Top 10 Hacks To Transform Dull PowerPoint Slides Into Engaging Presentations

SlideUpLift
7 min readJan 6, 2020

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Hacks to make dull PowerPoint slides into engaging ones

Per experts, the audience gets hooked and pays more attention to the visual content of your powerpoint slides than drab-looking text-heavy content. In this article, we offer an array of creative powerpoint slide designs and google slide templates that are sure to win you accolades. They will help you think beyond bullet points and unlock the amazing visual story waiting to be released from your message.

You must be wondering how to be visually creative if your PowerPoint slide templates are heavy on content. Don’t worry, below are the ideas to get you started on transforming your presentation slides from boring to visually engaging.

Idea 1: Visual Bullets
Idea 2: Double-sided text
Idea 3: Chunking
Idea 4: Picturization
Idea 5: Iconify
Idea 6: Backgrounding
Idea 7: Use Grids in PowerPoint to split the content
Idea 8: Use of Central figures
Idea 9: Layout shaping
Idea 10: Roadmapping

1. Visual Bullets

Use a visual element to create business PowerPoint slides with lines, shapes, and spacing to separate the content. This trick comes in handy if you have a lot of content to be organized. Presentation slides with the use of visual bullets can be used as agenda slides of the presentation.

View PowerPoint Slide Design

View Presentation Slide Design

2. Double-sided text

Alternate key points on the left and right side of the page. This elegant PowerPoint slide design visually separates a lot of text on the presentation slide and is easy on the target audience’s eye. As you can see in the powerpoint slide example below, each piece of text has plenty of white space to breathe.

View PowerPoint Template

View PowerPoint Template Design

View PowerPoint Template

3. Chunking

You can also create professional powerpoint slides based on the concept of chunking. Chunking refers to organizing your content in groups and showing those chunks horizontally or vertically depending on how much content you have. To create effective visual chunks you should group the related elements on the PPT slide and contrast the unrelated elements. When the grouping is clear and the contrast is obvious, the target audience finds it easy to understand and process the information on your presentation slides. Chunking works brilliantly to showcase different ideas on the same PowerPoint slide as our mind is wired to search for patterns to make sense of the information we find around us.

Tip: Use PowerPoint shapes to separate the text and add numbers, headlines, or PowerPoint icons to each chunk of text depending on the type of content you have on your PowerPoint Slides.

View PowerPoint Template

View PPT Template Design

View PowerPoint Slide Template

4. Picturization

Another way of building effective presentation slides is to represent your content by using photos and isometrics. Use images for PowerPoint presentations relevant to your content which aids in communicating your business story. The use of 3D Isometrics PPT slides helps in giving a 3d look and enhances the overall look of the ppt slide. Professional powerpoint slides created using photos help in visually separating the data hence the clutter.

The use of images also allows your target audience to immediately associate an idea with the text hence increasing the comprehension of your content. Check out the below timeline slides that use pictures to give a detailed idea about each stage of the timeline.

View PowerPoint Template

View PowerPoint Template

View PowerPoint Template

5. Iconify

The use of PowerPoint icons has become another popular option to create effective and engaging powerpoint slides. There is an abundance of free icon libraries available online to choose icons for using them in your powerpoint slides. They occupy less space, visually separate the clutter, and are best to emphasize certain content. Below are a few examples of PowerPoint Icons presentation slides.

View PowerPoint Slide With Icons

6. Backgrounding

Background pictures in PowerPoint slides are a great way to set the context of the content therefore a lot of professional PowerPoint templates are designed using an image as a background. You can insert a gradient, semi-transparent layer between the text and the photo so that whichever photo you use, the text will always be visible. Below are a few PowerPoint slide designs with a background image that liven up the entire presentation slide.

View Agenda PowerPoint Slide

View Gradient PowerPoint Theme

7. Use Grids in PowerPoint to split the content

The chief aim of lining up your elements in a grid format is creating a clean and organized space. Structure and symmetry are naturally pleasing to the eye. Another great benefit of grids is that you can easily integrate different elements like pictures, numbers, and text into beautiful PowerPoint Slides. You can also alternate the colors in the grid to make them visually appealing. Just choose alternating colors wisely to avoid color riot on the PowerPoint slide design.

View PowerPoint Template

View PowerPoint Template

8. Use of Central figures:

Add one visual element that summarizes the main idea of the powerpoint slide. You can divide the powerpoint slide into title and text sections with strong contrast. You may choose any image; however, we recommend using a PowerPoint icon due to the simplicity of the illustration and its neat, transparent look.

View PowerPoint Template

View PowerPoint Template

9. Layout shaping

A circular graphic is another excellent tool for building a PowerPoint slide, especially if the content forms parts of a whole idea or works together cyclically.

This PowerPoint slide design layout allows for plenty of active white space on PowerPoint Slides, which increases its consistency and readability.

If there are many parts of a whole and you want to talk about each part separately, you may want to animate all the parts so that they appear one at a time and can help your target audience follow along as you talk about each part.

Please ensure consistency in your PowerPoint Slides, if you’re going to insert PowerPoint icons or images.

View PowerPoint Template

View PowerPoint Template

10. Roadmapping

Use of roadmap or path layout to show direction and flow on your Powerpoint Slides

If you want to show content that goes in sequential order, consider displaying things on a journey type of layout. A clear path or roadmap will visually help your target audience to form associations and inferences from direction and flow.

View Roadmap PowerPoint Template

View PowerPoint Template

View PowerPoint Template

These are some of the ways to build effective PowerPoint slide designs. If all this sounds too much, simply head over to SlideUpLift and purchase a pre-built professional powerpoint template (like any of the slide examples seen in this article). It will save you tons of time and your PowerPoint slides are guaranteed to look great. You will also get to know even more diverse PowerPoint designs and formats that could be used to create engaging business presentations.

These PowerPoint templates are instantly downloadable, 100% editable, and easy to use. Using SlideUpLift library, you can start with templates, make edits, and create presentations in minutes.

Happy Presenting!!

Now you don’t have to scour the web to find out the right templates. Download our PowerPoint Templates from within PowerPoint. See how?

About SlideUpLift:

SlideUpLift is an online platform to help professionals make compelling presentations using principles of vision science and storytelling. The platform contains an online library of pre-designed presentation templates that can be used across industries and functions

Check out our library of free PowerPoint templates which are weekly updated to serve the presentation needs of professionals. You will find out the simplicity and ease in downloading the editable template, filling it with your content, and building world-class presentations in just a few clicks.

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SlideUpLift
SlideUpLift

Written by SlideUpLift

SlideUpLift, your go-to presentation partner, brings you tips, tricks, tutorials, guides, templates, and more to level up your presentation skills.

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