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How to Make a PowerPoint Presentation (Step-by-Step)

• PowerPoint Tutorials
• Presentation Design
• January 22, 2024

In this beginner’s guide, you will learn step-by-step how to make a PowerPoint presentation from scratch.

While PowerPoint is designed to be intuitive and accessible, it can be overwhelming if you’ve never gotten any training on it before. As you progress through this guide, you’ll will learn how to move from blank slides to PowerPoint slides that look like these.

Table of Contents

Additionally, as you create your presentation, you’ll also learn tricks for working more efficiently in PowerPoint, including how to:

• Change the slide order
• Reset your layout
• Change the slide dimensions
• Use PowerPoint Designer
• Format text
• Format objects
• Play a presentation (slide show)

With this knowledge under your belt, you’ll be ready to start creating PowerPoint presentations. Moreover, you’ll have taken your skills from beginner to proficient in no time at all. I will also include links to more advanced PowerPoint topics.

Ready to start learning how to make a PowerPoint presentation?

Take your PPT skills to the next level

Start with a blank presentation.

Note: Before you open PowerPoint and start creating your presentation, make sure you’ve collected your thoughts. If you’re going to make your slides compelling, you need to spend some time brainstorming.

For help with this, see our article with tips for nailing your business presentation  here .

The first thing you’ll need to do is to open PowerPoint. When you do, you are shown the Start Menu , with the Home tab open.

This is where you can choose either a blank theme (1) or a pre-built theme (2). You can also choose to open an existing presentation (3).

For now, go ahead and click on the  Blank Presentation (1)  thumbnail.

Doing so launches a brand new and blank presentation for you to work with. Before you start adding content to your presentation, let’s first familiarize ourselves with the PowerPoint interface.

The PowerPoint interface

Here is how the program is laid out:

• The Application Header
• The Ribbon (including the Ribbon tabs)
• The Quick Access Toolbar (either above or below the Ribbon)
• The Slides Pane (slide thumbnails)

The Slide Area

The notes pane.

• The Status Bar (including the View Buttons)

Each one of these areas has options for viewing certain parts of the PowerPoint environment and formatting your presentation.

Below are the important things to know about certain elements of the PowerPoint interface.

The PowerPoint Ribbon

The Ribbon is contextual. That means that it will adapt to what you’re doing in the program.

For example, the Font, Paragraph and Drawing options are greyed out until you select something that has text in it, as in the example below (A).

Furthermore, if you start manipulating certain objects, the Ribbon will display additional tabs, as seen above (B), with more commands and features to help you work with those objects. The following objects have their own additional tabs in the Ribbon which are hidden until you select them:

• Online Pictures
• Screenshots
• Screen Recording

The Slides Pane

This is where you can preview and rearrange all the slides in your presentation.

Right-clicking on a slide  in the pane gives you additional options on the slide level that you won’t find on the Ribbon, such as  Duplicate Slide ,  Delete Slide , and  Hide Slide .

In addition, you can add sections to your presentation by  right-clicking anywhere in this Pane  and selecting  Add Section . Sections are extremely helpful in large presentations, as they allow you to organize your slides into chunks that you can then rearrange, print or display differently from other slides.

The Slide Area (A) is where you will build out your slides. Anything within the bounds of this area will be visible when you present or print your presentation.

Anything outside of this area (B) will be hidden from view. This means that you can place things here, such as instructions for each slide, without worrying about them being shown to your audience.

The  Notes Pane  is the space beneath the Slide Area where you can type in the speaker notes for each slide. It’s designed as a fast way to add and edit your slides’ talking points.

To expand your knowledge and learn more about adding, printing, and exporting your PowerPoint speaker notes, read our guide here .

Your speaker notes are visible when you print your slides using the Notes Pages option and when you use the Presenter View . To expand your knowledge and learn the ins and outs of using the Presenter View , read our guide here .

You can resize the  Notes Pane  by clicking on its edge and dragging it up or down (A). You can also minimize or reopen it by clicking on the Notes button in the Status Bar (B).

Note:  Not all text formatting displays in the Notes Pane, even though it will show up when printing your speaker notes. To learn more about printing PowerPoint with notes, read our guide here .

Now that you have a basic grasp of the PowerPoint interface at your disposal, it’s time to make your presentation.

Adding Content to Your PowerPoint Presentation

Notice that in the Slide Area , there are two rectangles with dotted outlines. These are called  Placeholders  and they’re set on the template in the Slide Master View .

To expand your knowledge and learn how to create a PowerPoint template of your own (which is no small task), read our guide here .

As the prompt text suggests, you can click into each placeholder and start typing text. These types of placeholder prompts are customizable too. That means that if you are using a company template, it might say something different, but the functionality is the same.

Note:  For the purposes of this example, I will create a presentation based on the content in the Starbucks 2018 Global Social Impact Report, which is available to the public on their website.

If you type in more text than there is room for, PowerPoint will automatically reduce its font size. You can stop this behavior by clicking on the  Autofit Options  icon to the left of the placeholder and selecting  Stop Fitting Text to this Placeholder .

Next, you can make formatting adjustments to your text by selecting the commands in the Font area and the  Paragraph area  of the  Home  tab of the Ribbon.

The Reset Command:  If you make any changes to your title and decide you want to go back to how it was originally, you can use the Reset button up in the Home tab .

Insert More Slides into Your Presentation

Now that you have your title slide filled in, it’s time to add more slides. To do that, simply go up to the  Home tab  and click on  New Slide . This inserts a new slide in your presentation right after the one you were on.

You can alternatively hit Ctrl+M on your keyboard to insert a new blank slide in PowerPoint. To learn more about this shortcut, see my guide on using Ctrl+M in PowerPoint .

Instead of clicking the New Slide command, you can also open the New Slide dropdown to see all the slide layouts in your PowerPoint template. Depending on who created your template, your layouts in this dropdown can be radically different.

If you insert a layout and later want to change it to a different layout, you can use the Layout dropdown instead of the New Slide dropdown.

After inserting a few different slide layouts, your presentation might look like the following picture. Don’t worry that it looks blank, next we will start adding content to your presentation.

If you want to follow along exactly with me, your five slides should be as follows:

• Title Slide
• Title and Content
• Section Header
• Two Content
• Picture with Caption

Adding Content to Your Slides

Now let’s go into each slide and start adding our content. You’ll notice some new types of placeholders.

On slide 2 we have a  Content Placeholder , which allows you to add any kind of content. That includes:

• A SmartArt graphic,
• A 3D object,
• A picture from the web,
• Or an icon.

To insert text, simply type it in or hit  Ctrl+C to Copy  and Ctrl+V to Paste  from elsewhere. To insert any of the other objects, click on the appropriate icon and follow the steps to insert it.

For my example, I’ll simply type in some text as you can see in the picture below.

Slides 3 and 4 only have text placeholders, so I’ll go ahead and add in my text into each one.

On slide 5 we have a Picture Placeholder . That means that the only elements that can go into it are:

• A picture from the web

To insert a picture into the picture placeholder, simply:

• Click on the  Picture  icon
• Find  a picture on your computer and select it
• Click on  Insert

Alternatively, if you already have a picture open somewhere else, you can select the placeholder and paste in (shortcut: Ctrl+V ) the picture. You can also drag the picture in from a file explorer window.

If you do not like the background of the picture you inserted onto your slide, you can remove the background here in PowerPoint. To see how to do this, read my guide here .

Placeholders aren’t the only way to add content to your slides. At any point, you can use the Insert tab to add elements to your slides.

You can use either the Title Only  or the  Blank  slide layout to create slides for content that’s different. For example, a three-layout content slide, or a single picture divider slide, as shown below.

In the first example above, I’ve inserted 6 text boxes, 3 icons, and 3 circles to create this layout. In the second example, I’ve inserted a full-sized picture and then 2 shapes and 2 text boxes.

The Reset Command:  Because these slides are built with shapes and text boxes (and not placeholders), hitting the  Reset button up in the  Home tab  won’t do anything.

That is a good thing if you don’t want your layouts to adjust. However, it does mean that it falls on you to make sure everything is aligned and positioned correctly.

For more on how to add and manipulate the different objects in PowerPoint, check out our step-by-step articles here:

• Using graphics in PowerPoint
• Inserting icons onto slides
• Adding pictures to your PowerPoint
• How to embed a video in PowerPoint
• How to add music to your presentation

Using Designer to generate more layouts ideas

If you have Office 365, your version of PowerPoint comes with a new feature called Designer (or Design Ideas). This is a feature that generates slide layout ideas for you. The coolest thing about this feature is that it uses the content you already have.

To use Designer , simply navigate to the  Design tab  in your Ribbon, and click on  Design Ideas .

NOTE: If the PowerPoint Designer is not working for you (it is grey out), see my troubleshooting guide for Designer .

Change the Overall Design (optional)

When you make a PowerPoint presentation, you’ll want to think about the overall design. Now that you have some content in your presentation, you can use the Design tab to change the look and feel of your slides.

For additional help thinking through the design of your presentation,  read my guide here .

A. Picking your PowerPoint slide size

If you have PowerPoint 2013 or later, when you create a blank document in PowerPoint, you automatically start with a widescreen layout with a 16:9 ratio. These dimensions are suitable for most presentations as they match the screens of most computers and projectors.

However, you do have the option to change the dimensions.

For example, your presentation might not be presented, but instead converted into a PDF or printed and distributed. In that case, you can easily switch to the standard dimensions with a 4:3 ratio by selecting from the dropdown (A).

You can also choose a custom slide size or change the slide orientation from landscape to portrait in the Custom Slide Size dialog box (B).

To learn all about the different PowerPoint slide sizes, and some of the issues you will face when changing the slide size of a non-blank presentation,  read my guide here .

 B. Selecting a PowerPoint theme

The next thing you can do is change the theme of your presentation to a pre-built one. For a detailed explanation of what a PowerPoint theme is, and how to best use it,  read my article here .

In the beginning of this tutorial, we started with a blank presentation, which uses the default Office theme as you can see in the picture below.

That gives you the most flexibility because it has a blank background and quite simple layouts that work for most presentations. However, it also means that it’s your responsibility to enhance the design.

If you’re comfortable with this, you can stay with the default theme or create your own custom theme ( read my guide here ). But if you would rather not have to think about design, then you can choose a pre-designed theme.

Microsoft provides 46 other pre-built themes, which include slide layouts, color variants and palettes, and fonts. Each one varies quite significantly, so make sure you look through them carefully.

To select a different theme, go to the  Design tab  in the Ribbon, and click on the  dropdown arrow  in the  Themes section .

For this tutorial, let’s select the  Frame  theme and then choose the third Variant in the theme. Doing so changes the layout, colors, and fonts of your presentation.

Note: The theme dropdown area is also where you can import or save custom themes. To see my favorite places to find professional PowerPoint templates and themes (and recommendations for why I like them), read my guide here .

C. How to change a slide background in PowerPoint

The next thing to decide is how you want your background to look for the entire presentation. In the  Variants area, you can see four background options.

For this example, we want our presentation to have a dark background, so let’s select Style 3. When you do so, you’ll notice that:

• The background color automatically changes across all slides
• The color of the text on most of the slides automatically changes to white so that it’s visible on the dark background
• The colors of the objects on slides #6 and #7 also adjust, in a way we may not want (we’ll likely have to make some manual adjustments to these slides)

Note: If you want to change the slide background for just that one slide, don’t left-click the style. Instead, right-click it and select Apply to Selected Slides .

After you change the background for your entire presentation, you can easily adjust the background for an individual slide.

Inside the Format Background pane, you can see you have the following options:

• Gradient fill
• Picture or texture fill
• Pattern fill
• Hide background

You can explore these options to find the PowerPoint background that best fits your presentation.

D. How to change your color palette in PowerPoint

Another thing you may want to adjust in your presentation, is the color scheme. In the picture below you can see the Theme Colors we are currently using for this presentation.

Each PowerPoint theme comes with its own color palette. By default, the Office theme includes the Office color palette. This affects the colors you are presented with when you format any element within your presentation (text, shapes, SmartArt, etc.).

The good news is that the colors here are easy to change. To switch color palettes, simply:

• Go to the  Design tab in the Ribbon
• In the Variants area, click on the  dropdown arrow  and select  Colors
• Select  the color palette (or theme colors) you want

You can choose among the pre-built color palettes from Office, or you can customize them to create your own.

As you build your presentation, make sure you use the colors from your theme to format objects. That way, changing the color palette adjusts all the colors in your presentation automatically.

E. How to change your fonts in PowerPoint

Just as we changed the color palette, you can do the same for the fonts.

Each PowerPoint theme comes with its own font combination. By default, the Office theme includes the Office font pairing. This affects the fonts that are automatically assigned to all text in your presentation.

The good news is that the font pairings are easy to change. To switch your Theme Fonts, simply:

• Go to the  Design tab  in the Ribbon
• Click on the  dropdown arrow  in the  Variants  area
• Select  Fonts
• Select  the font pairing you want

You can choose among the pre-built fonts from Office, or you can customize them to create your own.

If you are working with PowerPoint presentations on both Mac and PC computers, make sure you choose a safe PowerPoint font. To see a list of the safest PowerPoint fonts, read our guide here .

If you receive a PowerPoint presentation and the wrong fonts were used, you can use the Replace Fonts dialog box to change the fonts across your entire presentation. For details, read our guide here .

Adding Animations & Transitions (optional)

The final step to make a PowerPoint presentation compelling, is to consider using animations and transitions. These are by no means necessary to a good presentation, but they may be helpful in your situation.

A. Adding PowerPoint animations

PowerPoint has an incredibly robust animations engine designed to power your creativity. That being said, it’s also easy to get started with basic animations.

Animations are movements that you can apply to individual objects on your slide.

To add a PowerPoint animation to an element of your slide, simply:

• Select the  element
• Go to the  Animations tab in the Ribbon
• Click on the  dropdown arrow  to view your options
• Select the  animation  you want

You can add animations to multiple objects at one time by selecting them all first and then applying the animation.

B. How to preview a PowerPoint animation

There are three ways to preview a PowerPoint animation:

• Click on the Preview button in the Animations tab
• Click on the little star  next to the slide
• Play the slide in Slide Show Mode

To learn other ways to run your slide show, see our guide on presenting a PowerPoint slide show with shortcuts .

To adjust the settings of your animations, explore the options in the  Effect Options ,  Advanced Animation  and the  Timing  areas of the  Animation tab .

Note:  To see how to make objects appear and disappear in your slides by clicking a button,  read our guide here .

C. How to manage your animations in PowerPoint

The best way to manage lots of animations on your slide is with the Animation Pane . To open it, simply:

• Navigate to the  Animations tab
• Select the  Animation Pane

Inside the Animation Pane, you’ll see all of the different animations that have been applied to objects on your slide, with their numbers marked as pictured above.

Note: To see examples of PowerPoint animations that can use in PowerPoint, see our list of PowerPoint animation tutorials here .

D. How to add transitions to your PowerPoint presentation

PowerPoint has an incredibly robust transition engine so that you can dictate how your slides change from one to the other. It is also extremely easy to add transitions to your slides.

In PowerPoint, transitions are the movements (or effects) you see as you move between two slides.

To add a transition to a PowerPoint slide, simply:

• Select the  slide
• Go to the  Transitions tab in the Ribbon
• In the Transitions to This Slide area, click on the  dropdown arrow  to view your options
• Select the  transition  you want

To adjust the settings of the transition, explore the options in the  Timing  area of the Transitions tab.

You can also add the same transition to multiple slides. To do that, select them in the  Slides Pane  and apply the transition.

E. How to preview a transition in PowerPoint

There are three ways to preview your PowerPoint transitions (just like your animations):

• Click on the Preview  button in the Transitions tab
• Click on the little star  beneath the slide number in the thumbnail view

Note:  In 2016, PowerPoint added a cool new transition, called Morph. It operates a bit differently from other transitions. For a detailed tutorial on how to use the cool Morph transition,  see our step-by-step article here .

Save Your PowerPoint Presentation

After you’ve built your presentation and made all the adjustments to your slides, you’ll want to save your presentation. YOu can do this several different ways.

To save a PowerPoint presentation using your Ribbon, simply:

• Navigate to the  File tab
•  Select  Save As  on the left
• Choose  where you want to save your presentation
• Name  your presentation and/or adjust your file type settings
• Click  Save

You can alternatively use the  Ctrl+S keyboard shortcut to save your presentation. I recommend using this shortcut frequently as you build your presentation to make sure you don’t lose any of your work.

This is the standard way to save a presentation. However, there may be a situation where you want to save your presentation as a different file type.

To learn how to save your presentation as a PDF, see our guide on converting PowerPoint to a PDF .

How to save your PowerPoint presentation as a template

Once you’ve created a presentation that you like, you may want to turn it into a template. The easiest – but not technically correct – way, is to simply create a copy of your current presentation and then change the content.

But be careful! A PowerPoint template is a special type of document and it has its own parameters and behaviors.

If you’re interested in learning about how to create your own PowerPoint template from scratch, see our guide on how to create a PowerPoint template .

Printing Your PowerPoint Presentation

After finishing your PowerPoint presentation, you may want to print it out on paper. Printing your slides is relatively easy.

To open the Print dialog box, you can either:

• Hit Ctrl+P on your keyboard
• Or go to the Ribbon and click on File and then Print

Inside the Print dialog box, you can choose from the various printing settings:

• Printer: Select a printer to use (or print to PDF or OneNote)
• Slides: Choose which slides you want to print
• Layout: Determine how many slides you want per page (this is where you can print the notes, outline, and handouts)
• Collated or uncollated (learn what collated printing means here )
• Color: Choose to print in color, grayscale or black & white

There are many more options for printing your PowerPoint presentations. Here are links to more in-depth articles:

• How to print multiple slides per page
• How to print your speaker notes in PowerPoint
• How to save PowerPoint as a picture presentation

So that’s how to create a PowerPoint presentation if you are brand new to it. We’ve also included a ton of links to helpful resources to boost your PowerPoint skills further.

When you are creating your presentation, it is critical to first focus on the content (what you are trying to say) before getting lost inserting and playing with elements. The clearer you are on what you want to present, the easier it will be to build it out in PowerPoint.

If you enjoyed this article, you can learn more about our PowerPoint training courses and other presentation resources by  visiting us here .

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PowerPoint  - Creating and Opening Presentations

Powerpoint  -, creating and opening presentations, powerpoint creating and opening presentations.

PowerPoint: Creating and Opening Presentations

Lesson 3: creating and opening presentations.

/en/powerpoint/understanding-onedrive/content/

Introduction

PowerPoint files are called presentations . Whenever you start a new project in PowerPoint, you'll need to create a new presentation , which can either be blank or from a template . You'll also need to know how to open an existing presentation .

Watch the video below to learn more about creating and opening presentations in PowerPoint.

To create a new presentation:

When beginning a new project in PowerPoint, you'll often want to start with a new blank presentation.

• A new presentation will appear.

To create a new presentation from a template:

A template is a predesigned presentation you can use to create a new slide show quickly. Templates often include custom formatting and designs , so they can save you a lot of time and effort when starting a new project.

• Click the File tab to access Backstage view , then select New .

• A preview of the template will appear, along with additional information on how the template can be used.

• A new presentation will appear with the selected template .

It's important to note that not all templates are created by Microsoft. Many are created by third-party providers and even individual users, so some templates may work better than others.

To open an existing presentation:

In addition to creating new presentations, you'll often need to open a presentation that was previously saved. To learn more about saving presentations, review our lesson on Saving Presentations .

Most features in Microsoft Office, including PowerPoint, are geared toward saving and sharing documents online . This is done with OneDrive , which is an online storage space for your documents and files. If you want to use OneDrive, make sure you’re signed in to PowerPoint with your Microsoft account. Review our lesson on Understanding OneDrive to learn more.

To pin a presentation:

If you frequently work with the same presentation , you can pin it to Backstage view for easy access.

• Select the File tab to go to Backstage view , then click Open . Your Recent Presentations will appear.

Compatibility Mode

Sometimes you may need to work with presentations that were created in earlier versions of PowerPoint, like PowerPoint 2003 or PowerPoint 2000. When you open these types of presentations, they will appear in Compatibility Mode .

Compatibility Mode disables certain features, so you'll only be able to access commands found in the program that was used to create the presentation. For example, if you open a presentation created in PowerPoint 2003, you can only use tabs and commands found in PowerPoint 2003.

In the image below, you can see at the top of the window that the presentation is in Compatibility Mode. This will disable some current PowerPoint features, including newer types of slide transitions.

To exit Compatibility Mode, you'll need to convert the presentation to the current version type. However, if you're collaborating with others who only have access to an earlier version of PowerPoint, it's best to leave the presentation in Compatibility Mode so the format will not change.

You can review this support page from Microsoft to learn more about which features are disabled in Compatibility Mode.

To convert a presentation:

If you want access to the newer features, you can convert the presentation to the current file format.

Note that converting a file may cause some changes to the original layout of the presentation.

• The presentation will be converted to the newest file type.
• Open our practice presentation .
• Notice that the presentation opens in Compatibility Mode . Convert it to the current file format. If a dialog box appears asking if you would like to close and reopen the file in order to see the new features, choose Yes .
• In Backstage view, pin a file or folder.

/en/powerpoint/saving-presentations/content/

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How to Open a PPT File on PC or Mac

Last Updated: September 1, 2022 Tested

Using PowerPoint

Using google slides, using powerpoint online.

This article was co-authored by wikiHow Staff . Our trained team of editors and researchers validate articles for accuracy and comprehensiveness. wikiHow's Content Management Team carefully monitors the work from our editorial staff to ensure that each article is backed by trusted research and meets our high quality standards. The wikiHow Tech Team also followed the article's instructions and verified that they work. This article has been viewed 85,521 times. Learn more...

This wikiHow teaches you how to open and view the contents of a PPT (PowerPoint presentation) file in Windows and macOS. PPT is the native presentation format in Microsoft PowerPoint's earlier versions and is supported by all versions of the software. If you don't have PowerPoint, you can open the file in Google Slides or PowerPoint Online (a free version of PowerPoint accessible on the web).

• If you don't have PowerPoint installed on your computer, make sure to check out this article for detailed instructions on how to download it.
• Alternatively, you can download and use Apache OpenOffice ( https://www.openoffice.org/download ), or Apple Numbers ( https://itunes.apple.com/tr/app/numbers/id409203825 ).
• To open the PPT with a different program, just select the program you want to use on the "Open with" menu.

• If you're prompted, sign in with your Google account.

• Alternatively, you can drag and drop your PPT file here.

• If you're prompted, sign in with your Microsoft account.

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Where Does PowerPoint Save Recordings? [Here’s Where!]

By: Author Shrot Katewa

It is really annoying when you finish recording a PowerPoint presentation and you don’t get to see the complete presentation that you just finished recording! The truth is that the presentation is embedded on the slides itself. But, how do you access the recordings and how do you share the recorded presentation?

PowerPoint saves the recording specific to each slide on the slide itself. However, to access the complete recording of your presentation, you need to export your presentation as a video file. Click on the “File” tab, then click “Save As” and change the file format to an “.MP4” file.

In this article, I will share with you all the details of not just how to record a presentation correctly, but also how to locate the recorded file and share it with your colleagues or clients.

So, without further ado, let’s get started!

1. How to Record a Presentation in PowerPoint?

To know how the video or audio recordings work in PowerPoint, let us first understand how to record a presentation in PowerPoint. We shall take two examples to understand this further i.e. recording yourself giving the presentation with your video camera, and recording just the audio narration.

1.1 How to Record Yourself Giving a PowerPoint Presentation With Video?

Microsoft PowerPoint allows you to record yourself presenting the slides. You can also use features like laser pointer, pen, highlighter, etc. during the recording. To record yourself presenting a PowerPoint presentation, follow the steps mentioned below:

Step-1: Click on the “Record” tab

In the menu ribbon located at the top of the screen, click on the “Record” tab to open the “Record” menu.

Step-2: Click on the “From Beginning” option

Click on the “From Beginning” option in the “Record” group of the “Record” menu. This will open the recording screen.

Step-3: Click on the “Camera” icon

In the toolbar at the top of the screen, click on the “Turn camera on” option which is the camera icon. Alternatively, you can press the “Ctrl+K” keys on your keyboard to turn on the device camera to record yourself.

Step-4: Click on the “Start recording” option

Now you can start recording yourself presenting. Click on the “Start Recording” option which is the circle icon with a large red dot in the middle. When you are done presenting, click on the same icon to stop recording.

Step-5: Click on the “Close” option

Click on the “Close” option which is the “X” icon at the top right corner of the recording screen to return to the “Normal” view.

Once you have finished the recording, you will notice that the part of the video that talks about slide 1 gets automatically added to the first slide, and part of the video where you talk about slide 2 is added to the 2nd slide .

Likewise, your entire recording gets automatically divided across every single slide wherever you had any comments to add!

You may not notice this at first, however, just look for the camera video that gets embedded to the bottom right corner of your slide.

Now, how do you extract your recordings? I will explain that in the subsequent sections.

1.2 How to Record a PowerPoint Presentation with Audio?

If you wish to record just the audio narration for your presentation without showing your face or using your camera, you can do so by choosing the following methods.

To be honest, there are a couple of different ways to record audio narration for your presentation.

Method 1 – Using the “Record” Feature

The first method is quite similar to the one described above. The only difference is that you need to turn off the camera before you begin recording the presentation.

This will record the presentation with just your voice for each slide. Since we’ve already covered the steps, I won’t show you the steps for this method and I shall focus on the second method for recording audio narration for your presentation.

Once the recording is complete, follow the steps mentioned in section 1.3 below to convert it into a cohesive recorded presentation.

Method 2 – Using the “Audio” Recording Feature

The second method involves recording the audio for a presentation on each slide. This method allows you to record audio for a slide individually and not the whole presentation at once.

Here’s what you need to do to record just the audio for the presentation.

The first step is to click on the “Record” tab in the menu ribbon at the top of the screen. This will open the “Record” menu.

Step-2: Click on the “Audio” option

In the “Record” group of the “Record” menu, click on the “Audio” option. This will open the “Record Sound” dialog box.

Step-3: Click on the “Name” box

In the “Record Sound” dialog box, click on the “Name” box. Then you can type in a file name for the audio recording.

Step-4: Click on the “Record” icon

The next step is to click on the “Record” icon in the “Record Sound” dialog box. It is the black circle with a large red dot inside. When you are done recording audio, click on the “Stop” option which is the square icon.

Step-5: Click on the “Ok” button

Now all you have to do is click on the “OK” button at the bottom of the “Record Sound” dialog box to save the audio recording.

Repeat the process for each slide where you want to add an audio recording. Once you’re done recording the audio narration for your presentation, save the file and proceed for section 1.3 below to make it into a cohesive presentation.

1.3 How to Save Your PowerPoint Presentation Recording?

Once you have recorded your complete presentation using the aforementioned methods, it is now time to save your presentation recording.

One mistake that people often make is to try and save the camera video embedded on the file. However, this will only save the camera video and not your entire presentation.

The correct way to save your PowerPoint presentation recording is to save the file as a video. However, do this only once you have finished recording your presentation.

Here’s what you need to do to save your recorded presentation into a video:

Step-1: Click on the “Save” option

On the left corner at the top of the screen, click on the “Save” option. Alternatively, you can press the “Ctrl+S” keys on your keyboard to save all the changes made to the presentation file.

Step-2: Click on the “Export to Video” option

Click on the “Record” tab in the menu ribbon to open the “Record” menu. Then click on the “Export to Video” option in the “Record” menu. This will open the recording screen.

Step-3: Click on the “Export Video” option

In the recording screen, click on the “Export Video” button at the bottom to save the presentation recording as a video file.

1.4 Recording a Presentation into a PowerPoint Show File

You can also convert your presentation into a PowerPoint Show file (.ppsx file). This allows you to directly open the file into a presentation.

This option works great when you don’t have any audio components to your presentation and when you don’t want to record yourself to give a presentation. Instead, all you want to show is the presentation itself in the “Slideshow” mode.

I’ve written a detailed article about how you can loop your presentation using a PowerPoint Show file . Make sure to check out that article to understand a use case for this type of a presentation recording.

Nevertheless, here’s what you need to do to record your presentation as a .ppsx file.

Step-1: Click on the “File” tab

In the menu ribbon located at the top of the screen, click on the “File” tab. This will open the “File” screen.

Step-2: Click on the “Save As” option

In the menu sidebar on the left side of the “File” screen, click on the “Save As” option. Then click on the second box in the “Desktop” section of the “Save As” screen.

Step-3: Click on the “PowerPoint Show (.ppsx)” option

Now all you have to do is click on the “PowerPoint Show (.ppsx)” option from the dropdown list to save the PowerPoint presentation as a recording.

Step-4: Click on the “Save” button

Finally, click on the “Save” button next to the “Save As” box to save the PowerPoint recording. This will save all the transitions, animations, and audio as a slideshow.

2. Where Does PowerPoint Save Recordings?

As I previously mentioned, typically PowerPoint saves the presentation recording as a video embedded into the presentation slide. You can access the complete recording only when you save your entire presentation and convert it into a video file.

This video file is saved in the same folder as the location of your original PowerPoint file. To find the recording or the slideshow, all you have to do is open the location of the PowerPoint presentation file.

2.1 Where does PowerPoint Save Recordings on Mac?

In Microsoft PowerPoint for Mac, you can save a presentation recording as an “MP4” or a “MOV” file. Just like Windows, you get an option to choose the location of the folder to save the video recording of your PowerPoint presentation.

That said, if you want to access just the video from the camera, it is usually saved in the “Movies” folder available on your Mac device.

3. How to Find Saved PowerPoint Recordings?

In Microsoft PowerPoint, you cannot select the destination for saving the default presentation recording as the files are saved within the presentation itself.

The difficult bit is often recognizing that the presentation has been recorded as it is often difficult to notice any change to the presentation at the end of the recording.

However, there are ways you can know that the presentation has been recorded and access the recordings!

Method-1: Click on the video inserted in the slide

When you record yourself presenting a Microsoft PowerPoint file, the recording is embedded in each slide as a video. To find the recording, all you have to do is open the slide and find the video embedded in there.

Method-2: Click on the “Video Exported Successfully” notification

When you save a presentation recording using the “Export to Video” option, the “Video exported successfully” notification will appear at the bottom of the screen. All you have to do is click on the notification to open the recorded video without having to look for it in your desktop files.

Method-3: Open the PowerPoint location

Since recordings are saved in the location of the original PowerPoint presentation file, you can simply open the file location to find the recorded presentation file.

4. Where does PowerPoint Save Audio?

In Microsoft PowerPoint, the recorded audio is embedded into each slide rather than saved as a separate file. You can find the recorded audio as the “Audio” icon which is a megaphone icon in the middle of the slide. To play the narration, all you have to do is click on the “Audio” icon on the slide during the presentation.

Credit to cookie_studio (on Freepik) for the featured image of this article (further edited).

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How can I allow a user to download (but not edit) a PowerPoint file from a SharePoint site? The user should not be able to edit the file they have downloaded on their laptop.

2 parts to this question (i think!).

1. We would like to make a PowerPoint presentation non-editable.

2. We would like to upload this non-editable PowerPoint in SharePoint so that users can download this presentation and are not able to edit the downloaded file. The user should not be able to edit the version they have downloaded on their laptop.

Basically the file should never be editable, only downloadable.

Many thanks for your help and suggestions.

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Replies (3) 

• Microsoft Agent |

Dear Caroline,

Good day! Thank you for posting your query in our community.

To make a PowerPoint presentation non-editable, you can save it as a PDF file or a picture. This will prevent users from making any changes to the file. Because after the user download the presentation on their device, they could edit the copy file by clicking "Enable editing".

To upload this non-editable PowerPoint in SharePoint so that users can download it but not edit it, you can follow these steps:

1. Upload the PDF file to a SharePoint document library.

2. Click on the ellipsis (...) next to the file name and select "Manage access".

3. In the "Manage access" pane, click on "Stop sharing" to remove any existing permissions.

4. Click on "Grant access"(People icon) and select "Specific people".

5. Enter the email address of the user you want to give access to and select "Can view" as the permission level.

6. Click on "Share" to grant access to the user.

This will allow the user to download the PDF file from SharePoint, but they will not be able to edit it.

Jazlyn | Microsoft Community Moderator

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Thanks for your feedback.

Many thanks for your quick reply Jazlyn. I'll give this a try.

Is there any way to protect the file from being edited other than making it a PDF or picture as I don't want to lose the animations and would like to present it in a slide format, rather than scrolling through a PDF?

Many thanks :)

Hi Caroline,

In most cases, add a password to ppt file is good enough to protect the file like below. The file will be protected no matter it stays in local drive or uploaded/downloaded from OneDrive/SharePoint.

To do this, click Save As > More Options > Tools > General Options > setup a password in Password to modify > OK > Save.

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How-To Geek

How to view and restore old versions of powerpoint files.

Accidentally deleted something important from a PowerPoint presentation?

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Requirements, how to see older versions of your powerpoint presentations.

Microsoft PowerPoint lets you view and switch to older versions of your presentations. If you accidentally deleted something important and it got overwritten in PowerPoint, here's how to restore it.

Before you get started, make sure that you have a Microsoft 365 subscription. The ability to view and restore previous versions of PowerPoint presentations can be accessed only through a Microsoft 365 subscription.

Fortunately, this subscription also gives you access to all other Office apps, along with 1TB of OneDrive storage. You can put the cloud storage to good use by automatically saving your presentations to OneDrive.

Also, enabling auto-save  on PowerPoint is required for accessing version history. To do so, you'll need to create a new PowerPoint presentation and then turn the "AutoSave" switch on in the document's title bar. When PowerPoint shows you a confirmation pop-up, select "OneDrive."

Related: How to Automatically Save PowerPoint Presentations to OneDrive

Now that you've sorted out the basics, open PowerPoint and load any PowerPoint presentation. There are two ways to check version history here, and we'll show you both.

First, click "File" in the menu bar.

In the left pane, click "Info."

Click "Version History" on the right.

Alternately, you can click the file name at the top of the document that you've opened and select "Version History" from the pop-up menu.

No matter which method you choose, a new pane labeled "Version History" will open up on the right-hand side of your presentation in PowerPoint.

Microsoft PowerPoint sorts older versions of the document by date and time here. To load a previous version of the presentation, click the "Open version" button below the version that you need to go back to.

This will open a read-only file that shows an older version of your PowerPoint presentation. Right below the ribbon menu, you'll see a button labeled "Restore." Click it to go back to the previous version.

Note that this will overwrite your PowerPoint presentation. You can always repeat the same steps to visit the modified version of your document in case you want to copy any additional changes to the older version.

If you use Microsoft 365 apps frequently, you might also be interested in knowing how to restore previous versions of Excel workbooks or Word documents .

Related: How to View and Restore Previous Versions of a Word Document