature but the cherry on top is that they give out perks, like extra storage space when you purchase a Google product. The drawback is that the Presenter does not have the premium features that PowerPoint does and lacks in creative tools.

If you are looking for something that outshines PowerPoint then I would suggest you look into Prezi. More than 50 million people use it including 50% of big-brand companies. They claim it to be “the successor to the throne” when compared to PowerPoint. I haven’t done a thorough review on them but it’s worth to mention.

Want to just view a PowerPoint presentation?

If you are looking for a way to just view a PTT file then you won’t need to download a full version of PowerPoint. Your best option is to download a program called PowerPoint Viewer from Microsoft. This free program allows you to view PTT files, however, it is limited to just viewing. You will not be able to edit or make any changes to the presentation.

Any Questions?

If you have any trouble downloading PowerPoint on your Windows or Mac computer or if you have any inquires regarding the free trial please leave a comment below and I’ll try to help.

SlideJenius

You finally finished your PowerPoint deck! Following all the best PowerPoint practices, you were able to incorporate interesting visuals and make use of minimal but creative animations. You’re confident that it looks great, and you’re sure that your slides will definitely enhance the message you want to deliver. After some final adjustments, you’re ready to share your PowerPoint file online, transfer it to another device, or run a test drive.

And then your laptop starts to lag. The program starts to crash. If you’re sharing the presentation online, you’re met with an upload that’s expected to run for hours. The culprit? A PowerPoint file that is too large. If you want a seamless presentation experience, you need to learn how to shrink your PowerPoint file to a manageable size.

Lucky for you, there are 4 simple ways you can fix PowerPoint file size issues. Take note of the following tips and find the most applicable solution to your dilemma:

Convert PowerPoint file to PDF
You can convert your PowerPoint file to a PDF if you’re planning to share your slides via SlideShare or email when the actual presentation is over. This will strip your presentation of any animation and transition effects, so make necessary tweaks to your PowerPoint first. After that, all you have to do is head to the ‘File‘ tab and click ‘Save As‘. From there, just choose ‘PDF‘ under ‘Save as type‘.

Skip ‘Compatibility Mode’
For the presentation itself—if you’re planning to simply hook up your laptop to the projector in the venue, you don’t need to save your PowerPoint file in compatibility mode. Keep your filed saved in the latest version of PowerPoint by making sure the file extension is .pptx. Head to the folder where your PowerPoint file is stored, right-click, and then choose ‘Properties‘.

Compress high-resolution pictures

Using pictures with incredibly high resolutions will definitely have an effect on the size of your PowerPoint file. You’ll definitely want to use clear and crisp images, but you don’t have to opt for anything that’s too large. Try to edit and re-size the pictures that have resolutions that might be way too large.

If you don’t want to sacrifice your PowerPoint design, you can also compress all the images in your deck. Simply select any image in your PowerPoint file and head to the Pictures Tools Format tab. Click on ‘Compress Pictures‘ under the ‘Adjust‘ group. When the dialogue box appears, choose from the different target output options.

Avoid embedding fonts if you can
As we’ve discussed before, customized and unique fonts can help enhance your PowerPoint designs. However, they can also be a contributing factor to why your PowerPoint file size is too large. Try to minimize your use of unique fonts as much as you can. To avoid embedding too much data into your PowerPoint file, you can limit your use of unique fonts for headers or section breaks.

Head to the File tab and click on ‘Options‘. Go to ‘Save‘ and check to see the options enabled under ‘Preserve fidelity when sharing this presentation‘. When you embed fonts to your PowerPoint file, make sure you always choose the first option.

You don’t have to sacrifice great presentation design to make sure your PowerPoint file is kept at a manageable size. Ease the presentation process and use these methods to make sure your PowerPoint file isn’t unnecessarily too large. For more PowerPoint design insights, click here and browse through our blog!

By Robert Frost

It’s total nonsense.  Tufte has a bug up his butt about PowerPoint and can’t see straight where it is involved.  I found his negativity about the application to taint his seminar.

There used to be a video game called Chuck Yeager’s Air Combat.  In that game, audio recordings of Yeager were used to provide mission feedback.  A line he often said was “Remember, it’s the man, not the machine.”

I use that line, with my best Yeager impression, every time I teach lessons on effective presentations, because it is such an important point.  PowerPoint is not a poor tool.  People use PowerPoint poorly.  And it is an easy thing to fix.  PowerPoint is quite powerful and PowerPoint is easy to use to create effective visuals.

Tufte is old enough to remember the pre-PowerPoint days, when presenters often provided no visuals or if they did, they used horrible text-filled acetate overheads.  PowerPoint didn’t create bad presentations.  It did make them easier to produce, just as word processors have made it easier to write terrible books.

With each revision, Microsoft has improved their application.  SmartArt allows, with just a few clicks, a user to take a flat, contextless, near useless list of bullets and convert them to a graphic that has context, is more engaging, and easier to remember.

PowerPoint’s built in animations can be used to create elaborate visual narratives.

PowerPoint’s charts and graphs make it easier to represent numerical data in visuals ways so that relationships and patterns become evident to the audience.

PowerPoint’s drawing tools make it easy to depict information pictorially.

PowerPoint’s action buttons make it easy to create interactive slides that allow the path of a presentation or lesson to change, at the audience’s whim.

Tufte is a knowledgeable and talented man.  If he were to ditch the negativity and focus on helping people use the tools that already exist on most work computers, he could make a much greater contribution.

by Brad Phillips

When we conduct our presentation training sessions, almost every speaker begins their presentation with a PowerPoint remote in their hand. By doing so, they send a signal to their audience right from the start: Boring PowerPoint show about to begin! The vast majority of presentations shouldn’t open with a slide. The opening moments are a critical opportunity to forge a connection with your audience, which is best accomplished by speaking directly to your audience, not by clicking to a boring agenda slide. That being the case, there’s no need to keep the remote in your hand at the beginning of a presentation. If you’re using PowerPoint, you can pick up the remote when you’re about to click to your first slide, which may not occur until several minutes into your talk. And if there are long gaps between slides, you should put the clicker down during those gaps as well.

This may seem like a small point, but it’s not.
Before our clients deliver their second practice speech, I ask them to put the clicker down. That small act often changes everything about their performance. They often move closer to the audience (they’re not tied to the screen), gesture more (they don’t have an object in their hand), and use the pronoun “you” more (they’re suddenly having a conversation with the audience, not presenting a slide). Simply putting the clicker down is a small move that offers almost magical powers.

My favorite clicker
Please don’t interpret this post as being anti-clicker. Remote controls allow speakers to move away from their computers and advance slides more subtly. I carry one in my backpack every day just so I always have one handy whenever I speak.

My only suggestion is that you don’t begin or end your presentation with one in your hand or hold it in your hand during long gaps without a new slide. Just place the clicker on a table or slide it into your pocket.

If you don’t already use one, I really like the Targus Laser Presentation Remote, pictured above. All you do is plug a small connector into your laptop’s USB port, and the remote instantly works. And since it’s less than $25, you won’t be too upset if you accidentally leave it behind.

by Troy Chollar

PowerPoint 2010 introduced the very great ‘Merge Shape’ tools (see this post for details). With this toolset editable, vector, shapes can be can be created direct in PowerPoint – something I refer to as “Illustrator 2.0″. With PowerPoint 2013 it includes the ability to convert text to vector, which is what we will use to create the stylized quote marks for a complete PowerPoint workflow.

1. Add text in PowerPoint

2. Add PPT shape, and send to back behind text

3. Select text and shape. On FORMAT ribbon >> MERGE SHAPES >> INTERSECT

4. The text is no longer editable, as it is now shapes. Right click and select EDIT POINTS just like any shape in PPT.

5. Stylize with no fill, light grey outline, drop shadow effect

When someone mentions “presentation” invariably Microsoft’s PowerPoint comes to mind. PowerPoint slides, and even entire presentations, can be easily incorporated into story map map tours, and can provide some extra context for your tour. In this post we’ll cover adding static “slides” as well as using Slideshare and Box for hosting the presentation used in your tour.

Adding PowerPoint slides

The example below from the Sacramento-Yolo Mosquito & Vector Control District uses images from PowerPoint to enhance the tour, using a PowerPoint-based introductory slide, thumbnails, and other slides along the tour to provide more details.

You can capture the PowerPoint slides from your screen, or use Save As to save one or more slides as images directly from PowerPoint. Resize as necessary, and add these to your map tour just like any other image.

Adding PowerPoint presentations

Actual PowerPoint presentations can also be included in map tours. Here’s how using two common slide sharing solutions. For these examples we’ll use an existing map tour, a tour of the Esri Redlands campus, and add a PowerPoint presentation as a new tour stop. The same general methods apply if creating a map tour from scratch.

Using Slideshare

Slideshare is a popular document hosting service. Visit the Slideshare website or view the Slideshare support topics for more information.

Step 1: Upload your PowerPoint
Upload your PowerPoint, and ensure it is publicly available. This can be set in the Privacy setting described in Step 2 below.

Step 2: Enable access and copy the URL
From My Uploads, go to the presentation you want to use and click Edit, then choose Privacy settings:

In the Embed Settings section, ensure that embeds are allowed anywhere, and copy the embed code:

Step 3: Add a new tour stop
Open your map tour in builder mode, and click Add to add a new tour stop:

Step 4: Add the PowerPoint location to your tour
On the Media tab of Add a new tour point, choose Video, and Other. Paste the URL from Step 3 into the Other input, and add a thumbnail of your choosing.

Step 5: Make any additional changes and save your tour
Add information about the new stop, set the location, and make other changes as desired. When finished save your map tour.

Step 6: View your map tour
You’ve now successfully added a PowerPoint presentation to your map tour from Slideshare. You can view the presentation in fullscreen mode by clicking the arrows that appear when you hover over the top right corner.

Using Box

Box is a popular online file sharing and cloud content management service for businesses. Visit the Box website for more information.

Step 1: Upload your PowerPoint to Box
Login to your Box account, and upload your PowerPoint presentation.

Step 2: Make your presentation publicly available
From your uploads, click Share, then Access. Ensure that your presentation has Open access, enabling anyone with the link to view it.

Step 3: Copy the link
Copy the link to the the presentation:

Step 4: Add a new tour stop
Open your map tour in builder mode, and click Add to add a new tour stop:

Step 5: Add the PowerPoint location to your tour
On the Media tab of Add a new tour point, choose Video, and Other. Paste the URL from Step 3 into the Other input, and add a thumbnail of your choosing.

Step 5: Make any additional changes and save your tour
Add information about the new stop, set the location, and make other changes as desired. When finished save your map tour.

Step 6: View your map tour
You’ve now successfully added a PowerPoint presentation to your map tour from Box. You can view the presentation in fullscreen mode by clicking the arrows that appear when you hover over the top right corner.

Tips

Many other sharing and hosting solutions can be used, including OneDrive which is built-in to the Microsoft PowerPoint save options.

Presentations are best when used sparingly. Like adding spice to food, too much can ruin your efforts, but a pinch here and there can bring out the story’s flavor.

Keep your presentations short and to the point.

10 of the world’s scariest slides and pathetically bad PowerPoint presentations…and a few PowerPoint makeovers and redesigns just in time for Halloween.

Bullets kill. And so do bullet points…sucking the life out of audiences, who stare like zombies into the abyss of the grey and heartless projection screen while a mummy-like speaker recites mind-numbing paragraphs of text. So as the cool autumn winds blow, let’s open the crypt of ten of the world’s scariest presentations…and share a few magical potions to bring them back to life.

#1. Is it a car?  Or is it an essay?

This full-screen muted photo of a Lamborghini is cluttered by five sentences of text explaining the definition of a car.  The audience doesn’t know whether to look at the car, the text, or the speaker,  Or simply look away in fright.

A fundamental fix is to eliminate the text completely- let the speaker talk about it- and create two slides.  Slide 1 features a simpler image of the car (a Lamborghini) while the speaker shares a basic definition, as explained in paragraph one.  Slide 2 features an illustration of the basic components of the car, as explained in paragraph two.

If the speaker didn’t want to eliminate the text entirely, the photos could be offset to the left, with the text offset on the right.

#2. Strong Brand…Scary Slide!

Hopefully, this company’s business strategy is a lot better than their presentations.  In the early days of PowerPoint, someone created this curdling mix of arrows, text and a target to explain how 10 elements could target 6 key audiences.

Granted, this image is nearly 15 years old, created long before the ease of Smart-Art graphics.  This was one of my very first slide redesigns…and I saw the immediate need to simplify and minimize.  I started by creating a simple template using the company’s brand colors of red and black. In the center, I placed a photo of an actual bullseye.  And around the bullseye- instead of angry arrows- I worked in Photoshop to create iconic ovals with superimposed text. The slide’s text and message remained the same.

#3. A Potpourri of Praise

This potpourri of praise may turn a few heads…away!  Letters of reference can be helpful in winning a project…but cramming them all one slide is hardly helpful when showcasing success.  This construction company’s slide features a mauve/purple gradient background blended with a faded group of schoolgirls.  Two recommendation letters in opposite corners are impossible to read…so they’re transcribed in text.  But the Times New Roman font is hard to read, even with key words emphasized in yellow.  The skinny arrows are meaningless in connecting the letters to the text.

In the redesign of this reference slide, we scanned the actual letters and placed them on two separate pages, angled for depth and improved positioning.  A magnified section of the letter showcased the key phrase or message, eliminating the need for manually-entered text.

#4. Bombs bursting in air

This speaker was hell-bent on grabbing his audience’s attention.  His stark black background was juxtaposed against a fireworks explosion and an outdated restaurant.  The blood red text with yellow shadows made the audience feel as if they were in a McDonald’s war-zone.

Taming this terror is relatively simple.  A quick fix is applying a light beige gradient and inserting a photo of a restaurant with an angled picture style effect.  The text becomes black and moves to the top of the slide, with keywords emphasized in green.

Another approach to subdue the shriek of the slide is to deviate from the template and filling the background with a full page image of a restaurant interior.  Image blur and desaturation effects applied.  The message is prominent and dominant, with the critical “Inside the Four Walls” message showcased with a 3D text effect to illustrate depth and dimension.

#5. Toxic Snake. Toxic Slide.

Like the venomous Viper snake, this slide the Veterans In Pursuit of Educational Readiness (VIPER) program for Warren County Community College is also toxic.  Teeming with text and pouring over with patriotism, the three key bullets on this slide are little more than a script for the speaker or a handout for the audience.

A refreshing redesign of the slide splits the three bullets into three separate pages.  The patriotic flair is conveyed in a subdued, red and blue bottom arc created in Photoshop and set against a sandy-white textured gradient background.  The VIPER logo is integrated in the top right, and three square academic images carry the iconic military-academic theme.  The three slides each feature a prominent image of a student or service member, providing an ardent amount of breathing space.

#6. As boring as the subject

This insurance company’s gloomy slide might as well feature a decrepit homeless person.  The ominous navy background with its heavy black text against a fuzzy pie-chart does little to inspire someone to purchase their plan.  The red title sends a subconscious message of warning!

The presentation’s redesign is a breath of fresh air.  A light and flowing light green and white background features a green subtle element from the company’s logo.  All four major bullets have been converted to iconic graphics featuring bold white text with a black border and shadow.

#7. Scary surgery…and slides

Blood tests and surgery can be frightening…and so is the uninspired layout of this slide.  Five unequally-sized rectangles all linked by anemic arrows to an oval in the middle showcase the role of diagnostic testing.  The images are busy and hard to see, as are the tiny Arial subheadlines.  The flat blue background may put the audience into a trance.

The redesigned PowerPoint slide features five equally sized rounded-rectangles with clear dominant images, defined by Larger-sized subheadlines in Calibri.  A transparent clipped PNG graphic of a scientist on the bottom left sends a message for the entire slide of science and medicine.  The background is a textured blue angled-line image from Crystal Graphics and edited in Photoshop.  A White rectangle block at the top adds contrast and provides space for a concise title and logo.

#8. NSA Security Breach reveals holes in PowerPoint design

There were many harrowing things about the National Security Association PRISM leak – but to Paris-based designer Emiland De Cubber, the most horrible revelation was how awful their PowerPoint design was. Breaking nearly every fundamental rule of presentation design blended pastel colors, tiny type, and overwhelming amounts of information on its plain white background.

DeCubber stepped up and redesigned several PRISM slides.  His philanthropic feat was showcased in Fast Company, as well at http://www.digitaltrends.com/web/whats-with-prisms-awful-powerpoint/#ixzz2hA3kvrsl

#9. Simply complex

This PowerPoint slide is the winner of the InFocus 2011 Worst Slide Contest.  It features a mix of text, headlines, arrows, schematics, and directions.  Normally, a viewer can grasp the core message of a slide, but this complex and convoluted message spooks the audience.

Even if we could even understand what this slide’s core message was about, the slide could be split into at least 3 or 4 separate pages.  A textured background, a clean and simple headline and plenty of white space would help simplify the core message and make this presentation more pleasing.

#10. The enemy is…PowerPoint

Featured in the New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/27/world/27powerpoint.html?_r=0) in October 2010, this PowerPoint slide became a catalyst for change in the presentation industry.  Designed to portray the complexity of the American military strategy in Kabul, Afghanistan, this scary PowerPoint slide prompted General Stanley McChrystal to wryly remark to laughter and applause, “When we understand that slide, we’ll have won the war.”

The slide demonstrated the mind-numbing strategy of PowerPoint, encouraging many to think outside the box and create more dynamic and compelling messages.

So the next time you see an ugly presentation, consider these opportunities to rise it from the dead.

Simon Jones explains how to create effective slideshows in Microsoft’s market-leading tool – and keep your audience from boredom or nausea

When you’re designing a presentation, it’s tempting to make it as whizzy as possible. After all, PowerPoint offers plenty of fancy features, so shouldn’t you try to use them?

Actually, no – just because you can perform eye-catching tricks doesn’t mean you should. PowerPoint is a great presentation tool, but it’s too easy to go overboard by adding stuff that distracts from the message you’re trying to convey. The general principle when working with PowerPoint is definitely “less is more”.

Highlight large images

Many PowerPoint slides include placeholders for inserting images. Most of these placeholders are pretty small in comparison to the entire slide. While using these placeholders lets you place text alongside your pictures, it can also detract from the power of your images and make all of your slides look the same. If your presentation includes important images, try making them cover the entire slide. While you won’t be able to include very much text on those slides, displaying the right image can be an effective tool to reinforce an important point in your presentation. Plus, it just looks better, doesn’t it?

One word of warning: This only works if your images are large enough. In order for the image to display at full quality, it has to have the same resolution, or number of pixels, as your display. Otherwise, the image may look stretched or blurry. For more information on choosing the correct image size, check out this useful blog post from Microsoft. The post is a little old, but it’s still accurate.

Use interesting fonts

You might already be familiar with PowerPoint’s theme fonts. Each PowerPoint theme includes a pair of fonts — one for headings and titles, and another for bullet points and paragraph text. Including more than one font is key to making your slides look well-designed. However, many of the default font pairs are a little bland. Why not use some different fonts?

Websites like DaFont and FontSquirrel have thousands of beautiful fonts you can download for free, and the Internet is full of resources to help you learn how to choose which fonts to use. You can even find plenty of suggestions for font pairings that work well (Google “font pairings” for more ideas). Once you’ve found some fonts you like, you can even customize the PowerPoint theme fonts to include your favorites.

Create your own color scheme

PowerPoint themes also include pre-made sets of colors. Like the fonts pairings, many of these color sets are a little bland. Why not use some colors you really like? Colour Lovers is a great resource for modern color palettes that looks great. You can also copy the colors in an ad or illustration that you like. Don’t use more than four or five main colors, or your presentation will look busy and disorganized. Just like with theme fonts, you can also create custom theme colors. Here are some color combinations I’ve used for presentations at our office: