🎺Jazz up your Google Slides — Wonder Tools

5 ways to make presentations pop with visuals and interactivity

Millions of people use Google Slides, so an ecosystem of add-ons has sprung up to help you make more engaging presentations. Read on for five free ways to boost your next deck.

1. Poll people from your slides

• Slido for Google Slides lets you easily insert multiple-choice or open-ended questions. Results update live on your slides so you don’t have to switch screens. Here’s a 3-min video explainer and more on what I like about Slido.

Slido for Google Slides is useful for live polling during online presentations.

• Poll Everywhere for Google Slides is another option. People can respond to questions on your slides via SMS. Try a range of poll types, like asking people to drop a pin on a map of a place they'd like to visit.

2. Jazz up your slides with apps

Choose from > 100 apps in the Google Workspace Marketplace. Try these:

• Creator Studio Export a gif or a video of your slide deck. Simple and free.

• Unsplash Search for pro photos you can add free to your slides.

• Noun Project Find icons that accentuate your message.

• Slides Toolbox Add new features to Google Slides. For example:

  • Turn a collection of photos into slides.

  • Convert a Google Doc into a slide deck.

3. Explore new designs with template galleries

Google Slides offers a limited number of templates,¹ several of which feature amateurish design, small fonts and an overemphasis on bullet points. That encourages people to create old-school death-by-Powerpoint-style presentations with too much tiny text. Use alternative template services to find templates with a cleaner look.

• Slides Carnival Try a timeline template or a good yellow-and-black explanatory theme

• Slidesgo Use a dark, minimalist marketing template

• Slidesmania Start with a colorful, clean template or make a simple resume

This free Slidesgo template has 30 slides. See the full deck.

4. Create slides automatically with AI