Use PowerPoint Like a Professional Designer

Name: Use PowerPoint Like a Professional Designer
Rating: 4.4 (266 reviews)

Create outstanding PowerPoint presentations to accelerate your career and achieve more in less time

Created byAnna O

Last updated 10/2024

English

What you'll learn

Create modern slides and concept diagrams
Tackle tasks faster with shortcuts and VBA macros
Build professional PowerPoint templates from scratch
Communicate your information in the best manner
Learn the basics of XML to program the custom colour palettes in PowerPoint
Learn the secrets of designing beautiful colour palettes
Learn practical techniques for formatting photographs inside PowerPoint
Impress your audience by creating customized shapes, pictures and typography
Learn how to create video-like slide transitions
Bring your presentations to life
Downloadable exercise files and learning materials
All the techniques used by professional Presentation Designers in one place

Course content

7 sections • 31 lectures • 3h 22m total length

Introduction to the course2:22
Improve your PowerPoint skills to craft powerful presentations by mastering working space, professional templates, color palettes, managing photographs, customizing shapes and typography, and animations.

Introducing the Quick Access Toolbar2:03
PowerPoint users customize the quick access toolbar with their most-used commands, creating favorites that save time across documents or for a specific document. Add, remove, and organize commands with separators.
Importing the Quick Access Toolbar1:41
Import and customize the quick access toolbar in PowerPoint, install the shared customization file, and show the toolbar below the ribbon to keep essential tools at hand.
VBA tools: Installation1:31
Install the Quick Tools add-in for PowerPoint by enabling macros and adding the QUICK-Tools.ppam file, then locate the Quick Tools tab in PowerPoint.
VBA tools for working smarter and faster6:32
Explore the PowerPoint VBA quick tools add-in to resize, align precisely, and read RGB values for shapes and pictures.
The magic of three: Ctrl Shift Alt6:30
Master the magic of three keys—Ctrl, Shift, and Alt—to work faster in PowerPoint by using shortcuts to navigate tabs, create and resize shapes, rotate with Alt, and copy with Ctrl+Shift+drag.
20 best keyboard shortcuts (Part 1)10:24
Master the top 20 PowerPoint keyboard shortcuts to speed up basic formatting, manage presentations, and accelerate the design process, reducing stress under tight deadlines.
20 best keyboard shortcuts (Part 2)4:51
Master PowerPoint shortcuts to speed up presentations, including quick slide creation with Ctrl M, navigating the slide master, notes pane and presenter mode access, and efficient slideshow controls.
20 best keyboard shortcuts (Part 3)6:43
Learn to match colors with the eyedropper, copy animations with the animation painter (Alt Shift C), and manage objects via the selection pane (Alt F10) for order, visibility, and renaming.
Conclusion and tips0:54
Practice PowerPoint keyboard shortcuts to get faster, even if it feels slow at first. Use sticky notes or Windows sticky notes to memorize shortcuts and apply them to every presentation.

Themes vs. Templates: Understanding the difference5:24
Learn the difference between PowerPoint themes and templates, including how .thmx themes define colors, fonts, effects, and backgrounds, while templates provide a slide master and layouts.
Applying settings to a new blank file8:53
build a professional PowerPoint template from scratch by defining slide size (4:3 or 16:9), customizing colors and fonts, and applying theme effects and background styles.
Formatting the Slide Master18:40
Master the PowerPoint slide master by configuring the parent layout to govern child layouts, set alignment guides, and format titles, footers, and placeholders across slides.
Naming the template and saving your progress2:28
Rename the template from Office Theme, then adopt the Acme_16.9 naming convention and save as .potx to organize templates and layouts.
Formatting the Child Layouts18:54
Format essential child layouts in PowerPoint using the slide master, customizing the title slide, title only, section header, and blank layouts with precise placeholders, images, and typography.
Conducting a testing phase1:16
Test your template by creating one slide per layout with charts, tables, shapes, lines, and text boxes to verify styles, theme colors, and fonts, and ensure slide master name consistency.
Collecting the template files5:17
Learn to manage PowerPoint templates by saving as template (.potx) and theme (.thmx), including fonts in the same folder and example slides to prevent font substitution.

Introduction to XML in PowerPoint5:37
Learn how to extend PowerPoint color palettes by editing the theme XML inside an unzipped .potx file, using 7-zip and Visual Studio Code to add unlimited colors.
Programming the custom colour palette5:54
Build a five-color palette for Acme .potx template, convert RGB to hex with Excel's xml code generator, and apply the red, orange, and green colors to PowerPoint charts and tables.
Designing a nice colour palette3:52
Design cohesive color palettes using a color wheel and online tools like Paletton and mycolor.space, exploring monochromatic, triad, and tetrad schemes, with text preview and export options.

Aligning and formatting: Creating an employee profile slide9:24
Create an employee profile slide in PowerPoint using the Acme_16.9 template. Add title text, a yellow separator, and four circular-cropped, black-and-white photos aligned and distributed.
Removing the background from an image: Theory and best practices11:37
Learn to remove image backgrounds in PowerPoint using the set transparent color and remove background tools, keep or remove areas, and refine edges with blur or Photoshop alternatives.
Removing the background from an image: Creating a quote slide4:27
Copy a photo into a blank slide, group images, and create a black-and-white background with text boxes for the quote and Emily Jones using gray and yellow accents.

Introducing the Merge Shapes command3:40
learn to use PowerPoint's merge shape tools to create custom shapes with union, combine, fragment, intersect, and subtract, via shape format tab or quick access toolbar.
Designing the business concept diagram14:30
Use the Merge Shape command in PowerPoint to design a professional concept diagram in the Acme template, creating a header, description, and three icons.
Transforming pictures with the Merge Shapes command9:27
Use merge shape tools and artistic effects to blend a background photo, crop to 16:9, blur the image, and craft a white, visually striking slide.
Turning your static text into the lively object3:53
Turn static text into a lively object by using merge shape tools in PowerPoint to intersect and fragment text with a video set to loop until stopped, creating animated typography.

Slide Zoom tool: Bring your presentation to life6:54
Master the slide zoom tool in PowerPoint 2019 to link a core slide to multiple slides and control duration, background, and returning to the main zoom.
Section Zoom tool: Say no to the boring agenda slides5:13
Learn to use PowerPoint's Section Zoom to organize slides into USA, France, and Russia, creating elegant navigation and quick returns to the core slide.
Introducing the Morph tool2:18
Master fluid, video-like slide transitions using PowerPoint's Morph tool. Duplicate slides with a common object, move items, and adjust speed and effect options for seamless element connections.
Morph tool: Designing a professional timeline slide11:32
Design a professional timeline slide in PowerPoint using the Morph tool to animate from scratch, with circular image crops, alignment, placeholders, and smooth transitions.

Requirements

Microsoft PowerPoint 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016 or 2019 (Office 365)
Windows operating system

Description

Hi, my name is Anna and I am dedicated to helping you create outstanding PowerPoint presentations and data visualizations to accelerate your career and achieve more in less time.

This course includes examples based on my professional experience as a Graphic & Web Designer. Many of the tips and tricks I share with you originate from the questions asked by my colleagues during the training sessions and team projects.

This course is divided into six parts:

Getting Started:
In this section I will teach you how to manage your PowerPoint working space by using the Quick Access Toolbar as well as VBA macros which I created specifically for this course. You will also learn how to become faster and more efficient in creating slides by using the keyboard shortcuts.
Creating Professional Templates:
In this section I will teach you step by step how to build a professional PowerPoint template and how to solve common problems related to the template creation process. This will help you to save tones of time when working on big projects and make your presentation-creating process very fast and smooth.
Extra Skills for Template Makers:
In this section you will learn how to extend the number of colour options in your PowerPoint palette and make them automatically appear every time you or your colleagues open the presentation. You will also learn about the function of XML in PowerPoint and how to manage this code properly. I will also show you how to create a beautiful colour palette from scratch and which online tools would make the whole process fast and easy.
Managing Photographs in PowerPoint:
In this section I will show you how to properly manage photographs inside PowerPoint. You will also learn how to remove background from images and how to fix common problems related to the photo editing process. Together we will create an employee profile as well as quote slide.
Customizing Shapes, Pictures and Typography:
In this section I will introduce you to the Merge Shapes command. We will use this knowledge to build a professional concept diagram and transform the ordinary graphical content into a remarkable product.
Creating Impressive Animations:
In this section you will learn how to use Side Zoom, Section Zoom as well as Morph tool to bring your slides to the next level and impress your audience.

Who this course is for:

Anyone who wants to create professional PowerPoint presentations and improve working efficiency.

Use PowerPoint Like a Professional Designer

What you'll learn

Explore related topics

Course content

Introduction1 lecture • 2min

Getting Started9 lectures • 41min

Creating Professional Templates7 lectures • 1hr 1min

Extra Skills for Template Makers3 lectures • 15min

Managing Photographs in PowerPoint3 lectures • 25min

Customizing Shapes, Pictures and Typography4 lectures • 32min

Creating Impressive Animations4 lectures • 26min

Requirements

Description

Who this course is for: