Best Free PowerPoint Resources & Tutorials

Many professionals are eager to learn PowerPoint but hesitate because of the perceived up-front costs. While users will need to acquire PowerPoint, which will cost them under ten dollars a month if they can’t find a free institutional license, there isn’t any other significant cost to learning PowerPoint outside of training costs. However, many free resources are available to help beginners get the hang of this exciting program. 

Read on to learn more about the different free resources and tutorials available to help you learn PowerPoint. 

What is PowerPoint?

Microsoft PowerPoint is the most commonly used presentation software across almost all professional industries. PowerPoint is one of the most important parts of Microsoft’s Office 365 programs, alongside Word and Excel. PowerPoint lets users easily create vibrant and memorable presentations that quickly communicate meaning in a professional setting. Users can add animations, transitions, graphics, and other imagery to their slides, ensuring they produce both communicative and impressive presentations for their audience.

PowerPoint is a slideshow editing tool built to give users the tools they need to organize information, communicate effectively, and produce presentations to deliver through live address or without a presenter. PowerPoint makes the job easier and more efficient, whether you manage important information in advance of a meeting, prepare a sales pitch to a potential client, or compile important workplace policies and procedures in a single place. This versatility has made PowerPoint an industry-standard tool in almost all professional contexts.

Read more about what PowerPoint is and why you should learn it.

What Can You Do with PowerPoint?

PowerPoint allows users to create vibrant and memorable visual presentations that can serve a wide variety of purposes. PowerPoint’s advanced features let users integrate dynamic animations and 3D modeled graphics into their designs, allowing them to create more complex presentations than simple text projected onto a screen. Whether you are attempting to keep an audience engaged during a critical seminar or make a sales pitch as memorable as possible, PowerPoint gives you the tools to wow your audience.

Some users will use PowerPoint to create informative slideshows that condense complicated information into a single, easy-to-digest presentation. This makes the program ideal for both instructors and professionals looking to host informational seminars regularly. In fact, many online classes you take will use PowerPoint to provide students with the main takeaways from a lecture. Some users, who need to persuade audiences, such as entrepreneurs meeting with potential investors, will use PowerPoint to create memorable and persuasive presentations that convince their audience to invest in their product.

Free Tutorials

For students who aren’t ready to enroll in a PowerPoint bootcamp or who just want to learn the basics of the program, free introductory resources may be an ideal place to start. Noble Desktop provides students with a free PowerPoint Presentation Design seminar in which students will learn the basic theories of design that go into creating evocative and memorable presentations. No one wants their presentations to bore audiences, and this seminar is designed to ensure that students have the skills required to keep audiences engaged.

Other service providers, such as Udemy and Coursera, offer additional free introductory courses teaching students how to use PowerPoint to design presentations. These courses won’t provide comprehensive skills training, but they are ideal places to start learning the basics of PowerPoint. In addition, Microsoft offers students with free training tutorials on subjects ranging from PowerPoint templates to using 3D models in a presentation.

Free Resources

Noble Desktop offers students many free articles, seminars, and training resources at their Learn PowerPoint hub. These articles will guide students through their options for learning PowerPoint, including links to free seminars and tutorials. This is an excellent resource for new learners who want to become comfortable with PowerPoint before considering more advanced training.

Microsoft also offers students free tutorials and templates for learning PowerPoint. These tutorials will teach students the basics of the program and give them tools to ease into the program's more advanced features. They also offer new users a free trial of the Microsoft Office suite of programs.

New PowerPoint users should also check in with any learning or business institution they have connections with to see if they can receive free copies of Microsoft Office. Many community centers, schools, libraries, and offices will provide patrons or employees with free licenses for many commonly used programs.

Learn PowerPoint with Hands-on Training at Noble Desktop

Professionals looking to learn PowerPoint may consider skills development training through Noble Desktop. These courses, available in person at Noble’s Manhattan campus and through live online instruction, will give students hands-on training in designing and organizing information using PowerPoint. These courses, which expert instructors teach, will provide students with the experience needed to build evocative and memorable presentations. Even in online courses, class sizes are kept small, so students can interface directly with their instructor to receive assistance and feedback. Plus, Noble offers free retakes on all its courses, giving students more opportunities to practice building presentations in a professional environment.

Noble offers a PowerPoint Bootcamp, which teaches students, even those without prior PowerPoint experience, how to design compelling and evocative presentations. In this certificate-granting program, students will learn how to work with PowerPoint layouts, add animations and graphics, and work with layers, charts, graphs, and other objects. Then, students will receive advanced skills training, such as creating reusable PowerPoint templates, utilizing multimedia features in a presentation, and recording a presentation for later use. These skills will take students from novices to PowerPoint experts and prepare them to use the program professionally.

Since PowerPoint is a design program, Noble also offers students a PowerPoint Presentation Design course. This class focuses on the rhetorical and theoretical side of communicating through PowerPoint. In this class, students will learn design principles related to color, typography, graphic images, and other visual design elements. Whereas a bootcamp course teaches students how to use the tool to build presentations, this course will teach students how to design them, giving them the composition and design theories they need to make their presentations memorable and effective.

Key Insights

• Once students have acquired a copy of PowerPoint, they may wish to take advantage of free training resources before enrolling in further PowerPoint training courses.
• Students can take advantage of free video tutorials through service providers such as Noble Desktop or Microsoft.
• Students should also consider looking into free trial options for Microsoft Office or inquiring with local institutions to try and reduce the cost of licensing the program.
• Once students have taken advantage of these free resources, they should consider exploring their options for comprehensive PowerPoint training made in-person and live online with Noble Desktop.