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The latest presentation apps have made it easier than ever to format slides and create professional-looking slideshows without giving off a "this is a template" vibe. Even standard PowerPoint alternatives have updated key features to make it easier than ever to collaborate and create presentations quickly, so you can spend more time prepping for your actual presentation.

If, like me, you've been using Google Slides unquestioningly for years, it's a whole new world out there. The newest crop of online presentation tools go way beyond the classic slideshow experience, with new features to keep your audience's attention, streamline the creation process with AI, and turn slide decks into videos and interactive conversations.

I've been testing these apps for the past few years, and this time, I spent several days tinkering with the top presentation software solutions out there to bring you the best of the best.

The best presentation software

Canva for a free presentation app

Beautiful.ai for AI-powered design

Prezi for non-linear, conversational presentations

Powtoon for video presentations

Genially for interactive, presenter-less presentations

Pitch for collaborating with your team on presentations

Zoho Show for a simple presentation app

Gamma for generative AI features

What makes the best presentation app?

How we evaluate and test apps

All of our best apps roundups are written by humans who've spent much of their careers using, testing, and writing about software. We spend dozens of hours researching and testing apps, using each app as it's intended to be used and evaluating it against the criteria we set for the category. We're never paid for placement in our articles from any app or for links to any site-we value the trust readers put in us to offer authentic evaluations of the categories and apps we review. For more details on our process, read the full rundown of how we select apps to feature on the Zapier blog.

When looking for the best presentation apps, I wanted utility players. After all, slideshows are used for just about everything, from pitch decks and product launches to class lectures and church sermons. With that in mind, here's what I was looking for:

Pre-built templates. The best presentation tools should have attractive, professional-looking templates to build presentations in a hurry.

Sharing and collaboration options. Whether you plan to share your webinar slides later, or you just want to collaborate with a coworker on a presentation, it should be easy to share files and collaborate in real-time.

Flexibility and customization options. Templates are great, but top presentation apps should enable you to customize just about everything-giving you the flexibility to build exactly what you need.

Affordability. Creating compelling presentations is important, but you shouldn't have to bust your budget to make it happen. With capable free tools on the market, affordability is a top consideration.

Standalone functionality. There's no reason to use multiple tools when one can do it all, so I didn't test any apps that require and work on top of another presentation app like PowerPoint or Google Slides.

Familiar, deck-based UI. For our purposes here, I only tested software that uses slides, with the familiar deck-based editor you expect from a "presentation" tool (versus, for example, a video creation app).

While many apps now offer AI features in one way or another, I found many of these features to be lacking still-they're often slow, struggle to pull in relevant imagery, and yield wildly inconsistent designs. For that reason, I opted not to make AI features a strict requirement (for now!), and I've still included apps that don't offer AI. (Of course, if you opt for one of those, you can still easily get AI-generated images from a separate tool and copy them into your presentation app of choice.)

Beyond that, I also looked for presentation apps that brought something unique to the table-features above and beyond what you can get for free from a legacy solution like PowerPoint or Google Slides. (And I opted not to test any brand new apps that are still in beta, since there are so many established options out there.)

Here's what my testing workflow looked like:

I went through any onboarding or guided tutorials.

I created a new deck, scanning through all available templates, noting how well-designed they were (and which were free versus paid).

I added new slides, deleted slides, edited text and images, and played around with other content types.

I changed presentation design settings, like color schemes and background images.

I reviewed and tested the sharing and collaboration options.

I tested out presenter view (when available).

After my first round of testing, I went back into the top performers to test any unique or niche features like AI, brand settings, interactive content, and more. With that, these are the best presentation apps I found-each one really brings something different or radically easy to the table.

The best presentation software: at a glance

The best free presentation software

Canva (Web, Windows, Mac, Android, iOS)
Canva pros: Canva cons:
Canva offers one of the most robust free plans of all the presentation apps I tested. The app delays account creation until after you've created your first design, so you can get started building your presentation in seconds. Choose from an almost overwhelming number of beautiful templates (nearly all available for free), including those designed specifically for education or business use cases.

Anyone who's accidentally scrolled too far and been bumped to the next slide will appreciate Canva's editor interface, which eliminates that problem altogether with a smooth scroll that doesn't jump around. Choose from a handful of preset animations to add life to your presentations, or browse the library of audio and video files available to add. And Canva also has a number of options for sharing your presentation, including adding collaborators to your team, sharing directly to social media, and even via QR code.

Present directly from Canva, and let audience members submit their questions via Canva Live. Once you share a link to invite audience members to your presentation, they can send questions for you to answer. As the presenter, you'll see them pop up in your presenter view window, so you can keep the audience engaged and your presentation clear. Alternatively, record a presentation with a talking head bubble-you can even use an AI presenter here-to share remotely.

Canvas has added a number of AI-powered tools, but I wasn't super impressed by them yet. When I asked the Magic Design tool to generate a presentation from scratch, for example, the result was a bunch of unrelated images, inconsistent design, and surface-level copy. These features will likely improve in time, but for now, you're better off starting from one of Canva's many great templates.

Canva pricing: Free plan available; paid plans start at $119.99/year for 1 user and include additional features like Brand Kit, premium templates and stock assets, and additional AI-powered design tools.

The best presentation app for AI-powered design
Beautiful.ai pros: Beautiful.ai cons:
If you're like me, editing granular spacing issues is the absolute worst part of building a presentation. Beautiful.ai uses artificial intelligence to take a lot of the hassle and granular design requirements out of the presentation process, so you can focus on the content of a presentation without sacrificing professional design. If I needed to make presentations on a regular basis, this is the app I'd use.

Many apps have recently added AI design features, but Beautiful.ai has been doing it for years-and they've perfected the UX of AI design, ensuring the tool's reign as the most streamlined and user-friendly option for AI design.

The editor is a little different from most presentation apps, but it's still intuitive-and you'll start off with a quick two-minute tutorial. When creating a new slide, scroll through "inspiration slides" to find a layout you like; once you choose, the app will pull the layout and automatically adapt it to match the design of the rest of your presentation.

With 10 themes, several templated slides, over 40 fully-designed templates, and 23 different color palettes to choose from, Beautiful.ai strikes a perfect balance between automation and customization.

While Beautiful.ai doesn't offer a free plan, paid plans are reasonably priced and offer sharing and collaboration options that rival collab-focused apps like Google Slides. And speaking of Google, you can connect Beautiful.ai with Google Drive to save all your presentations there.

Note: I did test the newly released generative AI feature (called DesignerBot) and felt it wasn't much to write home about. It's great for adding individual slides to an existing presentation-automatically choosing the best layout and matching the design to the rest of the deck-but as with most other apps, it struggled to generate a quality presentation from scratch.

Beautiful.ai pricing: Plans start at $12/month for unlimited slides, AI content generation, viewer analytics, and more. Upgrade to a Team plan for $40/user/month to get extra collaboration and workspace features and custom brand controls.

If you're a founder looking for an AI presentation tool for your pitch deck, is a great Beautiful.ai alternative for startups. The app offers a number of templates; a unique, content-first outline editor; and AI design help that you can toggle on or off for each slide. I didn't include it on the list mainly because of the price: the free plan is quite limited, and the paid all-access plan starts at $228/year.

The best presentation app for conversational presentations

Prezi (Web, Mac, Windows, iOS, Android)
Prezi pros: Prezi cons:
Struggling to squeeze information into a basic, linear presentation? Give Prezi a try. Unlike nearly all other presentation apps on the market, Prezi Present doesn't restrict the structure of your presentation to a straight line. The editor focuses on topics and subtopics and allows you to arrange them any way you want, so you can create a more conversational flow of information.

With the structural flexibility, you still get all the same customization features you expect from top presentation software, including fully-editable templates. There's a learning curve if you're unfamiliar with non-linear presentations, but templates offer a great jumping-off point, and Prezi's editor does a good job of making the process more approachable.

Plus, Prezi comes with two other apps: Prezi Design and Prezi Video. Prezi Video helps you take remote presentations to a new level. You can record a video where the presentation elements are displayed right over your webcam feed. Record and save the video to share later, or connect with your video conferencing tool of choice (including Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Google Meet) to present live.

Prezi pricing: Free 14-day trial and a free plan that includes up to 5 visual projects; start at $5/month and include additional features like private presentations and Prezi Present.

The best presentation app for video presentations

Powtoon (Web, iOS, Android)
Powtoon pros: Powtoon cons:
Powtoon makes it easy to create engaging videos by orienting the editor around a slide deck. Editing a Powtoon feels just like editing a presentation, but by the time you finish, you have a professional video.

You can edit your slides at any time, and when you hit play, a video plays through your deck-the feel is almost like an animated explainer video. Each slide includes the animations you choose and takes up as much time as is needed based on the content on the slide. Powtoon figures the timing automatically, and you can see in the bottom-right of the editor how much time is used on your current slide versus the total presentation. If you ever want to present as a slide deck, just toggle between Slideshow and Movie.

You'll likely need to subscribe to a paid plan to get the most out of Powtoon-like creating videos longer than three minutes, downloading them as MP4 files, and white-labeling your presentations-but doing so won't break the bank. Plus, you'll unlock tons of templates complete with animations and soundtracks.

One of my favorite Powtoon features is the ability to orient your video: you can choose horizontal orientation (like a normal presentation) or opt for vertical (for mobile) or square (for social media). When your presentation is ready, you can publish straight to YouTube, Wistia, Facebook Ads, and any number of other locations.

Powtoon pricing: Limited free plan available; paid plans start at $20/month and include white-labeling, priority support, additional storage, and more.

The best presentation app for interactive presentations
Genially pros: Genially cons:
While many presentation apps are built for presenter-led decks, Genially's interactive features and animated templates make it easy to build a self-led presentation. A variety of interactive buttons allow you to show viewers additional context on hover, have them skip to any page of your deck, and let them navigate to external links.

This presentation program offers a bunch of searchable templates, including some for business proposals, reports, social media presentations, and more (though most of those are available on premium plans only). Genially also includes Smart blocks -templated blocks of content for elements like data visualizations and image galleries.

My favorite feature is the brand settings. Premium users can set universal branding guidelines that include your logo, color scheme, fonts, images, and backgrounds, among other options. Think of them like a custom template, created and customized by you, that the whole team can use. Once set, your team can easily create on-brand presentations that automatically apply your brand settings, without even thinking about it.

Plus, Genially supports additional content like training materials, infographics, and interactive images-all subject to your brand presets.

Genially pricing: Free plan available with unlimited creations and views and access to templates; paid plans start at $7.49/month and include additional download options, privacy controls, offline viewing, premium templates, and more.

The best presentation app for collaborating with your team

Pitch (Web, Mac, Windows, iOS, Android)
Pitch pros: Pitch cons:
Need to collaborate on presentations with your team? is a Google Slides alternative that gets the job done. As far as decks go, Pitch includes all the beautifully-designed templates, customizability, and ease of use you expect from a top-notch presentation tool. But the app really shines when you add your team.

The right-hand sidebar is all about project management and collaboration: you can set and update the status of your deck, assign entire presentations or individual slides to team members, plus comment, react, or add notes. Save custom templates to make future presentations even easier and faster.

You can also invite collaborators from outside your company to work with you on individual decks. And if you opt for a paid plan, Pitch introduces workspace roles, shared private folders, and version history.

The "Go live" feature is a personal favorite-with just a click on the camera icon in the top-right, you can start a live video call. Any team members who open the presentation can hop in and collaborate in real-time.

Pitch pricing: Free plan offers unlimited presentations, custom templates, and live video collaboration; start at $8/user/month for additional workspace features, presentation analytics, and more.

The best simple presentation app

Zoho Show (Web, iOS, Android, Chrome)
Zoho Show pros: Zoho Show cons:
If you're looking for a simple, yet capable presentation app that's a step up from Google Slides, Zoho Show is a great option. It's completely free to use, offers a clean, intuitive editor, and includes a number of great templates.

While the handful of "Themes" offered are on the basic side, Zoho templates boast a more modern and professional design than much of what Google Slides or PowerPoint offer. And I love that you can set the font and color scheme for the whole template, right from the start.

The app doesn't skimp on collaboration or shareability either. You can invite collaborators via email or shareable link, and comments and version history make it easy to work together on presentations. Once you're ready to share, you can even broadcast your presentation to a remote audience right from within Zoho. Plus, you can one-click lock slides to prevent any more editing or hide individual slides to customize your presentation for different audiences.

You can even connect Zoho Show to Zapier, so you can do things like automatically create a presentation when something happens in one of the other apps you use most.

Zapier is the leader in no-code automation-integrating with 5,000+ apps from partners like Google, Salesforce, and Microsoft. Build secure, automated systems for your business-critical workflows across your organization's technology stack. Learn more.

Zoho Show pricing: Free

The best presentation app for generative AI
Gamma pros: Gamma cons:
I tested a lot of apps claiming to use AI to up your presentation game, and 's generative features were head and shoulders above the crowd.

Simply give the app a topic-or upload an outline, notes, or any other document or article-approve the outline, and pick a theme. The app will take it from there and create a fully fleshed-out presentation. It's far from perfect, but Gamma produced the most useful jumping-off point of all the AI presentation apps I tested.

Here's the key: Gamma is much more geared toward the iterative, chatbot experience familiar to ChatGPT users. Click on the Edit with AI button at the top of the right-hand menu to open the chat, and you'll see suggested prompts-or you can type in your own requests for how Gamma should alter the presentation.

Once you've done all you can with prompts, simply close the chat box to manually add the finishing touches. While you do sacrifice some granular customizability in exchange for the AI features, you can still choose your visual theme, change slide layouts, format text, and add any images, videos, or even app and web content.

Gamma pricing: Free plan includes unlimited users, 1 custom theme, 400 AI deck credits, and basic view analytics; upgrade to the ("coming soon," as of this writing) for $10/user/month to get additional AI credits, advanced view analytics, custom fonts, and more.

What about the old standbys?

You might notice a few major presentation players aren't on this list, including OGs Microsoft PowerPoint, Apple Keynote, and Google Slides. These apps are perfectly adequate for creating basic presentations, and they're free if you have a Windows or Mac device or a Google account.

I didn't include them on the list because the presentation space has really developed in the last several years, and after testing them out, I found these behemoths haven't kept pace. If they weren't made by Microsoft/Apple/Google, I might not even be mentioning them. They're pretty basic tools, they're behind the curve when it comes to templates (both quantity and design), and they don't offer any uniquely valuable features like robust team collaboration, branding controls, video, and so on.

Some of these companies (think: Microsoft and Google) are openly working on some pretty impressive-sounding AI features, but they haven't been widely released to the public yet. Rest assured, I'm watching this space, and the next time we update this article, I'll retest tools like PowerPoint and Google Slides to see what new features are available.

In any case, if you're reading this, you're probably looking for an alternative that allows you to move away from one of the big 3, and as the presentation platforms featured above show, there's a ton to gain-in terms of features, usability, and more-when you do.
Related reading: This post was originally published in October 2014 and has since been updated with contributions from Danny Schreiber, Matthew Guay, Andrew Kunesh, and Krystina Martinez. The most recent update was in May 2023.

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The best presentation software in 2023 | Zapier

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We tested the top presentation apps, looking for software that met core requirements while also adding something extra to take your presentation to the next level.

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If you're looking to get the highest fidelity custom design for your presentation, look no further than our sister agency Column Five.

Presentations often receive a bad rap-for good reason. We've all sat through those long-winded speeches and hot mess PowerPoints, which completely undermine the point of visual presentations.

So, what differentiates a good presentation from a poor one? Content and design. While your speech may be perfect, the images you show can greatly add or detract from your message. Whether you're using Visage, PowerPoint, Keynote or good old PDFs, these 11 tips will help you create well-designed presentation slides that effectively get your point across.
1) Skip the Stock Template 2) Don't Use More than 6 Lines of Text
Using the slide themes included in your software is presentation death. They're overused, boring and usually pretty ugly. Create cleaner presentations by starting with a clean presentation and building from there.
3) Ditch the Bullet Points
Packing too much information into a slide will completely undermine its purpose. Remember: The audience often has to process everything you say while they view the slide.

Too many presentations are bullet point crazy. No one will remember 10 bullet points, but they will remember 10 compelling slides. Use each slide to build your case and incrementally tell your story. (Consider your slides to be an outline for what you're saying.) Try to share one idea per slide.

http://mirziamov.ru/mfo-online/zaim-limezaim.html 4) Use Sans Serif Fonts
5) Size Fonts Appropriately
With typography, go for legibility over fun. While you can use a creative font for a slide title, avoid using it for body text. Instead, stick to clean, traditional typefaces like Helvetica. And if you're using a dark background, make the text bold for readability.
6) Maintain a Strong Contrast Between Text and Background
Chances are you're designing your presentation on a laptop-and that's a much different size than the final presentation screen. When sizing your fonts, keep in mind that the text should be large enough to be read by the person in the back of the room.
7) Use No More than 5 Colors
In order for your message to pop, you need a high level of contrast between your text and the background. If your background image features a lot of variation, portions of your text may not be legible. In that case, a stylish bar of color behind the image can bring the legibility back while adding visual interest.
8) Use Contrasting Text Colors to Draw Attention
A harmonious palette can easily enhance the look of your entire presentation. No need for complex gradients or textures here; you can get excellent results with just the right colors. Use a tool like Adobe's Kuler or a site like COLOURLovers to choose a good selection.
9) Use Single Images
It's like bold and italic, but better. Use a single color in your selected palette to emphasize important points in your text. However, make sure not to overdo it.
1 0) Use Visuals to Increase Emotional Appeal 11) Freeze the Transitions
Images help make your presentation more visual, but don't get carried away with too many on one slide. It's a presentation, not a photo album. Limit your designs to a single image with simple or no text.

Visuals are there to help support your message; they can enhance comprehension, retention and elicit an emotional response that increases impact. Use powerful visuals to get your point across.
Now go make your own visual presentations in Visage. Love these tips? Check out our tips for bar charts, blog photos, and e-books.
Finally, there are plenty of clever transitions built into today's presentation software, but most quality presentations eschew any distracting transitions.

No matter what your presentation content, make sure you are always using design to your full advantage.

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11 Design Tips for Beautiful Presentations

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If you're looking to get the highest fidelity custom design for your presentation, look no further than our sister agency Column Five. Presentations often receive a bad rap-for good reason. We've all sat through those long-winded speeches and hot mess PowerPoints, which completely undermine the point of visual presentations.

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30 Creative Presentation Ideas for 2023

Here are 30 cool presentations ideas you can use for your next presentation:

1. Use Speech Bubbles

Speech bubbles add a fun element to your slide. (Presentation template Source: Envato Elements) (Graphic Source: Envato Elements)

A creative presentation idea is to put your thoughts or key points into speech bubbles. You can also use them to add notes, commentary, or milestones to a timeline.

When you use speech bubbles, be careful not to overuse them. The point of the speech bubbles is to make the text stand out. The text won't stand out if you use too many speech bubbles. Instead, it'll lose its effect.

2. Create a Timeline

A cool presentation idea that is great for organizing thoughts, facts, or information it to use a timeline.

Each step in a timeline is typically marked with an image icon or shape. So, a timeline can add visual interest to your information. They also help guide the audience through a narrative while also allowing you the ability to talk through specific points.

3. Audio Narration

Another unique presentation idea is to use pre-recorded audio in your presentation.

When you add narration to your presentation, you're creating more of an immersive experience. Using narration with matching visuals can be more emotional and impact your audience more.

4. Use Bright Colors

A way to have fun presentations is to add bright colors. There are two ways you can do this:

1. Use a colorful and exciting background that'll grab the audience's attention. Or use pops of color. When using pops of color, it's best to place your color strategically.

2. If you've got an important bit of text that you want your audience to pay attention to, put your pop of color behind that text.

5. Use Repetition

Another creative presentation idea is to use repetition.

Repetition is the oldest trick to remember something. So, if you want your audience to remember a specific phrase, try using repetition.

Choose a phrase that's short and simple. If the phrase is too long, it'll be harder to remember. Also, don't repeat the phrase too often. If you do people could tune you out.

6. Tell a Story

The human brain is designed to respond to stories as both a survival mechanism and as an entertainment mechanism. That double role has helped develop it into one of the most powerful communication tools humans have known.

Stories are much more interesting than facts because stories entertain us. Storytelling grabs and maintains attention. It helps the audience understand and remember what was said long after the story's over.

Instead of presenting your work as a series of facts that'll bore even the most kind-hearted audiences, organize your facts into a story.

And use a professional design with captivating photo layouts and graphics. This connects your audience visually to your story. Consider the stylish Polarity PowerPoint Template:

What interesting connections can you make between your facts? What story can you build around them that'll help your audience stay engaged from start to finish? Tell your story.

Learn more about the presentation writing process:

7. Ask Questions at Crucial Moments

Statements sound trite and expected. Especially during a presentation. A presentation essentially consists of a series of statements strung together. So, one more statement isn't likely to intrigue the audience-not even an exceptional one.

But what if you ask a question instead?

A question breaks up your regular presentation rhythm and helps mark what you're saying as important. It turns your presentation from a passive story into an active quest that the audience can explore on their own through their answers.

Answering a question (even if only in their heads) makes your audience feel involved in your presentation and keeps them glued to your words.

8. Prepare and Practice

Ever wonder how the best presenters always seem relaxed, focused, and engaging? It's easy to think that to be a great presenter, you need to be completely self-assured and comfortable in front of a crowd.

Preparation really starts at the very beginning. To succeed, take your presentation topics and map them out. This happens before you ever open your favorite presentation app to edit slides.

A big part of that is outlining your presentations. Just as novelists outline their books, great presenters map out big ideas in advance.

Think of your outline " roadmap" as a way to get your audience exactly where you want them to go. Following that outline as you build your slides helps you stay focused.

Once you've outlined and built your slides, it's time to rehearse relentlessly. It's not much fun, but it serves to build your self-confidence. You learn your content and become comfortable with it.

This translates directly into a confident stage presence. By feeling better about yourself (and your presentation topics), you'll give a better presentation. And in turn, this fuels audience engagement. Your self-assurance ensures their involvement.

9. Organize Your Presentation Into 3 Clear Points

The number three has been considered somewhat of a magical number in many cultures since antiquity. Something about things in threes fascinates the human mind and helps it retain information better. Consider these phrases:

body, mind, and soul

lock, stock, and barrel

pb and j (two ingredients, but three consonants in this abbreviated form)

blood, sweat, and tears

Magical or not, the number three works like a charm. At the end of the presentation, we can all remember three things that were said.

So instead of leaving those precious three things to luck, why not take charge? Organize your presentation into three main points or takeaways. Then you can be sure that your audience is paying attention to the important things and not the insignificant details.

Even if you're making more than three points, which you likely will be, you can find ways to organize all your minor points into three main categories. That way, you can easily address and summarize the gist of your presentation at the end.

Cost, timeline, results. Problem, suggestions, solution. Beginning, middle, and end. Just remember to divide it into three!

10. Break It Up With Humor

Humor makes the world go around. And the same holds true for the business world. At the end of the day, no one likes to work with a stiff.

So even when you're presenting in front of a "serious" client or investor, remember to use humor in your presentation. This doesn't mean you've got to crack jokes the entire time. It simply means being cheerful, lighthearted, and personable.

Humor not your strong point? No worries. You can even find presentations on creating presentations with humor!

23 Tips From Comedians to Be Funnier in Your Next Presentation from David Nihill.

While it can be challenging to nail the right tone with your use of humor it's one of the best presentation ideas to work on. Humor works to:

break the ice between you and your audience

puts everyone at ease, and helps them feel friendly, and well-disposed towards you (which can lead to improved results from your presentation)

open people up to the fun presentation ideas you're offering in your presentation

11. Design Your PowerPoint for Persuasion, Not Distraction

If you're using a slide deck, have a goal in mind. That goal is typically to inform or to persuade (or both.)

People see a ton of presentations - especially those key audiences like potential investors and customers! That means it's essential to stand out.

This is where Envato Elements comes in. It's loaded with designs that work perfectly for creative ways to present a project. Elements is the ultimate resource for presenters who need creative ways to present a project.

Elements offers thousands of PowerPoint templates. Each one is available for a flat monthly rate. That's right: join today and you'll have unlimited downloads of all the amazing templates you can ever use.

These templates are built by creative experts with you in mind. Many offer advanced features impossible to find in any free template.

With Elements, you gain peace of mind thanks to the ease of use. You'll save time and money and will impress even the most discerning audience.

This is a powerful offer. And Elements has far more than presentation templates. Your membership also includes stock photos, music, fonts, and more.

All these are useful to build unforgettable fun presentations in 2023. Join today!

12. Don't Read From Your Slides

Reading from a slide that everyone in the room can see (and read for themselves) is boring and makes you look unprepared. Your PowerPoint isn't there to remind you what to say, but to help your audience better understand the point you're making.

When you read off your PPT presentation, your audience will inevitably read along with you. And it's been shown that our minds wander 20-40% of the time while reading.

That means that while you're reading your slides, your audience is distracted. They may be wondering if they've left the iron on or what they're having for dinner. And that's not what you want them to be thinking about!

Keep the text of your slides short. Only use it to highlight important points you're making or to mark the headlines of different sections of your presentation.

Your slides should never be a crutch to your presentation when you can't remember what to say. And they should never contain more than a few lines of text on them.

Slides aren't for reading, but for emphasizing your points quickly.

13. Use Visuals to Ground Abstract Ideas

If you can't use a million bullet points to summarize your presentation on your slides, then what should your slides contain?

Visuals! Lots of visuals!

Graphs, charts, and pies that illustrate your point and help emphasize it. Also, include images that make an impact on the audience and make the gist of your argument memorable.

There's a difference between saying that your solution will cut costs by 20% and showing what that looks like on a graph with real numbers. It helps bring the idea from the abstract domain of theory into the concrete domain of facts.

And don't just stick to traditional presentation visuals. This isn't 2010, after all. Remember that cool presentation ideas today aren't the same as a decade ago.

Bring your presentation into the current era by including a variety of your visual elements. Using graphics, emojis, and even GIFs where appropriate will help give currency to your presentation and bring it to life.

Here's one of our most popular PowerPoint templates, The X Note. It includes many innovative slide design options, from photo layouts, to timelines, and more:

Discover the best PowerPoint templates with great infographics in this curated article:

Visuals, whether emojis, graphics, or images, shouldn't be used gratuitously in your presentation. Instead, everything you put into your slideshow should have a specific purpose.

A powerful way to use images is through visual metaphors. Don't just tell your client that with your plan new followers will come to them like bees to honey. Illustrate it with an image to help the point stick in their mind.

Visual images of a situation we're already familiar with help retain points longer in our memory. They give us something easy to refer to.

15. Make Your Examples Personal

Another creative presentation idea is to personalize your talk for the specific audience you're talking to on each occasion. You can always adjust and personalize your presentation experience to the specific audience.

Give examples in your presentation that involve the audience and show how your solution will benefit them.

People may not care (or may think they don't care) about your solution or talk if it just discusses the general. As soon as people realize that something can directly affect and benefit them personally, they start paying attention!

Show your audience the direct effects of your presentation by including them in your examples. You'll have their full attention and work your way halfway to that yes!

16. Use an On-Topic Template to Guide Your Presentation

Premium templates like those found on Envato Elements deliver unmatched style and content choices. Many focus on being flexible, offering the ability to quickly adapt to any topic.

Some of the most useful templates, though, take the opposite approach. These focus on a specific theme to offer creative ways to present a project.

Imagine for a moment you're launching a new mobile app. There are templates for that. Or perhaps you're opening a new restaurant and want to bring in customers. You're covered, thanks to custom templates.

The advantage here is twofold:

1. You'll find razor-focused slides built for your industry or specialty. These help you to brainstorm new PPT presentation ideas and share them in creative ways.

2. These very same slides save you valuable time and effort. How? Well, you don't have to build custom layouts from scratch. The tedious art of slide design transforms into a quick drag-and-drop exercise.

In other words, you can plan and build your next creative presentation more quickly, all thanks to on-topic templates.

Even better: your audience will be "wowed" by focused layouts that look tailored for you.

17. Add Music!

This may not be common practice in most presentations you've seen, but it's been proven to work by science. According to research done by Ronald A. Berk of John Hopkins University:

"Music embedded throughout a PowerPoint presentation can sustain attention, while slipping the content into long-term memory."

And it isn't new science! We've all known this for many decades. Case in point: can you think of how many movies you've seen in your lifetime that had no music? I'll give you a hint: Zero!

Ever since we discovered how to add sound to movies, we've not only been recording dialogue but also music from them. Because music helps set the mood, gives the right emotional effect, and adds excitement.

What's another way you can use music? To lighten up the mood and give everyone a mini dance break!

If you decide to use it, adding music can make for a really cool presentation that stands out in your audience's mind.

So, try this innovative presentation idea and add the appropriate music to your next presentation to help bring it to life.

18. Don't Go it Alone: Embrace Teams and Collaborate

Do you sometimes struggle to dream up unique topics for presentation use? You're not alone.

Nor should you be. Successful presentations are often fueled by collaboration. In other words, teamwork. There's no reason to do everything by yourself.

This can happen at any stage of the process, from brainstorming to the public delivery. By enlisting collaborators, your audience will enjoy the very best your team has to offer.

Suppose you've got a colleague who's a wizard with building amazing charts. Or you're presenting about a project and want your audience to hear from its architect. The possibilities for teamwork are endless.

Sometimes, it's great to add collaborators to break up the monotony. No matter how fabulous you are in front of a crowd, audiences may lose focus if you talk for too long. If you've got a lot to share, bringing in other voices helps them stay engaged.

Don't forget that you don't have to be in direct proximity to collaborate. With online team features, you can share files with others around the globe.

And even as you present, you can bring in other speakers with online tools like Zoom. In today's world, this is more powerful (and useful) than ever before.

19. Build for Big Rooms

As you explore unique topics for a presentation, it's easy to get caught up in the big idea. But that should never distract you from key tactical details. Chances are, as you build your slides, you're working on a single screen. That means you might forget that major PowerPoint presentations are delivered in large spaces.

What looks great on your screen may be impossible to read for a viewer standing in the back of a lecture hall. Or, your slide might be too crowded, just like we've already seen. The takeaway here is: always build presentations for big rooms.

That means to keep slides neat and clean, use large and readable fonts, and linger on each slide to give every viewer the chance to absorb it. No matter what presentation topics you're discussing, taking your time helps audiences engage with your creative mission.

Also, explore contrast. Often, dark backgrounds and light text are more readable than the reverse.

As you can see in this slide from The X Note PowerPoint Template, contrast is easier on the eyes. It also delivers bold and unconventional styling to your slide deck! Truly, a win-win for you and your team.

Above all, make sure viewers can see and understand your inspirational presentation topics-even from a distance.

20. Watch Your Animations

Many presentation topics will include a lot of different slides. And each of those slides might hold several different types of content. Thanks to PowerPoint, it's easy to add custom animations and transitions with a few clicks.

These motions really pull your audience in by unveiling new items with a cool flourish. Plus, they'll help you bring focus to key areas and ensure viewers engage with you.

But be careful.

Opt for clean and simple movements that don't detract from your narrative. Fades and pushes are top choices for stylish and simple animations.

It's just as important to organize your animations. If they happen at the wrong time, or in the wrong order, it can absolutely derail your presentation in a flash. Luckily, this is amazingly easy to avoid. In fact, learn to do it in only 60 seconds with our quick tutorial!

21. Style With SmartArt

PowerPoint is built to bring your fun presentation ideas to life. One great way is by using SmartArt. We've already looked at some infographics and charts you may find built into PowerPoint templates. SmartArt takes this to a higher level. In a few clicks, you can build your very own custom infographics on any slide. Let's add SmartArt to a slide.

SmartArt lives on the Insert tab on PowerPoint's ribbon. You'll find it under the Illustrations group. To add SmartArt, simply click on the button and launch the menu seen here.

Use SmartArt to build informative graphics that you can continually update.

You'll see several creative categories for how to present ideas. These include:

Simply click on one, then fill in your relevant information. PowerPoint includes a host of built-in design options to help you fully customize your fun presentation ideas.

For example, you can add new steps to a process chart. Or you can change SmartArt colors to precisely match your branding.

Of course, like any slide feature, overusing SmartArt can distract. But, when used carefully, it's a powerful tool to visualize relationships. Many infographics take a numerical focus, whereas SmartArt is more about ideas and how they connect with each other.

For more on using SmartArt, check out our post and screencast showing you exactly how to get started!

22. Turn to Videos to Add Interest

As you can already see, plain text is no way to inspire audiences to take action in 2023. It's essential to use other mediums, like photos, charts, infographics, and more.

One of these is video, and it's a category all its own. Have unique topics for presentation use? Bring them to life with video.

Imagine for a moment that you want viewers to hear from an expert on a given topic. Maybe they're unavailable to attend the presentation, or present live remotely. Here's your easy fix. Pre-record their narration and add it right to your slides.

Or perhaps you want to show off a scene that photos alone can't capture. Add a video to your slides. It instantly boosts audience interest - and it might give you a little break while they watch!

Your favorite presentation apps often include easy-to-use video features. In fact, you can add YouTube videos right to PowerPoint slides.

In-slide video is becoming increasingly popular, and it's a great way to add a bit of flair to your next slide deck for 2023. Learn more below:

23. Align Objects

Design for persuasion, not distraction. Organize. Use visuals. All those are big creative presentation ideas we've already explored. But they don't tell the full story.

Let's build a slide in the Neo PowerPoint Template to show you what I mean.

See the slide below? It features a cool infographic and bold text blocks.

It's also a mess. Nothing is aligned, and content is thrown all around the slide. Any self-respecting viewer will take a single look and recognize sloppy work when they see it. All it takes is a few clicks to totally transform the layout.

Alignment means what it says: pieces of content on the slide are neatly arranged relative to:

1. the borders of the slide and

2. other content.

As you can see here, changing this layout makes the very same slide instantly appear neat and clean. The audience will now focus on the content, not your messy style.

24. Create Quizzes

Quizzes can liven up a presentation and help engage your audience by adding a game like element. Many viewers will enjoy interacting with the quiz. But don't forget to make it fun.

A creative PowerPoint presentation idea is to create little quizzes throughout your presentation if it's long. If your presentation isn't long, you can create a quiz at the end of your presentation.

Asking questions ensures that people listen to your presentation. If you're offering a prize to the quiz winner, tell the audience about the quiz and prize at the beginning of your presentation.

25. Pay Attention to Body Language

Body language is essential when giving your creative presentation. If you're hiding behind a stand, then you look nervous.

But if you walk around on stage and engage the audience, you'll look confident and knowledgeable. Learn more about body language in this tutorial:

26. Address Audience Questions

If your presentation topic is complicated, then let the audience to ask questions anonymously. This makes the audience feel heard and allows you to make sure they understand the topic.

Plus, letting the audience to anonymously ask questions takes the pressure off the individual audience member.

27. Turn to Props

A creative presentation idea is to use props. This works well if you aren't presenting to a large audience.

Props can prove or reinforce a point. They'll make the presentation more interesting for your audience.

Besides, people are naturally more visual. So, using props allows them to visualize what you're discussing.

If your presentation audience is large, then it might be hard to do a quiz effectively.

If you use Twitter hashtags, you can read audience opinions to questions on Twitter. Just make sure you create a unique hashtag for your event.

29. Close Strong!

So, you've delivered an amazing presentation and shared stunning slides along the way. Now it's time to wrap up with a strong finish.

No matter how good your slide deck, it's absolutely key to recap and summarize at the end. After all, that's one of the best ways to ensure retention and action.

There are a few things to keep in mind. Remember how you should organize your presentation into three clear points? It's time to revisit those.

Highlight key points, touching on each one and briefly recapping how it fits into the message. This locks your message into memory. As you can see in this slide from our MILD PowerPoint Template, a single slide will do the trick.

These interesting presentation topics for work truly drove the entire slide deck. Give them the attention they deserve.

The other big element of a strong close is the call to action. Chances are, you're sharing slides to get an audience reaction. If it's simply to educate them, your three clear points will suffice. But if you're, say, fundraising or recruiting, the close is where you ask the audience to do something.

The call to action follows all the normal rules you now know well. Make it clear, bold, and concise. Make your intentions known and make your pitch inspirational. Like any good cause, people need to believe in you and your message.

We began by talking about presentation topics and their goals. Whenever you present, you're trying to inform and/or persuade your audience.

Either way, you want them to take your message home with them to be remembered, considered, and acted upon.

Think of your favorite speeches, or the best presentations you've ever seen. Chances are, you remember a few key details be they quotes or memorable visuals.

In other words, no audience can be expected to remember everything. And if you expect them to take detailed notes, you'll find them falling more and more behind you.

Your solution is simple: share your slides after the presentation is over. This is now easier than ever.

You can upload slides to YouTube or share them in PDF format. It's digital, easy to access, and saves a few trees, too!

The Best Source for Simple PowerPoint Templates

Envato Elements is a subscription service where you can find top-notch premium presentation templates. To become a subscriber, pay a flat low monthly fee. Once you've subscribed, you get unlimited access to presentation templates, audio, stock images, and much more.

Discover how to create with Envato Elements.

Envato Elements is an excellent value if you need presentation templates or other digital assets often.

How to Come Up With Interesting PowerPoint Presentation Ideas (With Creative Examples)

Presentations have a place in nearly every environment. In this section, I'll share three of my favorite template options that give you fun PowerPoint presentation ideas. You'll see that there are templates for practically every purpose that you can use to launch your next presentation.

1. Educational and Scientific Topics

In the educational world, teachers and students alike put their presentation topics in PowerPoint presentations. When you're cramming for a presentation, you need creative presentation topics to be successful.

Check out these two articles with PowerPoint ideas for educational and scientific PPT presentation ideas:

2. Pitch Decks

Next, maybe you've heard of a pitch deck. This is a specific type of presentation that startups and founders use to launch a new company or business.

Your potential investors have likely already seen every idea under the sun. So, it helps to use creative presentation topics to frame your company differently. Try these templates show you how to present an idea for a new company:

3. Marketing Presentation Topics

Another popular arena for presenting creative presentation topics is in marketing PowerPoints. No matter what you're marketing, you can use these two resources to put together creative presentations with a solid approach:

For every presentation you build, using a template is one of the best ways to get creative presentation ideas. You'll find pre-built slides that spark the writing process.

How to Create Unique Topics For a Presentation

Still not inspired? It's possible to use techniques to generate interesting presentation topics for work.

Here are three tips that I use to generate presentation topics:

1. Start with brainstorming. At first, you don't need to create structured ideas. A piece of paper and a pen away from your daily distractions can help you generate creative presentation topics. I typically start with a freeform mind map, connecting ideas that I want to share with my audience.Naturally, connections between these creative presentation ideas will form and the story will develop naturally.

2. Draw on personal experience. Not every presentation is personal in nature. But connecting the topic to your personal experience is a powerful storytelling tool. Think about how your personal story connects to the topic to generate creative presentation ideas.

3. Take an unconventional view. Even if it isn't your personal view, thought-provoking presentations sometimes take unconventional views. You don't have to take a controversial topic to take an unconventional view. Instead, take a commonly accepted belief and challenge it to get creative.

Dig deep and you might be surprised how many creative presentation topics you might be able to generate. Creative presentation topics are easier to generate when you use this three-step approach.

How to Quickly Customize Creative Presentations That Inspire (In 2023)

Premium templates are one of the best creative ways to present a project. They're quick and easy to use and deliver inspiring results. Let's learn how to customize a slide deck to bring presentation topics to life.

Want to follow along? Start crafting creative ways to present a project with the help of Momentum from Envato Elements.

Let's get started:

1. Choose Slides to Work With

As you think about unique topics for presentation designs, it pays to consider your goal. That means choosing only the slides that work best for your idea. In PowerPoint, find the View tab, then click on Slide Sorter.

Use View > Slide Sorter to select the slides to use in your project.

Here, you can click on slides and drag them around to change up the sequence. Or you can hold down Shift on your keyboard and select those that you don't want to use. Then, press Delete. Once you're finished, click Normal on the View tab to start editing.

2. Add Your Text

Adding your own text is the best place to start. Slide decks like this include an array of text placeholders. All you've got to do is "fill in the blanks" - replacing the existing text with words of your own.

Begin by highlighting any text you see on a slide. Then, start typing. Repeat throughout the slide deck as needed.

3. Customize Fonts

You might not think of text when you imagine creative, inspiring presentation topics. But it's really one of the best ways to stand out! Any font can be changed, resized, or customized with things like bolds and underlines, along with different colors.

Use the Fonts section to select a new color for your text.

To do that, select some text on the slide. Then, on the Home tab, find the Fonts group just left of center. You'll see an array of buttons for every text effect and font change imaginable. Click on each to explore and apply.

4. Show Off Your Photos

Of all the creative ways to present a project, adding images is at the top of the list. And custom PPT themes like this make it easy. Many slides include pre-built image placeholders.

To use one, simply browse to an image file on your computer. Then, drag it over the placeholder, and drop it into place. That's all it takes. PowerPoint imports the image and adds it to your slide. What's more: it's scaled to fit perfectly.

5. Change Shape Colors

Most templates are going to have a default color palette. They look great, but you don't have to stick to them on every slide. In fact, changing a shape color is a creative way to add contrast.

Click on a shape, then choose a new color from the Shape Fill dropdown.

Click on a shape, then choose Shape Format on the menu. On the left side, click Shape Fill. You'll see a color chooser drop-down, from which you can apply any custom color that you want.

5 Top Creative PowerPoint Presentation Template Designs for 2023

Want to bring your presentation topics to life? Turn to these five templates that are trending on Envato Elements. They're the best out there for creative presentations today:

Need a winning way to explore unique topics for presentation decks? Rotario is ready for you. With a retro color theme and minimalist style, it's one of the best ways to share your favorite content. In total, there are 35 slides included.

Inspire your audience with this powerful presentation deck for PPT. Over 70 unique slides feature every type of layout conceivable. Light and dark versions help you choose a color palette that's right every time. Plus, you'll benefit from included vector icons and many aspect ratios. It's versatile, flexible, and easy to use.

For business presentation topics, you can still be creative and inspire your audience. In fact, inspiration may lead to funding, support for your projects, and more. Let Lakewood do the talking for you, in elegant and readable style. It includes a full set of infographics and diagrams to help bring data to life.

With unmatched style and funky graphics, Halogue is a top creative choice for 2023. Over 40 slides center around master layouts, making bulk edits a breeze. A unique custom icon pack lets you bring new life to every slide. In fact, each design element is totally customizable. This gives you the ultimate creative control.

Think all the creative ways to present a project involve bright, flashy slides? Think again. Reddo proves the opposite, delivering a sleek and beautiful slide deck for your next project. You'll find 120 layouts inside, some featuring modern infographics, Excel-based charts, and more. It's a fashionable way to make that great first impression.

Learn More About Presentations

Want to give the best presentation? Read these articles to learn more:

More Creative PowerPoint Templates

If you're still looking for premium templates, check these articles out:

Download Our Free PDF eBook on Making Great Presentations

Want even more skills to make great presentations? Download our free eBook: The Complete Guide to Making Great Presentations, which comes with a subscription to the Tuts+ Business Newsletter.

This 30-page PDF guide with included checklist will help you with the complete presentation process. Learn how to write your presentation, design it like a pro, and quickly prepare it to present powerfully.

Make Your Next Presentation Memorable!

Simply presenting the facts makes for a baseline presentation. To impress, convince, and convert your audience with your presentation you'll need to build some structure and excitement into your talk both verbally and visually.

Take advantage of these creative ideas for making your presentation better.

For even more ideas on how to improve your presentation, check out this article featuring presentation tips or browse through our featured presentation material:

How do you structure and design your presentations? And what will you do differently in your next presentation given these unique presentation ideas?

Use these creative presentation ideas now. Download a template. And start your next great presentation today!

Editorial Note: This tutorial was originally published in September of 2016. It's been updated to include new information-with special help from Andrew Childress and

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Creative Presentation Ideas to Inspire Audiences to Act +Video | Envato Tuts+

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As a business owner you'll have to give presentations about your work-awesome, brilliant, and intriguing presentations. You need creative presentation ideas.