5 Of The Best Free PowerPoint Templates For Any Project Or Presentation

You don't need to start from scratch if you want to create a captivating presentation to hook audiences. PowerPoint offers a range of free templates you can use for a variety of purposes. Whether you're planning a personal project or making a plan for your next business idea, PowerPoint templates can save you a great deal of time building custom slides.

To access templates in PowerPoint, all you need is a Microsoft account, which grants you access to Microsoft 365 online (formerly Microsoft Office 365). Click on PowerPoint from the sidebar, then access the search bar at the top of the window to search for templates. The templates cover multiple purposes for use at work and home. While a fair amount of templates are available to premium members only, there are still a large number of free templates hidden away in Microsoft's expansive library. This is good news for those who've been drawn away from premium subscriptions after Microsoft announced price hikes for Microsoft 365 subscriptions.

While PowerPoint is widely used for giving basic presentations, it can also be incredibly practical for other occasions, such as planning events, mapping out project timelines, or giving an effective sales pitch. Check out these five free templates from PowerPoint.

The Blue Spheres Pitch Deck template offers a stylish and corporate look if you want to give the best first impression for your next product or service. The template offers a minimal color palette alongside tools specifically targeted towards businesses. There are plenty of opportunities to showcase statistics, such as projected revenue growth, thanks to the template's multiple graph types and timelines.

The opening slides feature everything you need to introduce your product to investors and other companies. There's an About Us section followed by a Problem and Solution slide so you can clearly describe your company's aim. The template also offers multiple section dividers, so you can pick a style that best reflects your brand image. Several corporate images are featured throughout the template for a professional and polished look. However, if you're unhappy with any images, you can easily swap them. Right-click a picture, then select Change Picture to replace an image. PowerPoint preserves any image effects when replacing images, saving plenty of time and effort when editing your slides.

If you're building a resume, the last thing employers want to do is look through page after page of information. Infographic resume, a free template offered by PowerPoint, condenses all the details of your resume into one informative page.

On the right side of the template is an Experience column that you can use to showcase an informative work history. Most of the template is built from text boxes, so all you have to do is double-click a box and input your information for each category. The template neatly structures essential fields for your resume, including ones for company names, dates, job descriptions, and names of colleges.

Featured on the left side of the template are sections for a short personal profile, education, and any relevant skills to showcase. The Education section features customizable fields for names of colleges, the dates you attended them, and what degrees you acquired. At the bottom of the template is a section for your contact details, including a name, phone number, and any URLs you wish to add. Adding online links to your resume is a great way to show your work in a digital portfolio. Overall, PowerPoint's infographic template presents an appealing display to showcase your talents while remaining concise.

PowerPoint's Event Planning Deck is a great option for organizing charity or fundraising events, but it can be tailored toward several other types of events. The template features essential tools for effective planning, including RSVP tracking, food and drink vendors, and budgeting.

Planning events can be a nightmare, especially if you're a person who writes things down only to forget them. PowerPoint's event planning deck template brings all the necessary details for your next event into one concise presentation to avoid a desk littered with sticky notes.

The Overview slide outlines key event details such as the date, location, and number of guests. This way, you can view all important information for your event at a glance. The remaining slides provide plenty of space to organize different aspects of your event. If you have several catering and entertainment options, the budgeting table includes pre-made columns for up to three choices. You can easily add more options by right-clicking a cell and selecting Insert. Whether you're hosting a party, school fayre, or a charity event, PowerPoint's Event Planning Deck is an excellent choice for arranging small events in minimal time.

PowerPoint is probably not the first program that springs to mind when thinking about the best brainstorming tool for your team. The software does offer a range of effective brainstorming tools, however, including a great business brainstorming presentation template to promote productive ideation sessions.

Brainstorming can be a mess, so it's helpful to stick to a template, especially if you have some ground rules. The template traverses a typical brainstorming session, with slides covering an agenda, brainstorming objectives, and relevant next steps. Also included is a Rules section so you can ensure all your employees get a fair share of time to discuss their ideas.

The Summarize slide is a useful tool to help you process all the information covered in brainstorming sessions. You can use this slide to determine how to select ideas or restate decision-making criteria. While no slide is dedicated to creating a brainstorming diagram, PowerPoint offers unlimited potential to create powerful mind maps with its library of tools and shapes. Using a free version of PowerPoint online, you can access a range of editing tools underneath the Insert and Draw tabs to map out visual ideas. You can also add speaker notes to your PowerPoint presentation to capture ideas from specific team members.

Having a clear vision for your next project helps you stay on track and focus on the necessary steps toward your goal. PowerPoint's Bold Project Timeline template provides a neat step-by-step structure to help turn your next idea into a success.

The template offers diagrams for project timelines and outlines, featuring two of each. Like other templates, the project timeline uses text boxes so you can easily edit information. The timeline is broken into five steps (which unfortunately can't be edited), but you can add extra lines as sub-steps if desired.

The Project Outline slides utilize a different approach, which is arguably even simpler to use. Double-click the template to open the editing view, where you can edit headers and descriptions simultaneously. Also featured in the template is a Project Milestones slide, which lets you edit key dates and project deadlines.

You might think of PowerPoint purely as a tool for giving presentations, but there's a lot more it has to offer. Whether you're crafting an effective resume, building a project plan, or impressing investors with a business idea, you can find dozens of practical templates to use at no cost.