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Before PowerPoint: The Evolution of Presentations

Written by: Orana Velarde

When PowerPoint was introduced in 1987, presentations changed forever. It wasn’t long before the presentation software took over and tools like overhead projectors and slide carousels became storage room trash.

Before slides were designed on computers, they were made by hand. It took several days to design a slide deck and it was really expensive.

Back in those days, presentations were visualized with tools like paper flip charts and slide projectors, and these were used in classrooms and meeting rooms all over the world.

RELATED: 100+ Creative Presentation Ideas That Will Delight Your Audience  

Interestingly, the design of the slides resembled the visual styles found in other fields of graphic design from the same time period. The evolution of presentations has followed trends, just like advertisement and fashion.

In this article, we’ll look at how presentations have evolved over time and how they've turned into the slide decks we know today.

Ancient Presentations

By definition, a presentation is a visual tool designed to help a person tell a story. This story can be for various purposes, including educational, entertainment and even business.

Cave paintings were the first of those "visual tools."

Neanderthal cave paintings, considered to be the first instances of art in human history, were created to tell stories of personal experiences.

These stories were handed down to their children with the help of the drawings they had done on the cave walls.

Jumping ahead thousands of years, another example of historic art can be considered a style of presentation. During the middle ages, Gothic cathedrals were lined with grand colorful stained glass windows.

Stained glass windows at Canterbury Cathedral

The images depicted stories from the Bible and the life of Jesus. The purpose of these windows was to visually enrich the sermons and the preachings given to the congregation.

The same teaching practice is seen in Buddhist temples throughout Southeast Asia. There, teachings are found to be painted on the walls of the monks’ learning areas in equally sized rectangles.

What's interesting is that each painting and each window of ancient times can be considered a “vintage presentation slide.”

Chalkboards and Whiteboards

The first purpose of presentations was education. It wasn’t until later that people started using presentations in offices and sales meetings, too.

The first tool used for presenting lessons to students was the well-known chalkboard. In fact, teachers have used chalkboards for hundreds of years to teach many generations of students.

Some teachers wrote as they spoke, while others prepared the boards beforehand. You could say that the latter was the most similar to the kind of presentations we know of today.

Here's a video of a well-known lecture by author Kurt Vonnegut that not only shows how a chalkboard can be a great presentation tool, but also teaches us about the storytelling process itself:

For decades, scientists and mathematicians used chalkboards to present their findings. Their complicated calculations filled large boards. While explaining, they pointed at different sections of the board with a long stick.

The photograph below shows a group of NASA scientists in 1961 showing a photojournalist how they worked out calculations about space exploration.

There are no real calculations on this board, only reference equations. Still, the visual message was delivered. It shows how scientists would present their knowledge and make calculations.

NASA scientists presenting their calculations in 1961

Digital Presentations Inspired by Chalkboards and Whiteboards

The chalkboard will always represent the classroom; in all fields of design. Even today, there are plenty of chalkboard and whiteboard presentation templates available for PowerPoint and other alternatives like Visme .

Ironically, chalkboards are now more popular in bars and restaurants than in the classroom. Whiteboards, on the other hand, are now interactive and still used in classrooms around the world.

Paper Flip Charts and Poster Cards

Another tool commonly used in the classroom for presenting information to students before PowerPoint was the flip chart.

The first flip charts were actually printed posters joined together with metal fasteners. Presenters used to flip over these posters one by one to present and explain each one.

Flip charts were created for visual lessons and could be used repeatedly. Teachers could access these flip charts through the school libraries.

The image below is of an antique flip chart titled Science Charts:

Science Charts an educational flip chart from the 1940s

It was used by teachers for presenting information to the students. It’s full of monochrome illustrations that helped the teacher explain the lessons without the need for a chalkboard.

The flip chart above is from the 1940s, and its design is very similar to the style of the textbooks of the era; monochromatic and very detailed.

Flip charts were also used for business. Their first recorded use for a sales meeting was featured in the book, "The Patterson Principles of Selling", showing John Henry Patterson presenting with two flip charts in 1912.

As an example, here's an image of an antique flip chart used by The Coca-Cola Company that seems to be from around the 1940s:

The Coca-Cola Company's flip chart presentation from the 1940s

As we can see, the flip chart above was used for presenting data about advertising practices and effects in the United States.

Unfortunately, we were unable to find any other images of this flip chart presentation that show the rest of its pages.

The image below shows another interesting example of a flip chart presentation being used in a Chevrolet Sales Meeting in the 1950s:

Chevrolet Sales Meeting using a flip chart in the 1950s

The flip chart can be seen right at the back against the wall, where it was probably used by the presenter to convey information about the brand.

If you look closely, you will notice that the design style of the flip chart resembles the design style of print advertisement of the era.

The image below shows a flip chart presentation from Sherwin Williams:

Sherwin Williams' flip chart presentation on employee benefits

The flip chart above was used as a tool to get employees acquainted with their benefits while being part of the Sherwin Willams family.

This flip chart is from some time around the ’60s or ’70s. The black and white illustrations resemble magazine advertisements of the 1960s.

Printed flip charts like these are sometimes still used in common work areas or employee rest areas.

The image below, for example, shows a flip chart with emergency procedures for a large company:

Flip chart on workplace emergency procedures

Flip charts like these are still used today because they can be easily laminated, hung on a wall and looked at whenever needed. The "slide" design resembles the colorful 90s style of design.

The first paper flip chart was introduced in the 1970s by Peter Kent. The paper flip chart is a large block of white paper sheets clipped on to a freestanding whiteboard.

Presenters can draw or write on a paper flip chart while speaking, or pre-design it with charts, graphs, and illustrations.

Flip charts were mostly used before PowerPoint came along, but they have also become a bit of a cult classic for giving live presentations. Many people still use them and swear by them for their projects.

Here's a quick video tutorial on how to use flip charts and why they might sometimes be better than digital slides:

In the 1960s, between flip charts and projectors, some presentations were visualized with cardboard posters mounted on wooden easels.

In the TV show Mad Men, this presentation technique was seen being used for the pitch meetings in Don Draper’s creative agency.

The video below is a clip from an episode in which Peggy uses large cardboard visuals in a pitch to a Burger Restaurant:

She switches from card to card by moving them over to an easel next to the one before it. In other instances, they would flip the card as a big reveal.

As another example, here is a photograph of a sales meeting at the Oscar Meyer Company. Notice how the men are holding a poster card with a sales data chart and showing it to Mr. Oscar Meyer.

Poster card presentation at Oscar Meyer Company's sales meeting

During the 1900s, chalkboards, flip charts, and poster cards were great tools for presenting knowledge and information — but they were limited.

When educators and salespeople wanted to present in a more engaging and interactive way, they used projectors of different kinds.

The first projector was The Magic Lantern. It used a candle or kerosene lamp to project light through the film transparencies, instead of a light bulb.

When electricity was invented, projectors quickly evolved and so did presentation design. Here is a visual timeline of the evolution of projectors:

The first “slides” were seen in filmstrip presentations. These were short 35 mm film negatives projected either on a wall or with a filmstrip machine.

These machines were controlled by hand with a wheel on the side. This wheel would advance the filmstrip one frame, or "slide", at a time.

Educators had access to prepared filmstrip presentations just how they had access to the scientific flip charts. The prepared filmstrips were usually accompanied by an audio file on a vinyl record.

RELATED: How to Create a Narrated Presentation With Voice Over Using Visme

In other instances, the filmstrips came with a printed text which the teacher would read during the presentation to explain things better.

The audio recordings that accompanied filmstrip presentations had a specific sound prompt to let the teacher know when it was time to change to the next frame/slide. The printed text had written prompts, too.

More modern filmstrip machines had automatic slide movements and a slot for a cassette tape which would play in sync with the filmstrip.

The video below shows how filmstrips were viewed in the classroom during the 1970s. It shows a series of filmstrips created by Disney Studios about getting to school safely, with the help of Winnie the Pooh:

There were many other filmstrips like these available in schools for educating kids on different subject matters.

Slides, Transparencies and the Rise of The Slide Designer

In terms of slide design, the first instances in history where we see actual slide design practices were in the opening and ending credits in movies.

The techniques used for these frames formed the basis for all the slide design techniques that followed. In the 60s and 70s, these techniques were used to create informational filmstrips, much like the one below:

The Hungarian website below has a great collection of filmstrip and slide deck series dated as far back as the 1920s up until the 1980s.

Many of the slide decks in this collection have a similar design; very simple composition of image and text. In some cases, the designs are a bit more complex. But for the most part, they seem more educational than creative.

Hungarian website showcasing old filmstrips and slide decks

Pre-made filmstrips you could get from film studios were great, but they were not always what educators or sales people needed.

This need was the reason for the rise of the slide designer. Teachers started to learn how to create slides and transparencies for their own lessons with the help of videos like the one below:

The video above shows techniques to create transparencies and slides by hand to use on overhead projectors and other types of projectors, which needed different size transparencies.

It's interesting to note that the evolution of these projectors went hand in hand with the evolution of slide design.

Handmade slides and transparencies were great for the classroom, but they were not very practical for use in the business space.

For a sales meeting, transparencies had to be prepared days in advance. They then had to be transported in special protective folders along with the machinery needed to present them.

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To better understand how slide design evolved, it’s necessary to understand the difference between slides and transparencies.

Transparencies are essentially any type of see-through material, like paper or film, through which light is able to pass.

In slide design terms, a transparency is an acetate sheet on which the design is printed on. It's then presented using an overhead projector.

Teachers used overhead projectors in classrooms for a fairly long time during the 70s, 80s and well into the 90s.

They used prepared transparency slides, which they could also write on, and gave lessons with the information projected on a screen or whiteboard.

Overhead projectors were also used for business purposes, such as during meetings with prepared printed transparencies.

Image source

A slide is very similar to the acetate transparency, but much smaller. Each slide is one frame of film cut from a filmstrip and placed inside a plastic or cardboard frame. Slides are photographic negatives, this means that they are photographs of designs prepared first on paper.

A set of slides was presented with a slide projector. The first ones had slide boxes with a manual slider that brought each slide in front of the light bulb.

In 1965, the well-known Kodak Carousel was introduced. It was then that more sophisticated slide designs eventually started to emerge, such as slide transitions and visual effects.

Ironically, the series finale of Mad Men — a TV series about a marketing company in the 1960s — includes a memorable scene in which the main character pitches a marketing idea for the Kodak Carousel.

The Role of the Slide Designer

As slide and transparency projectors became more popular, companies wanted to have their own slide decks for sales meetings and pitches.

The way slides were designed was very similar to the technique behind print advertising . The designs were first put together on white paper using rulers, Exacto knives, rubber cement, and typesetting sheets.

Each slide was designed as a standalone design on a large piece of paper. It had to be proofread and checked for errors until it was just right.

When the large slide designs on paper were ready, they were photographed professionally one by one. The negative filmstrip was then cut slide by slide and framed on the plastic casings.

Designing the slides took many hours of work, which is why slide designers focused mainly on that task. Creative agencies were hired to create slide decks days or weeks ahead of time for a meeting or presentation.

Below is a slide deck for a sales pitch by GE from the 1950s, designed in the way described above:

Advancement of Technology

As technology advanced, so did the evolution of presentations. Slide designers moved from creating slides by hand to creating them on computers with early design programs.

In 1987, when PowerPoint was released, slide designers quickly jumped on board to learn the program and get presentations done faster.

The design style of the first presentations created in PowerPoint was limited by what PowerPoint had to offer. The first ever PowerPoint version was launched for Apple computers in black and white.

Here's what the first ever PowerPoint presentations used to look like:

Users could also change the colors with the help of pre-designed color schemes available in the program.

When PowerPoint first came into the scene , it was only available to those with computers, like advertising and creative agencies.

Even though a finished presentation could be looked at on the computer screen, the designs were still turned into slides for a carousel, transparencies for an overhead, or printed as flip charts.

Computer screens were quite small, so projected slides looked a lot better. In the video below, Microsoft is explaining how PowerPoint worked with the color and storyboard settings:

All About Clip Art

By the mid-90s, computers were well on their way to invading every family home. PowerPoint was the go-to program for making presentations.

Everyone used it — teachers, students, and of course, every company meeting had a PowerPoint presentation.

Back in the 90s, every presentation needed visuals — just like they do now. If the person creating the presentation had some design skills, they could create digital images on Paint and copy them into their PowerPoint slides.

But what most people did was resort to Clip Art for their visuals.

Microsoft's clip art gallery

Clip Art was a bunch of colorful images that came in sets and could be used for any type of digital project.

The first Clip Art collections came in floppy disks and then on CD-ROMs. With the rise of the internet, Clip Art was eventually available online.

In 2014, Microsoft announced that there would be no more Clip Art included in Office software, since most are available online anyway.

Clip art used in Microsoft PowerPoint 2000

Death by PowerPoint

With so many people creating PowerPoint presentations, it wasn’t long before the term “Death by PowerPoint” was coined.

Death by PowerPoint means that a presentation is so boring and poorly designed, the audience has essentially “died” in their seats and aren’t paying attention, much less enjoying themselves.

Much was said about Death by PowerPoint in the early 2000s. It’s still the go-to term when teaching people what NOT to do when creating a PowrPoint presentation.

Not much later, other presentation software started popping up, including Keynote by Apple, Prezi, and Google Slides.

But no matter what software a presenter used, they still had to do their best to avoid “Death by PowerPoint.”

Check out this video by Don McMillan where he gives a humorous talk about Death by PowerPoint and tips on how to avoid it:

Evolution of Presentations: Today and Beyond

With all the presentation software available now, the actual design style of the slides depends greatly on the creator of the presentation.

Presentations made with Prezi, for example, are easy to spot. The zoom in and out animation effect is their visual characteristic.

In the same way, other presentation software has its own unique aspects, making their slides just a little different from the rest.

Not only are there tons of different types of software, there are also thousands of templates available for all platforms.

There are so many different options now that we can’t really point to a single design style. But there are some trends that float to the top every year, which we use as a source of inspiration for our presentations.

At Visme, we make it really easy for you to create presentations that are timeless. With the slide library, you get a good base to work with and it's easy to add your own style.

We also have a great collection of simple background templates, which can be a lifesaver if your creative streak is running low.

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As for the future of presentation design, we are sure to see more interactivity and seamless non-intrusive animations.

We are already starting to see that trend, like in Prezi’s unique “conversational” approach to animated transitions.

Another innovative feature worth mentioning here is Visme’s integrated slide transitions, which all of our presentations include out of the box.

As a result, completed Visme presentations feel more like smooth videos instead of clunky slide decks.

Future trends in presentation design will come and go but what will always stay as a rule is to steer clear of “death by PowerPoint.”

Did you like this brief recap on the evolution of presentations? Let us know your questions, comments and feedback below!

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About the Author

Orana is a multi-faceted creative. She is a content writer, artist, and designer. She travels the world with her family and is currently in Istanbul. Find out more about her work at oranavelarde.com

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A Brief History of Presentations: How Bill Gates and Microsoft Monopolized All Cave Walls

It’s a warm summer evening. The year - 15,000BC. Far away in the caves of Lascaux (France), a primitive homo sapiens has just returned from his daily hunt. His mind in the zone: a creative zone. He lets his hands sway holding whatever colored stone or tool he has, and he paints and etches these murals of horned bulls and other such fauna; murals that will amaze archaeologists into thinking that the basic instinct of visual communication has been with us since time immemorial. Besides, these cave drawings are also a remarkable example of humans’ fascination with presentations.

Before we were clicking and typing away in our computer programs to make a colorful document, there were tools deep-rooted in a chapter of the history of presentations. Modern-day technology has made it possible to create stunning presentations and other visual content in PowerPoint, Google Slides, and Keynote; something that is a far cry from where it all began. In this blog, we trace the timeline of how we came around to making presentations and communicating business ideas and information with their help.

1. Cave paintings

The earliest evidence of human communication and projection of ideas can be traced back to prehistoric times in the form of cave paintings made by the early age humans in Lascaux. These spark the notion that the surface of the cave walls served as a huge slide to the human mind. The prehistoric man described what he may have seen in his surroundings and painted it onto this slide to bring the world’s first-ever presentation to life 20,000 years ago. Sure, he couldn’t write what he had in his mind for us to read, but he could do something even better. He projected what he had seen onto a surface, a concept that forms the basis of any modern-day PowerPoint presentation.

2. Hieroglyphs

Yes, we all went “Ooh” and “aah” when we first came across the drawings of Egyptian gods in the Hollywood classics The Mummy , The Mummy Returns, and The Scorpion King . If archaeological inspection has found anything while digging through the tombs of the revered rulers buried under the Egyptian tombs, it is that with the passage of time, reaching 3000BC, the human intellect had figured out how to use symbols to portray an actual story about those resting in the catacombs. This means that ancient Egyptians actually collected data about the emperors throughout their lives and then presented it to those visiting the tombs. As eyes spanned chamber after chamber, one could find ways to know the deceased through these hieroglyphs (or kill them if they were raised from the dead). Fascinating things lie under those pyramids, don’t they?

3. Bar chart

Transcending ahead to the mid-1300s, there was the advent of bar graphs or bar charts. Reportedly devised and represented in The Latitude of Forms , a bar chart projected a case of uniformly accelerated motion with the help of comparative bars. The classic bar chart quantified the qualities in a more decipherable manner that would give the audience more leverage in understanding the data quickly. With bar graphs, the human mind was able to extrapolate thoughts and data, a concept that modern-day infographics derive from.

4. Chalkboards and whiteboards

This will take all of us back to those old school days. But for some, the chalkboard or blackboard, and its fancy cousin, the whiteboard, emerged from the most rudimentary concepts of learning at school. In ancient times when classrooms had not come into being, students in early settlements used clay slabs as boards to write by etching them with a stylus (which evolved into the current pen or pencil).

In fact, later in the 1600s, teachers were piqued by the wonders a wooden slate and chalk can do for efficient learning. The result of that evolution became a much larger wooden slate hung against a wall and the use of chalk to write on it. Chalkboards thus became synonymous with the most economical way of giving presentations back then. The cheapness of wood and the utility of the duster or eraser made chalkboard a remarkable tool for teacher’s assistance. You could draw your mind to it and just erase it for the next chapter.

Later with the advent of marker ink and whiteboards, it became even more practical to project ideas and lessons without having to worry about coughing on the chalk dust. Thus, communication through whiteboards became a milestone in the history of presentations.

The modern-day presentations have whiteboards and chalkboards to thank for bringing in the need to develop flexible tools to manipulate and edit data in an adaptive manner.

5. Flip charts

Another means of communication whose origins can be traced back to classrooms are the paper flip charts. With printed posters fastened with metal clips, a flip chart enabled a teacher to present detailed information with diagrams. This was an improvement over the chalkboard usage as it eliminated the time lapse involved in copying the printed material onto a bigger surface. Textbooks were aligned according to the lecture content with each poster on the flip chart, which found several teaching applications in the medical courses.

In fact, so versatile were the flip charts that even businesses took notice and started using them to present ideas and pitch entrepreneurial avenues to investors. Slowly and steadily, the flip chart gave birth to poster cards. Businesses used all data and figures and presented them onto sequenced cardboard posters which the presenter went through one by one on a board affixed to a wooden or metallic stand. Soon, the presentations started becoming more refined and data-oriented than before. There was a tool with the presenter, and ideas just flew off the shelf with it.

Instinctively, this laid down the basic groundwork for the slideshows that we see in PowerPoint presentations today.

6. Projectors, filmstrip, and more

While technology and optical advancements kept on growing with the passage of time, it was not until the early 1800s that the first-ever projector was developed. Called by the name “the magic lantern”, it used a flaming candle to project transparencies onto a screen. A transparency was a thin transparent strip of paper or glass through which light can pass and the designs on the strip could be replicated onto a screen.

With the advent of electricity, the projector got modernized. Inventors started figuring out how the very first overhead projector could be used to effectively disseminate information in classroom or business meeting setups. Teachers, in fact, used overhead projectors with transparencies late into the 80s and even early 90s.

However, as the human tryst with knowledge and experimentation kept growing, so did the projector. The average business leveraged this to improve their meeting productivity and corporate communication strategy. With the camera and design technologies climbing new heights, soon the meeting room presentation started employing thin strips of negatives of written and organized information. These filmstrips were able to replicate the contents printed on the reel in the sequential form with each frame capturing each ‘slide’.

Consequently, the slide projector came into action in the 1950s. By this time, corporates had understood how visual content could lead to enhanced learning and information supply. A slide projector used specially designed slides that were prepared much before a meeting and then arranged onto the projector column that used a similar concept as the magic lantern. The only difference was that this time, the light source was powered by electricity. The presenter could present up to 80 slides on a specific topic. To enhance the functionality, however, the presenters also started using pre-recorded voiceovers that were played alongside the presentation for better dissemination of information. An outstanding and revolutionary example of this projector remains the Kodak Carousel Projector, which revolutionized the way lectures were delivered.

Then along came PowerPoint

A significant issue with the slide projectors was the amount of people and resources it went into preparing the slides. Not only that, while transparencies were cheaper than slides, these were not easy to make for an individual and needed a specialized designing resource at work. Moreover, lack of editing capacity and re-usability was also a key issue. A significant drawback was of the portability of the slides and the usual wear and tear and other glitches.

However, it was only due to these drawbacks that need arose for having presentation creating programs, which eventually catapulted the famous PowerPoint on the scene.

Launched in April of 1987, PowerPoint, initially named “Presenter”, was developed by Robert Gaskins and Dennis Austin while working at a Silicon Valley giant, Forethought Inc. The program was launched for Apple Macintosh primarily, and was pitched with its look and feel on the Microsoft Windows 1.0, which was yet to be released back then.

PowerPoint 1.0 was used for producing overhead transparencies in the Macintosh computer. It was only after Microsoft acquired PowerPoint for $14 million in July 1987 that its later versions were used for creating colorful slides that could be used in projectors. It was only after PowerPoint 3.0 was released for both Windows and Macintosh that it began picking up pace.

But before we delve into how PowerPoint became the unconquerable giant it is today , here are some fun facts that add to the run-up to its dominance.

• PowerPoint was Microsoft’s first significant acquisition in its days of competition with early Macintosh computer.
• Did you know that Bill Gates earlier had been for keeping PowerPoint as part of Microsoft Word and not as a separate application? In fact, the earliest versions of Office Suite did not even have PowerPoint as its part. It was only later in the early 1990s that it was sold as part of the Office bundle software.
• Within three years of its launch and acquisition by Microsoft, PowerPoint reported poor sales. It was only after launch of later versions of Windows after 1991 that the sales picked up and PowerPoint grabbed more than half the market share of computer graphic presentation creation software.

How PowerPoint made a difference

At the time of its inception and distribution, PowerPoint had brought together a revolution in the field of presentation in day-to-day official communication. Besides its application with a projector, there were several reasons why the software gathered much traction:

• PowerPoint enabled teachers, businessmen, entrepreneurs and other presenters to create slides at their own discretion and ability instead of waiting for a design vertical to do it for them.
• With each successive version, PowerPoint got more flexibility, intuition, and robustness. Not only could one represent facts and figures, but also could process data with bar graphs, pie charts, funnels, line graphs, and much more.
• Coupled with a portable computer and projector, one could present an entire business pitch deck like this to a group of audience in a meeting.
• It alleviated the pain points that presenters faced regarding portability and distribution. The slides could be printed on paper and even distributed with linked files on a CD-ROM. With the development of data storage technologies, it became even more portable and usable.
• PowerPoint’s linkage with Office Suite apps like Word and Excel added to its popularity. One could just input figures into the excel sheet of each PowerPoint file and then simply choose an infographic to represent that information.
• With each successive version, Microsoft kept improving upon its original concept of “slide master” (or templates as we call them) with additional design variants and more readymade slides to give users a head start in making an eye-catching presentation.
• PowerPoint also enabled users to embed a presentation into a webpage or a blog, or run it as a slideshow, or simply record it as a video.
• The latest version of PowerPoint is capable of churning out stunning animations, audio-visuals, infographics coupled with video insertion as well.

PowerPoint gave the user everything they needed to make eye-catching content. But the term “Death by PowerPoint” also stayed with it persistently. Then again, the point remained that it depended on the presenter to use it precisely and use it better. In fact, a classic example of impressing the audience right off the bat was this pitch deck by dating app Tinder. The focus remained on captivating the audience with an interesting pain point and giving the solution immediately. More needs to be seen on how human instinct for presenting and communicating information enables better and smarter usage of PowerPoint.

What the future holds     

Technology is never a bowl of water kept on a table. It is an ever-flowing river of faster and better things. With each wave of genius that methods of presentations have borne, the role of virtual reality and artificial intelligence has become even more prominent. In fact, Microsoft has teased how it plans to use artificial intelligence to make its Office Suite products including PowerPoint more efficient and user-friendly. With time, the tech giant has also forayed into Android and web applications, taking PowerPoint to the user’s fingertips.

While more and more web tools are also coming up (Google Slides, Prezi), the basic concept behind presentations remains efficient communication of ideas. It only remains to be seen how the man who etched murals in Lascaux will keep captivating the minds of his audience with ideas and information in the years to come.

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Slide Logic: The Emergence of Presentation Software and the Prehistory of PowerPoint

By david c. brock | october 04, 2016.

In many parts of our world today, group communication centers on visual materials built with “presentation software,” often crafted by a speaker him or herself. As a result, meetings now generally depend on the use of personal computers, presentation software in the guises of product or service and display by digital projectors or flat-screens.

A humorous sample PowerPoint presentation supplied with the very first version in 1987. This clip was created with PowerPoint 1.0 for Mac running in a Mac Plus emulator.

So central have these visual materials become that the intended functioning of digital files, programs, computers, and peripherals has become an almost necessary condition for public communication. Choice of presentation software has even become a mark of generational and other identities, as in whether one uses Facebook or Snapchat. Millennials and Generation Z choose Google Slides or Prezi. Everyone else uses PowerPoint, its mirror-twin by Apple called Keynote, or, for political expression and/or economic necessity, LibreOffice. Membership in a highly technical community can be signified by using the typesetting program LaTeX to build equation-heavy slides.

It is PowerPoint, nevertheless, that has become the “Kleenex” or “Scotch Tape” of presentation software. A “PowerPoint” has come to commonly mean any presentation created with software. Microsoft rightly boasts that there are currently 1.2 billion copies of PowerPoint at large in the world today: One copy of PowerPoint for every seven people. In any given month, approximately 200 million of these copies are actively used. PowerPoint is simply the dominant presentation software on the planet. 1

It may come as a surprise, then, to learn that PowerPoint was not the first presentation program. Rather, there were several programs for personal computers that performed similarly to PowerPoint in many respects, which appeared starting in 1982—fully five years before PowerPoint’s debut. PowerPoint’s ubiquity is not the result of a first-mover advantage. 2

Further, many of PowerPoint’s most familiar characteristics—the central motif of a slide containing text and graphics, bulleted lists, the slide show, the slide sorter, and even showy animated transitions between slides—were not absolute novelties when PowerPoint appeared. These elements had been introduced in one form or another in earlier presentation software.

Here, the principal developers of PowerPoint—Dennis Austin and Tom Rudkin—describe the structure of the source code defining slides. Austin and Rudkin worked closely with the product’s architect, Bob Gaskins. This document is in a collection of materials donated to the Computer History Museum by Dennis Austin.

From 1982 through 1987, software makers introduced roughly a dozen programs for several different personal computers that allowed users to create visual materials for public presentations as a series of “slides” containing text and graphic elements. Frequently, these slides were printed on paper for incorporation into a photocopied report and transferred to a set of transparencies for use with an overhead projector. Other presentation programs allowed slides to be output as a sequence of 35mm photographic slides for use with a slide projector, a videotape of a series of slide images, or a digital file of screen-images for computer monitors. Makers and users called these programs “presentation software,” and just as commonly “business graphics software.” “Business” here is significant, I think. 3

Early presentation software was most commonly used to create overhead presentations. In this clip, Dennis Austin—a principal developer of PowerPoint—demonstrates the use of overhead projectors and presentations.

The six years from 1982 through 1987 saw the emergence of presentation software (including PowerPoint), with multiple makers introducing competing programs offering many similar capabilities and idioms. Why did multiple, independent software creators develop presentation software for personal computers at just this moment?

I believe that an analytical framework that I developed with historian Christophe Lécuyer to understand episodes in the history of solid-state electronics can also help us to unpack this very different case from software history. Our framework consists of three “contextual logics” that we argue shaped the emergence of the planar transistor, the silicon microchip, the simultaneous-invention of silicon-gate MOS technology, and, as Christophe and Takahiro Ueyama recently show, the history of blue light-emitting diodes (LEDs). 4

In their 2013 article, “The Logics of Materials Innovation,” Christophe and Takahiro describe these logics beautifully:

This framework distinguishes different types of contextual challenges that shape the creation of new materials and manufacturing processes: the materiality of substances, tools, and fabrication techniques (referred to as “material logic”); the needs, demands and interests of intended customers (“market logic”); and the competitive tensions among laboratories, firms, and nations (“competitive logic”). These material, market, and competitive logics are not determinative, in the sense that they do not lead to necessary outcomes. But they are particularly stable over time and provide powerful resources and constraints to innovators and their patrons.

The implication seems straightforward: People from similar backgrounds, in similar organizations, facing a common, structured set of contextual logics, will do similar—but not identical—things. But can these logics that help make sense of the history of semiconductor electronics, a technology deeply about materials, also give insights into the history of the ne plus ultra of the digital—software itself? I think it can. Competitive logic, Market logic, and Material logic: Let’s consider them in that order, and see what they can mean for the “prehistory” of PowerPoint.

Competitive logic centered on software makers. In the first half of the 1980s, makers of presentation software were typically connected to companies. There were, of course, makers of non-commercial software of various stripes—hobbyist, open source, libre and the like—but they do not appear to have been a factor in early presentation software. Rather, the makers of presentation software were what I call “integrated software manufacturers,” “software publishers,” and “author houses.” Sometimes the boundaries between these maker-types are blurry, but I think the categories are useful.

Integrated software manufacturers, ranging from cottage firms to public companies, wrote code, manufactured it mainly on magnetic media, wrote and printed technical documentation and guides, and distributed it in shrink-wrapped boxes. For integrated software manufacturers of this era, think of Microsoft, Lotus Development, and MicroPro International." Software publishers" did everything that the integrated manufacturers did, except write the code. Rather, they entered into contracts on a royalty basis with those who did write programs. Software publishers ran the gamut from stand-alone companies that only produced software written by others, to firms that published a mix of programs written internally and externally, and also to computer makers like Apple, who published software written by others under their own label as well as selling their own programs. Code authors ranged from individual sole proprietorships to “author shops,” partnerships between two or more programmers in an LLP or a small company.

The origins of Microsoft, perhaps the best-known integrated software manufacturer.

These author shops, publishers, and integrated manufacturers were, by 1982, competing in a growing market for personal computer application software: Spreadsheets, word processors, databases and “business graphics” programs that often used data from spreadsheets to generate line-graphs, pie-charts, bar-graphs, and other standard plots used in business, science, and engineering. This battle for market share in applications for personal computers was the ‘competitive logic’ for presentation software’s emergence. 5

“Market logic” centered on the intended users of software, and, in the case of presentation software, focused to the communication practices of white-collar workers in the United States (and, perhaps, elsewhere), particularly “managers” and “executives.” Contemporary commentators noted that personal-computer “business” software like spreadsheets represented a turn in “office automation,” the opening of a new phase in which software users would expand beyond specialists and secretaries to managers and executives. Personal computers with new software would be in the offices of Mahogany Row in addition to the accounting department and the typing pool.

For example, in September 1982, John Unger Zussman, a columnist for InfoWorld, noted: “…the market is changing. An examination of the changing word-processor marketplace can tell us a lot about the maturation of microcomputers and give us a clue to the role of micros in the office of the future. ‘There’s an expanding concept of reality in the modern office,’ says Gary Smith, NCR’s director of marketing. Software oriented toward managers, such as spreadsheet and slide-show programs and electronic mail, has increased the demand for distributed data processing. It is now legitimate for a computer to appear on a manager’s desk—or a secretary’s. The personal workstation, says Smith, is becoming ‘the major focus of white-collar productivity.’ This was not always the case. In the past, computers were the province of the data-processing department…and, besides, managers wouldn’t be caught dead typing at a keyboard…word processing became a stepping-stone into the automated office…the introduction of microcomputers into the office of the future seems to be more a process of infiltration than one of direct assault.” 6

In this 1979 commercial, Xerox presented just this vision of the office of the future.

In a 1984 article in the Proceedings of the IEEE titled “A New Direction in Personal Computer Software,” MIT Sloan School professor Hoo-Min Toong, with his postdoc Amar Gupta, identified the crux of the market logic to which presentation software was a response: The time that executives and managers spent in meetings. They write: “Top managers are noted to spend four-fifths of their time attending meetings—delivering or receiving presentations and reports, communicating, and gathering information for subsequent meetings. Meetings are the most prominent, time consuming element of an executive’s job.” They continue: “At present, business personal computers only represent information in numeric form, in text, and in simple charts and graphs. A crucial missing component is the ability to present and manipulate visual, pictorial data…A new layer…will bridge the gap from the present position…to supporting business communications with sophisticated images and color.” 7

Toong and Gupta’s diagram of the proportion of an “executive’s” time spent in meetings. © 1984 IEEE. Reprinted, with permission, from Proceedings of the IEEE.

Toong and Gupta then discuss a newly released example of such “presentation graphics software,” VCN ExecuVision, offered by the book publisher Prentice-Hall. VCN ExecuVision, which ran on the IBM PC, cost $400 but also required libraries of images and icons, that is, “clip art,” at $90 per floppy disk. Users could create “slide shows” of multiple “slides” that the user could craft with text, clip art, and geometric shapes, as well as pie, bar, and line graphs, with the completed slide show either printed or displayed on the PC monitor.

The idiom of the slide was directly adapted from the world of 35mm photographic slides. “Seeing a single slide is one thing,” Toong and Gupta write, “seeing an aggregate of slides is another. VCN ExecuVision supports slide shows in which the transition from one slide to another can be controlled either manually (pressing a key causes display of the next slide) or automatically… More significant is the support of animation techniques which give an illusion of seeing a running movie rather than a slide show…VCN ExecuVision brings sophisticated graphical capabilities to the realm of personal computers thus vastly expanding the horizons of personal computer applications in all four domains – office, home, science, and education.” Continuing their celebration of ExecuVision, Toong and Gupta illustrated their journal article with three full-color pages of ExecuVision slides, replete with images having the unmistakable aesthetic of clip art. Presentation software and clip art may have been born together.

Sample slides from VCN ExecuVision. © 1984 IEEE. Reprinted, with permission, from Proceedings of the IEEE.

Evidently, ExecuVision was the creation of Toong himself—in a Cambridge, Massachusetts author shop called Visual Communication Network Inc.—before the program had been sold or licensed to Prentice Hall. Toong filed articles of incorporation for the firm in October 1983, with his brother and a former MIT industrial liaison as the other directors. His brother was listed as the president and a Sloan School building was the firm’s address. Toong’s connection to ExecuVision is not mentioned in the article. 8

Lotus’ announcement of Executive Briefing System. Courtesy of the Kapor Archive.

Toong’s ExecuVision was, in late 1983, a new entrant into the presentation software market that two new integrated software manufacturers, located in neighborhoods on opposing sides of the MIT campus, had already enjoined. On one side was Mitch Kapor’s startup, Lotus Development. Kapor created his new firm on a windfall from two programs he had written that were published by Personal Software, Inc., later renamed VisiCorp. VisiCorp was also the publisher of the breakthrough spreadsheet program VisiCalc, written in Cambridge by Software Arts Inc., the “author shop” of Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston.

Mitch Kapor had written a statistical analysis and data graphing program for the Apple II called TinyTROLL, which he sold through a partnership with his friend and then MIT finance PhD student Eric Rosenfeld who had suggested the program to Kapor. The partnership was called Micro Finance Systems, and Kapor was approached VisiCorp to adapt TinyTROLL to work with data imported from VisiCalc. Kapor soon delivered VisiPlot and VisiTrend, programs that took VisiCalc spreadsheet data and generated pie, bar, and line graphs from them, as well as performed various finance-relevant statistical functions on the data. Kapor and Rosenfeld’s Micro Finance Systems received hundreds of thousands of dollars in royalties for VisiPlot and VisiTrend before VisiCorp bought them outright for $1.2 million. With his share in the windfall, Kapor set up an integrated software manufacturer of his own, Lotus Development, and, in 1982, the firm released its first product, Executive Briefing System, for the Apple II. Todd Agulnick, a 14-year-old high school student, had been hired by Kapor and wrote the BASIC code for Executive Briefing System under his direction. 9

Lotus’ $200 Executive Briefing System was centered on the color video display of the Apple II. In brief, a number of programs for charting and graphing like VisiPlot offered the “BSAVE” command. Instead of routing data to immediately render an image on the video display, BSAVE sent the very same data to a stored file. In this way, a “screen shot” could be rendered on the video display at a later time, shared with others, archived for future use, etc. Lotus’ Executive Briefing System treated BSAVE’d files—these screen shots—as “slides” that could be modified and then displayed on the Apple II’s video display as a “slide show” for a “presentation.” Executive Briefing System users could edit slides of charts and plots by adding text and/or clip art of lines, geometric shapes, or “ornamental” motifs. Slides were arranged in slide shows, and saved to floppy disk. While the program allowed a slide show to be printed—as a paper report or for transparencies for overhead presentation—it focused on slide shows for the video display. A variety of animated “transitions” between slides were available, such as fades, wipes, and spinning-into-view. 10

An early Executive Briefing System demonstration. This clip was created by running an image of the demonstration disk in an Apple II emulator.

David Solomont’s Business and Professional Software Inc., another integrated software manufacturer developing products for the Apple II, was located at 143 Binney Street just a 25-minute walk across the MIT campus—and past Hoo-Min Toong’s office—from Kapor’s Lotus Development office at 180 Franklin Street. Like Kapor, Solomont’s firm had earlier developed a plotting and charting program for the Apple II to work with VisiCalc spreadsheets. Solomont struck a deal with Apple to license the plotting program, which was sold by Apple under the company’s brand as “Apple Business Graphics.” Soon thereafter, arriving on the market about the same time as Lotus’ Executive Briefing System, came Solomont’s “Screen Director” program in 1982. 11

A 2015 CHM oral history interview with David Solomont.

Screen Director, made for the then-new Apple III computer, fully embraced treating a computer running Screen Director like a 35mm slide projector. Users could organize BSAVE’d image files from programs like VisiPlot and Apple Business Graphics into various “slide trays” for presentation on the video display. While Screen Director did not allow for the editing of existing image slides, it did provide for the creation of text slides and for a limited set of animated transitions between slides. Screen Director even shipped with the standard two-button wired controller for slide projectors, but modified to plug into the Apple III for controlling Screen Director slide shows. 12

A 1982 print advertisement for Business and Professional Software’s Screen Director program.

So far I have described a meaning for “competitive logic” and “market logic” in the case of presentation software, and some early programs from 1982 through 1984. But what of “material logic?” Material logic here includes personal computers themselves, specifically personal computers with graphics capabilities that were expanding in the early 1980s. The computers’ physical performativity, their material agency, constituted a resource, medium, and constraint for software makers and users. Existing programs widely used on these computers, like spreadsheets and plotting programs, were themselves a critical part of the material logic. Software, like hardware, has an unavoidable materiality. At the most abstract, a computer program can be considered to be a specific pattern. In practice, every instance of a program is a pattern in something material, including the body of an author.

Finally, the material logic for presentation software included operating systems centered on the graphical user interface, or GUI. This style of computing had been pioneered at Xerox PARC in the late 1970s, most famously on the Xerox Alto computer. The Alto inspired other efforts to bring the GUI into personal computing during the first half of the 1980s: Apple’s Lisa and Macintosh computers, Microsoft’s Windows software, and VisiCorp’s VisiOn software to name but a few. 13

This material logic was especially important in the creation of PowerPoint. In 1983, two Apple managers, Rob Campbell and Taylor Pohlman, left the firm and created a new integrated software manufacturer, Forethought Inc. Simply put, they left Apple to bring a Xerox Alto like GUI operating system to the IBM PC. By 1986, however, Forethought Inc. had a change of plans. This story—of Forethought’s creation of PowerPoint—and other stories about what PowerPoint and its competitors can tell us about software history, will be the subjects of upcoming essays by me on the @CHM blog.

For more information about the development of PowerPoint, please see our Guide to the Dennis Austin PowerPoint Records .

• Oral history interview with Shawn Villaron, PowerPoint manager at Microsoft, date, forthcoming/in process.
• Indeed, a wonderfully helpful list of presentation software offerings from 1986 compiled by Robert Gaskins, the initiator and architect of the original PowerPoint project, can be found on pages 131-134 of his painstakingly detailed and comprehensive memoir, Sweating Bullets .
• One place in which these identifying names for the presentation software genre were evident was, and is, the pages of the trade magazine InfoWorld . Google Books has a large number of issues of the periodical available with full text and search. On the more general use of the genre names, see this Google Books NGram .
• See Christophe Lécuyer and David C. Brock, Makers of the Microchip: A Documentary History of Fairchild Semiconductor (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2010); David C. Brock and Christophe Lécuyer, “Digital Foundations: The Making of Silicon Gate Manufacturing Technology,” Technology and Culture , 53 (2012): 561–97; and Christophe Lécuyer and Takahiro Ueyama, “The Logics of Materials Innovation: The Case of Gallium Nitride and Blue Light Emitting Diodes,” Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences , 43 (2013): 243-280.
• See, for example, Martin Campbell-Kelly, “Number Crunching without Programming: The Evolution of Spreadsheet Usability,” IEEE Annals of the History of Computing , 29 3 (July-September 2007): 6-19 and Thomas J. Bergin, “The Origins of Word Processing Software for Personal Computers: 1976-1985,” IEEE Annals of the History of Computing , 28 4 (October-December 2006): 32-47.
• The article may be viewed in InfoWord on Google Books.
• Hoo-Min D. Toong and Amar Gupta, “A New Direction in Personal Computer Software,” Proceedings of the IEEE , 72 3 (March 1984): 377-388.
• Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Articles of Organization, Visual Communications Network, Inc., October 13, 1983.
• Mitch Kapor, “Reflections of Lotus 1-2-3: Benchmark for Spreadsheet Software,” IEEE Annals of the History of Computing , 29 3 (July-September 2007): 32-40; David C. Brock telephone call with Todd Agulnick, July 15, 2016.
• Rik Jadrnicek, “ Executive Briefing System, a slide-show program ,” InfoWorld, May 17, 1982, 47–49.
• Oral History of David Solomont , Computer History Museum, 2015. Or watch it on YouTube .
• Richard Hart, “ Screen Director helps you present ‘slide shows,’ ” InfoWorld, November 8, 1982.
• See Michael Hiltzik, Dealers of Lightning: Xerox PARC and the Dawn of the Comptuer Age, (New York: HarperCollins), 1999.

About The Author

David C. Brock is an historian of technology, CHM's Director of Curatorial Affairs, and director of its Software History Center. He focuses on histories of computing and semiconductors as well as on oral history. He is the co-author of Moore’s Law: The Life of Gordon Moore, Silicon Valley’s Quiet Revolutionary and is on Twitter @dcbrock.

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History of Computers

Oct 13, 2014

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History of Computers. Abacus – 1100 BC. Slide rule - 1617 Mechanical calculator - 1642 Automatic loom (punched cards) - 1804. Babbage’s computer – 1830s Boolean logic – 1850s. Hollerith’s electric tabulator - 1880 Analog computer – 1927 EDVAC – 1946 ENIAC - 1947. Transistor - 1947.

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• servers provide temporary software

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History of Computers Abacus – 1100 BC Slide rule - 1617Mechanical calculator - 1642Automatic loom (punched cards) - 1804 Babbage’s computer – 1830sBoolean logic – 1850s Hollerith’s electric tabulator - 1880Analog computer – 1927EDVAC – 1946ENIAC - 1947 Transistor - 1947 Integrated circuit – late 1950sUNIVAC – 1951Microprocessor – 1971Altair 8880 – 1975Apple II – 1977IBM PC – 1981World Wide Web – 1990s

Abacus • First true calculating machine • In use since 1100 B.C. • Still used in some countries

Slide Rule • In 1617, Scottish mathematician John Napier created a device to perform logarithm calculators • Soon after an English clergyman named William Oughtred created a device based on this and named it the “slide rule” • It remained in use for the next 350 years until the electronic calculator was invented.

First Computer • In the early 1830s, English mathematician Charles Babbage designed the analytical engine. • Intended to be used to create math tables for navigation at sea • Completely mechanical and powered by steam • Could be programmed to perform different tasks

Punched Card • First major development in computing hardware came after the results of the 1880 US Census took 7 years to tabulate • US Census Bureau conducted a contest for a faster method, and Herman Hollerith invented the punched card. • He formed company which later became IBM

Punched Card

Early computers • Mark I and ENIAC arrived onthe scene during WWII. They were used to calculate weapon trajectories and help build atomic bombs. • The early computers used punched cards • They were VERY expensive and used enough electricity to light up a small town. • In 1951, the UNIVAC was first mass-produced. It was the first general purpose computer. • In 1953, IBM started selling computers

Early IBM computers

First-generation Computers • VERY expensive and HUGE – required large rooms and a lot of A/C • Used vacuum tubes (slow/hot, similar to light bulbs)

Where did the term "bug" come from? Grace Hopper coined the term “bug” when there was a computer malfunction. The original “bug” was a moth that was lodged in the circuitry and created a hardware problem in a Mark I computer. Hopper “debugged” the computer byremoving the moth.

Transistors • Major breakthrough • In 1947, engineers from Bell Laboratories invented the transistor • It replaced the vacuum tubes • Much smaller, faster and more reliable • Relied on other electronic components to form circuits Portable transistor radio

Integrated Circuit • An even bigger breakthrough • In the late 1950s, engineers from Texas Instruments created integrated circuit • Instead of soldering components after the are made, they were manufactured all together on a chip of silicon • Also known as the microchip

Microprocessor • Advanced the integrated circuit even further • In the 1971, engineers from Intel Corporation designed the first microprocessor • All chips needed for the CPU were put together on one chip • Made the PC possible

Personal Computers • Altair 8800 created in 1975 as a mail-order kit • Also in 1975, Bill Gates, Paul Allen, and Monte Davidoff wrote BASIC programming language • Meanwhile Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs were busy creating the Apple II in 1977 • At this time Visicalc (spreadsheet program) was created for the Apple • In 1981, the IBM PC was created and shortly after Microsoft was formed and the MS-DOS operating system was created

The Internet is Born • In the 1990s the internet was born. This was a very significant revolution • The World Wide Web allowed us to connect to servers across the world • We can now to go to our favorite websites, to order products, to communicate via email or facebook, etc.

Handheld Computers • In early 2000’s there was an explosion of handheld computers • Examples are GPS units, tablets, smart phones • Smart phones can now do the following: handle phone calls, take pictures, run apps, do calculations, browse the internet, etc. • Personal translators act as speaking dictionaries

Cloud Computing • “Cloud computing” refers to the cloud of powerful computers (servers) on the internet • The servers provide “temporary” software that we can use at home • Examples: tax software, photoshop • Software is stored inPC memory (not yourhard drive)

History of Computers Group Activity As a group, take the different events in computer history and place them in the correct order How has the computer affected society, science and technology?

Abacus – 1100 BC Slide rule - 1617Mechanical calculator - 1642Automatic loom (punched cards) - 1804 Babbage’s computer – 1830sBoolean logic – 1850s Hollerith’s electric tabulator - 1880Analog computer – 1927EDVAC – 1946ENIAC - 1947 Transistor - 1947 Integrated circuit – late 1950sUNIVAC – 1951Microprocessor – 1971Altair 8880 – 1975Apple II – 1977IBM PC – 1981 World Wide Web – 1990s

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Old paper and maps free PowerPoint Template and Google Slides Theme for history lessons and presentations. Ready to navigate history? Grab your compass and let’s start this journey! This history template features old paper, maps, a globe and a compass and it’s perfect to talk about the world trough history […]

Old Maps History Lesson free theme.

Africa landscapes and animals free PowerPoint Template and Google Slides Theme Africa Viva is perfect to talk about Africa, the savannah or the animal kingdom. It has beautiful sunset colors and papercut style landscapes made with different layers. I’ve included two different title slides, one with the African continent and […]

Africa Viva, free presentation template.

China inspired free PowerPoint Template and Google Slides Theme This template was designed by my 12yo daughter. She had to make a presentation for school about Ancient China, so here it’s the result: Cherry blossom trees, a sketch of the Great Wall, lanterns, clouds and even a dragon. All this […]

A Chinese Tale. A China inspired presentation template.

Free animated Google Slides and PowerPoint template. Create a presentation that looks like an old movie intro – with countdown and everything! – using this free Google Slides and PowerPoint template. This template features a vintage film reel design with a countdown timer and it is perfect for anyone looking […]

Old movie intro aesthetic free animated presentation template.

Free PowerPoint template and Google Slides theme. Harlow is a creative free template to use with Google Slides or download as PowerPoint. It features organic shapes and littles touches of bronze. This free presentation template has organic shapes with different shades of brown with some touches of bronze. Use it […]

Harlow, organic shapes slides template.

Free PowerPoint template and Google Slides theme. Celebrate Black History Month slides backgrounds. Black History Month celebrates the contributions that black people have made to the world. Some countries, like US or Canada, celebrate it on February, while others, like the UK do it in October. DOWNLOAD POWERPOINT OPEN IN […]

Black History Month slides presentation theme.

Free PowerPoint template and Google Slides theme. Free virtual art gallery to showcase students’ work or to create an interactive lesson. Another special request! This time by Ximena. Given that now most schools don’t allow to display anything on the walls, and that many students are distance learning, she needed […]

Virtual Art Gallery, interactive template.

Free PowerPoint template and Google Slides theme. This is a Classified template; you shouldn’t be reading this! Unless you are a SlidesManiac and therefore you are authorized! This free template for Google Slides or PowerPoint is perfect for school activities such us digital breakouts, a history lesson, to investigate a […]

Top Secret, these slides are classified.

Free Template for PowerPoint and Google Slides Presentations Monet Monet free presentation template is, of course, perfect for presentations about art! Even though I chose Monet, you can use images from any other artist. I have found these images on the Art Institute of Chicago website. If you have time, I […]

Monet Free Template for Google Slides or PowerPoint Presentations

From Madmen to TedTalks: The Evolution of the Presentation

In the Don Draper days of 1960s Manhattan, the concept of a "presentation" was very different than it is today. At that time, presentations consisted of a series of hand-rendered drawings (or storyboards) that were first glued to a piece of foam core and then proudly displayed on metal easels for the audience’s viewing pleasure (or frustration, if they happened to be nearsighted). Or, in less sexy industries, paper memos were typed up on typewriters and distributed for people to read during meetings — usually accompanied verbally by an equally lackluster presenter. Today, it’s a totally different world. ‍ From the ubiquitous PowerPoint, to the many expensive and free Powerpoint alternatives , there is no shortage of presentation software options out there that help bring stories to life in boardrooms the world over.

With technological advances in sound, projection, high-def screens, animations, and more, everything today is digitalized, zoomable, easily prepared and easily digestible. But have we reached the golden age of presentation software yet?

Let’s see how we got here and what we can still improve.

If you had a brilliant idea to present to your boss or your team in 1960s, you didn’t have the option to open your trusty PowerPoint. No, all you had at your disposal was a large physical easel with built-in oversized pads of paper — where you built your presentation sheet by sheet, praying that it wouldn't get ripped, eaten by your dog, or rained on while on your way to the office.

When presenting, you may have used a "pointer" stick to direct your audience’s attention to the parts of the presentation currently under discussion.

Maybe if you were exceptionally well-organized — or if the presentation was super important — you mounted your hand-written memos to foam boards to display on (often flimsy) easels. Now that was impressive.

In the 1970s, giving an effective presentation meant using slides. But not the digital kind, since the world was still PowerPoint free.

We are talking about those tiny delicate 35mm transparent slides that were inserted into the slide projector and projected onto the white ‘screen’ on the wall. If you’re reading this and are getting nostalgic flutters reminiscing how your aunt came to visit once and gave your family a slide show about her recent Hawaii vacation while you and your toddler sibling were fighting over the last cookie on the floor, then yes, you’re thinking about the right device. (And yes, you’re officially ancient).

Fun Fact: The slide projector was actually around since 1950s and was a descendent of an even earlier device that was used as early as late 19th century. The tiny slides were crafted by professionals and took days in advance to make. Forget about pulling an all nighter at your laptop the day before the conference — you needed weeks, if not months, to pull a presentation off.

If you wanted to impress an audience in the 1980s, you might have used an overhead projector and transparencies (Or you still had the slide projector option, of course. Or the paper pad option. Paper was always free. PowerPoint still wasn’t around though.)

Unlike the slide projector, where the image was put in front of the light source, with an overhead projector, the transparent slide was put on top of the light source. These slides were bigger, too. They were also prepared in advance but the presenter could modify them and add material during the presentation using a marker. These projectors were especially widely used in the classroom , but were also the standard option for sales meetings and conferences.

If you were a diehard fan of the 35mm slide business, you were also in luck. Carousel slide projectors , which were capable of holding 80 to 140 slides and rotating them came into wide use. The slides still had to be made days in advance and, unlike transparencies, were not modifiable. But the device was more portable than the overhead slide projector.

The 1990s are where things changed drastically in the presentation world. PowerPoint, which was created by the startup Forethought in 1987, and almost immediately acquired by Microsoft , releases its first version for Windows in 1990 (the original version was made for Macintosh), and slowly begins to conquer the world.

The original version of PowerPoint was actually used for preparing the presentation slides and previewing them on the computer but not delivering the presentation. By the third version (PowerPoint 3.0, released in 1992 and later renamed PowerPoint 1992), the functionality of the software was extended to enable direct video output to digital projectors, eventually replacing the physical transparencies.

PowerPoint has revolutionized the way people did presentations. Suddenly, you could add text and graphics to slides (and remove them at will), and organize and re-organize the slides through the slide sorter.

PowerPoint 3.0 also introduced some features that made it look similar to the PowerPoint we know today - for instance, TrueType font support, transition effects, and drawing tools. These advances, as well as the eventual integration of PowerPoint with the rest of the Microsoft Office suit (in 1994 ) have sealed its position as the leading presentation software of the time.

By now, the concept of the "presentation" was improving. People no longer had to drag heavy projectors with them to conference rooms. The introduction of the PowerPoint software made creating presentations exponentially easier.

But the demands also started to change. Now that the process of preparing and presenting was easier than ever, people started expecting something else: better design.

A few powerpoint alternatives started popping up. Concurrence , a presentation software developed by Lighthouse Design, was released in late 1990s (for NeXTSTEP and OpenStep platforms). Concurrence was an integrated outlining and presentation software and was what Steve Jobs used for his first presentations. In 2003, Apple released Keynote , which was originally developed as a software for Steve Jobs to use at Apple keynote events, and soon became the most popular PowerPoint alternative at the time.

By 2010, presentation software programs started to roll out all kinds of bells and whistles (aka “product features”). Keynote (now part of iWork) introduced official HD compatibility, and new features such as group scaling, 3D charts, multi-column text boxes, auto bullets in any text field, image adjustments, free form masking tools, and three-dimensional transitions.

PowerPoint added all kinds of plug-ins, animations and pre-built templates.  Prezi launched, complete with a robust set of sophisticated, interactive “zooming” transitions between subtopics and slides. New rival presentation software programs started popping up. The competition was heating up, and the bar continued to rise on what people expected from “the presentation” on both ends: the production end (what presentation software let them create better presentations, quickly) as well as the receiving end (or what action or reaction they wanted their audience to have). By 2010, presentations were expected to be “presented” on a white screen or large TV monitor; paper printouts were unacceptable. Secondly, It had to clear and legible. It had to feature inspiring visuals. And more and more attention began to shift towards the design of each slide; how a presentation looked was a direct (positive or negative) reflection of the person presenting.

Presentations Today

We have undoubtedly made some strides since the age of the metal easels. No longer do we have to spend weeks in advance preparing the slides (that may be a good thing or not so good, depending on how you look at it). Whatever presentation software you use, the process is quick and easy.

Today everything is digital - projected onto a screen, sync'd with a large TV monitor, and so on. But we have also made significant advancements in the brain science of how we perceive, learn and retain visual information, which also has to be taken into account. That means it’s not longer enough to make your slide transitions look like you’re turning a physical page (actually, try to avoid that kind of thing if you’re intent on not annoying your audience). Presentations these days have to be beautiful and easily digestible.

Thankfully, PowerPoint is no longer the only presentation software on the block. If you do use it, you’d do better not to overuse its initially much lauded bells and whistles. Seriously, nobody is impressed by your ability to insert clever animations anymore. At best, they’ll be distracting and at worst - highly annoying.

The Future of Presenting

In a world where people are constantly bombarded with tons of visual (as well as textual) information every day — or every single time they open any kind of device — the design bar is steadily rising. Which means visual stories and presentations have to follow suit in order to remain a successful form of professional communication.

Yes, we’ve come a long way, but there is still room for improvement. With "blank slate" authoring tools like PowerPoint, most presenters still have work to do when it comes to creating truly beautiful presentations that engage but don’t overwhelm the viewer. If you want to move away from the "old standbys" completely—into the world of easy-to-use and viewer-friendly presentation software—PowerPoint alternatives today include non-linear, web-based and collaborative presentation programs. Luckily, creating beautiful presentations today does not have to be hard work, and it can even be fun! After all, that’s why we built Beautiful.ai . With its smart templates and design a.i., Beautiful.ai is taking the work out of the equation and still maintaining the most professional of presentation appearances. Try it for free today .

Tanya Mozias Slavin

Recommended articles, 10 new year resolutions for your presentations in 2021, how-to prompt beautiful.ai's ai assistant for better results, from concept to consistency: how beautiful.ai simplifies branding for teams, why we built beautiful.ai.

The World of Teaching

Free Teacher resources including over 1000 Powerpoint presentations

History powerpoint free to download for teachers

Powerpoint presentations on history free to download.

History is the study of past events, particularly human activities, societies, and civilizations. It encompasses the exploration, analysis, interpretation, and understanding of the past based on various sources of evidence, such as written records, archaeological findings, oral traditions, artifacts, and more. History aims to reconstruct and narrate the story of humanity’s journey over time, examining the actions, ideas, and experiences of people from different eras and regions.

Below are a list of historical powerpoint presentations.

By studying history, we can gain insights into how societies have evolved, understand the factors that have shaped human progress, and learn from the successes and failures of the past. It helps us develop a broader perspective and a deeper understanding of our own cultural, social, and political contexts.

Please submit history powerpoints at the foot of this page

Anything you have also produced to enable other history teachers around the world to benefit.

Overall, history provides a foundation for understanding our present, illuminates the complexities of human behavior, and contributes to our collective knowledge and identity as a civilization.

Please submit any of your own powerpoints using the form below. It is very much appreciated.

Your Name (required)

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• Astronomy Presentations
• Biology Powerpoint Presentations
• Chemistry Powerpoint Presentations
• Physics Powerpoint Presentations
• Maths Powerpoint Presentations
• English Powerpoint Presentations
• Geography Presentations
• History Powerpoint Presentations
• Classical Studies Presentations
• Religion Presentations
• French Presentations
• Spanish Presentations
• German Presentations

• Collections

History Presentation Templates

Captivating history powerpoint templates and google slides themes with vintage charm are ready to use. step back in time with our 100% customizable presentation slides. engage your viewers with stunning visuals, antique elements, and various historical themes to bring your narratives to life. perfect for educators, students, and historians. explore now.

• Aesthetic Vintage Look: Every history PPT template comes with a touch of nostalgia, perfectly mirroring the era it represents.
• Captivating Visuals: With our history slides, your audience will be engrossed by the mesmerizing visuals that range from nautical adventures to the medieval era and the art history thesis.
• Versatility: Whether you're discussing ancient history or specific figures and events, our templates come specialized, so your content always finds a fitting background.
• Editable Features: Our editable features ensure that every history template becomes uniquely yours to fit the narrative.
• Diverse Imagery: Our slides are filled with rich visuals that transport your audience back in time.

We're here to help you!

What are history presentation templates.

History Presentation templates are ready-made presentation slides that contain pre-formatted graphics, text, and animation that you can use to create a professional-looking presentation about any historical event, person, or period.

Where can we use these History Slides?

You can use these History Slides for educational activities in a classroom, lectures, seminars, or presentations at conferences or special events. They can also be used as a reference tool for research or as a teaching aid to help explain a specific historical event or period.

How can I make History PPT Slides in a presentation?

Create a PowerPoint with high-quality, high-resolution images. Add color and texture to your slides. Also, use attractive fonts and font sizes to create a unique look for your slides. Suppose you want to learn how to use the PowerPoint tool. Visit Tips and tricks for detailed instructions.

Who can use History Presentation Templates?

Anyone can use History Presentation Templates to create an informative presentation about a historical event or period. They can be used by teachers, students, historians, and museums.

Why do we need History Presentation Slides?

History Presentation slides provide an efficient and effective way to present historical information to a class or audience. They offer a visual representation of the material with images and text.

Where can I find free History Presentation Templates?

Many websites offer free History Presentation templates. Slide egg is one of the best PowerPoint providers. Our websites' uniquely designed templates make your presentation more engaging and visually appealing.

Looking Back on the Birth of PowerPoint

March 13, 2017 / Blog, Infographics, PowerPoint, Presentation infographics, Powerpoint, powerpoint history

It’s hard to imagine life without the comforts of modern technology that people know today: smartphones, 24/7 Internet access, computers that basically provide anything and everything with the push of a few buttons, and the like. Now, you’d think that innovation is an everyday occurrence, but that wasn’t the case in the mid-1900s, especially for businesses.

Back in the early 60s, Roger Appeldorn invented the first overhead projector . It had a simple principle of using light reflected upon mirrors to display data printed on transparencies (a.k.a. foil or viewgraph), paper-sized sheets of cellophane. The bulky instrument became a mainstay in meeting rooms, but the processes to create one sheet of transparency were tedious and time-consuming (inkjet printing was still a new thing). If not printed, then presenters would handwrite data to be projected on the transparencies. That is, until the 90s. What happened?

Microsoft PowerPoint happened.

Its revolutionary and innovative approach to creating presentations gave it an edge over its more than thirty competitors . Its timing with the booms of both the Apple and Windows operating systems—primitive as they were—cemented its growth. And its fundamental function hosted other uses it wasn’t intended for, like classroom operations and simple public speaking exercises (and not-so-simple ones like the TED Talks ). Yes, it’s that flexible.

Today, PowerPoint is at its latest version: PowerPoint 2016, as part of the Microsoft bundle Office 2016. More than two decades since the first version was published, PowerPoint is at its prime—with no signs of slowing down anytime soon. Although it has seen its share of competitors, the presentation designer software remains as strong as ever, if not stronger.

So how did this juggernaut of a program come to fruition? How about a teaser? For starters, did you know that PowerPoint didn’t start as an internal project of Microsoft? The following infographic will take you through decades across the technological history to the go-to presentation software that is—and will always be—Microsoft PowerPoint.

Akanegbu, Anuli. “Vision of Learning: A History of Classroom Projectors.” EdTech Magazine . February 28, 2013. www.edtechmagazine.com/k12/article/2013/02/vision-learning-history-classroom-projectors

“Life Before the Web – Running a Startup in the 1980’s.” The Zamzar Blog . July 13, 2016. blog.zamzar.com/2016/07/13/life-before-the-web-running-a-startup-in-the-1980s

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Home Blog Design Exploring the 12 Different Types of Slides in PowerPoint

Exploring the 12 Different Types of Slides in PowerPoint

Presentations are an important communication tool in professional and academic environments. Effective slide design is not merely about aesthetics; it’s about enhancing comprehension, engagement, and retention of information. Each type of slide serves a specific purpose and requires thoughtful consideration in its creation and application. This guide explores twelve common types of slides, explaining their purposes, typical usage scenarios, essential components, and strategies for maximum effectiveness.

Table of Contents

Title Slide

Picture slide, agenda slide, introduction slide, summary slide, thank you slide, quote slide, chart & diagram slide, table slide, animation & video slide, call-to-action slide, final words.

The title slide sets the tone and context for the presentation. It’s our main opportunity to make a strong first impression and establish the speaker’s credibility regarding aesthetics and professionalism.

As the core point in how to start a presentation , the title slide gives a clear indication of the topic, the presenter’s identity, and relevant contextual data. A good presentation title serves two purposes: to be practical and creative. Let’s see which are the components of the title slide.

• Main Title: This is the focal point of the slide. It should be concise yet descriptive enough to clearly explain the presentation’s focus. The font size should be large enough to be readable from the back of the room.
• Subtitle: If necessary, provide additional clarification or a more detailed descriptor of the presentation’s scope.
• Presenter’s Name and Details: Includes full name, job title, and affiliation. Positioned for easy visibility but without overshadowing the main title.
• Date and Venue: These are important for context, especially if the presentation might be referenced later or is part of a larger conference or seminar.
• Design Elements: The layout should reflect corporate or personal branding, using logos, specific color schemes, and fonts. It should also be clean and not cluttered, maintaining a professional appearance.

The title slide should be crafted around a concept that is valid for different types of slides: less is more. Maintain a high contrast between the text and the background, but don’t overdo it; otherwise, you will affect the readability of your slides . If you’re using a background image, ensure it does not distract the audience’s attention from your speech. Alternatively, we can add a fade-in or morph effect for the text to create neat transitions and grab the audience’s attention without being distracting.

For more information, read our tutorial on how to add title slides in PowerPoint .

We call a picture slide to those who use strong visual imagery to aid in storytelling presentations , making concepts tangible, providing an emotional impact, or those who serve to illustrate case studies .

Picture slides are mainly used to illustrate complex concepts , but they are also an element that can add dynamism to a presentation, making the overall presentation less “boring” than just sticking to data and tables. The components of picture slides are:

• High-Quality Image: The image should dominate the slide and be directly relevant to the accompanying content. It should be sharp and have appropriate rights for use – meaning we cannot claim an image from a professional photographer as it is. Either work with royalty-free pictures or with your own images (or work your way around Midjourney to create AI-images).
• Minimal Text: If text is necessary, it should not compete with the image. Placement should be thoughtful, ensuring that the image remains the focus. In some particular scenarios, text can be the image, as we see in portraits made out of words.
• Caption: Optional, but can help provide context or cite the source of the image. Also, captions help people with auditory impairments to comprehend the reason why the image is being shown.

Aim to choose images that evoke the emotion you want to convey in your presentation. For an appropriate layout, you can use the rule of thirds for a balanced composition or half-and-half if you are presenting the image alongside relevant written data. Avoid oversaturated images or heavily dramatic black-and-white effects.

We’re all used to text slides. That being said, good design practices regarding text slides don’t consider having huge walls of text with the sole excuse of “delivering information.” Layouts matter. Presenters should stick to a column layout where the information is summarized and arranged using presentation aids to break up the written format monotony and ensure audience engagement .

Text slides can contain the following elements:

• Headline: Clearly states the topic or point of the slide. It should be written in a distinctive type format than the rest of the body text.
• Body Text: Should be organized in short, concise paragraphs. Limit the text to essential information to avoid overwhelming the audience. Take special care when selecting the font for the presentation to ensure legibility.
• Visual References: Icons or tiny graphics can help illustrate points and break up text, enhancing readability and retention.

Always pay attention to legibility. Although bullet points can be helpful in organizing information, some viewers may find them reiterative, like everything is important—hence the reason why we shouldn’t abuse them. You can emphasize words or important phrases with bold, italics, or color changes. Ensure that the text-to-whitespace balance is accurate to prevent crowded slides.

After delivering the title slide, a good practice is to disclose the structure of the topics to be presented. This is where agenda slides are incredibly handy. They help the audience manage their expectations from the presentation and also structure the presentation’s logical flow. As a tool, they are useful in lengthy business presentations or academic presentations in which presenters review the concepts in the format of presentation handouts (or directly by checking the slide deck if it’s facilitated by the event’s organizers).

Agenda slides are usually built out of these components:

• List of Topics: Clearly enumerated or bulleted, each representing a key section of the presentation. They can list or not the slide number in which they are shown.
• Timings: Optional, but it can be helpful to indicate how long each section is expected to last.
• Progress Indicator: Visual elements like checkmarks or arrows can show what has been covered and what remains to be done.

Using distinctive headings can keep the slide clean. If we use hyperlinks in PowerPoint for our agenda slide, we can mention them during the speech so there are no abrupt jumps between slides. 

The introduction slide is designed to provide a background or context for the topic presented, delivering the key concepts, theories, or frameworks required to understand the rest of the presentation.

The introduction slide is placed right after the agenda slide. After the concepts of the introduction slide are delivered, a smooth transition can direct the presentation’s flow toward the core concepts of the presentation. In terms of the introduction slide’s components, we can count:

• Key Concepts: Briefly introduce and define critical concepts or terms that will be recurrent throughout the presentation.
• Context Setting: Provide any necessary historical, social, or academic context that frames the topic appropriately.
• Objectives: Clearly outline what the presentation aims to achieve, helping to set the audience’s expectations about the takeaways.
• Engaging Visuals: Relevant images, icons, or brief animations can help highlight important elements and make the slide more engaging.

In general lines, the introduction slide should have visual elements but not be overwhelming for the audience. The visuals must not distract, and we cannot use bold color combinations that take the focus away from the message. Using diagrams can also help to present key concepts effectively.

At the final stages of a presentation, we can use the summary slide to review all the key points discussed throughout the presentation. It’s typically placed before the closing remarks, “thank you” slide, or Q&A session. Summary slides help recap the information presented, making it easier to process the key takeaways.

We can count these elements in a summary slide:

• Key Points: Summarize the main points covered in a clear, easy-to-read format.
• Visual Recap: Use simple graphics, charts, or callouts to represent significant data or conclusions visually.
• Concluding Remark: A sentence or two that encapsulates the overarching message or conclusion of the presentation.

Use consistent styling with the earlier slides for a cohesive aesthetic. You can apply levels of hierarchy to the concepts summarized through color or size variations in text.

When preparing for how to end a presentation , the thank you slide is a formal conclusion format. It is always the last slide available in the presentation, and it offers a moment to express gratitude to the audience for their attention, time, and participation. Let’s review which elements make a successful thank you slide:

• Thank You Note: A simple, clear expression of gratitude. It doesn’t require fancy graphics.
• Presenter’s Contact Information: Include an email address, phone number, or social media handles for further communication.
• Invitation for Questions: A prompt that encourages the audience to engage in discussion or ask questions about the presentation.

The transition between the thank you slide and the questions and answers session has to be smooth. Therefore, it’s vital to put an invitation to questions rather than just signaling the slide as the conclusion. A subtle background that follows the slide deck’s aesthetic is always a plus.

Quote slides integrate wisdom, authority, or inspiration from well-known or respected sources into your presentation. They can provide powerful support for your arguments or serve as a motivational element within your talk.

This type of PowerPoint slide is ideal for emphasizing a point, sparking reflection, or inspiring the audience. Use them to underscore the relevance of an idea or introduce a shift in the presentation’s focus.

The components of the quote slide are:

• The Quote: Clearly presented and attributed to the speaker or writer. The text should be legible with enough emphasis to stand out.
• Author’s Name and Credentials: Provide context for the quote by including the author’s name and, if relevant, their credentials or why they are an authority on the topic.
• Related Imagery or Background: An image or abstract design that complements the theme of the quote can enhance its impact.

Work with a quote PowerPoint template that effectively highlights the quote through a professional layout. For visibility, a strong contrast must be maintained between the text and the background; therefore, text boxes with backgrounds are commonly used. If using an image, select one that enhances rather than competes with the text.

Chart and diagram slides are essential for visually representing data, showing relationships, illustrating processes, and explaining complex systems. They transform numbers and abstract concepts into more digestible graphic formats that enhance audience understanding. We can choose between charts and graphs depending on the kind of data to represent, but diagrams often help to contextualize the raw data for simpler explanations.

Use these slides when discussing data trends, comparisons, workflow processes, or hierarchical structures. They are particularly helpful in business presentations, scientific discussions, and any scenario where visual simplification of complex data is beneficial.

The main components for any chart or diagram slide are:

• Chart or Diagram: Select the appropriate type (e.g., bar chart , pie chart , flowchart , organizational chart ) based on the data or process you are illustrating.
• Labels and Legends: Essential for clarity, they help the audience understand what each part of the chart or diagram represents.
• Titles and Subtitles: They clearly indicate what the graphic explains or highlights.
• Annotations or Callouts: Use these to emphasize key points or data within the chart or diagram.

Keep all text in graphs readable and clear. Animated effects can show a progression or illustrate relationships more dynamically. In terms of colors, use contrasting colors for data sets to aid in differentiation. 

For more information, check our collection of chart PowerPoint templates .

The other format for representing data in presentation slides is tables. Tables can structure data sets systematically and allow for the presentation of detailed data in a comparative and accessible format. For this reason, they are ideal for showing exact figures and relationships between items.

These slides are especially useful in financial, research, or technical presentations where precise data needs to be compared or detailed specifications have to be presented side by side. We can identify the following elements in table slides:

• Table: Clearly segmented into rows and columns. Headers should be distinct to guide the viewer through the data.
• Row and Column Labels: These should describe the data they contain succinctly and clearly.
• Highlighting: Use shading, bolding, or color-coding to emphasize important data points or trends within the table.
• Footnotes or Source Citations: If the data comes from external sources or requires additional explanation, include this information in a discreet but readable manner.

In design terms, tables should be kept as neat as possible. All text must be legible, with sufficient spacing and an appropriate font size (no less than 11 pt). Colors can be used to differentiate between data sets, but avoid using too many colors, as they can lead to confusion. 

For more information, check our collection of PowerPoint table templates .

Sometimes, images aren’t enough. Video presentations and vector image animations are powerful tools, as they can be planned to enhance storytelling. The average duration depends on the total presentation length, but they shouldn’t take more than 30% of the total allotted time (as otherwise, the attendees are just streaming video rather than viewing a presentation). 

When it comes to the components of this type of slide, we can find:

• Embedded Video or Animation: This should be high quality (720p minimum) and directly relevant to the presented content.
• Playback Controls: Clearly visible to allow easy control during the presentation.
• Brief Descriptions or Introductions: Provide context or prepare the audience for what they will see.

As a presenter, your job is to ensure the video or animation is seamlessly integrated into the presentation, both technically and from a design perspective. This means testing the playback functionality multiple times prior to the presentation.

Also, check our collection of animated PowerPoint templates .

We conclude this list with a slide to persuade the audience to take specific action following the presentation. Call-to-action slides, or CTA slides, encourage the viewers to take action, such as further conversation, purchasing an item or service, or participating in a project.

It is typically placed at the end of the presentation, following the summary and thank you slide, to motivate immediate action. Its components are:

• Clear Directive: The CTA itself should be straightforward and compelling, such as “Register Now,” “Join Us,” or “Visit Our Website.”
• Reasons to Act: Briefly reiterate the benefits or importance of taking the action, enhancing the persuasive appeal.
• Contact Information or Links: Provide all necessary links or contact details to make it easy for the audience to know how to act.

The CTA slide should feature a design that grabs attention. Use strong, action-oriented language and a large, readable text. 

As we’ve seen, harnessing the usage of these different types of slides helps us become better presenters, with our message being tailored to specific needs. Create your own slide decks by implementing the guidance listed in this article and customize the slides each time for a unique experience.

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Design, Presentation Approaches Filed under Design

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Next slide, please: A brief history of the corporate presentation

From million-dollar slide shows to Steve Jobs’s introduction of the iPhone, a bit of show business never hurt plain old business.

• Claire L. Evans archive page

It’s 1948, and it isn’t a great year for alcohol. Prohibition has come and gone, and booze is a buyer’s market again. That much is obvious from Seagram’s annual sales meeting, an 11-city traveling extravaganza designed to drum up nationwide sales. No expense has been spared: there’s the two-hour, professionally acted stage play about the life of a whiskey salesman. The beautiful anteroom displays. The free drinks. But the real highlight is a slideshow. 

To call the Seagram-Vitarama a slideshow is an understatement. It’s an experience : hundreds of images of the distilling process, set to music, projected across five 40-by-15-foot screens. “It is composed of pictures, yet it is not static,” comments one awed witness. “The overall effect is one of magnificence.” Inspired by an Eastman Kodak exhibit at the 1939 World’s Fair, the Seagram-Vitarama is the first A/V presentation ever given at a sales meeting. It will not be the last. 

In the late ’40s, multimedia was a novelty. But by the early 1960s, nearly all companies with national advertising budgets were using multimedia gear—16-­millimeter projectors, slide projectors, filmstrip projectors, and overheads—in their sales training and promotions, for public relations, and as part of their internal communications. Many employed in-house A/V directors, who were as much showmen as technicians. Because although presentations have a reputation for being tedious, when they’re done right, they’re theater. The business world knows it. Ever since the days of the Vitarama, companies have leveraged the dramatic power of images to sell their ideas to the world. 

Next slide, please

The sound of slides clacking is deafening. But it doesn’t matter, because the champagne is flowing and the sound system is loud. The 2,500 dignitaries and VIPs in the audience are being treated to an hourlong operetta about luxury travel. Onstage, a massive chorus, the entire Stockholm Philharmonic, and some 50 dancers and performers are fluttering around a pair of Saab 9000CD sedans. Stunning images of chrome details, leather seats, and open roads dance across a 26-foot-tall screen behind them. The images here are all analog: nearly 7,000 film slides, carefully arranged in a grid of 80 Kodak projectors. It’s 1987, and slideshows will never get any bigger than this. 

Before PowerPoint, and long before digital projectors, 35-millimeter film slides were king. Bigger, clearer, and less expensive to produce than 16-millimeter film, and more colorful and higher-resolution than video, slides were the only medium for the kinds of high-impact presentations given by CEOs and top brass at annual meetings for stockholders, employees, and salespeople. Known in the business as “multi-image” shows, these presentations required a small army of producers, photographers, and live production staff to pull off. First the entire show had to be written, storyboarded, and scored. Images were selected from a library, photo shoots arranged, animations and special effects produced. A white-gloved technician developed, mounted, and dusted each slide before dropping it into the carousel. Thousands of cues were programmed into the show control computers—then tested, and tested again. Because computers crash. Projector bulbs burn out. Slide carousels get jammed. 

“When you think of all the machines, all the connections, all the different bits and pieces, it’s a miracle these things even played at all,” says Douglas Mesney , a commercial photographer turned slide producer whose company Incredible Slidemakers produced the 80-­projector Saab launch. Now 77 years old, he’s made a retirement project of archiving the now-forgotten slide business. Mesney pivoted to producing multi-image shows in the early 1970s after an encounter with an impressive six-screen setup at the 1972 New York Boat Show. He’d been shooting spreads for Penthouse and car magazines, occasionally lugging a Kodak projector or two to pitch meetings for advertising clients. “All of a sudden you look at six projectors and what they can do, and you go, Holy mackerel ,” he remembers. 

“All of a sudden you look at six projectors and what they can do, and you go, Holy mackerel. ” Douglas Mesney, a commercial photographer

Six was just the beginning. At the height of Mesney's career, his shows called for up to 100 projectors braced together in vertiginous rigs. With multiple projectors pointing toward the same screen, he could create seamless panoramas and complex animations, all synchronized to tape. Although the risk of disaster was always high, when he pulled it off, his shows dazzled audiences and made corporate suits look like giants. Mesney’s clients included IKEA, Saab, Kodak, and Shell; he commanded production budgets in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. And in the multi-image business, that was cheap. Larger A/V staging companies, like Carabiner International, charged up to $1 million to orchestrate corporate meetings, jazzing up their generic multi-­image “modules” with laser light shows, dance numbers, and top-shelf talent like Hall & Oates, the Allman Brothers, and even the Muppets. “I liken it to being a rock-and-roll roadie, but I never went on the tour bus,” explains Susan Buckland, a slide programmer who spent most of her career behind the screen at Carabiner. 

From its incorporation in 1976 to the mid-1980s, the Association for Multi-Image, a trade association for slide producers, grew from zero to 5,000 members. At its peak, the multi-image business employed some 20,000 people and supported several festivals and four different trade magazines. One of these ran a glowing profile of Douglas Mesney in 1980; when asked for his prognosis about the future of slides, he replied: “We could make a fortune or be out of business in a year.” He wasn’t wrong. 

At the time, some 30 manufacturers of electronic slide programming devices vied for the multi-image dollar. To meet the demand for high-impact shows, the tech had quickly evolved from manual dissolve units and basic control systems—programmed with punched paper tape, and then audiocassette—to dedicated slide control computers like the AVL Eagle I, which could drive 30 projectors at once. The Eagle, which came with word processing and accounting software, was a true business computer—so much so that when Eagle spun off from its parent company, Audio Visual Labs, in the early ’80s, it became one of Silicon Valley’s most promising computer startups. Eagle went public in the summer of 1983, making its president, Dennis R. Barnhart, an instant multimillionaire. Only hours after the IPO, Barnhart plowed his brand-new cherry-red Ferrari through a guardrail near the company’s headquarters in Los Gatos, California, flipped through the air, crashed into a ravine, and died. The slide business would soon follow.

Douglas Mesney likes to say that if you never saw a slide show, you never will. The machines to show them have been landfilled. The slides themselves were rarely archived. Occasionally a few boxes containing an old multi-image “module” will turn up in a storage unit, and occasionally those will even be undamaged. But with the exception of a few hobbyists and retired programmers, the know-how to restore and stage multi-image slideshows is scarce. This leaves former slide professionals at a loss. “All of us are devastated that none of the modules survived,” says Susan Buckland. “Basically, I don’t have a past, because I can’t explain it.” The entire industry, which existed at an unexpected intersection of analog and high-tech artistry, came and went in a little over 20 years.

Presentations, like porn, have always pushed technology forward; in the multi-­image days, producers like Mesney took the slide as far as it could go, using every tool available to create bigger and bolder shows. Mesney claims to have set the land speed record for a slide presentation with a three-minute-long, 2,400-slide show, but even at top speed, slides are static. The computers that controlled them, however, were not—and it wasn’t long before they evolved beyond the medium. “Back then, computers were fast enough to tell slides what to do, but they weren’t fast enough to actually create the images themselves,” explains Steven Michelsen, a former slide programmer who restores and runs old multi-image shows in his Delaware garage. “It took another 10 or 15 years until you could run a show straight from your computer and have the images look worth looking at,” he adds. 

The last slide projector ever made rolled off the assembly line in 2004. The inside of its casing was signed by factory workers and Kodak brass before the unit was handed over to the Smithsonian. Toasts and speeches were made, but by then they were eulogies, because PowerPoint had already eaten the world.

Inventing PowerPoint

The Hotel Regina is an Art Nouveau marvel overlooking the Tuileries Garden and the Louvre. But on this day in 1992, its Old World meeting rooms have been retrofitted with advanced video technology. The color projector in the back of the room, the size of a small refrigerator, cost upwards of $100,000 and takes an hour to warm up. A team of technicians has spent the better part of the last 48 hours troubleshooting to ensure that nothing goes wrong when Robert Gaskins, the fastidious architect of a new piece of software called PowerPoint 3.0, walks into the room. He’ll be carrying a laptop under his arm, and when he reaches the lectern, he’ll pick up a video cable, plug it in, and demonstrate for the first time something that has been reproduced billions of times since: a video presentation, running straight off a laptop, in full color. The audience, full of Microsoft associates from across Europe, will go bananas. They “grasped immediately what the future would bring for their own presentations,” Gaskins later wrote. “There was deafening applause.” 

It’s hard now to imagine deafening applause for a PowerPoint—almost as hard as it is to imagine anyone but Bob Gaskins standing at this particular lectern, ushering in the PowerPoint age. Presentations are in his blood. His father ran an A/V company, and family vacations usually included a trip to the Eastman Kodak factory. During his graduate studies at Berkeley, he tinkered with machine translation and coded computer-generated haiku. He ran away to Silicon Valley to find his fortune before he could finalize his triple PhDs in English, linguistics, and computer science, but he brought with him a deep appreciation for the humanities, staffing his team with like-minded polyglots, including a disproportionately large number of women in technical roles. Because Gaskins ensured that his offices—the only Microsoft division, at the time, in Silicon Valley—housed a museum-worthy art collection, PowerPoint’s architects spent their days among works by Frank Stella, Richard Diebenkorn, and Robert Motherwell. 

Gaskins’s 1984 proposal for PowerPoint, written when he was VP of product development at the Sunnyvale startup Forethought, is a manifesto in bullet points. It outlines the slumbering, largely-hidden-from-view $3.5 billion business presentation industry and its enormous need for clear, effective slides. It lists technology trends—laser printers, color graphics, “WYSIWYG” software—that point to an emerging desktop presentation market. It’s a stunningly prescient document throughout. But Gaskins italicized only one bullet point in the whole thing.

User benefits:

Allows the content-originator to control the presentation.

This is Gaskins’s key insight: a presentation’s message is inevitably diluted when its production is outsourced. In the early ’80s, he meant that literally. The first two versions of PowerPoint were created to help executives produce their own overhead transparencies and 35-millimeter slides, rather than passing the job off to their secretaries or a slide bureau. 

PowerPoint had become shorthand for the stupefying indignities of office life—a 2001 New Yorker profile summed it up as “software you impose on other people.”

“In the ’50s, ’60s, and early ’70s, information flow was narrow,” explains Sandy Beetner, former CEO of Genigraphics, a business graphics company that was, for several decades, the industry leader in professional presentation graphics. Their clients were primarily Fortune 500 companies and government agencies with the resources to produce full-color charts, 3D renderings, and other high-tech imagery on those slides. Everyone else was limited to acetate overheads and— gasp —words. “Prior to PowerPoint,” she says, “people communicated in black and white. There was just so much missed in that environment.”

Beetner oversaw Genigraphics’ national network service bureaus, which were located in every major American city and staffed 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, by graphic artists prepared to produce, polish, and print slides. The company was so vital to presentational culture that Gaskins negotiated a deal to make Genigraphics the official 35-millimeter slide production service for PowerPoint 2.0; a “Send to Genigraphics” menu command was baked into PowerPoint until 2003. This, incidentally, was around the same time that Kodak stopped making Carousel projectors. 

Gaskins retired from Microsoft in 1993 and moved to London. He returned to the States 10 years later, an expert in antique concertinas. By then, PowerPoint had become shorthand for the stupefying indignities of office life. A 2001 New Yorker profile summed it up as “software you impose on other people”; the statistician Edward Tufte, known for his elegant monographs about data visualization, famously blamed the 2003 Columbia shuttle disaster on a bum PowerPoint slide. Gaskins’s software, Tufte argued, produces relentlessly sequential, hierarchical, sloganeering, over-managed presentations, rife with “chartjunk” and devoid of real meaning. No wonder software corporations loved it.

Robert Gaskins is remarkably sympathetic to these views, not least because Tufte’s mother, the Renaissance scholar Virginia Tufte, mentored him as an undergraduate in the English department at the University of Southern California. In a reflection written on the 20th anniversary of PowerPoint’s introduction, Gaskins acknowledged that “more business and academic talks look like poor attempts at sales presentations,” a phenomenon he blamed as much on a “mass failure of taste” as on PowerPoint itself, a tool so powerful it collapsed all preexisting contexts. Not everything’s a sales presentation; nor should it be. But PowerPoint made it easy to add multimedia effects to informal talks, empowering lay users to make stylistic decisions once reserved for professionals. To paraphrase an early PowerPoint print ad: now the person making the presentation made the presentation. That those people weren’t always particularly good at it didn’t seem to matter.

What did matter was that presentations were no longer reserved for year-end meetings and big ideas worthy of the effort and expense required to prepare color slides. “The scalability of information and audience that PowerPoint brought to the party was pretty incredible,” says Beetner, whose company has survived as a ghost in the machine, in the form of PowerPoint templates and clip art. “It opened up the channels dramatically, and pretty quickly. There isn’t a student alive, at any level, that hasn’t seen a PowerPoint presentation.” Indeed, PowerPoint is used in religious sermons; by schoolchildren preparing book reports; at funerals and weddings. In 2010, Microsoft announced that PowerPoint was installed on more than a billion computers worldwide. 

At this scale, PowerPoint’s impact on how the world communicates has been immeasurable. But here’s something that can be measured: Microsoft grew tenfold in the years that Robert Gaskins ran its Graphics Business Unit, and it has grown 15-fold since. Technology corporations, like PowerPoint itself, have exploded. And so have their big presentations, which are no longer held behind closed doors. They’re now semi-public affairs, watched—willingly and enthusiastically—by consumers around the world. Nobody has to worry about slide carousels getting jammed anymore, but things still go haywire all the time, from buggy tech demos to poorly-thought-out theatrics. 

When everything works, a good presentation can drive markets and forge reputations. Of course, this particular evolution wasn’t exclusively Microsoft’s doing. Because perhaps the most memorable corporate presentation of all time—Steve Jobs’s announcement of the iPhone at Macworld 2007— wasn’t a PowerPoint at all. It was a Keynote . 

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

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

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

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

Related: How to Automatically Save PowerPoint Presentations to OneDrive

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

First, click "File" in the menu bar.

In the left pane, click "Info."

Click "Version History" on the right.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Blog > 10 creative Ideas for your Title- and End-Slides in Presentations

10 creative Ideas for your Title- and End-Slides in Presentations

11.13.19   •  #powerpointtips #presentation.

Of all the slides in a PowerPoint presentation, the ones that are without a doubt the most important ones are the first and the last one. It makes perfect sense – the title slide sets the general tone. Make it boring and you’ll loose your audience’s attention within the first few minutes. If you’re making it exciting and innovative on the other hand, you’re taking a big step towards giving an amazing presentation and having an engaged audience. It is very similar with the final slide. It will be the one that people are going to remember most, the one that is supposed to make people leave the room thinking ‘Wow! What a great presentation!’ A bad ending could even mess up what would otherwise be a good performance overall (just think of a good TV show with a bad ending…).

The most common mistakes for title and final slides

If you asked 100 people what belongs on your PowerPoint’s title slide, the majority would answer ‘The title, maybe a subtitle, the presenter’s name and company, the date’. That kind of title slide is alright, but you usually say all of these things in the beginning of a presentation anyway. Also, it is very likely that most of your attendees know these things – they usually signed up for it after all. So what’s the point in listing all of that information on your title slide, when you could also use it for making a stunning first impression? Not only the title slide is commonly designed in an uncreative and conventional way. Too often, you can see PowerPoint presentations ending with the ‘Any Questions?’ or even worse – the ‘Thank you for your attention’ slide. ‘Thank you for your attention’ is a set phrase that has been said so many times it can’t possibly be delivered in an authentic way anymore. Therefore, it’s better to think of something else for your grand final. Finding an unconventional ending that suits your presentation style makes you seem much more charismatic and authentic than using an empty phrase.

1. An inspiring quote

An inspiring quote on your slide is a perfect way to both start and finish your presentation. Well, it does not have to be inspiring. It could be any quote that is somehow connected to your presented topic. Just have fun looking through books and the internet to find interesting quotes that you want your audience to hear. Good pages to look at for inspiration are goodreads and brainyquotes.com .

2. A blank slide

This might seem strange to some people, but a blank slide can be really powerful if you want to have your audience’s full attention. You can use the advantage of blank slides by incorporating them at the beginning, in the end or even in between your regular slides. You can either use a blank slide of your regular template (so there will still be some design elements on it) or go all in and make the slide completely black (or white).

3. A call to action

If the goal of your presentation is to really make your audience act in some kind of way, there is no better way to start – or better yet end your presentation than with a call to action. This can be literally anything from little trivial things like “Drink enough water during the presentation so your brain stays intact!” – which will lighten up the mood – to more serious calls like “Help reducing waste by recycling whenever possible!”.

4. A question

Usually, it is the audience that asks questions after a presentation. However, you can also turn that around and ask your attendees instead. However, it’s important to ask a question that can be answered easily and individually – the best questions involve previous experiences and personal opinions (asking about facts or questions that are hard to understand can often lead to silence and no one wanting to answer).

5. An interactive poll

Nothing engages the audience like a live poll. Conduct one right at the beginning to get everybody envolved, and/or wait until the end to get your audience’s opinion on something. Icebreaker polls are the perfect way to start, as they lighten the mood. You can easily create polls for free with interactive software tools such as SlideLizard .

6. A funny picture, meme, or quote

I’m pretty sure that every student nowadays has that teacher that just tries a little too hard to be cool by throwing in a meme on literally every single slide. That may be a bit too much. But just a little comedy at the beginning or in the end can make you seem very charismatic and entertaining and catch the attention of your listeners. Open (or close) with a joke, a funny picture or a quote – whichever you feel comfortable with. It is usually best if it has something to do with the topic you’re presenting.

7. An interesting fact

Catch the audience’s attention by putting an interesting fact concerning the topic on one of your slides – ideally at the beginning, but maybe also in the end (to keep up the audience’s interest even after the presentation is done).

8. The title, but with a twist

If you feel like you need to put the presentations name/topic on the front slide, but still want that little creative twist, just change the title slightly. According to what I’m proposing, rather dull presentation titles like e.g. “Marine Biology – An Introduction to Organisms in the sea” can be transformed to “Marine Biology – Diving Deep” (or something less cheesy if you prefer). Make it either funny or over-the-top spectacular and catch the audience’s attention!

9. A bold statement, opinion, or piece of information

This is probably the best way to capture your audience from the beginning on. Start with a radical, crazy opinion or statement and then get your attendees hooked by telling them that during the presentation, they will learn why you’re right. It could be anything, really, as long as it goes well with your presented topic – from the statement “Everybody has the time to read 5 books a month” to “Going to college is a waste of time” or “The human species is not the most intelligent on earth” – Take whatever crazy, unpopular theory or opinion you have, throw it out there and (very important!) explain why you’re right. You’ll have your audience’s attention for sure and might even change some of their opinions about certain things.

10. No title and end slide at all

Yes, that’s a possibility as well. If you absolutely can’t think of any creative or otherwise good way to start and end your presentation – even after reading the tips mentioned above – then simply don’t. That’s right - no title and end slide at all. You can pull that of by simply introducing yourself in the beginning, then getting right into the topic (which makes a good impression, long introductions are usually rather tedious) and when you’re at your last slide just saying a simple ‘Goodbye, thank you and feel free to ask questions’.

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About the author.

Pia Lehner-Mittermaier

Pia works in Marketing as a graphic designer and writer at SlideLizard. She uses her vivid imagination and creativity to produce good content.

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Visual communication.

If there are used images or videos for communication, it is visual communication. Visual Communication is almost used everywhere like on television, posts on social media (Instagram, Facebook), advertisement.

.ppt file extension

A .ppt file is a presentation which was made with PowerPoint, that includes different slides with texts, images and transition effects.

Virtual Event

Virtual events take place entirely online. They are very convenient as anyone may join from wherever they are via a smartphone or computer.

Recall Questions

With recall questions, you have to remember something or something has to be recalled. Example: A teacher asks his students a question so that they remember the material from the last lesson.

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