Forget PowerPoint: How to Create Beautiful Presentations in WordPress (2023)

In 2023, over 64 million websites run on WordPress. With its flexible content management system (CMS) and ubiquitous use for blogging, an increasing number of users are now utilizing WordPress to create presentations too.

But why choose WordPress over a dedicated presentation software like PowerPoint?

Why You Should Create Presentations in WordPress Instead of PowerPoint

Here are some key reasons WordPress is ideal for creating presentations:

Flexible Publishing and Embedding

Unlike PowerPoint presentations which live as separate files, you can easily embed WordPress presentations anywhere across your site like:

• Blog posts
• Pages
• Popups
• Widget areas
• Reusable blocks

You can also use WordPress plugins to display presentations on non-WordPress sites.

Mobile Responsiveness

Building presentations in WordPress means they seamlessly adapt for any device unlike static PowerPoint decks:

Customization and Brand Consistency

Crafting presentations in WordPress allows you to use your existing brand styles and theme customizations for visual consistency across your site.

It also means global style changes only need to be made once versus maintaining multiple PowerPoint template files.

Enhanced Security

Unlike emailing around PowerPoint presentation files which can be copied or forwarded without your consent, hosting them privately on your WordPress site provides more control.

Better SEO

Presentations published on your WordPress site can fully leverage SEO best practices like meta tags, alt text, optimized media, etc for increased visibility.

So in summary, with WordPress you get:

✅ Responsive mobile-friendly presentations
✅ Visual brand consistency site-wide
✅ Flexible embedding across your site
✅ Enhanced security and access control
✅ Full SEO optimization and promotion

This means creating presentations in WordPress helps future-proof your content while saving time and driving more traffic.

Next, we‘ll show you step-by-step how to leverage the power of WordPress for creating presentations that shine.

Step 1: Install Smart Slider – The Best WordPress Presentation Plugin

When it comes to reliably building presentations in WordPress, Smart Slider 3 is the leading solution used on over 800,000 websites.

To add it:

1. Go to Plugins > Add New
2. Search for Smart Slider 3
3. Install and activate

Once enabled, click Smart Slider > Dashboard then Go To Dashboard. This is where you‘ll craft dazzling WordPress presentations.

Step 2: Select a Template for Quick Design Inspiration (Optional)

Building presentations from scratch can be daunting.

Fortunately, Smart Slider 3 offers stylistic templates to spark ideas and accelerate designing without limiting customization:

To import a template:

1. Hover over a desired template
2. Click the Eye icon to preview it
3. Click Import to load it into the editor

Now let‘s overview key options for tailoring this template into your own creation.

Step 3: Customizing Your WordPress Presentation Design

Smart Slider gives extensive controls for fine-tuning your presentation design delivered through a user-friendly interface.

Let‘s explore some key customization options.

Configuring General Settings

Under General Settings, start by giving your presentation a title and adding a relevant featured image if desired:

A catchy title and intro image can boost engagement.

Tailoring Visual Styling

Under Style Settings, you have innumerable options to tailor:

• Font selection
• Color palettes
• Slide alignments
• Image filters
• Animations
• Layer styles
• Hundreds of transition effects

Smart Slider makes it easy to achieve your creative vision.

For example, to change slide alignment:

Preview changes often using the Eye icon in the editor toolbar.

Responsive Resizing

To ensure perfect presentation rendering across devices, head to Size Settings:

Here you can define maximum slide dimensions for desktop, tablet and mobile displays.

Autoplay Settings

Under the Autoplay tab, make your presentation fully automated:

Customize slide intervals, loop counts, and playback controls.

Pro Tip: Enableresume on visibility to pause autoplay when slides scroll out of view for enhanced user experience.

By leveraging these settings and endless customization options, you can craft a presentation precisely matching your creative vision and intent.

Step 4: Adding and Editing Presentation Slides

Once happy with your overall design configuration, it‘s time to build out individual slides.

Click Add Slide and select a starting template like a Blank Slide. Then click the Edit icon on your new slide to open the builder.

Here you can:

• Add, delete and rearrange text layers, images, videos, shapes, buttons, dividers etc
• Customize every element‘s styling and positioning
• Animate individual layers
• Leverage Smart Slider‘s Template Library for modular partial designs
• Reuse slides through global templates

Keep iterating each slide until you are fully satisfied then hit Save & Close.

By leveraging these powerful editing capabilities, you can craft professional presentation decks rivaling dedicated apps like PowerPoint.

Step 5: Embed Your Presentation Across Your WordPress Website

With your presentation complete, return to Smart Slider‘s main dashboard listing all your projects:

Ensure your new presentation has a green checkmark indicating it is published.

Next, open any post or page you want to showcase your presentation on and click the Insert Block + icon:

Search for Smart Slider 3, choose your presentation, and hit Insert.

Now your interactive presentation is live across your WordPress site!

Wrap Up

As you can see, creating presentations in WordPress using Smart Slider 3 provides unmatched power versus rigid apps like PowerPoint.

You gain fine-grained control over:

✅ Visual styling
✅ Responsive sizing
✅ Interactivity
✅ Layer animations
✅ Dynamic slide templates
✅ Reusable global elements
✅ And much more

This flexibility, paired with WordPress‘ built-in SEO and ubiquity across the web, makes it the definitive solution for presentations in 2023 and beyond.

We encourage you to try Smart Slider 3 and take your presentations to new heights! Let us know if you have any other questions.