How To Create The Best PowerPoint Presentation Background

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There’s no getting around this – your PowerPoint presentation background matters. A lot of factors go into what makes a particular design stand out, but one of the most overlooked factors is PPT slide background design.

PowerPoint’s default background color is white. If you’re in a hurry and you need to put a presentation up fast, then white will normally suffice. But, if you want to impress your audience, you have to think outside the box.

If you’re interested to know how your PowerPoint presentation background can impact your overall presentation, then you need to read this entire article. It will only take up a few minutes of your time, but by the end of this article you’ll know the importance of using a great PowerPoint slide background!

how to make a powerpoint presentation background

4 Reasons Why Your PowerPoint Slide Background Design Matters

Humans are visual creatures. We have the gift of sight that allows us to appreciate the infinite variations and combinations of color, texture, style, and design all around us.

Our eyes are automatically drawn to beautiful imagery. Our eyes linger on colorful and beautiful scenes on photos, videos, canvases, and many other different places, including PowerPoint slides.

Think about it – will you pay more attention to an outdated and lousy-looking slideshow or a well-designed one? I bet you’d pick the latter. Your eyes just automatically gravitate to the attractive-looking slideshow.

Without further ado, here are five of the biggest reasons why your PPT slide background design matters:

1. The best PowerPoint presentation background makes your slide elements come alive

To make the most of your PowerPoint slide design, you can use a combination of many different kinds of elements. You can insert text, images, icons, vector images, video, audio, shapes, charts, graphs, tables, and diagrams.

Take note, however, that just because you can insert many different kinds of elements into your slide doesn’t mean you should use these all at once, in a single slide! That would be chaos, pure and simple.

For maximum audience impact, you’d want to use a few elements only on each slide. Make sure there’s plenty of white space, and don’t forget to use a good combination of colors that actually complement, not clash, with each other.

Here’s a sample slide which uses plenty of white space, good typography, excellent color combination, and a nice background that is related to the presentation’s subject (football).

The best PowerPoint presentation background makes your slide elements come alive

Just by looking at the background (the striped green football field), football fans will immediately recognize what the subject is all about. Since the subject is football, the dark colors in the background’s edges further help to emphasize the masculinity of this sport.

Now imagine if this slide had a plain light or dark-colored background. It probably won’t have the same effect as the current background does.

2. The best PPT slides use backgrounds that add texture to the presentation

One of the least thought about aspects of presentation design is the PowerPoint backdrop. Think about all the PowerPoint presentations you’ve done in your life. Did you bother changing the background in any of those presentations? Or were you happy with the default white background?

Now, please don’t get me wrong. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with using a white background. However, if you’ve got the time to spare, don’t settle for the default white when you know your slides can look much better with a different background.

To create truly beautiful PowerPoint slides, you’d need to think about adding some texture to your background. It’s easier to add or create texture when you’re physically holding something. When designing PowerPoint slides, it’s a different story. You’re basically creating a physical illusion for your audience.

For instance, if you use a background image of an expensive and plush looking carpet in your slides, then it’s easier for your audience to imagine the feel of that carpet.

If you want to create the illusion of wetness, then you can use an image of raindrops on a glass window, or the surface of a wet umbrella, or something of that nature. Take a look at this image below:

Cool PowerPoint slides often use background images like this that add texture to the slide

Wouldn’t you say that when you looked at the image, you ‘felt’ the rain touching your skin? If you used this image as a background on slides that talk about something that’s related to rain or the weather in general, then your audience will find your slides much more relevant and interesting.

Or how about this slide?

This PowerPoint backdrop or background is very nice and adds texture to the slide.

There’s a pale pink overlay on top of the brick wall in the slide’s background. I think the background adds a nice texture to the slide, and you can also see how all the elements (fonts, icons, colors) complement and match each other.

how to make a powerpoint presentation background

3. A good PowerPoint slide background makes your slide look so much more interesting

Imagine if you had to sit through an hour-long PowerPoint presentation and all the slides had nothing but a plain white background on it. No variety, no design, no background. Just that awful default background for an entire hour.

Let’s say this is slide #1 out of 50, and all the slides had the same background:

Example slide with a plain white background – doesn’t look too good, does it?

You’d probably feel physically sick after the first 5 minutes knowing you have another 55 minutes worth of slides to sit through!

If you were the presenter, would you subject your audience to such horror? I sure hope not!

Now, what if you used a different color every 2 or 3 slides? Would that make your presentation appear better? Maybe. Maybe not. But it would sure add some variety to your presentation.

Going back to our example, what if you added a nice background image to slide #1 and it looked something like this?

Example slide with a nice background image. It looks way better than the previous slide.

I think you’ll agree with me when I say this looks much better than the one with the plain white background. The best thing is it will only take you a minute or two to find a good image, and set it as your slide’s background!

Nowadays, with multiple sources of design inspiration which you can easily Google online, poor design skills can get you in real trouble.

Your audience can easily take a video of your disastrous presentation and upload it to social media where you will forever be branded as the world’s worst PowerPoint designer ( this is an exaggeration of course, but with today’s Internet, anything’s possible! ).

You don’t even need design skills to make cool PowerPoint designs. Simply look for inspiration on graphic design websites and then have the initiative to come up with your own design.

The best PowerPoint slides all follow the best practices in graphic design – and that includes using good presentation backgrounds.

4. A nice background for PowerPoint helps lead your audience’s eyes to your subject

When creating PowerPoint presentations, it’s important to pay attention to your content, or the message you want to convey to your audience. It’s also a must that you think about how you’re going to present your points in a clear and succinct manner. You don’t want your audience to tune you out while you deliver your presentation!

One way to tie all these elements together – your message and your audience’s attention – is by leading your audience’s eyes to your subject with the help of a nice background for PowerPoint.

There’s a lot of factors that come into play to lead your audience’s eyes to your subject. You’ll have to consider first what your slide’s main subject is and then look for a suitable background image or create one from scratch. You can use your background’s colors, compositions, shapes, etc. to catch your audience’s attention.

Also, don’t forget that the background should be just that – a background. It’s not meant to superimpose on the foreground. Rather, it’s supposed to enhance the foreground or the subject in your slide.

Remember this point when you get confused about choosing the best background for your PowerPoint presentation. If you’ve got a very colorful image as your background, you can add a color overlay to mute the colors, while still making sure it’s visible.

Don’t worry if you don’t know anything about overlays. I’ll show you how to use overlays later in this article.

Frequently Asked Questions About PowerPoint Presentation Backgrounds

Now that you know why a good PowerPoint presentation background is necessary for your presentation to be a smashing success, it’s time to answer a few of the most commonly asked questions about presentation backgrounds.

Question #1. How to add a background in PowerPoint?

Adding a custom background in PowerPoint is a fairly simple process. There are two ways to go about adding a background to your slides:

  • Method 1 – the right-click option . To access this option, click on the slide you want to format the background on. Then right-click on the slide itself. The Format Background option will be the last option (see screenshot):

How to add a background in PowerPoint – the right-click method.

  • Method 2 – the Design tab option . To access this option, go to the Design tab on the ribbon. On the far right side, you will see the Format Background option. Clicking it will open the Format Background pane on the right side of your screen.

How to add background in PowerPoint – the Design tab method.

The format background PowerPoint options allow you to choose from a number of different elements which you can use as background. Scroll down to Question #3 for more details on the different background options you can use in PowerPoint.

Question #2. How to change the background in PowerPoint?

Changing your PowerPoint custom background works pretty much like adding a background. You can change your background anytime by accessing the Format Background menu options. From there you can change to solid fill, gradient fill, picture or texture fill, and pattern fill.

If you’re using video as your slide background, you will need to delete the video first, and then access the Format Background options to change the background.

Question #3. What are the different types of elements you can use as background in PowerPoint?

There are 4 main elements you can use as a PowerPoint background: color, pattern, image, and video. I’ll describe each element in more detail below:

Color Background

When using color as your background, you can choose to use either a solid or gradient color. Solid is simply using a single color as the background for your whole slide. Gradient, on the other hand, is using a combination of different colors to create a gradual blend or mix of colors.

Here’s how you use a color background on PowerPoint:

  • Right-click on the slide and choose Format Background . The Format Background pane will appear on the screen.
  • In the Fill section, select Solid Fill (see box 1). The settings for this option are right below (see box 2). You can choose your color and the transparency level .

How to use single or solid color background in PowerPoint.

  • If you want to use a Gradient fill, then see the next screenshot:

How to use gradient fill background in PowerPoint

As you can see, you have more options with Gradient Fill . In addition to choosing the ‘base’ colors for the Gradient Stops , you can choose the gradient type, the direction and angle of the gradient, the position, transparency, and brightness. You’re also free to add or delete any of the preset gradient stops.

Pattern Background

Pattern backgrounds add texture to your slides. In PowerPoint, there are many different patterns to choose from. You can even play around with the foreground and background colors you want to use for each pattern.

Here’s how you use a pattern background in PowerPoint:

How to use patterns as background in PowerPoint.

After choosing Pattern Fill , select the pattern you want to use. Once you’ve chosen your desired pattern, choose the foreground and background colors. That’s it!

Image Background

You can make cool PowerPoint designs just by selecting an awesome image as your presentation slide’s background. Of course, a professional presentation background means using strictly subject-relevant images.

Just because you like an image doesn’t mean it’s a good fit for your presentation. Remember to consider who your audience is when choosing images.

Using ‘offensive’ background images can dock points off your presentation, leaving you with an unhappy audience.

So, here’s how you use an image as a background in PowerPoint:

How to use an image as background in PowerPoint

There’s quite a number of options when setting an image as background. You can choose to use a file from your computer, clipboard, or online. You can set the transparency, the position, etc.

Play around with the different settings until you find the most suitable appearance for your background image.

Video Background

Using video as a background may seem like an advanced technique that can’t be done on PowerPoint, but trust me it’s really quite simple to do this.

Video backgrounds look nice on its own so you’d have to be really careful not to make your slide look messy and chaotic.

For best results, it’s best to use simple text or shapes on top of your video. But then again, the final output will depend on what your presentation aims to achieve.

Here’s how you use video as background in PowerPoint:

  • Go to Insert > Video . You can use a video from your PC or from an online source. Note that if you’re going to be using an online video, you’d need to have to access to it when you play your presentation. Otherwise, your video background won’t work. See screenshot below.

How to use video as background in PowerPoint

  • Once you’ve chosen your video, you can resize it to fit the slide or you can reposition it to show only a particular section in the video. To do the latter, you can unlock the aspect ratio in the Format Video settings (click on the video to access the Format Video pane).
  • If you want to insert some text or shapes on top of the video, go to the Insert tab and select the element you want to insert.
  • To make sure your video stays in the background, click on the video. The Video Tools tab will then appear on the ribbon. Click on Format and hit Send Backward .

How to send your video into the background in PowerPoint

For royalty-free videos, you can visit any of these sites: Pixabay, Videvo , Videezy , and Pexels.

Question #4. What is the best PowerPoint background size?

Your PowerPoint background size will be the same size as your PowerPoint slide. So, whether you’re using standard (4:3 aspect ratio), widescreen (16:9 aspect ratio) or custom slide sizes, your background size will be exactly the same size as well.

For instance, if you’re using a 16:9 image as your background, and your slides are standard 4:3, PowerPoint will resize your image to fit the 4:3 slide.

If you’re not sure what your slide sizes are, you can go to Design > Slide Size as you can see in the image below:

If you want to change your PowerPoint background size, you would have to change your slide sizes too

Question #5: How to create the best background for PowerPoint presentation

The most creative PowerPoint slides and the best designer slides have something in common – awesome backgrounds! Of course, backgrounds are just one element in the whole presentation. But with a combination of the right background and foreground elements, the chances of visually delighting your audience are much higher.

Creating the best background for PowerPoint is a subjective endeavor. What may fall in your ‘best’ category may be mediocre for someone else. Likewise, what may look lacking to you may be impressive to another person. At the end of the day, however, you’re presenting in front of an audience, so it’s their opinion that really matters the most.

Think about your presentation topic and who your target audience is. Then work on your presentation slides with your audience in mind. There are plenty of PowerPoint presentation design tips on the Internet and you’ll find many slide design ideas to inspire you.

8 Highly Actionable Tips To Help You Make Cool PowerPoint Presentation Backgrounds

Here are a few PowerPoint slide background ideas to help get your creative juices flowing:

1. Add Shape and Color Overlays to Background Image

When using image backgrounds, you can add a shape overlay to make the background even more interesting or to make the foreground look sharper.

To do this, go to Insert > Shapes .

For this method, I’d normally select a rectangle shape and cover the entire slide. Click on the shape itself so that the Format Shape pane will appear on the screen. I personally find that adding a gradient fill makes the background look better.

Here’s a before and after picture:

BEFORE: The image background with no overlays. The subject doesn’t stand out from the background.

You can see just how much better the second image looks after I added an overlay. The word HELLO stands out and provides a nice contrast to the dark background. It’s really a simple trick that you can do in just a few minutes.

2. Use Trendy Geometric Polygon Backgrounds

Geometric polygon backgrounds look great on PowerPoint especially if you pair it with the right kind of font and the right graphics. It also adds texture to your slides and makes your slide look colorful and interesting.

To use geometric backgrounds, you can either download from any royalty-free photo sites, or generate your own. If you want a unique background for your slides, you can visit Trianglify Background Generator .

Here’s what it looks like:

The Trianglify Background Generator will help you create awesome PPT background designs

To use this nifty free online tool, simply choose the settings for your background. In the Render Options section, you can specify the Width, Height, Cell Size, Cell Padding, and Bleed. For the color scheme, you can choose from the Palette List .

When you’re happy with how your geometric polygon image looks like, download it and then save it to your computer. You can then use the image as your PowerPoint slide background. You will be able to edit it using the Format Background options.

3. Use Artistic Effects in Format Background Pane

The Format Background menu in PowerPoint gives you plenty of options to customize your background according to your design preferences. For even better control, you can use Artistic Effects to make your background look better.

To access Artistic Effects , click on the background image to open the Format Background menu. Click on the second, pentagon-shaped icon.

How to access the Artistic Effects options in Format Background Menu

You can choose from different artistic effects by clicking on the drop-down menu. You can also change the transparency and the intensity of your chosen effect.

Hover your mouse pointer over the different artistic effects to know what each effect is called. Here’s an example:

Hover your mouse over the different artistic effects to find out what each effect is called.

Clicking on an effect will lead to individual effect settings. Play around with the options until you find the best background for your slide.

Here’s what my slide background looks like when I chose the Blur effect and set the radius to 54%.

My new background after I applied the Blur artistic effect to my PowerPoint slide.

4. Mix up the background colors

You can use a two or three-color theme for your entire presentation. You can use any combination of colors, however, for best results, you may want to check out Adobe’s Color Wheel website.

Feel free to experiment and play around with the settings to find the best color combination for your slide backgrounds. Or you can explore other people’s color themes to give you a head start. It’s a free service, so check it out if you want to use different color combinations.

Another option would be to combine different gradient colors for your background. If you want ideas, you can visit UIGradients and use the suggested combinations to produce great background color gradients for your PowerPoint presentation!

For simplicity’s sake, however, black and white makes a great combo. For example, you can choose to use a black background for your title slides, and then use white for your content slides, or vice versa. Sometimes, there’s no need to complicate things, and simple does the job just fine.

Alternatively, you can also use a different background color for each theme or idea. For example, if you’ve got a presentation on cars, then you can use a red background color for cars made in the 1990s, a blue background for those made in the 2000s, and so on.

Mixing different background colors and/or overlays will definitely help spice up your presentation and avoid boring your audience to sleep.

5. Use Your Company Colors In Your Presentation Background

If your company uses a set of colors for branding purposes, make sure you put it to good use. Using company colors will help your brand especially if your company uses a specific color palette not commonly used in your industry. This not only helps you save time on looking for appropriate colors, but you also get to help your company build your brand.

Also, you don’t necessarily have to put your company’s logo front and center in in all your slide’s backgrounds. A small logo in a slide corner will normally suffice in most company presentations so as not to distract from the presentation at hand.

If your company spends a huge amount of money on advertising and branding activities, then do your part and use your company’s colors and logo in your PowerPoint presentation.

6. Try Using White Fonts Over Images

I’m sure you’ve seen memes or photo quotes on social media with white text overlaid on an image. You’ve probably seen quotes like this on your social media timeline or news feed:

Cool presentation background sample: White fonts over image backgrounds are popular on social media.

Now, this technique may not be appropriate in some presentations, especially for business-oriented presentations. However, if you’re presenting to a group of people who appreciates quotations and loves memes, then try to surprise them by using a few quotation slides in between your main content slides!

7. Use a Consistent Background Image for Related Topics

If your presentation consists of dozens of slides, you may need to spend plenty of time looking for a unique background image for each slide. To save time, you can use one background for related topics or themes in your presentation.

For example, you can use one background image for your introductory slides, another background image for your company background and history slides, another background image for your timeline and SWOT analysis slides, etc.

To spice things up, you can always add a colored overlay to make each slide background look different from each other.

8. Use Patterns and Textures in Your Background

You can use a combination of image, graphics, patterns, and textures in your presentation slide’s background. Take a look at this example where the main content is divided into two columns – the text description on the left and the supporting image on the right. Wouldn’t you say your eyes quickly settled on the image on the right?

This PowerPoint slide’s background is a combination of an image overlaid with a dark color and round shapes. The main content easily stands out.

Final Words

A lot of work goes into creative PowerPoint slides. Oftentimes, it’s the main content or the subject that gets the bulk of a PowerPoint designer’s attention. As you’ve learned in this article, however, slide backgrounds play an important, if underrated, role too. Apply the techniques I’ve shared with you to create beautiful PowerPoint slides that will captivate your audience for the entire duration of your presentation!

You might also find this interesting: How To Add Animations To PowerPoint

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If you can't find the slide background that you’re looking for in PowerPoint’s presentation library, you can use any image of your own choosing. PowerPoint makes this possible in just a few simple steps. Here’s how.

A word of caution before you begin. The image you select will be stretched to fit the slide size. If you use an image that’s too small, the image will be distorted when used as the background. Be sure to pick an image that works. High-resolution images work best.

When you’re ready, open the PowerPoint presentation that you would like to add a background image to. Once open, head over to the “Design” tab.

Click the design tab

In the “Customize” group, select the “Format Background" button.

Format background option in customize group

The “Format Background” pane will appear on the right-hand side of the window. Here, select “Picture Or Texture Fill” from the “Fill” group.

Picture or texture fill option

Once selected, more options will appear below. Under “Picture Source”, select the “Insert” button.

Insert image

The “Insert Pictures” window will appear, presenting three different options for inserting an image .

Insert picture options

Related: How to Get a Picture Behind Text in PowerPoint

Selecting this option will bring up File Explorer (Finder for Mac). Here, navigate to the location of the image you’d like to insert, select it, and then click the “Insert” button.

Select and insert image from Finder

Selecting this option will bring up an online image search powered by Bing. Enter the type of image you’d like to locate in the search bar, or select a topic beneath the search bar to open a library of related images.

Searching online images

Whichever method you choose, locate and select the desired image and click “Insert”.

Selecting this option will bring up the “Insert Icons” window, showing a large library of available icons. Select the icon you’d like to use as the background and click “Insert”.

Select icon from library

Regardless of which method you used to locate the image, once you’ve selected “Insert”, the image will appear in the background of your presentation.

Background image

As you can see, the image we selected makes it pretty difficult to see the text in our slide. To fix this, adjust the “Transparency” slider until the image works well with the text. You can also fine-tune the percentage (by 1% increments) by clicking the up and down arrow to the right of the slider.

Transparency slider.

The end result should leave your slide looking much better.

Finally, it’s important to note that inserting the background image only takes place on the selected slide.

Only selected slide changed

If you’re wanting to reflect these changes to the entire slideshow, select the “Apply To All” option at the bottom of the “Format Background” pane.

Apply to all

Once selected, you’ll notice the background has been applied to all slides in the presentation.

background applied to all slides

  • Microsoft Office
  • Microsoft PowerPoint

PresentationLoad

PowerPoint Backgrounds: How to Make Your Presentations Pop

A slide background is a key design element in any PowerPoint presentation – its visual impact and value should never be underestimated .

But choosing the right background can be a challenge. In this article, you will learn how to change, edit and customize the PowerPoint background to match your corporate style. Make your presentation pop with the right background!

PowerPoint backgrounds: your options

PowerPoint offers a variety of ways to customize slide backgrounds . You can choose single-color backgrounds or use your own pictures – whatever suits your needs. Here are the different PowerPoint backgrounds:

  • Monochromatic backgrounds
  • Color gradients
  • Your own pictures
  • Images from the Internet

Keep reading to learn how to apply and edit each of these backgrounds in your PowerPoint presentation.

Bring color into play

PowerPoint has a wide range of color options for presentation backgrounds. You can opt for a simple, monochrome background, or add color gradients and patterns. Make sure the slide background actually stays in the background – a presentation background that’s too colorful can quickly overwhelm your content and look unprofessional . Use colors wisely.

Set a monochromatic background 

Do you want to change the default white and adjust the color to your corporate design? No problem, here’s how it’s done:

1. Select the slide where you want to add or change the background.

2. Now click on the Design tab in the tab and select Format Background from the Customize group.

PowerPoint backgrounds

3. In the Format Background panel, select Solid Color Fill . The default background will disappear.

PowerPoint backgrounds

4. Click on the arrow next to the Color button. A new window with the color palette will appear.

5. Select your color. Click More Colors… if you can’t find the color you’re looking for and to apply more nuanced shades.

6. Use the Transparency slider to change the opacity of your color. The further you move the slider to the right, the more transparent the background color becomes.

7. Your background will now be changed to the selected color.

Tip: If you want to set the same background for all the slides in your presentation, use the slide master.

  • Go to View > Slide Master , which is found in the Master Views group.

PowerPoint backgrounds

2. Now select the slides with the backgrounds you want to change from the thumbnail pane on the left.

3. While still in Slide Master, click Background Styles and select Format Background… .

4. Set your desired background color.

5. To change the background for all slides, select Apply to All at the bottom of Format Background pane.

Set a color gradient  

A gradient is a bit more elaborate than a monochromatic background. But don’t go overboard! The background should align with the rest of your presentation and never overwhelm your content . Set a color gradient as follows:

1. Follow steps 1 and 2 as described above for a monochrome background.

2. Now select Gradient fill .

PowerPoint backgrounds

3. Open the drop-down menu to the right of Preset gradients and select your background.

4. Now you can customize your gradient. To do this, go to Gradient Stops and select one of the sliders to make your changes.

5. The two icons to the right of the color bar allow you to add additional sliders for further customization.

6. Type allows you to specify the type of gradient from the drop-down menu, e.g., Linear , Radial , Rectangular , etc.

7. The Direction setting allows you to specify where the gradient starts and stops (e.g., Bottom Left to Top Right , Linear Down , etc.).

8. You can also adjust the Transparency and Brightness of gradient.

Insert a Pattern-Fill Background  

Another option is the pattern-fill background. Here is how you add one:

1. Follow steps 1 and 2 as described for a monochromatic background.

2. Now select Pattern fill from the Format Background pane.

PowerPoint Backgrounds

3. This will open a selection of pattern templates. Click the pattern you would like to insert .

4. Next, adjust the color as needed using Foreground and Background .

Using pictures for your PowerPoint background    

Pictures are a fantastic way to create unique backgrounds that support your content . These pictures can be edited to fit your slides and even made transparent. This section will show you how to best use pictures as PowerPoint backgrounds.

Inserting a picture as a background

1. Right-click the slide.

2. Select Format Background from the drop-down menu.

3. Select Picture or texture fill from the Format Background pane on the right.

PowerPoint Backgrounds

4. Click Insert… under Picture source ( Insert picture from in older versions) to search for the picture you want to use.

5. This will open the Insert Pictures window. You now have four sources to choose your picture from:

PowerPoint Backgrounds

From a File: Click on this option to use a picture from your computer or a local network.

Stock Images: Choose this option when you’d like to select a picture from a curated collection of pictures organized into categories.

Online Pictures: Click on this to browse pictures from online sources, such as Bing, Flickr and One Drive.

From Icons: Here you will find a wide selection of Microsoft Office icons that you can use as backgrounds. Use the categories or the search bar to find the icon you want.

Tip: Edit background icons in PowerPoint  

We’ll show you how to scale the size of your icon background and change its color .

Scale your icon background

1. Right-click the icon and select Format Background from the drop-down menu.

2. Now enter the percentage you want to scale the icon in Offset left/Offset right/Offset top/Offset bottom . Warning : The icon may become distorted through scaling!

Change the color of your icon background

  • From the Format Background pane, click the picture icon in the top row and then select Picture Color > Recolor .

2. You’ll now see a preview of your background icon in assorted colors . Select the color you want.

Use the slide master to set a picture as the background for the entire presentation

You can also set a picture as a PowerPoint background for your entire presentation :

1. Click on the View Select Slide Master from the Master Views group.

2. Click Background Styles and select Format Background… .

3. In the Format Background pane, click Picture or text fill .

4. Select the picture you want to use for your background by clicking Insert… under Picture source .

Edit and scale picture backgrounds in PowerPoint  

A customized background looks professional, sophisticated and leaves a lasting impression on your audience. Here’s how to edit your picture backgrounds:

1. Right-click on the picture background. This will open the Format Background pane.

2. Use the Offset settings (as explained in Scale your icon background ) to scale your picture.

3. Change the transparency of your picture by using the Transparency slider.

4. Click the Tile picture as texture box to insert multiple, consecutive copies of your background picture.

5. To add effects to your background , click the Effects icon next to the paint bucket icon in the top row of the Format Background pane. Double-click your background picture to open the Artistic Effects option. Click the box next to Artistic Effects to see the various effect templates you can apply to your background picture. Select the effect you want to apply to your background.

6. You can make further edits by selecting the Picture icon in the Format Background pane. Click Picture Corrections to manually change the sharpness, contrast and brightness of the image by using the sliders or specifying a percentage. Click Picture Color to adjust Color Saturation or Recolor the picture.

Picture Backgrounds

Add a watermark to a slide background

PowerPoint makes it easy to add a company logo or another watermark on your PowerPoint background . This is especially useful for business presentations and intellectual property rights. This is how you do it:

1. Click on View and select Slide Master in the Master Views group.

2. Select all the slide layouts that you want to add a watermark to (e.g., a logo) from the thumbnail pane on the left.

3. Right-click on the desired slide and select Format Background… to open the Format Background pane

4. From the Fill list (paint bucket icon), select Picture or texture fill .

5. Click on Insert under Image Source to select your watermark.

6. Use the Transparency slider to adjust the contrast of your watermark.

7. To add the watermark to all your slides, select Apply to All at the bottom of the pane.

8. Click Close Master View to save your changes.

Remove and hide pictures from backgrounds  

Are you not happy with the PowerPoint background picture you chose and want to remove it? No problem; just follow the instructions below:

1. Go to the slide with the background picture you want to remove.

2. Click the Design tab and select Format Background .

3. Select Solid fill from the Format Background pane. Click on the arrow to the right of Color and select white .

4. Click Apply to All to remove the background picture on every slide.

5. To hide the PowerPoint background for individual slides only , go to the corresponding slide, click on Format Background in the Design tab and select Hide background graphics from the right-hand pane.

Tip: How to make effective use of backgrounds for your business

A slide background isn’t just decoration. I t can be used to support your messages and presentation goals . Here are two ways you can use a PowerPoint background more effectively.

Transparent background images: Optimize readability of texts and evoke emotions with the reveal technique

Slide design is moving further and further away from pure text. Vivid images and graphics are becoming essential for their ability to convey emotions to an audience. Combining transparent images with text is really effective . Read on to learn how to create and leverage them in your presentations. You can also find more info about transparent images here .

1. Once you’ve chosen your background picture, open the Format Background pane (see tutorials above).

2. Adjust the transparency of your background picture using the slider.

3. Now it’s time to use the Reveal effect. This is the perfect effect to highlight your information. It’s great for presenting innovations or changes, substantiating ideas and presenting outlooks. You can create the effect in three simple steps.

Step 1: Select a picture and text for your reveal

  • Insert the picture as your PowerPoint background using the above tutorial.
  • Now go to the Insert tab and click Text Box .

PowerPoint Backgrounds

  • Use the corner points to size and drag your text box.
  • Enter your text.

Step 2: Cover the image with a transparent rectangle

  • Go to Insert > Shapes to draw a rectangle.

PowerPoint Backgrounds

  • Right-click the rectangle and select Format Shape… form the drop-down menu.
  • Select Fill (paint bucket icon) > Solid fill from the Format Shape pane. Choose a fill color of your choice.
  • Now use the slider to set the transparency.

Step 3: Enable animation

In this step, you’ll set the reveal of both the picture and text message.

  • Select the rectangle and open the Animations tab. Here you’ll find a catalogue of animations.
  • Scroll down the bar and select the command More Motion Paths > Lines Curves > Arc Left . Confirm with OK .

PowerPoint Backgrounds

  • You’ll now see a green arrow as the start point and a red arrow as the end point of the animation on the slide.
  • Drag the red end point to the desired position.

Align the background picture with the text color: Combine emotions and facts

Images that fill slides are absolutely on trend in today’s PowerPoint presentations. But images should never interfere with the readability of the text. Here are five ways to ensure your audience can read your text without compromising the picture’s emotional impact .

Option 1: Using grayscale to make colored text more legible

Grayscale pictures are particularly effective in enhancing the contrast between text and image.

  • Insert your PowerPoint background picture by going to Insert > Pictures .
  • Right-click the picture and select Format Picture… . From the Adjust group in the top ribbon, select Color .
  • Go to Recolor and select Grayscale .

PowerPoint Background

Option 2: Use light gray coloring to enhance the contrast between text and background

A background color in a light shade (light gray) helps create a great contrast between text and image.

  • Insert your PowerPoint background picture.
  • Right-click on the picture to open the Format Picture tab . Select Color .
  • Go to Recolor and click White, Background color 2 Light .

Option 3: Use a light font on a dark picture to accentuate text

Instead of brightening your PowerPoint background image, you can darken it and use a light font. A semi-transparent rectangle works better for this than the PowerPoint picture correction options.

  • Right-click the rectangle and open the Format Shape pane.
  • Select Fill (paint bucket icon) and Solid color fill . Select a dark color of your choice.
  • Use the slider to adjust the transparency.

PowerPoint Backgrounds

Option 4: Use blurring to create a striking contrast with text

  • Right-click the image and open the Picture Format tab . Go to Artistic Effects in the Adjust group. Click Blur .

PowerPoint Backgrounds

Option 5: Display text messages clearly with picture transparency

  • Click on the picture and switch to the Picture Format tab . Go to the Adjust group and click Transparency .
  • Now select Picture Transparency Options… to open the Format Picture pane on the right.
  • Adjust the transparency of the picture by moving slider under Picture Transparency .

Design Trend 2023: Dark Backgrounds on Slides

If you decide to use a coloured background, black or a darker blue are suitable colours for your slides. There are several reasons for using a dark background in your presentation. We show three of them:

#1: Dark backgrounds stand out from standard white designs and look modern, elegant and classy. Example:

powerpoint backgorund: dark backgrounds

#2: Black contrasts with brighter colours and can therefore make certain elements on your slides stand out. Further, the content in the foreground of your slides stands out better. Example:

powerpoint backgorund: dark backgrounds

#3: Especially dark blue is effective and gives a sense of security . You can use this effect and take advantage of it in keynote and executive presentations and in infographics. Examples:

powerpoint backgorund: dark backgrounds

When is it best not to use dark backgrounds?

Even though a dark background can look very elegant, it is important that you adjust the background colour of your slides according to the situati on, if necessary.

If you plan on conveying a lot of data and facts on your slides, it is better to use a lighter background , for example. This will make it easier for your audience to see all the data at a glance.

powerpoint backgorund: dark backgrounds

You will find many more inspirations for dark foil backgrounds in our references .

Add more individuality to your presentation: Design your own slide background

Are PowerPoint’s background suggestions not what you’re looking for? Do you want to customize your background? Then why not design your own slide background? You can find a variety of design tips to help you in our blog .

Use professionally designed PowerPoint background templates from PresentationLoad!

Are you looking for backgrounds that catch the eye while maintaining a professional design ? Or do you want to save time by not designing your own background but still add a professional PowerPoint background to your presentation? No problem, feel free to browse our shop .

We have, for example, these backgrounds for you:

  • Plain, simple backgrounds (with or without geometric shapes)
  • Business backgrounds
  • World maps/globe backgrounds
  • Break time backgrounds
  • Theme backgrounds
  • … and many more.

PowerPoint Hintergrund Coffe Break Shop

Conclusion: PowerPoint backgrounds: The right background makes for a successful presentation  

Choose the right PowerPoint background for your PowerPoint presentation. The background is like the cherry on top of your presentation. When used strategically and chosen wisely, the PowerPoint background can support your statements and reinforce your objectives.

Always make sure to select the presentation background that complements your content. A background that doesn’t harmonize with the text can quickly appear unprofessional and poorly thought out. Fortunately, PowerPoint offers numerous design options to help you. Use these tools strategically, and nothing will stand in the way of your individual slide background!

Looking for inspiration for possible PowerPoint backgrounds or searching for professional PowerPoint background templates for your business? Feel free to explore PresentationLoad or contact us at [email protected] if you need assistance. We’re here to help!

You might also be interested in these articles:

  • PowerPoint Slide Masters
  • PowerPoint Animations

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How To Create the Best PowerPoint Presentation Background

How To Create the Best PowerPoint Presentation Background

The background of your PowerPoint presentations is one of the most important factors behind an impactful presentation. A good background can transform a boring presentation into one that is more attractive, fun, impactful, and memorable. In this article, we shall look at how to create the best PowerPoint presentation background.

Most people tend to just leave the background of their presentation blank. They probably do not spend much time looking at the design side of the presentation, and this results in a very boring slideshow. When this happens, the audience has a good chance of getting bored, distracted, or worse, falling asleep.

How do you create the best PowerPoint presentation background? What images do you use in your slideshow background? What colors would be best for the background and the text? This article will answer all your questions and more.

What’s in this article?

To find what you need, check out this summary. Choose the topic that you need help with and navigate to that section. Or read the article in this order to fully learn how you can create the best PowerPoint presentation background.

How to change the PowerPoint presentation background?

Solid Colour Background for Presentations

Gradient Colour Background for Presentations

Pattern Backgrounds for Your Presentations

Using images as PowerPoint background

Using videos for PowerPoint presentation background

How to make GIFs as a Background on PowerPoint

How to Create the BEST PowerPoint background? Best practices and tips

What is the best background color for a powerpoint presentation, the best colors for powerpoint backgrounds using color theory, presentation background colors for better accessibility, powerpoint background colors and emotions – the psychology of colors.

  • How to choose the best image for presentation background?

Adding shapes and overlays to the background

How to use artistic effects in powerpoint, how to copy the powerpoint background to another presentation, what is the best powerpoint background size.

  • Why does PowerPoint presentation background matter?

Closing thoughts

You can change the PowerPoint presentation background by accessing the Format Background option by right-clicking the slide or by clicking on the Design tab in the toolbar. You have the option of adding a solid color, gradient, pattern, images, and more as the background.

Here is a step-by-step tutorial for all types of backgrounds in PowerPoint:

This is the easiest way of adding a single-colored background to your PowerPoint presentation. Don’t just keep the plain white colored background as it is. Add some excitement to your slides with colors. Here’s how you can get started:

  • Right-click on the slide and select Format Background

format background in powerpoint

  • Navigate to Fill and select Solid Fill .

solid fill in PowerPoint's format background section

  • You can now choose the color you want and adjust the transparency.

Choosing the right color for your presentation background can make a massive difference. If you’re wondering which color to choose, we’ve covered that topic below. Keep reading to know more.

Solid color is great for your presentation backgrounds if you:

  • Plan on keeping a simple and minimalistic look
  • Have a lot of images in your slides
  • Need to create slides with good contrast, even for audience with visual impairments

If you consider yourself too quirky to limit your slides to a single color, you could always add gradient colors to your presentation’s background.

While choosing gradient colors for the background, there are a lot more options accessible that you can use to customize to get the background you need. Here’s how you get started:

  • Same as above, right-click on the slide and select Format Background . Then navigate to Fill and select Gradient Fill .

gradient fill option in PowerPoint

  • You can now select the colors of the gradient and customize the direction, angle, and more. You can also add, delete or tweak the preset gradient stops.

Gradient backgrounds are perfect if you need to have a simple, yet visually striking design. Good gradient background is all about choosing the right colors. We have a section on color theory for presentations in this article, so keep reading to know more about that.

If you find gradients boring, you could always add a pattern to your presentation background. PowerPoint offers a wide selection of patterns you can choose from. These pattern backgrounds add texture to your slides. You also have the freedom of customizing the foreground and background colors of the patterns, among other things.

Here’s how to get started with pattern backgrounds on PowerPoint:

  • After selecting Format Background from the previous steps, select Pattern fill .

pattern fill option in format background area of PowerPoint

  • Choose a pattern you’d like to add as the background. You can customize the foreground and background colors here as well.

And you’re done, your pattern background is ready!

Use pattern backgrounds in your slides if:

  • You feel that solid color or gradient color backgrounds are too basic or boring
  • If you need to add 2 or more colors to your background
  • If you need texture or have branding requirements to fulfill. You can add your brand colors to the pattern.

Here’s how you can set an image as the background in your presentation:

  • In the Format Background option discussed above, select Picture or texture fill

picture or texture fill option in PowerPoint

  • Here you can upload an image of your choice by clicking on the File button, or even pull an image from the internet using the Online If you’ve copied the image, access it using the Clipboard button to select it.

You have the freedom to customize and edit the image in many different ways, including the transparency, position, alignment, and even make minute adjustments to the scale. You can also use the image to create a textured background by checking the Tile picture as texture feature. A lot of handy tools are available to create the perfect image background for your slides!

Using images as PowerPoint background is recommended if:

  • Your slides mostly have text
  • You plan on using certain images to evoke emotions
  • You know exactly what devices these slides will appear on, eliminating any image scaling issues

Some people may like to add videos as backgrounds for their slides. Despite what most people might think, doing this is a piece of cake.

Having videos as your presentation’s background can look really nice. But you’ll have to get it right, or your slides might look amateurish and messy. Put short text pieces on top of these backgrounds and you’ve got yourself a memorable slide.

Without further ado, let’s have a look at how you can add videos to your presentation’s background.

  • In PowerPoint, click on Insert and then Video . Here you can either upload a video file or choose an online video. Please note that if you choose the latter, you should have access to the video whenever you play your presentation. If you don’t the video will not appear and your background may appear blank.

option to insert video as PowerPoint presentation background

  • Once the video has loaded, you can now resize it to fit inside the slide the way you want it to. You can also position the video in a way that only a particular section of the video is visible. To do this you’ll have to tweak the aspect ratio of the video. You can do this by clicking on the video and selecting Format Video .
  • To send the video to the back (to keep it as the background) you need to click on the video. When the Video Tools tab appears, click on Format and then click on Send Backward .

There you go. It’s that simple to add videos as your presentation’s background. You can add text or shapes on the video by clicking on Insert and choosing the element you wish to add.

For royalty-free videos, check out some of these resources:

You can put GIFs as the background for your PowerPoint presentations.

  • Right-click on the slide
  • Select Format Background
  • Select Picture or texture fill
  • Click on the Insert button and upload the GIF you want as the background.

You can get millions of GIFs from giphy.com

Now that we’ve got the basics covered, let’s go in-depth and talk about the best practices to follow while creating the PERFECT background for your presentations . This may sound like rocket science, but I’ve simplified it for complete beginners.

The best way to get your presentation slides to look impressive is to use a pre-built PowerPoint background . You can easily find thousands of such templates online. It’s easy as downloading and using the elements and colors that you like.

On the other hand, if you don’t have time to focus on the design aspects of your presentation, why not hire a presentation design agency? Drop us a message here to find out more.

Let’s explore how you can get the best possible backgrounds for your PowerPoint presentations:

Let’s explore this question with the basics of color theory.

High Contrast

Ideally, it’s important to have high contrast colors in your slides. If you have a dark background, make sure all the text and elements on top of it are lighter in color. If your slides have a monochromatic color scheme, use complementary colors on the opposite side of the color wheel.

Choosing a high contrast color scheme for your slides not only makes the text more legible but also improves visual interest .

There’s a simple way to create your own high contrast color scheme:

  • Select different tones, shades, and tints of a color (not the pure hue)
  • Then select another pure color that is at least 3 spaces away on the color wheel. This color will be the accent color.

You can also use Adobe’s color wheel to create your own color scheme. This is a handy tool that can really help you nail the color scheme of your presentation slides.

Here’s an easy-to-use tool from Adobe that you can use to check the contrast of 2 colors.

Keep it simple. Limit your slides to have just 3-4 colors. Too much color can be distracting and can take away from what you are trying to convey.

Pro tip: How to find the RGB values of a color in PowerPoint?

Right-click on the slide to open the Format popup, or access it from the Home toolbar. Click on the dropdown next to the font color selector and select the Eyedropper. While the Eyedropper is selected, hover over any color and you will get the RGB values of that color. Use this information with the tools we’ve mentioned in this article to perfect your color palette for your background and foreground elements.

Stick by the 60-30-10 rule

If you’ve chosen 3 colors for your slides, you should give 60 percent of the spice to the primary color, 30 percent to the secondary, and finally 10 percent to the accent color.

Don’t forget to use different colors and experiment with color variations to make your slides interesting and all the more powerful.

Colors are just as important as the content on your slides. If you use colors well on your slides, it can help enhance your message. Knowing the very basics of color theory can help you create better presentations.

Select Complementary Colours

To create complementary color combinations between your background and foreground, you can select colors that sit opposite each other on the color wheel. This could be a warm color or a cool color.

Complementary colors for presentation backgrounds

Split Complementary Colors

This is another color variation that you can experiment with. Split complementary colors are combinations of 2 adjacent colors and a complementary color. Experiment with these colors for your background and foreground to create stunning slides.

Split complementary colors for presentation backgrounds

Analogous Colours

You may even choose the analogous color scheme for your slides. These colors are right next to each other on the color wheel:

Analogous colors for presentation backgrounds

Monochromatic Colours

Even monochromatic color combinations make unique-looking slides. These are basically different shades, tones, and tints of the same hue.

Monochromatic colors for presentation backgrounds

When choosing colors for your presentation’s background and foreground, it is important to make your slides accessible to everyone, even people with visual impairments. PowerPoint has features that enable people with disabilities to read and author documents.

Here are a few pointers on choosing your background and foreground colors so that it is accessible to everyone.

  • Have enough contrast between the background and the foreground. You can check the contrast between two colors using this tool from Adobe.
  • Colour should not be the only way of conveying information. You can check if the colors of your slides are accessible to people with visual impairments by viewing them in black and white. In Windows you can do this by going to Start > Settings > Accessibility > Color Filters and selecting Grayscale.
  • Stay away from backgrounds that have different colors in different areas (images, gradients, etc.). These can cause readability issues for the text, especially if there are color contrast issues.

Here are some popular color choices for presentation backgrounds and the use cases they are perfect for:

Blue – the most popular choice for business presentation slides

Blue is the most popular choice of color for presentation slides. The color has a calming feel to it and is conservative. Blue is a favorite among business presenters as well as trainers. You can add a dark blue background and light-colored text to your slides to make them appear professional and serious. Presentations with light blue backgrounds are great for environments that are more relaxed and preferably well-lit.

Green – encourages interactions

Green gives off a friendly appearance and warmth. Slides with green can potentially stimulate interaction. Green is loved by trainers, teachers, and others who create presentations that are intended to create interactions. Plus, it’s a no-brainer to use this color for all environmental-themed presentations.

Red – passionate, but carries negative implications

Red is an influential color, but it has often been associated with danger, failure, and similar negative ideas. While it may be a great color for conveying passion, red does not work for a lot of presentations. Never use red while presenting financial information, tables, or charts.

Purple – emotional and spiritual

Most of our clients that use purple are women. This is a good color for emotional or spiritual presentations. Purple is somewhat an exotic color since it doesn’t appear too often in nature.

Yellow – attention-grabbing

In my opinion, yellow doesn’t make a good background color. It can be used as a highlight color since Yellow is great for grabbing attention. A bright yellow background has the potential to be an eyesore. Instead, you can use an orangish shade. You can also add texture to the background as discussed in this article to get a better background.

Black – neutral but strong!

Black is a great choice for a background color for your presentations. Since it is a neutral color, it is also a great choice for presenting financial information. The simplest way to get your slides to look elegant and bold? Just slap a black background on them!

White – clean but boring

White is yet another neutral color, and all slides come default with it. The color white represents purity and innocence. It can create a sense of space and can be useful when you want the audience to focus on the message and not on anything else. However, it can also appear cheap. If all your slides have a white background, it can look like you didn’t put in any effort. Your presentation might appear a little boring as well.

How to choose the best image for the presentation background?

You can make your presentations a lot more memorable if you use pictures as your background. But using images as your background can be a hit or a miss, depending on the choice of picture. The right image can elevate your presentation and make it impactful. Wrong or irrelevant messages will just confuse the audience and come off as cheap and cringe. The right images in your presentations can enhance your presentations and make them much more effective at conveying your message. Here’s how you can choose the right images in your presentation’s background:

  • Choose images that support your content. Don’t just use an image to fill up the white space on the screen. These images should be relevant to the topic of the presentation.
  • Make sure you use high-quality images of the proper resolution. Having a pixelated background is an eyesore and can really ruin the experience for your audience.
  • Use simple images. Images with too many things happening will distract from any text or elements on top of it. Remember that these images should be in the background and should not compete with the text on your slides.
  • Pay attention to the colors. The colors of the background should not clash with the colors of the text or any other elements on top of it. I will clarify more on this later on, keep reading.

If you have an image as the background, you could add shapes and overlays to make the foreground appear sharper and help it stand out from the background. Here’s how you can do this:

  • Click on the Insert tab
  • Click on Shapes and select a shape. We recommend a rectangle. You can then cover the entire background with this shape.
  • This should open a Format Shape If you can’t see this, right-click on the shape and select Format Shape
  • Here you can adjust the Transparency for different colors. Your shape could have a solid color, gradient fill, or image. Adjust the transparency to your needs.

Note: If you already have text on the screen, right-click the shape and select Send to Back to send the shape behind the text.

This kind of overlay can help your audience focus more on the foreground than the background.

You can use Artistic Effects in PowerPoint to further customize your background to make it look better, and to make the foreground stand out. This feature is handy for adding filters and effects like blur, which can substantially improve how your slides look.

Here’s how you can access the Artistic Effects in PowerPoint

  • Right-click on the background
  • Click on the pentagon shape
  • You can now check out all the Artistic Effects available

Experiment with different effects to get the result that you want. The simplest way you can improve foreground clarity is by blurring the background. You can do this by selecting Blur from the list of Artistic Effects. After selecting, you can immediately see the result. You can also use the slider to adjust the parameters of the effect. For example, by adjusting the Radius, you can control the intensity of the blur effect.

Here’s an example of background without the blur effect:

PowerPoint presentation background image without artistic effect (blur)

Here’s the same background with the blur effect:

PowerPoint presentation background image with artistic effect (blur)

As you can see, the text is easier to read when we add a little blur to the background.

  • Select the slide that you want to copy the background from in the Slides Pane.
  • From the Toolbar (under Home) double click on Format Painter .

format painter option in PowerPoint

  • Click on the slide with the background from the Slides Pane.
  • Click on the slide you want to paste the background to. This could even be a different presentation.

Your PowerPoint presentation’s background size will depend on the slide size of your presentation. By default, it should be set to “Widescreen” (16:9), but it can also be set to “Standard” (4:3). Either way, the background you use will fit and be the same size as your slide. If your background image is 16:9 and your slide is 4:3, PowerPoint will resize your image to fit the slide.

You can check the slide size by going to Design and clicking on Slide Size .

Why do PowerPoint presentation backgrounds matter?

The best backgrounds help make your slide elements come alive

The best slides are a perfect combination of ample amount of white space, good color combination, and the perfect background. A good background can elevate the presentation and help you communicate better to your audience. Nobody wants to look at poorly designed slides, after all, they’re just pieces of text on a poorly designed canvas. A good background is all it takes sometimes to get your slide to look professionally designed.

Backgrounds add texture to the presentations

Why have a boring backdrop on your slides when you’re trying to convey something important? A lot of people don’t even bother changing the default background. A good background can really help your slides look a lot better.

Backgrounds can be used to add texture to your presentations. It’s sort of like creating a physical illusion for your audience. I remember once sitting through a presentation about the water cycle. The slides with backgrounds showing rain in a way made me feel the rain, creating a memorable experience.

Similarly, you can use different kinds of backgrounds in your slides to give an illusion of the desired texture. Creating a presentation on Egyptian tombs? Why not have hieroglyphs as the background?

Creates visual interest

Let’s face it, most presentations are boring. I mean, imagine sitting through a 30-minute presentation where all the slides have the same background. You’d get distracted easily or worse, you’d start nodding off soon! When there’s no variety, your brain just wants to shut off and the whole experience is just awful for everyone.

Having good backgrounds in your slides can sometimes be the first (and sometimes the biggest) step to making your slides look interesting.

Having good images as your background can improve the visual interest of your slides. If you’ve paid attention to the colors you use in your background and foreground as well, you’re going to have really pretty-looking slides.

You don’t need to be some designer wizard to get started with backgrounds as well, it’s not rocket science! Just follow the color suggestions we’ve mentioned in this article. Make sure to blur your background if it has a chance of clashing with the foreground text. This also works if the background has many colors and is super packed with details. Choose the right type of background your slides need and trust me; your presentation will be a success.

Let’s quickly sum up key points from this article. If you need to add a background to your PowerPoint slide, you have these options:

  • Solid color background
  • Gradient background
  • Image background
  • GIF background
  • Pattern background
  • Video background

All of these are accessible in the Format Background option which you can access by right-clicking the slide.

You have plenty of options to customize your background to improve the legibility of the foreground and to make the slides look much better. This article also talks about using the right colors, images, and more to create impactful slides.

So, there you go, here’s all you need to know about PowerPoint backgrounds. I hope you’ve learned something new here. Good luck with your presentation!

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How to Add Background Graphics to Powerpoint

Last Updated: March 19, 2024

Adding a Picture

Applying effects, using slide master view.

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. This article has been viewed 419,697 times. Learn more...

How do you edit background graphics in PowerPoint?

  • You can add a background image to an individual slide or to all slides in your presentation.
  • To create repeating wallpaper-like background, you can tile any photo as a texture.
  • Adding backgrounds in the Slide Master makes it easy to apply the one background to all slides using the same layout.

Step 1 Open your PowerPoint presentation.

  • If you want to apply the background to every slide in your presentation, you can do so at the end of this section.

Step 5 Select

  • There are other fill options you can choose from, such as solid colors, gradients, and patterns. Selecting one will display additional options for that type of fill. This guide focuses on adding images and graphics to the background.

Step 6 Choose the image that you want to insert as the background.

  • Click the "File" button to select a picture from your computer. A file browser will open, and you can navigate to the image you want to use.
  • Click the "Online" button to find pictures from online sources. You can perform a Bing web search, choose images stored in your OneDrive, or grab pictures from your Facebook or Flickr account.
  • Click the "Texture" menu to select from a premade texture background. There are a variety of premade textures that you can pick from if you'd rather not insert your own image.

Step 7 Click

  • Click the "Artistic Effects" menu and select the effect you want to use.
  • When you select an effect, additional options may appear beneath it. The options vary depending on the effect you chose.

Step 5 Click

  • Different slides in the master list are for different slide layouts. Changes made to that master will apply to all slides with the same layout. The slide at the top of the master list will apply yo all slides in the presentation.

Step 4 Click the

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  • ↑ https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Add-a-picture-as-a-slide-background-4b0b98d4-774c-4e08-9c38-e8c92f58c957
  • ↑ http://www.presentationpoint.com/blog/best-powerpoint-screen-resolution/
  • ↑ http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/msoffice_powerpoint-mso_other/how-can-i-edit-a-background-graphics-object/94ef97f5-8e95-4d90-b0aa-d61a7095b9a8?auth=1
  • ↑ http://www.gcflearnfree.org/powerpoint2013/slide-master-view/1/

About This Article

wikiHow Staff

To add an image to the background of one or more PowerPoint slides, start by selecting the slides you want to edit in the left panel. To select multiple slides, hold down the Control key on a PC or the Command key on a Mac as you click each slide. If you just want to edit one slide, click it once. Next, click the "Design" tab, and select "Format Background" in the toolbar's top-right corner. The Format Background panel will expand. In the "Format Background panel," select "Picture or texture fill" under "Fill" options. To select an image from your computer or a network drive, click "File." Browse for the picture, select it, and then click "Open." PowerPoint will automatically resize the image to properly fit the slide. Since slides are in landscape orientation, or wider than they are tall, try choosing a background image with a similar orientation. If you don’t have a background image in mind, click the "Online" option, which allows you to search for an image by keyboard using Bing Image Search. Once you've placed your image, you can make some modifications. First, if the image is a pattern or texture and not intended to stretch across the whole slide, check the box next to "Tile picture as texture" so it repeats across the slide like wallpaper. If the text on your slide becomes hard to read now that there's an image in the background, drag the "Transparency" slider to the right until the image fades enough to make the text legible. You can also edit the picture itself after placing it. Click the photo icon at the top of the Format Background to find Picture Corrections and Picture Color tools, such as brightness, contrast, and saturation controls. Your new background image is automatically applied to any slides you selected. However, if you want to apply the background to all slides in the presentation, you can click the "Apply to All" button at the bottom of the "Format Background" panel to do so. Did this summary help you? Yes No

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PowerPoint: Apply a Background to All Slides at Once

Lê Hoàng

Editing PowerPoint slides to make them look uniform can take a lot of time, especially for a large presentation. If you want all of your slides to have the same background, the following tutorial will help you accomplish this in just a few clicks, saving you a lot of editing time.

1. Launch PowerPoint , and open the presentation you want to edit from the Backstage view.

2. Once the file is loaded, right-click on any slide’s background, and choose Format Background from the context menu. You can also get to the Format Background section from the Design tab on the ribbon.

change PowerPoint background

3. The Format Background panel slides out from the right side of the screen. In the panel under the Fill section, choose the type of background you want. You can choose to fill the whole background with a solid color , a color gradient , a pattern or a picture .

Depending on the type of background you choose, a set of options such as transparency, offset, scale, etc., will be available to tweak the background. If needed, remember to adjust the background before you apply it to all of the slides in the presentation.

change PowerPoint background solid color gradient picture pattern

4. When you have chosen the background for the slide, click the Apply to All button at the bottom of the panel to copy the background to other slides. Click the small X button at the top right of the panel to close it.

apply background to all slides in PowerPoint

5. Please note that the change is applied to existing slides only . Any new slide you create after that point may have a different background. To copy the background over to the new slides, you can right-click on a previous slide, choose Duplicate slide, and then delete the content on the duplicated slide.

6. Later, if you want to change the background of all the slides again, just repeat the steps above.

  • apply background to all slides
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  • powerpoint 2013
  • solid color
  • use picture as background
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How to Add Design and Transitions in Office 365 Presentation.

How to add video to powerpoint presentation – simplest method, how to superscript in powerpoint — add formulae and symbols, leave a reply cancel reply.

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Need PowerPoint Backgrounds? The Best Places to Check Out [+ Freebies]

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how to make a powerpoint presentation background

Having more than 500 million users and being used for an estimated 30 million presentations per day (an amazing 350 presentations per second are started worldwide), PowerPoint , it is no exaggeration to say is a phenomenon. It’s easy to use, a staple in meetings, conferences, classrooms, and now of course for online learning, and completely accessible.

However, familiarity often breeds complacency. Now very long ago, a PowerPoint presentation on its own made a change from long-winded speeches and was enough to motivate an audience. Now, it’s so commonplace you have to think of ways to make your PowerPoint slideshow memorable,  to stand out from the crowd, hold the attention, and capture the imagination and interest of an audience. It’s not easy and there are no guarantees but one quick and easy way to complement your content is using backgrounds .

You’ll be surpassed at the difference they make, and how much a little extra effort and attention to detail can succeed in making your PowerPoint presentation deliver on the day. We’ve put together this complete and comprehensive guide to PowerPoint background, taking you on a tour of sources, creation, and tips alongside practical advice.

In this article: 1. How to import backgrounds into PowerPoint? 2. Places to Find Free PowerPoint Backgrounds 2.1. Free sources 2.2. Premium sources 3. How to make a background on your own 4. Useful Tips When Using PowerPoint Backgrounds

1. How to Import Backgrounds into PowerPoint?

Once you got a background saved, you’re going to need to get it onto the PowerPoint presentation show itself. You can either apply a template to a pre-created slideshow or if this is recommended, start with the template and add to it (from scratch or copy items from your previous creation)  It’s quite easy to do, so let’s look at a break down of the steps.

Let’s imagine you’ve already downloaded and saved a background image onto your computer.

Step 1:  Start PowerPoint, click on File and select New. This will open a series of preinstalled PowerPoint templates and themes options. Step 2:  Click on open. Step 3:  Locate your saved background file, double click to open it, and there you have it.

To add an existing presentation to your new background simply copy and paste.

2. Where to Find Free PowerPoint Backgrounds?

There are many sources for free PowerPoint background and a search on the net will bring up a huge selection. You could spend time trawling through the masses, and sometimes only to find a hidden catch, but we’ve provided you with some of the best free source sites around.

2.1. Free Sources

2.1.1. freepik.

freepik backgrounds

A great and plentiful resource (nearly 1 million images) for any art from vectors and photos but also including PowerPoint backgrounds and other templates. For the free downloads, and there are many to choose from, you will need to attribute the original author. There is information on what exactly is required when you click on your desired background. There are also Premium (no attribution choices). Freepik’s filters (photos, colors, style, etc.) can save you browsing time by taking you straight to the area of interest. Usefully, when you click on a choice you also get recommendations of similar backgrounds so you can expand your search.

2.1.2. Vecteezy

vecteezy backgrounds

Another huge resource is Vecteezy, with over 1 million images, and 161,787 royalty-free vector graphics and clipart matching PowerPoint backgrounds. You can need to sign up (it’s free but not obligatory) and there are paid versions of varying price structures that offer greater choice and no attribution. If you want free source backgrounds then you’ll need to attribute the author, following the instructions given on each clip. Vecteezy will ease you through the process of choosing by using their comprehensive search filters.

2.1.3. Unsplash

unsplash background images

Unsplash is a resource site dedicated to high-quality photographic images. It’s already enormous, with well over a million images and it is growing with photographers from all over the world contributing, so if you are looking for realistic images for your presentation background Unsplash is a great place to start. It’s completely free with no attribution necessary. It really is just a case of finding what you are looking for (filtering through a free search than a series of options) and then clicking the free download button. Save it, then copy it to your PowerPoint slideshow.

2.1.4. Pixabay

pixabay backgrounds

Free source website Pixabay shares nearly 2 million photos, illustrations, vector graphics, film footage, and music. Whilst there are only 13 images directly for PowerPoint background that shouldn’t limit you. There is absolutely no reason why you can’t download something without the tag and simply use it on your show. There’s no attribution required and you are free to use it for all purposes. Great filters make finding something suitable a breeze, then it a just a matter of downloading, saving, and using. You also get download pixel size options, which is useful.

2.1.5. PPTbackgrounds

powerpoint backgrounds

For specific PowerPoint backgrounds, there is a great free site called ppt backgrounds. A fine collection of 2200 free backgrounds for all your presentation needs, suitable for any situation. You can browse categories and search through or use the search bar, so life is easy. Open the image you want, click to open, right-click,  download, and save the image. A really cool feature is each image has color variations, so you can keep a theme but differentiate key slides, areas, or show progress. Click on the colors scale for the Presentation tab.

2.1.6. Free-power-point-templates

free powerpoint templates

Free PowerPoint templates, tell you what it is. Over 12,000 free PowerPoint templates and a whole category on backgrounds. Each modern, trendy template gives specific information and ideas for use, which is handy. You’ve got plenty of scope for browsing and it’s all completely free with no attribution required.

Take a look at GraphicMama’s article  56 Impressive Free Presentation Backgrounds for Outstanding Presentations

2.2. Premium Resources

While it is true that there is a great free source of PowerPoint backgrounds, other templates, and other images that you can use, it must be noted that there are Premium sources that often offer you higher quality, unique options that you can use to really impress your audience.

2.2.1. GraphicMama

graphicmama backgrounds

As a source for premium design images, Graphic Mama offers a great range of cool and stylish resources for all digital design needs. One category of design is background design bundles and background graphic makers that will help you create outstanding designs. These vector-based backgrounds are prepared on different themes: room interiors, offices, landscapes, abstract, nature, parties, Halloween, Christmas, and more. a bundled theme containing a huge number and variation of choices and styles is available from $32 and includes free updates as the bundles develop over time, so you are never behind the trend. And as they are vector illustrations you won’t lose any quality when you resize, which adds to the versatility, you can use these for printed materials, posters, etc.

Here are some bundles from GraphicMama to whet your appetite.

120 Room Backgrounds Vector Collection

room backgrounds

120 rooms of all shapes, sizes, and colors. Using a simple and attractive cartoon style that will add context and entertainment to your presentation whilst not distracting from the content. No limit on usage, so free to do as you please, you also get further updates as and when they come on board.

  • Includes 10 high-quality Free Room Interior backgrounds for you to try out.

Vector Backgrounds – Mega Bundle

colorful backgrounds

An enormous bundle of over 240 widely colorful designs on different themes such as Interiors, landscapes, seasons, or even abstract patterns. Truly something for every occasion and all with bright, bold, confident designs that will make your PowerPoint presentation memorable and outstanding.

  • Includes 12 high-quality Free landscape backgrounds for you to try out.

1000+ Seamless Pattern Designs Mega Bundle (15 Free Sample Patterns)

pattern designs

  • Includes 15 high-quality Free pattern designs for you to try out.

Abstract Backgrounds – Mega Bundle Collection

abstract backgrounds

The backgrounds are ideal for PowerPoint and Google Slides presentations.

2.2.2. ShutterStock.com

shutterstock

Another supplier of premium resources is Shutterstock, with either subscription-based options from $49 per month (10 images) or on-demand packs again from $49 – you can take the opportunity of a 30-day free trial.  Shutterstock has an enormous number of stock images (326 million) and nearly 12,000 specific PowerPoint backgrounds. They have an amazingly precise filter system (color, age, ethnicity, size, categories, etc) so you are guaranteed to find something that fits your theme.

2.2.3. iStockPhoto.com

istock

iStockPhoto sell images and illustration through a subscription or credit-based system. 3 credits are $24 or subscribe from 470 per month, (prices increase depending on the number of images per month). they have a nice range and selection of high quality despite the cost. There are the usual filters to help refine your search and there is an online editor so you can customize your images before purchase.

3. How to Make a Background on Your Own?

despite the number of ready-made options, either free or premium some people still prefer to create their background themselves. we can’t fault you for wanting to be creative, especially if you’ve got the time. So, here are some software options that allow you to get your ideas down.

3.1. Adobe Spark

adobe spark

Adobe design app Spark doesn’t limit itself to presentation backgrounds, allowing you to create social media posts and videos and a whole range of other design options from 12 Euros a month for individuals (first 2 months free). Ideal for creatives   who need something quick and without a great deal of customization, with a series of very impressive professional templates. It’s probably better for social media posts than PowerPoint backgrounds but it could be worth checking out.

3.2. Pixteller

pixteller

An image and animation maker that can be used for lots of design purposes. It is easy to use and doesn’t require a lot of technical know-how or ability, just some creative thinking. There are templates, ready-made animations, stock photos, and shapes all ready for you to bring together for your concept design. There are 2 paid options pro from $9 per month (graphics)and Diamond from $19 per month (graphics plus animation tool).

fotor

A free photo editing platform (you can upgrade to paid pro version) that also works as a design creator. Selecting on wallpaper brings uploads of wallpaper templates, it doesn’t sound so DIY yet. Here’s where you get creative, you can edit the templates with images, and texts. It gives you a base to work with and then lets you go out on your own.

visme

Visme is a data presentation and visualization tool which aims to help transform your ideas into visually appealing presentations and infographics. The basic plan is free for individuals (up to 5 projects) and paid plans start at $14 per month.  A number of high-quality presentation templates, mix and match possibilities, infographic options, and wallpaper options are perfect for creating backgrounds. Get creative using the design tools available and put together something unique and stunning.

4. Useful Tips When Using PowerPoint Backgrounds

Tip 1: modify to make your text pop.

Generally in PowerPoint Presentations, the rule of thumb is to keep text to a minimum, no full sentences, keywords only, and good organization. (don’t read out the slides, please -it’s a guaranteed turn-off). the slides support the speaker, they don’t replace the speaker. With this in mind, when you do use text, let’s make sure it is noticeable. Think of the size, font, typography, color, and style. Don’t go funky just for the sake of it. the style needs to fit with your context, fonts leave subliminal messages (strong and sturdy, trustworthy, professional, creative, imaginative, classy) think carefully about what you are trying to achieve and what message you are trying to get across.

Tip 2: Don’t use too vivid backgrounds

Everybody knows a little about color theory and colors are important. A vivid background color that overly distracts from the main content has done exactly the wrong job. A background adds to the content and works with it -it’s not a battle. A general rule is that cooler colors (blues/greens) often work well for the background, providing a setting for the main information to come alive. Vary colors by all means, but don’t go too bright or too wild, it makes people feel uncomfortable. And remember your content needs to shine through from the background and stand tall – don’t clash.

Tip 3: Think about the audience

Always think of your audience. One of the great things about PowerPoint presentations is that they can easily be customized and edited so use the chance. A great successful presentation that worked in the past is no guarantee of success the next time around. Things change, trends change, styles change and your audience changes too. Examples should be up-to-date and relevant, as should images. People are more and more familiar with presentations these days, they recognize a bog-standard PowerPoint and equally, they recognize something, that has a bit more care and attention.

Tip 4: Think about Branding

Backgrounds are ideal to transmit the idea of your brand. At the simplest level, colors and logos are a must. Consistency in slides and regularly placed branding will leave the audience with a memory imprint. Personalized photographic images where appropriate can also work well in creating a sense of realism and trust -it all goes to build that vital image connection for the listener.

Tip 5: Never forget the author’s rights

I mean – if you are using some free backgrounds, don’t forget to check out the conditions and license types. Some backgrounds need attribution and there is a specific process. Adding a final slide mentioning the authors of the images, or writing them down on the corner of the slides, not only covers you legally but it shows the audience that you are aware of the professional standards and norms to be adhered to. You are a trustworthy, honorable speaker, who is prepared to give credit where it is earned. Nice touch.

Final Words

Let’s make this point again. PowerPoint presentations are so, so common that in order to raise the stakes, we need to make a little more effort. Stand on the shoulders of the familiar presentation and push it forwards. Backgrounds aren’t so difficult but they can make an enormous difference to the overall view of your presentation. They don’t need to take you forever to create, they are a simple, easy, and often free way of creating a lasting impression.

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Lyudmil Enchev

Lyudmil is an avid movie fan which influences his passion for video editing. You will often see him making animations and video tutorials for GraphicMama. Lyudmil is also passionate for photography, video making, and writing scripts.

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How to make a custom background for the PowerPoint slide

Custom background in PowerPoint 2016

To create a slide like one above, do the following:

   1.   Add some shapes to the zone with text and group them (see How to create simple picture designs for PowerPoint slides ), for example:

Grouped shapes in PowerPoint 2016

   2.   Right-click on the grouped shapes and choose Format Shape... in the popup menu:

Format Shape in popup PowerPoint 2016

   3.   On the Format Shape pane, on the Shape Options tab, in the Fill & Line group:

Format Shape - Fill tab in PowerPoint 2016

In this example, the group of shapes looks like:

Grouped Shapes in PowerPoint 2016

   4.   To add a background picture, right-click on an empty slide and choose Format Background... in the popup menu:

Format background in popup PowerPoint 2016

   5.   On the Format Background pane, in the Fill & Line group, in the Fill section:

  • Select Picture or texture fill
  • Click on the File... button and choose the picture you prefer:

Format background in PowerPoint 2016

Add any other adjustments you would like.

See also this tip in French: Comment créer un arrière-plan personnalisé pour la diapositive PowerPoint .

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1. Find the perfect PowerPoint template

how to make a powerpoint presentation background

2. Customize your creation

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3. Show it off

Let's create a powerpoint design, frequently asked questions, where can i find slide templates and themes that i can customize.

To find customizable slide templates and themes, you can explore the business presentations templates or search by PowerPoint templates . Once you find a template that resonates with you, customize it by changing its color scheme, add in your own photos, and swap out the font.

How do I use pre-made PowerPoint templates?

After you've chosen a PowerPoint template to use, customize it. Explore [design tips] on how to customize a deck that resonates with your brand while putting emphasis on the topic at hand. Play with other design elements, like photo shapes, to make each slide unique.

How can I make or edit my own custom PowerPoint templates?

Start from scratch by creating your own PowerPoint template . Follow tips for designs and business presentations so that your unique template is cohesive and relevant to your brand. Incorporate your brand's color scheme and graphics so that all your slides aren't text only.

What kinds templates can I get online for PowerPoint?

You can get PowerPoint templates that have modern designs, animated ones, or even hand-drawn art in each slide. The color schemes range from bold to subtle. Each template's slides are also organized based on what you may want to include in your presentation . You can use the template as a starting point and customize its specific details from theme.

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Blog Marketing 10 Simple PowerPoint Backgrounds for Better Presentations

10 Simple PowerPoint Backgrounds for Better Presentations

Written by: Letícia Fonseca Jan 20, 2022

10+ Simple PowerPoint Backgrounds for Better Presentations

Presenting to a client, business partner, or a potential investor? Being articulate isn’t enough anymore. Your presentations need to have strong, memorable visuals.

Don’t overwhelm your presentation design with too many design elements. A presentation template should be as simple as possible. You don’t want to steal the limelight from the product or service you’re offering.

Creating a simple PowerPoint background for your slide deck doesn’t have to be a challenge. In this guide, we’ll share examples of great background graphics, with tips to create them.

Get a headstart when creating slide decks with the Venngage Presentation Maker . You don’t need any design experience to use our presentation templates .

Click to jump ahead:

  • 10 best simple Powerpoint backgrounds

How to format PowerPoint backgrounds on Venngage

Faqs about powerpoint presentations, 10 best simple powerpoint backgrounds.

  • Sequoia Capital pitch deck
  • Uber pitch deck
  • Iconics pitch deck
  • Blue Guy Kawasaki pitch deck template
  • Product pitch deck
  • Gradient Guy Kawasaki pitch deck template
  • Blue investor pitch deck
  • Client marketing pitch deck
  • Airbnb pitch deck
  • Yellow start-up pitch deck

1. Sequoia Capital pitch deck

how to make a powerpoint presentation background

If your company has conservative and traditional values, this straightforward design should work best for your PowerPoint template.

Note how the PowerPoint slides avoid using long paragraphs. Instead, each slide uses bullet points and icons to get the message across and make the slides more readable.

You can change the color of the slides to be consistent with your branding. To improve the visual appeal of your PowerPoint templates, vary the slide layout throughout the presentation.

Easily add your branding to a PowerPoint template with Venngage’s My Brand Kit feature, available with business accounts . Add your website when prompted and the editor will import your logos, brand colors , and brand fonts .

2. Uber pitch deck

A simple PowerPoint template doesn’t necessarily have only a few images. Photos are powerful as you can see from the slide layouts in the Uber pitch deck below.

how to make a powerpoint presentation background

Choose the best brand pictures you have for backgrounds. You can overlay some areas with a solid brand color to contrast with the color of the text. This way, you don’t hide background graphics but still keep the slide readable.

Using data visualizations can also improve your PowerPoint template. Add tables, charts and graphs for a more professional look. People are easier to convince if you show the numbers.

3. Iconics pitch deck

A black background can be impactful as long as you know which design elements blend well with it. From the example below, using neon icons is a clever technique. This is suitable for digital companies or brands offering modern products and services.

how to make a powerpoint presentation background

Adding quotes to a blank presentation is an excellent way to show social proof. If you can back it up with numbers, like in the above example, even better.

4. Blue Guy Kawasaki pitch deck t emplate

The Guy Kawasaki slide deck design uses the 10/20/30 PowerPoint rule. This outline is made for 10 slides, that can be presented in just 20 minutes. How? None of the fonts can be anything smaller than 30 points.

Venngage has created slide layouts based on Kawasaki’s rule. The longer version is below, to accommodate larger presentations.

how to make a powerpoint presentation background

Note how the slide layouts vary considerably from the master slides. This helps maintain audience attention and allows for a variety of information to be presented.

5. Product pitch deck

Create a PowerPoint template with this equally powerful design. Instead of using one or two colors in your presentation, you can use different shades per PowerPoint slide.

how to make a powerpoint presentation background

As brutal as this may sound, people easily get bored. The technique is to tweak slide layouts and leave an impression that you have something new to present on each slide.

6. Gradient Guy Kawasaki pitch deck t emplate

Your presentation background can be both simple and interesting by using a gradient. It never goes out of style and is highly recommended for companies offering creative services.

If you are working in the advertising or marketing industry, this template will serve you well.

how to make a powerpoint presentation background

7. Blue investor pitch deck

There’s so much to love about the PowerPoint template below. The colors are vibrant, the texts are of perfect length, and there are different business background styles. Some are plain while others have real pictures.

While there are many design elements in the presentation, they were able to follow a single theme. It makes the deck even more appealing, not to mention, powerful.

how to make a powerpoint presentation background

8. Client marketing pitch deck

How about something bold for your PowerPoint templates ? The design below gives off that fun vibe.

how to make a powerpoint presentation background

Change the color to a muted tone and add your preferred icons. These minor alterations can help you design PowerPoint presentations that are anchored on your branding.

The template below is a great option for digital marketers, fashion lines, and even cosmetics. Use your own pictures and you’re all set.

9. Airbnb pitch deck

If you want to highlight your content, be sure to use the template below. As you can see, the design only has a few images but is heavy on information and data.

how to make a powerpoint presentation background

This would be perfect if you are introducing a new product or service. After all, you wouldn’t want your audience to be distracted by your design elements, would you?

10. Yellow start-up pitch deck

If you want to improve your conversion, use an image of people. It is a proven design technique in marketing, for posters, billboards, and websites. Visuals of people can be added to your custom PowerPoint template, like in this example.

how to make a powerpoint presentation background

You can add stock photos to the PowerPoint template. Venngage has over 4 million of them. Or upload original high-quality pictures of your team working together.

Apart from providing your audience with company facts, you are subtly showing them your working environment. That could also influence their decisions.

Step 1: Sign in or create an account

  • Go to Venngage and sign in to your account or create a new one if you haven’t already.

Step 2: Choose a template

  • Navigate to the “Templates” section and select “Presentations” from the available options. Browse through the templates and choose one that suits your needs.

Step 3: Choose background type

  • Solid Color : Select a color from the palette or enter a hex code.
  • Gradient : Choose the gradient option and customize the colors and direction of the gradient.
  • Image : Upload your own image or choose from Venngage’s stock images. To upload an image, click on “Upload Image” and select a file from your computer.

Step 4: Adjust background image

  • If you’ve chosen an image, you can adjust its size, position, and opacity.
  • Use the sliders to make these adjustments until the background looks just right.

Step 5: Add text and graphics

  • Customize your slides further by adding text, charts, icons, and other graphics.Use the tools on the left-hand side to insert and format these elements.

Step 6: Preview and make final adjustments

  • Preview your presentation to see how the slides look together and make any final adjustments as needed.

Step 7: Download your presentation

  • Once you’re satisfied with your presentation, export it as a PowerPoint file. Click on the “Download” button and choose the PowerPoint format (.pptx).

What is a custom PowerPoint template?

A custom PowerPoint background template is a personalized background design for your slide deck. Using a customized design means your presentation is unique, giving you a competitive edge in the industry.

How do you create a background in PowerPoint?

Here are the steps to creating a background in PowerPoint.

  • Access the Slide Master menu
  • Choose the slide you want to change
  • Select format background, and you can change to a solid fill, texture fill, or picture from file
  • Choose the style or file for your background

There’s also a feature to hide background graphics and show a plain design for selected slides.

What makes a good PowerPoint presentation?

When creating a PowerPoint presentation, always remember that less is more. Here are a few things to consider as well.

It must be organized.

When you organize your presentation, you should think about the design elements and how they could fit well into your layout. It shouldn’t look cluttered because that can cause your audience to lose attention.

It should tell a story

As much as possible, make your PowerPoint seamless by following a storyline. Your content should flow smoothly and the slides must be connected. Just imagine going back multiple slides during your presentation to clarify a point. It’s a waste of time.

It must be according to your company’s branding

Your PowerPoint presentation must reflect your company’s branding. Use your brand’s color and don’t forget to add your logo.

Is creating a PowerPoint template hard?

It is challenging to create a PowerPoint template from scratch especially if you are a nondesigner. You have to think about all the design elements that will go to the Slide Master.

This is the top slide in a hierarchy that keeps the information about your chosen theme, fonts, and layout. You can edit this from the Slide Master tab.

But it doesn’t stop there because you still need to check each slide to see if it goes well with your central theme.

Use Venngage to create an effective PowerPoint template

Having to create a custom PowerPoint template and deciding on background styles can take up a lot of time. Save time and energy by using ready-made presentation templates.

Venngage is one of the best platforms where you can choose from dozens of designs perfect for your presentation deck. Use the Venngage presentation maker and create slide layouts like the ones in this post.

Sign up is completely free and then you can start designing your slides with Venngage’s custom PowerPoint templates.

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  • Presentations
  • Presentation Techniques

25 Pretty PPT Templates for an Attractive PowerPoint Presentation (2024)

Andrew Childress

Beautiful PowerPoint templates are the way to stand out in 2024. Whether you’re presenting to a crowd or sharing your beautiful slides online, it’s time to think differently. The focus is on you to create compelling and beautiful PowerPoint PPT slides .

Advance Lookbook Attractive PPT Slides

But you don’t have to do all the hard work! Add style with stunning presentation templates, and watch your content come to life.

In this article, you'll learn how to make a PowerPoint presentation attractive . We'll also check out templates and nice PowerPoint slides from Envato Elements.

25 Beautiful PowerPoint Templates From Envato Elements

Let’s explore some of 2024’s most beautiful PowerPoint templates from Envato Elements. These are 25 of the most gorgeous PowerPoint templates, and you can find many more right here:

1. Classy PPT Template

Classy Beautiful Presentation Template

This beautiful PPT background for PowerPoint is very Classy. It's an attractive PowerPoint presentation designed for all things beauty. I love the included color scheme. Even though it's customizable, you can't go wrong with the forest green shown here. The cute PPT background comes with:

  • 30 nice PowerPoint slides to choose from
  • based on Master Slides
  • resizable and editable graphics

2. Makeit: Beautiful PowerPoint Presentation Template

2. Makeit - Beautiful PowerPoint Presentation Template

Bold flashes of color and inspired use of contrast are the hallmarks of this beautiful PowerPoint presentation template. It’s designed to promote any products and services that you offer. But marketing isn’t the only mission of this beautiful presentation. It includes:

  • 40+ nice PowerPoint slides
  • full HD resolution
  • 16:9 widescreen aspect ratio
  • drag-and-drop editing

3. Anerio: Fashionable, Attractive Presentation Slides

3. Anerio - Fashionable Attractive Presentation Slides

These beautiful slides project confidence. One of the most elegant PowerPoint templates available for 2024, it embraces the theory of “less is more.” Text and images fly off the slides, offset against pale backdrops. Download it to get:

  • more than 30 beautiful PowerPoint slides
  • modern layouts
  • fully editable elements

4. Advance: Beautiful PowerPoint Themes Lookbook

4. Advance - Beautiful PowerPoint Lookbook

Sometimes, you need to wow an audience with vibrant color. Try out these beautiful PowerPoint slides to do just that. Whether you’re making your personal portfolio or pitching a new business, Advance Lookbook is ready to help. These flashy features usually aren't available in free PowerPoint templates:

  • PPTX and PPT pretty slide templates
  • 35 unique slides
  • easy customization options

5. Simphony: Attractive PowerPoint Presentation Template

5. Simphony - Attractive PowerPoint Presentation Template

You don’t have to change beautiful PowerPoint presentation templates to mix up the look and feel. Instead, turn to one like Simphony. This beautiful PowerPoint theme has:

  • more than 5.6k pretty slide templates
  • 124 Master Slide Layouts
  • over 20 color themes built in

All it takes is a few clicks to swap one for another. Instantly, you can alter the entire mood of your attractive PPT slides. Best of all: you won’t have to move a single piece of content!

6. WHITE BEAUTY: Beautiful Slides for PowerPoint

6. WHITE BEAUTY - Beautiful Slides for PowerPoint

This is an easy choice for a list of the most beautiful PowerPoint templates. Its beautiful slides are minimalist but full of gorgeous shapes and graphics at the same time. Pair this beauty with your inspiring message and create a stunning and beautiful presentation for 2024. Check out its features:

  • 30 slides with cute PowerPoint designs
  • 50 pre-made color files
  • 30 icon slides

7. Chantella PowerPoint Template

7. Chantella - Beautiful PowerPoint Template

The earthy and quiet color palette of Chantella adds to its beauty. This makes it the perfect option for creating a pretty PowerPoint presentation. Not only is the template beautiful, but it also has all the features to fit your design needs:

  • 30 unique beautiful PowerPoint slides
  • picture placeholders

Don't feel limited, and build whatever you want to with these attractive slides for PPT.

8. Nayyara PowerPoint Template for Beauty Services

8. Nayyara - Attractive PowerPoint Template for Beauty Services

If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, then we can all agree that this soft PowerPoint template is beautiful. The classic and ornate font, coupled with the lovely color palette, will help you put together a dreamy PowerPoint presentation. It features:

  • 25 great-looking PowerPoint presentation slides
  • easy drag-and-drop editing
  • fully customizable elements
  • professional and cute PowerPoint design

Grab this attractive template to elevate your presentation.

9. ROSE BEAUTY: Attractive Slides for PPT

9. ROSE BEAUTY - Attractive Slides for PPT

Talk about stunning graphics! The pops of color against a white background make this template an eye-catcher. This makes it the ultimate presentation template for marketing endeavors or any other line of work that requires sleek content blocks and unique, attractive slides for PPT. As for its features:

  • 30 pretty PPT template slides
  • thousands of ready-to-use icons

10. Qoreo: Beautiful PowerPoint Slides for Businesses

10. Qoreo - Beautiful PowerPoint Slides for Businesses

Creating a stunning presentation from the ground up can be an uphill task. But with the Qoreo beautiful presentation template, you'll have a leg up on the process! Just look at the colors, typography, visual elements, and features:

  • 60 gorgeous PowerPoint template slides
  • RGB color mode
  • two color theme variations
  • vector shape illustrations

They are a gorgeous combination to use for your presentations.

11. Beauty Flowy Slides for a Beautiful PowerPoint Presentation

11. Beauty Flowy - Slides for a Beautiful PowerPoint Presentation

Let's start with the features:

  • 150+ cute PPT background slides
  • pre-made colors
  • handcrafted design
  • pixel-perfect illustrations

These are only a fraction of the features you'll get if you download this beautiful PowerPoint presentation template. Astonish the crowd with how functional and beautiful your design is with Beauty Flow.

12. Karina PowerPoint Template

12. Karina - Attractive PowerPoint Template

Neutral colors can be beautiful, and there's no greater testament to that than the Karina PowerPoint template. But it's more than meets the eye. It has:

  • 30 unique pretty PowerPoint template slides
  • drag-and-drop features
  • documentation

13. Freshness Modern PowerPoint Template

13. Freshness Modern - Beautiful Powerpoint Template

This beautiful PowerPoint template is the true representation of fresh. Show your outdoorsy and green side with its attractive PPT slides. You can customize them easily to breathe life and visual interest into your presentation. Download it today and work with one of the most beautiful PowerPoint templates on the market with the best features:

  • 35 unique pretty slide templates

14. Yolanda Attractive PPT Slides

14. Yolanda – Attractive PPT Slides

Beautiful can mean dainty and sweet. Explore this side of the aesthetic spectrum with the Yolanda PowerPoint Template. The best part is that it can be very versatile. Use its attractive PPT slides for your creative agencies, personal portfolios, product showcases, or other related areas. The features are worth it:

  • PPT and PPTX files
  • 36 cute PowerPoint design slides
  • easy editing
  • full customization options

15. Aizel Beautiful PPT Template

15. Aizel - Beautiful PPT Template

Wonder no more about how to make a pretty PowerPoint presentation. Meet Aizel. It has a sophisticated and ethereal beauty both inside and out. Just take a look at the features:

  • more than 30 great-looking PowerPoint presentation slides
  • image placeholders
  • quick to customize

Its clean design and minimalist look make it the perfect blank canvas for all your projects. Impress your clients, audience, investors, and whomever else with this nice PPT template.

16. Luminate PPT Template for Fashion and Beauty

16. Luminate - Attractive PPT Template for Fashion and Beauty

You'll illuminate the room if you bring out this attractive PPT template in your presentation. Customize it to your liking to make a stunning presentation. You can showcase your finances, company, fashion blog, top-quality products, technology business, and more, thanks to its incredible features:

  • 12 cute PPT background files
  • 3 pre-made color schemes
  • widescreen and standard aspect ratios

17. WindWard PowerPoint Template

17. WindWard - Beautiful PowerPoint Template

Do you like black-and-white presentations? If you do and you're searching for a good-looking option, go for WindWard: hands down the most beautiful PowerPoint template in black and white. It comes with:

  • PowerPoint and Keynote files
  • more than 80 pretty PowerPoint template slides
  • beautiful project galleries
  • stunning timelines

Who wouldn't want this pretty slide template?

18. Mirage: Attractive Presentation Slides

18. Mirage - Attractive Presentation Slides

No, you're not looking at an optical illusion. It is that beautiful. This is Mirage. It's clean and elegant, and the black, gray, and golden tones give it an Art Deco look. Give an extra oomph to your presentation with its features:

  • 100 unique beautiful PowerPoint theme slides
  • 10 pre-made color variations
  • creative infographics and mind maps
  • awesome icons

19. Minimal Maska: Beautiful Slides for Beautiful Presentations

19. Minimal Maska - Beautiful Slides for Beautiful Presentations

This is a minimalist, attractive PowerPoint template in grayscale. This means you can do absolutely anything with it. Its versatility is what makes it beautiful. Get ready to make an impactful presentation with help from this awesome template and its features:

  • more than 35 pretty PPT template slides
  • easily editable data charts

20. Arsanty Attractive Slides for PPT

20. Arsanty - Attractive Slides for PPT

Subtle color blocking? Yes! Elegant and modern? Yes! Versatile and interesting? Yes! You can turn this amazing PowerPoint template into whatever you want. But whatever you need it for, you can bet that the result will be beautiful with these attractive slides for PPT. Download this gorgeous PowerPoint template to get:

21. ARTILA Attractive Presentation Slides

21. ARTILA - Attractive Presentation Slides

Even though its design is fairly simple, it's unforgettable. Artila has a sophisticated look and feel. It's easy on the eyes and ready to spread your message accurately. Download these attractive presentation slides and experience the full power of its features:

  • 30 beautiful PowerPoint theme slides
  • 5 pre-made color schemes
  • professional, modern, and pretty design

It's the definitive answer to the question of how to make a PowerPoint presentation attractive.

22. Fashion: Beautiful Slides for PowerPoint

22. Fashion - Beautiful Slides for Powerpoint

Are you starting a high-fashion business, brand, or product? If you are, pair your message with these fashionable slides for PowerPoint. You'll create a striking presentation. Its professional design, eye-catching fonts, and avant-garde styling will make the statement you need. It also features:

  • 60 great-looking PowerPoint presentation slides
  • print-ready format

23. Bohement Attractive Slides for PPT

23. Bohement - Attractive Slides for PPT

It's the details on this one. Take a look at the borders, text arrangement, and smart use of color. Bohement pays attention to the small things that make a PowerPoint template great. Better yet, you don't need any special skills or software knowledge to make these attractive slides for PPT your own. The template offers:

  • more than 150 pretty PPT template slides
  • 5 pre-made color variations

24. Princess Beautiful PowerPoint Slides

24. Princess - Beautiful PowerPoint Slides

A quick look, and you'll see why this is one of the most beautiful PowerPoint template designs for 2024. You'll get a sleek and thoughtful design on every slide. Plus:

  • 25 pretty PowerPoint template slides

You can also edit the beautiful PowerPoint slides to include your own photos, text, brand, and message.

25. Arcobaleno PPT Template for a Beautiful Presentation

25. Arcobaleno - Attractive PPT Template for a Beautiful Presentation

A gorgeous combination of watercolors comes in to end this list of the most beautiful PowerPoint templates with a bang! Arcobaleno perfectly mixes an explosion of colors with an ethereal feel. Take advantage of this attractive PPT template and its features to create a beautiful presentation:

  • 6 PPTX files
  • 20 cute PowerPoint design slides
  • 3 color themes

How to Make Beautiful PowerPoint Presentations Quickly

Templates are a major advance when you're building a nice PPT. Make no mistake, either. They're flexible to  your  content and style. 

In this section, you'll learn how to make a beautiful PowerPoint presentation with customizations. We'll work with the premium Makeit PowerPoint template to create attractive PPT slides.

Makeit nice attractive PPT design

Three slides, three steps. That's all it takes to learn how to make a beautiful PPT presentation. Let's learn more:

1. The Mobile App Slide

App Slide Before in a beautiful ppt template

Building an app? It helps to show it in action so that potential users can imagine using it. Let's customize slide 30 to do that in three steps:

  • Add a device screenshot . Grab an image of your app in action on your device, then transfer it to your computer. Click on the image placeholder icon and browse to the file.
  • Add a title . Type over "App Project Sample" with a quick summary that suits your slide.
  • Add slide details . There are four text boxes that you can use to describe the unique value of your app. Use each one to describe what you bring to the table.

Finished mobile slide in a premium beautiful ppt template

2. The Chart Slide

Chart slide before in a premium beautiful slide

Charts and graphs tell a story. Our template includes several beautiful slides that tell data stories. Let's customize slide 35 with three tweaks:

  • Update data . Right-click on the chart and choose  Edit Data.  You'll see an embedded Excel window pop up. 
  • Add your title and text . Type over Chart Sample and the text box below it. Then, resize the text to make good use of the slide space.
  • Customize the icon boxes . I love the icons in this beautiful presentation template. Use them to your advantage by typing over the three boxes with icon-driven values.

Chart slide after in a premium beautiful ppt template

3. The Contact Slide

Contact Slide before in a premium beautiful PPT template

In any tutorial about how to make a PowerPoint presentation attractive, you'll find that contact details matter! They're the best way to show the audience that you're interested in continuing the conversation. Slide 44 is perfect for the purpose:

  • Add an image . Add a friendly photo of a founder or customer service rep. Click on the image icon, and then browse to a photo to update the slide.
  • Slide title . Type over it with a personalized greeting for your company.
  • Add contact details . Make sure to type over the phone number, address, and email with  your  details.

Contact slide after in a premium beautiful ppt template

5 Design & Style Tips for Beautiful PowerPoint Presentations

Once you’ve chosen your beautiful PowerPoint presentation template, there are a few tips to keep in mind when building your slides. By using these tips, you can stand out from the crowd and ensure audiences engage with your content.

1. Be Bright and Bold

People's eyes are drawn to bright, bold designs. Use contrast to offset individual content blocks. Designs like this are also very readable, which helps when you’re presenting in a large room.

Be Bright and Bold Tip for a beautiful powerpoint presentation

2. Be Brief in Your Beautiful PPT Templates

When designing and styling your slides, don’t forget to consider audience attention spans. Presentations that go on too long aren’t favorably received. Brevity is key if you want to keep viewers focused and interested in your main points.

Edit your slide designs to include fewer elements using the template below:

how to make a powerpoint presentation background

3. Illustrate Your Data to Create an Attractive PowerPoint Presentation

Nothing is duller than talking over numbers. Instead, bring them to life with charts and infographics. Beautiful presentations don’t just include words and images. They also deliver stunning data visualizations that make tough concepts understandable.

Illustrate Your Data for a beautiful powerpoint presentation

Want to learn more about using charts and graphs to show your data? Use the tutorial below to learn how to make a pretty PowerPoint with the right information:

4. Add Even More Imagery in Your Attractive Templates for PPT

I'll make a bold statement: the best way to create nice PPT slides is to add more images. Audiences love visuals, and Envato Elements gives you unlimited stock photo access .

If you're learning how to make a beautiful PowerPoint presentation, don't forget this tip! A good image can tie a slide together and illustrate points visually.

Learn to master the art of working with images and how to make a PowerPoint presentation attractive with this tutorial:

how to make a powerpoint presentation background

5. Incorporate Your Branding in All Your Nice PPT Templates

Branding includes your color scheme, logo, and more. When you start with an attractive template for PPT, you'll need to take a few steps to match the pre-made design to your color scheme.

To recolor a PPT template, click on a shape. Then, choose the Format  option on the ribbon. Choose a new color on the  Shape Fill  drop-down to change the active shape's color. Take this step a few times, and your PowerPoint will match your brand.

Markit Branding Specific for a beautiful powerpoint presentation

5 Beautiful PowerPoint PPT Slide Design Trends for 2024

Want to know how to make a PowerPoint presentation attractive? Want to create stunning presentations and add only the most up-to-date PowerPoint design trends for 2024? I've collected a list of five of the most impactful designs for an attractive PowerPoint presentation:

1. Minimalist Approach

One of the most popular trends for beautiful PowerPoint slides is taking the minimalist approach. Having a few well-defined elements on each slide creates a modern and fresh look. The spacing of the elements also plays a role in the minimalist style. Each element is comfortably spaced and gives the design a polished look.

CLEAN Powerpoint, an attractive template for ppt

2. Classic Black & White

The classic black and white theme is timeless. If you're looking to make a statement with your PowerPoint presentation, a black and white color scheme can really help. Also, including a touch of color in your images can help your beautiful presentation pop. 

Creature - Powerpoint, an attractive template for ppt

3. Overlaid Colors

Overlaying a solid color on your slide and turning down the opacity works wonders. It adds a more polished look and lets you show off your brand's colors. Using one or two colors per slide works well. 

Analysiz Powerpoint, an attractive template for ppt

4. Include Skill Bars

One common trend that's become very popular is the use of skill bars. These skill bars can show an employee's expertise in a specific field. Or use them to show the progress of a particular project. Regardless of what role they play in your beautiful presentation, they'll make for a visually appealing element that your audience will love. 

how to make a powerpoint presentation background

5. Visually Appealing Charts & Graphs

Charts and graphs are another design trend that's stood the test of time. Include a wide range of colored charts and graphs to make any presentation more interesting. Charts also give you a chance to give a more detailed explanation to your audience to help them better understand what your project is about. 

how to make a powerpoint presentation background

Common PowerPoint Template Questions Answered (FAQ)

Are you still learning how to make a beautiful PowerPoint presentation? Have no fear, we've got you covered. Let's help you tackle five questions I bet you're asking as a beginner:

1. What's the Best Way to Show Data in PowerPoint?

If you want to build nice slides, don't clutter them with too much data shown in tables.

Instead, opt to build charts and graphs. They show data but make it easy to read. Learn how to use those features and use the templates below: 

how to make a powerpoint presentation background

2. How Do You Create Backgrounds for PowerPoint?

Many users want to learn how to make a beautiful PowerPoint presentation with great graphics. And if you already know an app like Photoshop, you can bring the two tools together with a few settings.

Learn how to pair Photoshop and PowerPoint to create perfectly sized backgrounds below:

how to make a powerpoint presentation background

3. What's a Good Way to End Your Presentation?

Rookie presenters too often default to saying "thank you" to wrap up a presentation. Simple slides like this aren't a step to take to make a beautiful PowerPoint presentation.

If you want more ideas to conclude your presentation, we've got you covered:

how to make a powerpoint presentation background

4. How Can You Track Changes by Others in PowerPoint?

Want to make your slides nicer? You need to ask for a bit of collaboration. That's much easier when you keep good track of the changes they've made to your presentation.

Using PowerPoint's built-in  track changes  feature makes it much easier. Learn how to do just that with the help of this article:

how to make a powerpoint presentation background

5. Does PowerPoint Support 3D Designs?

Maybe you want to see some design depth in your presentation. Flat graphics just don't do your content justice. Luckily, with the help of templates, PowerPoint allows for pseudo-3D designs.

Want to learn how to make a beautiful PowerPoint presentation with 3D pyramids and shapes? Check out our tutorial:

how to make a powerpoint presentation background

Learn More About PowerPoint

Do you still need to know how to make a PowerPoint presentation attractive? The templates and tips above are more than enough to help you create a professional PowerPoint presentation. But you'll still need to know the basics of how to use the PowerPoint software. 

For starters, check out this in-depth guide on how to use the software. You can check out our other tutorials on learning the basics of Microsoft PowerPoint: 

how to make a powerpoint presentation background

Build Beautiful PowerPoint Presentations in 2024

We’ve looked at 25 beautiful template options, learned some fundamental design tips, and discovered how to make a pretty PowerPoint. Now it’s time for you to get started building amazing PowerPoint presentations with these stunning templates. 

Be sure to check out Envato Elements to find your very own stunning PowerPoint templates . And then, it’s as easy as dropping in your own content. Beautiful presentations win any time—go build one today!

Andrew Childress

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how to make a powerpoint presentation background

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Create your presentation Create personalized presentation content

Writing tone, number of slides, futuristic background.

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Spring Woods presentation template

Spring Woods

Download the "Spring Woods" presentation for PowerPoint or Google Slides and start impressing your audience with a creative and original design. Slidesgo templates like this one here offer the possibility to convey a concept, idea or topic in a clear, concise and visual way, by using different graphic resources. You...

Eco-Friendly Minitheme presentation template

Eco-Friendly Minitheme

Speaking about taking care of the environment is always a good idea, and with this Eco-Friendly Minitheme you can assure that your audience knows about recycling, bio products, the problems of plastic, and the solutions to lessen the impacts of global warming. The slides have cute abstract and floral illustration...

Yellow Abstract Marketing Theme presentation template

Yellow Abstract Marketing Theme

Download the "Yellow Abstract Marketing Theme" presentation for PowerPoint or Google Slides and take your marketing projects to the next level. This template is the perfect ally for your advertising strategies, launch campaigns or report presentations. Customize your content with ease, highlight your ideas and captivate your audience with a...

Consequences of the Vietnam War Thesis Defense presentation template

Consequences of the Vietnam War Thesis Defense

Download the Consequences of the Vietnam War Thesis Defense presentation for PowerPoint or Google Slides. Congratulations, you have finally finished your research and made it to the end of your thesis! But now comes the big moment: the thesis defense. You want to make sure you showcase your research in...

Colorful Theme presentation template

Colorful Theme

Download the Colorful Theme presentation for PowerPoint or Google Slides and start impressing your audience with a creative and original design. Slidesgo templates like this one here offer the possibility to convey a concept, idea or topic in a clear, concise and visual way, by using different graphic resources. You...

Team Building Class for Elementary presentation template

Team Building Class for Elementary

Your students spend most of their days at school, so building a good atmosphere in the class is vital for their happiness. Why don’t you dedicate a day to team building activities? This will help new students make friends and older students create deeper relationships with their classmates. It that...

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how to make a powerpoint presentation background

Free background templates for PowerPoint

You can create memorable and attractive presentations by using many of the templates that come with PowerPoint. Use the picture, shape, and graphic effects in these templates to add colorful, elegant, or playful backgrounds to your presentation.

how to make a powerpoint presentation background

Use a PowerPoint template with backgrounds to start a new presentation

To find a template with background images to begin a new presentation, do the following:

Click File > New .

In the search box, do one of the following:

To browse a wide range of templates with backgrounds, search for "Backgrounds."

For the background images shown above and more, search for the template called "Backgrounds for PowerPoint slides."

For backgrounds specific to a theme, search on a keyword, such as "mountains."

Click a template thumbnail, preview the slides by clicking the forward and back arrows, and then click Create when you find the template you want.

Note:  You may want to use only a few of the slides from the template in your presentation. To remove the other slides from your presentation, press and hold CTRL, click the slides that you don't want, and then press Delete .

For more information on how to apply a template to a new presentation, see the article Apply a template to a new presentation .

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How to Make a “Good” Presentation “Great”

  • Guy Kawasaki

how to make a powerpoint presentation background

Remember: Less is more.

A strong presentation is so much more than information pasted onto a series of slides with fancy backgrounds. Whether you’re pitching an idea, reporting market research, or sharing something else, a great presentation can give you a competitive advantage, and be a powerful tool when aiming to persuade, educate, or inspire others. Here are some unique elements that make a presentation stand out.

  • Fonts: Sans Serif fonts such as Helvetica or Arial are preferred for their clean lines, which make them easy to digest at various sizes and distances. Limit the number of font styles to two: one for headings and another for body text, to avoid visual confusion or distractions.
  • Colors: Colors can evoke emotions and highlight critical points, but their overuse can lead to a cluttered and confusing presentation. A limited palette of two to three main colors, complemented by a simple background, can help you draw attention to key elements without overwhelming the audience.
  • Pictures: Pictures can communicate complex ideas quickly and memorably but choosing the right images is key. Images or pictures should be big (perhaps 20-25% of the page), bold, and have a clear purpose that complements the slide’s text.
  • Layout: Don’t overcrowd your slides with too much information. When in doubt, adhere to the principle of simplicity, and aim for a clean and uncluttered layout with plenty of white space around text and images. Think phrases and bullets, not sentences.

As an intern or early career professional, chances are that you’ll be tasked with making or giving a presentation in the near future. Whether you’re pitching an idea, reporting market research, or sharing something else, a great presentation can give you a competitive advantage, and be a powerful tool when aiming to persuade, educate, or inspire others.

how to make a powerpoint presentation background

  • Guy Kawasaki is the chief evangelist at Canva and was the former chief evangelist at Apple. Guy is the author of 16 books including Think Remarkable : 9 Paths to Transform Your Life and Make a Difference.

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How to Create Moving Backgrounds in PowerPoint (Step-by-Step)

  • PowerPoint Tutorials
  • December 3, 2017

In this tutorial, I’ll show you how to combine two PowerPoint animation tricks together to create moving backgrounds for your images in PowerPoint.

Animation trick #1: A combination of the Fly In and Split animations to create an interesting reveal effect.

Animation Trick #2 (Bonus):  How to use a motion path on a background image to create a rolling background effect/

In the example I build out in this tutorial, I’ll show you how to reveal a majestic tower against a bright blue sky and then make the sky move in the background.

See the looping graphic below.

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[Watch] Create Moving Backgrounds Tutorial

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To learn more about creating PowerPoint backgrounds, and where you can get free ones, read our guide here .

Part #1: Setting up your picture

1. find a picture with good contrast.

The first step in this PowerPoint animation tutorial is to find a picture that has a nice clean contrast with the background (you don’t want your center object to be touching anything or blending into the background).

For this example, I’m going to use the picture of the tower below.

PowerPoint Reveal Animation Trick Part 1 Step #1 - Finding the right Picture

2. Remove the picture’s background

With your tower (or other image) selected, in PowerPoint 2010 or PowerPoint 2013, navigate to the Picture Tools Format Tab, and select Remove Background.

PowerPoint Reveal Animation Trick Part 1 Step #2A - Remove Picture Background

To remove the background, you want to adjust the frame around the center object of your picture, in this case the tower. The purple area is what will be removed from the image; the colored area is what will remain within the image.

Depending on your picture, you might need to use the “Mark Areas to Keep” and “Mark Areas to Remove” commands to correctly remove the background.

Once the background is all purple, select keep changes.

PowerPoint Reveal Animation Trick Part 1 Step #2B - Remove Picture Background

Once you are done removing the background, you should be left with just the center object of your picture.

PowerPoint Reveal Animation Trick Part 1 Step #2C - Remove Picture Background

Part #2: Building your reveal animation framework

1. turn on the g ridlines.

PowerPoint Reveal Animation Trick Part 2 Step #1 - Turn On the PowerPoint Gridlines

2. Frame your picture

PowerPoint Reveal Animation Trick Part 2 Step #2A - Frame the Picture

3. Adding your background image

PowerPoint Reveal Animation Trick Part 2 Step #3 - Send Picture to the Back

4. Stretch your background image

PowerPoint Reveal Animation Trick Part 2 Step #4A - Stretch Out the Picture

5. Fill in the left side of your slide

PowerPoint Reveal Animation Trick Part 2 Step #5A - Insert a Rectangle

6. Group the sky with the background rectangle

PowerPoint Reveal Animation Trick Part 2 Step #6 - Group the Sky and Tower

7. Duplicate your slide

how to make a powerpoint presentation background

8. Crop your background image

PowerPoint Reveal Animation Trick Part 2 Step #8 - Crop the Background Image

Part 3: Adding the PowerPoint animations

1. add the fly in animation to move your background.

PowerPoint Reveal Animation Trick Part 3 Step #1 - Add the Fly In Animation

2. Add effect options to the Fly In animation

PowerPoint Reveal Animation Trick Part 3 Step #2A- Fly In Effect Option Right

3. Open the Animations Pane and adjust the Fly In animations

PowerPoint Reveal Animation Trick Part 3 Step #3A - Open the Animations Pane

4. Add a Split animation

PowerPoint Reveal Animation Trick Part 3 Step #4A - Add the Split Animation

  • Set the animation to Start With Previous so that it lines up with the frame animations we previously set
  • Set the Duration to .5 seconds
  • Set the Delay to 1.0 seconds

PowerPoint Reveal Animation Trick Part 3 Step #4C - Adjust the Animation Settings

5. Add a black background to the right side of the second slide

PowerPoint Reveal Animation Trick Part 3 Step #5 - Add a Black Foreground

6. Adding a Motion Path to the background image

PowerPoint Reveal Animation Trick Part 3 Step #6A - Ungroup

7. Add a screen on the left side of the slide

PowerPoint Reveal Animation Trick Part 3 Step #7 - Add a Black Rectangle on the Left

Bonus moving background tricks

1. copy and paste the sky animation.

Bonus Window PowerPoint Animation Trick Step #1 - Copy and Paste the Sky Animation

2. Copy and paste the Sky animation

Bonus Window PowerPoint Animation Trick Step #2 - Find a Window Frame

3. Extend the window frame across the slide

Bonus Window PowerPoint Animation Trick Step #3 - Extend The Window Across the Slide

4. Remove the window

Bonus Window PowerPoint Animation Trick Step #4A - Remove the Window

5. Change the color tone of the sky

As you can see, what’s great about these techniques is that you can reuse these pieces or swap the out for others once you make them.

You can add a different sky (or a different background entirely) behind the window or the tower, for instance, once you have the background removed.

Or, you can use the sky with another window, such as a plane window, for example. You can also change the picture you’re revealing – so you can replace the tower picture for anything else that’s the same size if you add the same Split animation with the same timings.

Play around with these yourselves and see what other combinations you can come up with! If you enjoyed this tutorial, you can learn more ways to boost your PowerPoint skills here .

What’s next?

Related articles, about the author.

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Microsoft 365 Life Hacks > Organization > How to turn your paper into a presentation

How to turn your paper into a presentation

To make your information and findings more accessible, you might need to transform an academic or white paper into a slideshow presentation. Whether you’re a student presenting your research, a professional conveying a proposal, or someone simply looking to share ideas, turning a paper into a presentation is much easier than it seems. See how you can seamlessly transition from written content to a captivating presentation.

Man giving a virtual presentation

Why turn your paper into a presentation?

How can you turn pages of dense text into an easily digestible PowerPoint ? By knowing your audience and the key points of your work, you can easily create a compelling way to convey your research and findings.

Academic and corporate papers are dense, usually written in jargon, and might be dozens of pages long—which can be a detriment in conveying your information, research, and findings to a widespread audience. If you need to make a presentation in front of a class or company meeting, it can be effective to distill your work into slides that merely touch upon the key points onscreen, while giving you enough room to further delve into detail before moving on to the next slide. See more ways you can create successful presentations .

Tell your story with captivating presentations Banner

Tell your story with captivating presentations

Powerpoint empowers you to develop well-designed content across all your devices

Tips for turning your paper into a presentation

  • Understand your audience: Whether the people you’re presenting to come from a technical background, or you’re introducing a new subject to an audience that might be unfamiliar with your topic, knowing who you are speaking to will guide your content choices, tone, and overall approach to your presentation.
  • Know what to read aloud: The key difference between a paper and a presentation is that you’ll be reading the latter out loud, usually in a natural and conversational tone. This means that you’ll need to pay attention to what you need to say out loud, which can entail rewriting major passages, condensing text into talking points, and eliminating jargon so you won’t stumble over your words.
  • Summarize key points : Understanding the gist and overall point of each section of your paper is key to knowing how to divide your paper into different slides. Start with the headers for each section of your paper, which is an easy shortcut to summarizing your topics per slide.
  • Develop a structure: A paper and a presentation have different ways of conveying information, and a presentation needs to capture attention in more direct ways—especially if your audience is unfamiliar with your subject. Begin with an introduction that grabs your audience’s attention, followed by the main body containing your key points, and conclude with a summary or call to action.
  • Use speaker notes: In PowerPoint, you can add speaker notes to the bottom of a slide that can help you remember what you need to cover. These will show up on your device or monitor, but they won’t appear to your audience. Therefore, they can be immensely helpful to store talking points that you might otherwise forget. You can put elements of your paper in here that might be too unwieldy to mention out loud here, which can also demonstrate how well-versed in the subject you are.
  • Add visuals and interactive elements: One of the most effective ways to captivate your audience is through compelling visuals. Create slides that complement your key points with images, graphs, and charts. These might be taken from your paper itself, or you can take the chance to reinterpret your data into graphs that can illustrate your point more effectively than in your text.
  • Seek feedback: Unlike turning in a paper, when you deliver a presentation, you have the unique opportunity to seek feedback from your peers and audience. Take constructive criticism with valuable insights that can generate feedback to iterate and refine your presentations.

Turning a paper into a presentation allows you to summarize key points, add visuals that enhance your work, and allow you to reach a wider audience. Presenting takes a wide variety of skills, so it’s worth checking out presentation tips on how to handle public speaking , design captivating presentations , or use common guidelines to create a compelling presenting session .

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COMMENTS

  1. How to Change the Background in Microsoft PowerPoint

    Once your slides are selected, in PowerPoint's ribbon at the top, click the "Design" tab. On the "Design" tab, from the "Customize" section, select "Format Background." To the right of PowerPoint's interface, you will see a "Format Background" pane. Here, in the "Fill" section, you will select a custom background for your slides.

  2. Change the background of slides

    Format the slide background with a photo. On the ribbon, select the Design tab. At the far-right end, select Format Background. The Format Background pane opens on the right side of the window. Under Fill, select Picture or texture fill. Under Picture Source, select Insert. Choose where you want to get the image from, then navigate to the image ...

  3. How To Create The Best PowerPoint Presentation Background

    How to add a background in PowerPoint - the right-click method. Method 2 - the Design tab option. To access this option, go to the Design tab on the ribbon. On the far right side, you will see the Format Background option. Clicking it will open the Format Background pane on the right side of your screen.

  4. Add a background picture to slides

    Insert a background picture on a slide. Right-click the margin of the slide and then select Format Background. In the Format Background pane, choose Picture or texture fill. (This option is unavailable if you haven't Copied a picture.) To adjust the picture's relative lightness, slide the Transparency bar to the right.

  5. How to create a PowerPoint template: Make your own slide background (1

    Watch over my shoulder and learn how to create a PowerPoint template from scratch - starting with your slide master and creating your own slide backgrounds. ...

  6. Add a background picture to your slides

    Select Design > Format Background. OR. Right-click the margin of slide and select Format Background . In the Format Background pane, select Picture or texture fill. Select File. In the Insert Picture dialog box, choose the picture you want to use and then select Insert. Note: PowerPoint resizes the image to fill the entire slide background.

  7. How to Use an Image as the Background in PowerPoint

    When you're ready, open the PowerPoint presentation that you would like to add a background image to. Once open, head over to the "Design" tab. In the "Customize" group, select the "Format Background" button. The "Format Background" pane will appear on the right-hand side of the window. Here, select "Picture Or Texture Fill ...

  8. PowerPoint Backgrounds: How to Make Your Presentations Pop

    4. Click on the arrow next to the Color button. A new window with the color palette will appear. 5. Select your color. Click More Colors… if you can't find the color you're looking for and to apply more nuanced shades.. 6. Use the Transparency slider to change the opacity of your color. The further you move the slider to the right, the more transparent the background color becomes.

  9. How To Create the Best PowerPoint Presentation Background

    Here's how you get started: Same as above, right-click on the slide and select Format Background. Then navigate to Fill and select Gradient Fill. You can now select the colors of the gradient and customize the direction, angle, and more. You can also add, delete or tweak the preset gradient stops.

  10. How to Change the Background of Slides: PowerPoint & Google

    Changing the Background in PowerPoint. Select the slide you want to change and click the Design tab. Click Format Background and click Fill. You can change the background to Solid, Gradient, Picture or Texture or Pattern. To apply the background to all slides, click Apply to All. Method 1.

  11. PowerPoint Backgrounds (Everything You Need To Get Started)

    To turn your PowerPoint file into the ZIP file format, simply: Find the presentation file on your computer with the picture you'd like to extract. Make a copy of the file. Change the extension to a ZIP file (rename it from "your file name.pptx" to "your file name.zip") You'll be asked if you really want to do this.

  12. How to Add Background Graphics to Powerpoint (with Pictures)

    1. Open your PowerPoint presentation. You can add graphics to the background of any slide in your PowerPoint presentation. Open the presentation you want to edit in PowerPoint. 2. Click the Design tab at the top of the window. This will display the Design tools. 3. Click the "Format Background" button.

  13. PowerPoint: Apply a Background to All Slides at Once

    1. Launch PowerPoint, and open the presentation you want to edit from the Backstage view. 2. Once the file is loaded, right-click on any slide's background, and choose Format Background from the context menu. You can also get to the Format Background section from the Design tab on the ribbon. 3.

  14. How To Create a PowerPoint Presentation

    "Learn how to create an engaging PowerPoint presentation from start to finish! In this tutorial, we cover everything you need to know, from basic slide creat...

  15. Need Powerpoint Backgrounds? 14 Sources to Check Out [+ Freebies]

    Step 1: Start PowerPoint, click on File and select New. This will open a series of preinstalled PowerPoint templates and themes options. Step 2: Click on open. Step 3: Locate your saved background file, double click to open it, and there you have it.

  16. How to make a custom background for the PowerPoint slide

    4. To add a background picture, right-click on an empty slide and choose Format Background... in the popup menu: 5. On the Format Background pane, in the Fill & Line group, in the Fill section: Select Picture or texture fill. Click on the File... button and choose the picture you prefer: Add any other adjustments you would like.

  17. Video: Backgrounds in PowerPoint

    Let's start from scratch and add a colorful or subtle background to a PowerPoint slide. Also, how to match a color from an image, and a few design tips about backgrounds. Backgrounds: First steps. If you want to start from scratch, just right-click on a blank part of the slide. Click Format Background and a menu appears on the right-hand side ...

  18. PowerPoint design templates

    Create captivating, informative content for PowerPoint in just a few minutes—no graphic design experience needed. Here's how: 1. Find the perfect PowerPoint template. Search for anything—type of template, image, color, —or take a look around by browsing the catalog. Select the template that fits you best, from pitch decks to data ...

  19. 10 Simple PowerPoint Backgrounds for Better Presentations

    How to format PowerPoint backgrounds on Venngage. Step 1: Sign in or create an account. Go to Venngage and sign in to your account or create a new one if you haven't already. Step 2: Choose a template. Navigate to the "Templates" section and select "Presentations" from the available options.

  20. 25 Pretty PPT Templates for an Attractive PowerPoint Presentation (2024

    These are 25 of the most gorgeous PowerPoint templates, and you can find many more right here: 1. Classy PPT Template. Classy is a fitting name for this attractive PPT template. View some of its beautiful slides in the image gallery above. This beautiful PPT background for PowerPoint is very Classy.

  21. Free Background Google Slides and PowerPoint templates

    Download the Background Infographics presentation for PowerPoint or Google Slides. If you are planning your next workshop and looking for ways to make it memorable for your audience, don't go anywhere. ... Download the "Yellow Abstract Marketing Theme" presentation for PowerPoint or Google Slides and take your marketing projects to the next ...

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

    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.

  23. Free background templates for PowerPoint

    Click File > New. To browse a wide range of templates with backgrounds, search for "Backgrounds." For the background images shown above and more, search for the template called "Backgrounds for PowerPoint slides." For backgrounds specific to a theme, search on a keyword, such as "mountains." Click a template thumbnail, preview the slides by ...

  24. How to Make a "Good" Presentation "Great"

    Summary. A strong presentation is so much more than information pasted onto a series of slides with fancy backgrounds. Whether you're pitching an idea, reporting market research, or sharing ...

  25. How to Create Moving Backgrounds in PowerPoint (Step-by-Step)

    With the animated sky now all set up, you can quickly reuse it to additionally create a moving sky background outside of a window. 1. Copy and paste the Sky animation. Copy and paste the sky animation from the previous slide onto a new slide. 2. Copy and paste the Sky animation.

  26. How to turn your paper into a presentation

    To make your information and findings more accessible, you might need to transform an academic or white paper into a slideshow presentation. Whether you're a student presenting your research, a professional conveying a proposal, or someone simply looking to share ideas, turning a paper into a presentation is much easier than it seems.

  27. Scientific Research Poster. Free Poster Template

    Background remover . Click to remove image backgrounds, perfect for product photos, headshots, or transparent PNGs. ... Download your presentation as a PowerPoint template or use it online as a Google Slides theme. 100% free, no registration or download limits. Content. PowerPoint; Google Slides; Canva;