5 quick tips for Google Slides

If you’re new to Google Slides, our Google Slides cheat sheet can quickly get you up and running with the popular web-based presentation app. Once you’ve mastered the basics, it’s time to dig in with a few intermediate tips.

This story guides you through how to create customized, reusable slide layouts; collaborate on a presentation in Google Chat; use a live audience Q&A feature while giving a presentation; and more. Most of the features covered here are available to anyone with a Google account, but one requires a paid Google Workspace plan.

In this article:

Create custom slide layouts to use as templates

Collaborate on a Slides presentation in Google Chat

Present in Google Meet

Take live questions from your audience

Record a presentation

1. Create custom slide layouts to use as templates

You can design your own slide layouts to use as templates in any future presentation. First, open a new, blank presentation. Then:

1. On the menu bar over the blank presentation, select View > Theme builder.

2. The main window switches to a layout editor. To the left you’ll see a column with the heading THEME and the subheading LAYOUTS just below that. Click the thumbnail of any layout in the LAYOUTS list. It will appear in the main window.

3. You can remove objects that are already in any layout. For example, click on a block of text. A frame appears around the text. Right-click anywhere inside this frame, then select Delete from the menu that opens.

Creating a custom slide layout in Google Slides.
Howard Wen / Foundry

4. Using the formatting toolbar above the slide, you can add new objects to the slide, such as images, image placeholders, shapes, lines, and blocks for text. (Tip: enter placeholder words inside the text blocks.)

When you click on any object, a frame appears around it. Drag and drop the frame to relocate the object on the slide, or drag the frame’s edges to change the object’s shape or size. You can also add or change the border and background colors for any object on the slide, and/or change the background color for the whole slide.

5. When you’re finished designing your layout, click the Rename button above the slide and give the layout a unique name.

6. If you want to create another custom layout, click on the thumbnail of another layout in the LAYOUTS list and repeat the above steps starting from #3.

7. When you are finished custom-designing all your layouts, click the X toward the upper right of the slide layout in the main window.

To apply a layout you created to a slide: On the toolbar above the slide, click Layout. From the panel of thumbnails that opens, select a layout that you created. It will then be applied to the slide in the main window.

2. Collaborate on a Slides presentation in Google Chat

If your team uses Google Chat, you can share a Slides presentation in a chat. Other people in your chat can add comments and help make changes to your presentation.

This works in standard one-on-one or group chats, but it’s especially useful if you use the collaborative workspaces in Chat that Google calls “spaces.” Unlike informal chats, spaces are meant to gather conversations, documents, and other materials for specific projects, events, or groups. If you’re working on a presentation related to a project, the space is the perfect place to share and collaborate on the slideshow. (For more about working in spaces, see our “Google Spaces cheat sheet.”)

To share a presentation in Chat: Start by opening an existing chat or space, or starting a new one in the main window. To the left of the box where you type in your chat messages, click the + icon. If you’re in a space, select Google Drive from the panel that opens, and then on the next panel click Attach Drive files. If you’re in a regular chat, there’s one less step: just click the + icon and select Attach Drive files.

A page will open over the screen listing the files in your Google Drive. Find and click your presentation to highlight it, then click the Insert button at the lower-right corner.

You’ll be taken back to your Google chat session. Click the blue right-pointing arrow to the right of the chat box; a panel will open over the screen designating permissions for the shared presentation. By default, permissions are set to Commenter. To change this: Click Commenter and select Viewer or Editor.

Setting permissions for a presentation shared in Google Chat.
Howard Wen / Foundry

After you’ve set the permissions, click Send message. Your message will appear in the chat stream with a large thumbnail of your presentation.

To open and collaborate on the presentation: Click the presentation’s thumbnail. The presentation will open in Google Slides in a new browser tab, so the standard Slides commenting and editing tools are available for the people in your chat to use on your presentation (if you granted them permission to comment or edit).

Those with view-only permissions can still chat about the presentation back in the Google Chat interface. And everyone will likely find the chat stream in Chat to be faster and more fluid for back-and-forth conversations.

A conversation about a presentation shared via Google Chat.
Howard Wen / Foundry

3. Present in Google Meet

Need to give a presentation during a Google Meet video meeting? As long as you’re using a Chromium-based browser (Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Opera, etc.), it’s easy:

With the presentation open, click the Google Meet icon (a video camera) at the upper right of the Slides window. On the panel that opens, select a meeting that’s already been scheduled on your Google calendar today, start a new meeting, or paste in the web link or identification code for another meeting.

Click the Meet icon to get started presenting to a video meeting.
Howard Wen / Foundry

If you start a new meeting: You might first need to grant to access your camera and microphone. Once you do, a pane for the meeting will open on the right. At the bottom of the pane, click the Share screen icon (a box with an up arrow). On the panel that pops open over the screen, select your presentation and click the Allow button. You’ll be presenting to the meeting.

Sharing a presentation in Google Meet.
Howard Wen / Foundry

If you join a scheduled meeting: You can choose between “Join the call” and “Just present this tab.”

If you click Join the call: A pane for the meeting will open on the right. Follow the same steps as above to present to the meeting.

If you click Just present this tab: You’ll go directly to the panel where you can select your presentation and click Share. But you won’t have a pane where you can follow the main meeting.

To stop sharing your presentation to the meeting: Click the Stop sharing button that’s above your presentation, toward the top left.

For more details about using Google Meet, see our Google Meet cheat sheet.

4. Take live questions from your audience

Ever wonder what your audience is thinking as you give a presentation? Slides includes a nifty feature that lets you take questions from your audience in real time.  To use it, you’ll need to be in Presenter view.

On the Presenter view window, click the AUDIENCE TOOLS tab.

1. To open questions for a slideshow, click the Start new button.

2. A web link appears at the top of your presentation. An audience member watching your presentation on their computer, phone, or tablet can click/tap that link, which will take them to a page where they can type a question for you.

3. You’ll see their question in the Presenter view window. You can then choose whether to show their question to the rest of your audience during the presentation.

Audience members can submit questions from their devices, and the presenter can decide whether to display them as part of the slideshow.
Howard Wen / Foundry

4. To close the question session, turn the switch under “Accepting questions” from ON to OFF.

5. Record a presentation

If you’re using Slides under a paid Google Workspace plan, you can record your presentation. You must use Google Chrome or Microsoft Edge as your browser, and recordings are limited to 30 minutes.

To record your presentation: On the mini-toolbar along the right, click the View and create recorded slideshows icon. On the “Slides recordings” pane that opens, click the Record a new video button.

This will open a page that shows the first slide of your presentation. A live video feed from your PC’s webcam will show you on camera. Click the big red button to start recording, then use the direction arrows below the first slide to click forward (and back) through your presentation. Other icons let you open the Presenter view window, reposition where your webcam feed is set on the slide, and resize your webcam feed frame.

You can also click the microphone and camera icons to turn your computer’s microphone and webcam off (and back on).

To stop, save, and play your recording: Click the big red square, and then click Save to Drive at the upper-right corner. The video file will be saved to your Google Drive. Then you’ll be taken back to your presentation in Google Slides. In the “Slides recordings” pane, you can click to play the recording that you just made.

Related:

Google Slides cheat sheet: How to get started

Google Workspace: 7 great ways to use the Gemini AI sidebar

Google Workspace power tips: Tap into cross-app productivity

More Google Workspace tips and tutorials