How to Create a Prezi Presentation in Less Time
You might be wondering how to make a presentation fast, especially if you have a deadline coming up on your radar. Maybe this task was given to you because someone else on your team cannot create or present content for an important client. Perhaps your group project fell through because you have a handful of slackers in your group who didn’t do the presentation as they said they would. Or perhaps, you ARE the slacker that waited to do your university presentation for your partner until literally right now. (We’ve all been there.)
Thankfully, you do not need a full-fledged design planned out or a graphic designer to create something useful for a presentation or a couple of presentations. Breathe, slow down, and know you can create a presentation in a short amount of time. You can create something in 15-30 minutes if you have a basic understanding of Prezi and navigating around the interface. Acquaint yourself with Prezi before anything else and then dive into our quick tips to create a presentation super fast!
How Can I Make Prezi Presentations More Quickly?
This is the MOST important part. Write even the most basic layout first in a Word or notepad document. This will give you the overall direction of what you need in the following points.
Stock Images
First and foremost, use stock images for your presentations through free sites like Unsplash, Pexels, Pixabay, and Freepik. You can use these photos royalty-free and hundreds of new photos are uploaded per day. Using these images will ensure that you will not run into copyright issues either, as they are royalty-free, free to use images. (Make sure you do read the attribution requirement per photo on Freepik – sometimes it varies on that site.)
You can make any template or plain template look new with an eye-catching image that is just right for the content you’re covering in your Prezi. First, think of all the topics you’re covering and what appropriate photo you would want. Right when you decide this, start looking for photos and start refining your Prezi template.
Using Prezi: Keyboard Shortcuts
The use of Prezi shortcuts can cut a lot of time while creating your presentation at the top of a button. Like using control + c and control + v is, the keyboard shortcuts that Prezi has is a clever hack. First, remember to click on the cogwheel icon in the top menu to enable shortcuts. For a list of all the shortcuts in Prezi, click here.
You can create a management workflow by learning the shortcuts to flow through pages, navigate around the content, and how to open customization screens, etc. Make creating presentations fast and start off on the right foot by learning simple keystrokes to make creating your Prezi nice and efficient.
Windows Shortcuts:
ALT + click and drag: disable snapping
ALTGr + drag corner or CTRL + ALT + drag corner (Windows 10): rotate an object or topic
CTRL + drag corner: resize an object or topic from its center point
SHIFT + drag: draw a rectangle to select multiple objects
SHIFT + click: select multiple objects
SHIFT + keyboard arrows: move selection
Keyboard arrows: nudge selection
CTRL + A: Select all
CTRL + C: Copy
CTRL + X: Cut
CTRL + V: Paste
CTRL + Z: Undo
CTRL + G: Group
CTRL + M: Add default topic
CTRL : E: Advanced topic editing (topic has to be selected)
CTRL + R: Reload editor
CTRL + Shift + G: Ungroup
CTRL + F: Find and replace text
BACKSPACE: Delete
CTRL + BACKSPACE: delete text word by word
Mac Shortcuts:
MD + click and drag: disable snapping
CMD + drag corner: rotate an object or topic
OPTION/ALT + drag corner: resize an object or topic from its center point
SHIFT + drag: draw a rectangle to select multiple objects
SHIFT + click: select multiple objects
SHIFT + up, down, left, right arrows: move selection
Up, down, left, right arrows: nudge selection
CMD + A: Select all
CMD + C: Copy
CMD + X: Cut
CMD + V: Paste
CMD + Z: Undo
CMD + E: Advanced topic editing (topic has to be selected)
CMD + G: Group
CMD + Shift + G: Ungroup
CMD + F: Find and replace text
CMD + R: Reload editor
CTRL + M: Add default topic
BACKSPACE: Delete
ALT + BACKSPACE: delete text word by word
CMD + up arrow/down arrow: zoom in/out of the canvas
These are presentation shortcuts:
CMD/CTRL + P: Present
Right and left arrows: move forward and backward a step
Backspace: go back one layer in the presentation
Home (Win) / Fn + left arrow (Mac): navigate to the first step or custom starting point of the presentation (presenting from the editor or from the Viewer app)
End (Win) / Fn + right arrow (Mac): navigate to the last step of the presentation (presenting from the editor or from the Viewer app)
ESC: Exit fullscreen
Using Prezi's Free Templates
You can save time and create a stellar presentation in no time if you choose a template that Prezi provides in their subscription. Prezi Inc has created some great templates that can look unique with some minor color tweaks! Using templates do not require any design skill or pre-planning, they pretty much plug and play like many other web browser content creators. You will want to know some basics of general legibility, like not having too small a font or what colors seem right with one another, but the good part is you see it right away as you edit live in Prezi.
When you create a new Prezi, choose which template would fit your market – real estate, marketing, finance, etc. You also can choose a template based on the tone you want – do you want it to be serious or more fun? The tone should be the first consideration for your Prezi.
You will want to use a presentation that fits your audience, amount of text, infographics, and images, and these templates are often designed with each industry’s type of information in mind. New templates for presentations come out occasionally too with your subscription.
Using templates is the right step in terms of creating a fast turnaround presentation.
Convert PowerPoint Files to Prezi
Have you done this presentation before, but just on PowerPoint? On Prezi, right on your dashboard, there is a Convert PowerPoint button! Once you click it on the Prezi dashboard, select upload a file in the pop-up window then select the file from your computer. Once it is uploaded to Prezi, you will see your slides in the sidebar of your Prezi presentation. Now you can create your presentation by merely moving the Powerpoint presentation slides around or styling them to your heart’s content. This is a very powerful tool that Prezi has!
Select one or more slides and drop them onto your presentation canvas. Prezi will create a topic and subtopic per slide. Prezi topics are also automatically generated on your Prezi overview as you add the slides of your Powerpoint presentation. Choose which slides you would like to use and view them in your canvas. You can mix what you choose with new slides if you must. Prezi has made creating presentations much easier cross-platform.
There are in-depth tutorials for this step, but it is quite simple once you upload your content. Really, from this point on all you have to do is tweak the design, animation, and flow between slides. A basic understanding of the platform should give you more than enough ideas and tools to continue.
Use My Collection/Add to Your Prezi Library
Prezi allows you to add topics, images, text, icons, shapes, videos, charts, PDFs, and even a combination of these items to your presentation library. You can access and reuse them in other presentations. And whenever you add something new, you can manage it easier creating a library than as abstracted parts across a canvas in Prezi.
With your presentation in Prezi open, select the item you want to save. You can also select multiple objects at once by holding down the Shift key while clicking on them. The library icon in the top Prezi toolbar will become active. Click this button to add the selected item(s) to your Prezi library.
Now that your elements are in your Prezi library, you can reuse them inserting them from the My library sidebar. Using my library is a very efficient way to create a database of reusable assets, not just for this presentation but for future presentations as well.
To use these assets, click the Insert button at the top of Prezi, then select My library. The sidebar should come into view. Like the other dialogue boxes in Prezi, you can then insert content by double-clicking or by dragging and dropping it onto the Prezi canvas. You can see how easy it is to use content from before. When you make a slide, you can reduce the wait of uploading the file into Prezi again.
If you need to modify your library, it is easy. Hover over the thumbnail of the content, a pencil icon will appear. When you click on this button, you can remove the content from your library. If you’d like to do database management, you can use and view your content library directly from your Prezi dashboard. Click the Library button in the left sidebar.
Prezi and PowerPoint Videos
If you have the know-how, it’s important to note that both Prezi and PowerPoint can generate videos with your content. Prezi Video lets you interact with your content live as you stream or record. Choose one of Prezi’s templates, reuse a public video, or import your own PowerPoint file.
In Prezi, you can add text and visuals, work on each frame, and experiment with different templates. This is a powerful tool since you can convert your PowerPoint file into a video in Prezi this way. PowerPoint also has a create video function, which we cover in another post but here are the basics that can work with either Prezi or PowerPoint’s video creation tool.
The first step is to create a new PowerPoint file or use a Prezi video template. If you’re using PowerPoint, in the File menu, go to Design > Page Setup > Custom. In this dialogue box, make sure the dimensions are the size of your desired video. If you’re bringing this to Prezi, make sure the base size is 1080×1920.
Either in PowerPoint or Prezi, add animation or zoom to add excitement to your videos! If you want to emphasize or catch someone’s eye with a single word, paragraph, or photo, even a simple fade in can direct the eye!
Another animation to consider is the transitions between your PowerPoint slides. This is in its separate pane under TRANSITIONS at the top navigation bar. These transitions are a nice flair to your video and you will want to use them in your slides and animation if you can.
Push and cover are clean transitions for a modern-looking video. Reveal or morph are interesting ways to have some dynamic movement that utilizes common shapes between the panes. Remember that the rule of thumb is less is more. If you can get an idea across with a few words or a fantastic image, a little can go along way!
