Good slides are not documents shown on a screen. They are prompts: one idea per slide, a handful of words, and a picture that carries the feeling. Five slides is enough to make a case, and small enough that you will actually finish it.
Set up the title slide
Open PowerPoint, choose Blank Presentation, then pick a plain theme from the Design tab.
Choosing the theme first means you never reformat text later. The theme sets fonts and colours everywhere at once.
Click the title box and type the destination — Lisbon in October. Type a one-line promise in the subtitle, like Warm, cheap, and three hours away.
A title that already argues something sets up everything that follows.
Go to Insert then Pictures and add one large photo, then drag its corner so it fills the lower half.
One big image reads far better than four small ones, and corner handles keep it undistorted.
Add the three reason slides
On the Home tab, click the arrow under New Slide and choose the Two Content layout.
Picking a layout gives you ready-placed boxes, so nothing needs dragging into alignment.
Title it with the reason itself — The weather, not Reason one — and put two short bullets on the left.
The title is the argument. A reader who only skims titles should still get your case.
Put a picture in the right-hand box using its picture icon.
Using the layout's own box means the image lands aligned with the text automatically.
Repeat twice more, so you have three reason slides in total.
Three is the classic persuasive number: enough to convince, few enough to remember.
The cost slide and the ask
Add a new slide with the Title and Content layout, and list the main costs as four bullets with figures.
Naming the price yourself is what turns a daydream into a proposal.
Add a final slide with just a few large words: Shall we book it for October?
Every pitch should end with the specific thing you want the audience to say yes to.
Click View then Slide Sorter to see all five at once.
Slide Sorter is where you spot an odd order or a slide doing nothing. Drag them to reorder.
Present it properly
Press F5 to start from the beginning, and use the arrow keys or space bar to move on.
Knowing the keys means you never stand there hunting for a mouse pointer.
Press Escape to get out.
Worth doing once before you present so it is muscle memory, not a panic.
Save with Ctrl+S, then use File then Export then Create PDF/XPS if you want to email it.
A PDF opens for anyone, on anything, and cannot be accidentally edited.
Check yourself
If you can say yes to each of these, you have finished.
- Five slides: title, three reasons, cost, and an ask.
- No slide has more than about fifteen words.
- One subtle transition applied to all slides.
- I can start, advance and exit the slideshow with the keyboard.