Hey and welcome to this beginner’s guide
to Google Slides. It’s Google’s equivalent to Microsoft
PowerPoint or Apple’s Keynote; it’s in the cloud, it’s super easy to use and most
importantly, it’s free. My name is Eduard Stinga, from VideoPlasty,
and let’s get started with this tutorial. In order to use Google Slides, you need to
have a free Google Account. But if you are already using Google Drive
or Gmail, you already have a Google account. If not, just go ahead and create a free Google
account on google.com by clicking the Sign In button on the top right, then Create Account. So with your Google Account created, you need
to be logged in to access Google Slides. To access Google Slides you can open your
Google Drive; click the New button, go to Google Slides and you can either start a blank
presentation or create one using an existing template Alternatively, you can access Google Slides
on slides.google.com This is where you will see all your recent
presentations. You can see the ones owned by you; or others
shared with you by other people To create a new presentation, you can use
the + button on the bottom right It will ask you if you want to create a new
presentation from scratch or use one of the existing templates. Let’s have a look at the templates. If you scroll down, you will see Google Slides
offers you quite a few options, grouped in various categories. We have Personal templates; Work templates;
and Education templates. When you create a presentation, it’s always
helpful to use an existing template as it will save you a lot of time designing it and
it will already look great. But for this tutorial, I want you to learn
the mechanics of how Google Slides works, so we will start with a blank template. Welcome to Google Slides! On the top you will see a lot of tools and
tabs we will use. On the left we have the list of all the slides;
currently we only have one slide. And in the middle we have the preview area,
where we can edit the slide. First, let’s set the aspect ratio of the
presentation. Go to File -> Page Setup ; and select the
aspect ratio that you want. In most cases, I recommend you stick with
Widescreen 16:9, as it’s the most popular aspect ratio nowadays for monitors and projectors Next, we need to add a title to our presentation,
which is very simple to do. Go to the top left corner where it says Untitled
Presentation, click on it and start writing your own title instead To start editing the text of your slide, click
anywhere on it and start typing With the text selected, you can:
- change the font Change the font size Make it Bold, Italic or Underlined Change the color of the text Change the alignment Add a numbered list
Or a bulleted list Decrease or increase indentation Or simply just clear formatting and revert
to the default settings. To change the background of a slide, you need
to have the slide selected, then click the button that says Background You can change the background color by using
one of the existing options from Google. You can also add your own custom color by
using either a HEX code, if you have a specific color code; or just use the hue slider, then
selecting a more precise color on top. You can also use a gradient as a background,
so it goes from one color to another You can also use an image as a background,
by uploading your own image; inserting it by URL; from your Google Photos
or Google Drive; or simply by searching for an image online on Google Image Search To change the layout of the current slide,
you need to have it selected in the slide list, then click the button that says Layout. Here you have quite a few options to choose
from, depending on what you need; some of the most popular ones are Title Slide; Title
and Body; Title and Two Columns or a Main Point To create a new slide, you go here on the
left, right click in the empty area and select New Slide. For this one, let’s go to layout and select
blank, so we can add a few elements ourselves. First, let’s see how we can insert text
into our slide. To do that, you need to use the Text Box tool. You can use it and draw an area in which you
want to write some text. To change the size of the text box, just grab
it on the border when the cursor changes to an arrow, then resize it as you want. Keep in mind, this will adjust its content
and change the text layout to fit the new box accordingly. To insert a link, you need to have an element
selected or a portion of the text; then click this icon with a chain to Insert Link. You can link to existing slides in this presentation;
other Google Documents you have; or simply just paste an external URL. Next, I’ll show you how to insert an image
into your slide. And you can add an image from multiple sources. First, you can upload an image from your computer
by navigating to where you already have some images selected for your presentation. You can also search for images by using Google
Images which shows up on the sidebar. Other options are to add images that you already
have uploaded on your Google Drive; Or if you use Google Photos, you can also
browse and use an image from there. And the last option is to use the camera of
your device to take a photo right then and there. To move an image, you need to click on it,
hold down the left click and move it with your mouse. To resize and image or any other element from
Google Slides, you need to have the element selected, then use any of those points on
the edge to resize it. Keep in mind, if you use the ones here, it
will distort the image. If you want to resize an image and maintain
its proportions, you need to grab it from one of the corners. To rotate an element, use this handle on top. To delete an element, you need to have it
selected; and then just click Backspace on your keyboard. To crop an image, you can double click on
it and you will see these new black bars on the edges. Grab them and adjust accordingly until you
are happy with your selection, then click anywhere outside the image to finalise the
crop You can also mask an image by clicking this
arrow here and then selecting a shape that you want to use as a mask To undo any of the changes you make in Google
Slide, you can either use this back arrow; or use the keyboard shortcut
CTRL + Z or CMD + Z on a Mac to go back to the previous change To insert an audio file into your slide, you
need to go to the Insert tab here on top, then select audio. The only way to add audio is by adding files
that are already in your Google Drive. So you need to first upload the audio file
to Google Drive, then it will appear here. Now you’ll be able to play this audio using
the play button while editing the slide; and you can also play the audio when you’re
presenting it. Adding a video is pretty similar. Go back to the Insert tab and select Video. With videos, you can add a video from YouTube
by using the search bar to find it; Or if you already have the YouTube URL, you
can just paste it in the next tab; You can also add a video directly from your
Google Drive. So again, if you want to add a video from
your local computer, you first need to upload it to Google Drive, then it will show up here. You can also insert charts into your slide,
so let’s go ahead and use a Pie chart, for example. To edit the contents of this
chart and modify its data, click on this arrow
and select Open Source. It will open a new spreadsheet in Google Sheets. Here, you can modify the data and you will
also see it appear in real time in the preview of your chart. When you’re done, close the browser tab
and go back to your presentation. You will now have to click the Update button
to refresh the changes and have them appear in your slide. Inserting a table is very easy. You can use this tool to easily select the
size of the table that you want, with as many rows and columns as you need. Then you can edit the contents of each cell
by clicking anywhere inside it and writing any text that you want Google Slides also allows you to add Shapes,
which you can use in all sorts of creative ways. Let’s assume you want to create a mind map,
so let’s go ahead and do that. To duplicate a shape, right click on it, click
Copy; then right click again and Paste; then move the shape in your desired position. Once that is done, you can
connect the shapes with lines. When you draw a line from one shape to another,
you can connect it by using those points. Then, when you move either one of the shapes,
the lines will adjust accordingly and keep connecting the two shapes. To add text in any of the shapes, you need
to double click on it and start writing. You can format the text as you want, by aligning
it centrally or making it bold, for example. To start the presentation and go into slideshow
mode, go to the first slide in your presentation, then click this button that says “Present” To navigate from one slide to another, use
the spacebar key on your keyboard or the right and down arrow keys. To navigate backwards, use the left or up
arrow keys. To exit the slideshow, press the escape key. As you probably noticed, moving from one slide
to another is pretty abrupt, as there is no transition animation between slides. So let’s add a transition. Select the slide to which you want to add
a transition, then click this button that says Transition. Here you will find a list of the available
animations. Google Slides offers less options than PowerPoint
or Keynote, but the few options that it has are very smooth and elegant, so personally
I don’t mind. You can preview the transition by clicking
Play. To adjust the speed of the animation, use
this slider to make it slower or faster. Click this button to apply the transition
to all the slides in your presentation. Now let’s enter Presentation mode to see
how it looks. The same way we add a transition animation
to the entire slide, we can also add an animation to an individual element. To do that, you need to have any element selected,
then click where it says “Animate”. It will automatically add the default Fade
In animation to that element. Let’s do the same for those
two images as well. Now we have all of them here, in order. To change the order of the animations, just
swap them around like this. To remove one of the animations, select it
first, then click the trash icon right next to it. You can change the animation style by using
any of the animations available in the drop down menu. You can also adjust how fast the animation
takes place by using this slider on the bottom. By default, all animations happen on click,
but you can change what triggers the animation in this list. In case you want two elements to appear together
at the same time, use “with previous” on one of them. Now let’s enter Presentation mode to see
how this looks. Keep in mind, to trigger those animations
on click, you need to use the spacebar or the arrow keys on your keyboard. Google Slides makes it incredibly easy to
collaborate with other people and work on the same file in realtime. You can use this button on the top right to
share the presentation with other people. You can get a shareable link by clicking this
button; and change the permissions of what people can do using the link. They can either only view it, make comments
or even make edits on the same file. You can also just invite people via email
and set the same permissions as before. When collaborating with people on a document,
you can comment on various parts of the presentation to make suggestions. To add a comment, right click on any element
you want, such as an image or text for example, and select “Comment” Once changes are implemented, click Resolve
to make the comment disappear. Please note, these comments only appear when
you’re editing the slide; they won’t show up when you’re presenting. When you’re done working on your presentation,
you can publish it on the web. You can do that by either sharing it as a
link or embedding it on to a web page. Once you click Publish, it will give you a
link that you can share or a custom HTML code to embed it on a page. You can also export the Google Slides presentation
locally to your computer. Go to File -> Download, and depending on your
needs, you can export it as a PowerPoint Presentation or a PDF file. You can also export just the current slide
as a JPEG, PNG or vector image here. Thank you so much for watching all the way
to the end, I hope you learned a lot of things from this tutorial. If you got to this point, please leave a comment
to let me know. I would also appreciate if you could gently
tap the like button; doing both of these things really helps with the YouTube algorithm so
that I can continue to make more content like this. For royalty-free animated stock GIFs that
work incredibly well in Google Slides and will help you make more engaging
presentations and captivate your viewers, please visit VideoPlasty.com If you want to see more tutorials like this
one and other amazing video marketing content, subscribe to my channel right now. Don’t forget to add me on Instagram
as well, to keep in touch. This was Eduard Stinga, from
VideoPlasty, and I’ll see you soon!
