The presentation tool Prezi transforms a dull, static presentation into an engaging one that tells a story. Instead of having multiple, consecutive slides as in a PowerPoint presentation, Prezi presentations capture content in a spatial context and engage your audience.
Let’s take a look at some useful Prezi tips and tricks that can be used to take your presentations to the next level.
1. Use templates
When you create any new Prezi file, you’ll be offered a choice of templates and you can explore them by simply selecting one and clicking the Preview button.
2. Zoom in on objects
Before you make a template choice for your project, look at the template previews and inspect the various objects and possibilities available. Use the Zoom function to look at elements that appeal and use the arrows in the bottom right-hand corner to check the template’s path and observe the flow. In the screenshot below we’ve zoomed in to see the assets included in this particular template:
3. Use assets
All of the templates in Prezi give you various asset options. Utilize them wherever you can, as that will save you time searching for images.
4. Include doodles
As you can see in the preceding screenshot, the featured template has some lovely assets that you can include in your presentation. These assets include images, sketches or doodles, as shown in the top right of the screenshot. You can move these assets around and use them anywhere on your canvas.
5. Add branding
Some people new to Prezi don’t use templates, thinking that you can’t use company colors, logos, or branding on them. In fact, this can be done easily by using the Theme Wizard found in the bubble menu.
On the wizard, click the Replace Logo button to include your company logo. The image should be a JPEG file no bigger than 250 pixels wide and 100 pixels high.
6. Using shapes
A very simple yet very useful element of the Prezi bubble menu that gets ignored a lot is the Insert Shapes option. There are lots of things you could do with shapes working within Prezi. A great use of the line tool, for example, is that you can add simple drawings wherever you would like. These shapes can be reused, and can save you lots of time searching for imagery over the internet. You can add some more detail to characters such as the one shown in the screenshot below.
7. Highlighter
If you want to point out key information, like the interesting facts displayed in the next screenshot, just drag the cursor across the text to highlight the area you’d like to focus on. After doing that the highlighted letters will become objects in their own right and you can change their size or position.
8. Pencil
If you’re good at sketching things out with your mouse, the pencil tool can be used to draw freehand sketches. If you want to change the color of your pencil drawings, go into the Theme Wizard and edit the RGB values. This will also support you in choosing your corporate branding colors.
9. Drawings and diagrams
Another very valuable feature within the Prezi insert menu is drawings and diagrams. You can find the drawings and diagrams templates by clicking the button between YouTube and File from the Insert menu.
10. Spell-checker
The text editor in Prezi now has some lovely new features that will make your life much easier — spell-checker is one of them. Just as in Microsoft Word, Prezi will underline the incorrectly spelled words with a red line. To correct the word, right-click it and select the correct word as shown in the following screenshot:
11. Text drag-apart
If you want to add some text from an email (or some other place) to your Prezi presentation, you’ll just have to copy (Ctrl + C) and paste (Ctrl + V) the line or paragraph across to put it in the right place on your canvas. You can also easily drag a selection of text to anywhere on your canvas without copy and paste options.
12. Font colors
Apart from dragging a paragraph to make it stand out more on its own, you can also highlight certain words with different colors to engage your audience even more. To do so, you just have to highlight a word by clicking and dragging your mouse across the word. Then click on the color picker at the top of the textbox to see the color menu and change that piece of text.
13. Bullet points and indents
One of the important Prezi tips to discuss here are the options available within the text editor, i.e., bullet points and indentations. These make your presentations much easier to read and give the audience some quick-fire information. This can be done by simply selecting the body of text and clicking on the bullet point icon at the top of the textbox. You can also add indentations to your bullet points by using the icons to the left of the color picker.
14. The plus (+) button
The plus button located on the left of the menu helps in keeping your Prezi’s style looking consistent. This button will open up a selection of five different layouts for you to choose from. You can see these in the following screenshot:
15. The Shift key
Another easier way of moving lots of objects at once is to simply press the Shift key on your keyboard and drag across the canvas to select multiple objects you need.
There are hundreds more hints and tips that can make your Prezi experience a wonderful one. Please share your thoughts in the comments below if you have some any more Prezi tips or tricks.
Featured photo credit: Mona Umapathy via flickr.com
