How to make a presentation without PowerPoint
No Office licence, a borrowed laptop, or just a deck due in an hour. Here is how to go from notes to a designed PPTX, check it and present it, all in the browser.
· 4 min read
You need a deck by this afternoon and there is no PowerPoint on the machine in front of you. Maybe the licence ran out, maybe it is a school laptop, maybe you simply do not want to spend twenty minutes fighting slide layouts. The good news is that the part that takes time is not the software. It is working out what to say. Once that is on paper, the slides can almost build themselves.
Start with the outline, not the slides
Most bad presentations start in the slide editor: a blank title slide, a template picked for its colours, then an hour of nudging text boxes. Start the other way round. Write what you want to say as a plain outline, the way you would scribble it on a notepad:
# Why we are changing suppliers
- Deliveries late in 4 of the last 6 months
- Prices up 12% since January
- New supplier: next-day delivery, fixed prices for two years
# What it costs
18% | lower yearly spend
2 weeks | switchover
Each heading is a slide. The bullets under it are what goes on that slide. If a slide has more than five bullets, it is two slides.
Turn the outline into a deck
Paste the outline into Outline to PPTX. Every heading becomes a slide, and what sits under it decides the layout: a plain list goes into a card, lines like 18% | lower yearly spend become big number cards, numbered steps become a timeline, a | b | c rows become a table, and three or more January: 120 lines turn into a chart. A title slide, section dividers and a closing slide are added for you.
A few things worth knowing:
- A line starting with
>is a speaker note. It is saved into the file and only you see it while presenting. - A heading with no bullets in the middle of the outline becomes a section divider.
- A heading like "Thank you" or "Questions" at the end becomes the closing slide.
Pick a design, check the preview and download a PPTX. It opens in PowerPoint, LibreOffice Impress and Google Slides, so whoever receives it can keep working on it with whatever they have.
Finish it by hand
Generated slides get you most of the way. For the rest, open the deck in the Presentation editor: add photos and logos, adjust a chart, set transitions between slides or make a bullet appear on click. It works like the editor you already know: drag objects, resize by the corners, align, group, copy formatting with the painter brush.
If you would rather start from something finished, the editor also has ready decks, such as a company overview, a product launch, a project status report and a training session, with text, tables and charts you replace with your own.
Check it before the room does
The mistakes that embarrass you in a meeting are easy to miss on a laptop screen. Drop the finished PPTX into the Presentation checker and it goes through the deck slide by slide:
- Type too small to read from the back of the room (below 14 points by default).
- Overloaded slides, past seven lines or 400 characters, where people read instead of listening.
- Objects running off the edge, which get cut off when projected.
- Images without a description, which screen readers skip.
It reports what it finds and leaves the fix to you. None of it is about taste, only about things you can measure.
Present it
On the day, you do not need PowerPoint to present either. The PPTX viewer opens the deck in the browser: F for full screen, the arrow keys to move on, N for your speaker notes, P to let it play by itself on a loop. That last one is handy for a screen at a stand or a reception desk.
All of it, from generating to checking to presenting, runs in your browser. The deck is not uploaded anywhere.
Frequently asked questions
Will the PPTX open in PowerPoint?
Yes. The file is a standard PPTX and opens in PowerPoint, LibreOffice Impress and Google Slides, with the text and shapes still editable.
Can I change the design after generating?
Yes. Switch the design in the generator and the whole deck updates, or open it in the presentation editor and change individual slides.
Do I need an account?
No. Generating, editing, checking and presenting all work without an account. Some premium designs and templates need Premium or a day pass to download.
Is my presentation uploaded to a server?
No. Everything runs in your browser, which also means it keeps working when the Wi-Fi in the meeting room does not.
How many bullets should a slide have?
Three to five. If you need more, split the slide. The checker flags anything past seven lines.