An Understated Header

Many contemporary, great-looking presentations use color bars to set the visual tone and carry info that appears on every slide. In our example, a color bar across the top of the slide visually anchors it and provides continuity from slide to slide. To create the bar, click the Rectangle tool on the Drawing toolbar and drag it across the top of the slide. Use the Fill Color button to color the box.

Add a text box (choose Insert and Text Box and drag the box onto the bar) to carry the name of your presentation, company, conference, etc. You can even tastefully insert your company’s logo in a corner of the bar, which generally looks more professional than inserting an enormous logo on every slide. (If your logo is saved as a graphics file, add it by choosing Insert, Picture, and From File.) To reinforce a brand message, insert your company’s slogan in the bar below your company’s logo, as in our example.

A Constant Roadmap

When an audience is convinced you’re giving a well-organized presentation, it tends to stay more focused. You can remind your audience of where you are in the presentation with a running roadmap or table of contents on slides.

One way to show structure is with text running down the side of slides in another colored bar. List your major points. You could even apply bold formatting to the name of the section the current slide covers.

To create a more visual summary of your presentation’s agenda, use photos to represent the sections you’ll cover. Our example slide uses photos to represent three areas of a tourism presentation. We used the Picture toolbar’s Format Picture button to apply grayscale color to photos for sections that aren’t covered by the current slide.

Photo Illustration

The widespread availability of online stock photo services (search for “stock photos” in a search engine) means you can always find high-quality photos to illustrate ideas. You can find thousands of photos that cost just a few dollars each to use. Dropping these into slides adds a visual element without relying on dated clip art. And by choosing a professional-looking image, you’ll make your presentation look like a team of designers put it together. (While it’s often possible to copy a photo found on the Web or on a stock photo site, it’s normally not legal to do so without permission, and sometimes that permission costs money.)

Apply It To Slides

If you’d like your sharp new design to appear in every slide, be sure to add all the elements to the Slide Master. Choose View, Master, and Slide Master and format the slide as you wish. When you click Close Master View, every element you’ve added will appear on every existing and new slide in the presentation.

For more flexibility, save your formatted slide as a template by choosing File, Save, and Design Template in the Save As Type pull-down list. With a template (unlike a master), you can modify individual slides. That way, if you want to do something such as change which of the three photos in our example slide is highlighted, you can do so.