How to Draw (and create blithe drawings) in PowerPoint [2021]

How to draw in Powerpoint with Ink Replay, a tutorial featured by top presentation expert and trainer, Dr Echo Rivera

Have you e'er been working on your PowerPoint presentation and thought: I wish I could just draw this!

I know I have. Chances are, you have too and that'south why you're reading this post.

If yous've been missing the simplicity of being able to practice that when you used an overhead projector (lol remember those?), then this is how you can add together that capability back into your presentations.

In this commodity, you're going to learn 2 ways to draw in PowerPoint. Specifically, you're going to learn:

  1. How to draw in PowerPoint and then accept it animated during your presentation

  2. How to draw in PowerPoint while presenting

This article was fabricated for people who need to share educational presentations. For example:

  • academics,

  • scientists,

  • educators, and

  • like professionals

Before I dive in and start showing you how draw in PowerPoint, I want to make certain you know virtually my Free training on engaging presentations:

free presentation training by Dr Echo Rivera

Only in case you're not sold on the idea of drawing in your slides, let'southward talk near why you should practise this in your presentations.

Why should you larn how to draw (and animate that cartoon) in PowerPoint?

Look, it's well established that visuals are important for every presentation.

If you're sharing educational data, or whatever type of data, then visuals will encourage your audience to pay attention.

Visuals will also make information technology easier for your audience to understand, remember, and use the information y'all share.

Although there are a lot of free visuals out there on the internet, and even though PowerPoint has born icons that are cracking….

…Sometimes, it's a lot easier to just sketch or draw something out than it is to notice the perfect visual or icon for it.

A simple drawing or markup on a slide can sometimes be the easiest way for you to explicate your educational material.

Plus, audiences beloved information technology!

Information technology'due south truly a win-win and I recommend yous give it a effort in your next lecture, conference presentation, webinar, or training workshop.

You could draw in PowerPoint to explicate a model or a process::

InkReplay-05.gif

Or…possibly for a formula?

I tin can't be the only ane who has searched online for a picture of a formula, to be disappointed with how depression quality and pixelated it is.

Just even if it looks great, the real problem is that you can't really walk your students or colleagues through each part of the formula if you wanted to.

And then it can be really helpful to write out each slice 1 at a time then you can explicate each stride forth the way.

InkReplay-02.gif

Or maybe you anybody to look at a specific part of your slide.

Being able to draw a quick circle or and arrow can help with that.

InkReplay-03.gif

Or maybe you lot merely want your presentation to exist extra engaging, and have some advanced ideas for how you could draw the models, ideas, theories, or educational content you demand to share.

Yup, this was made in PowerPoint! (Office 365, March 2022)

Yup, this was fabricated in PowerPoint! (Office 365, March 2022)

At that place are a lot of reasons existence able to draw on your slides can help increment the quality and professionalism of your presentation.

And the expert news is that at present you have 2 options for how to do that.

How to draw in PowerPoint then breathing information technology

In this section, we're going to talk about how to draw something and then animate it ahead of time.

We're going to apply the "Draw Tab" in PowerPoint (to create the cartoon), and then the "Ink Replay" blitheness to animate it.

Before PowerPoint introduced the Ink Replay Animation, your best choice was to have a blank slide in PowerPoint, so draw on the slide while presenting.

I do talk almost that choice next, but the downside of that approach is you'll have to practise that again and once more each time you nowadays.

I'thou a huge fan of doing something once and and so beingness able to reuse that again and once more.

That's exactly what you tin can do using the Ink Replay drawing animation.

With this feature, y'all volition draw it once — ahead of fourth dimension —and the drawing blitheness will be there every single time yous present!

Watch this characteristic in action in this video >>

How to describe in PowerPoint and so animate it

  1. Click the "Draw" tab (see image below; if you don't see it, your version of PowerPoint doesn't have it, see below).

  2. Click on the pen or highlighter you want to use.

  3. Click the down arrow to cull the size (and/or to modify the color).

  4. Draw/write what you desire.

  5. Select the pieces you want to animate (commonly you lot'll select everything yous just drew).

  6. Click the "Animation" tab.

  7. Click "Ink Replay." (see image beneath; if it'south not clickable, information technology's because you haven't selected the pieces you just drew). If you don't even come across information technology, your version of PowerPoint doesn't accept it (see beneath).

  8. Adjust the animation settings (e.one thousand, Duration) so it goes the speed you want, and only animates when y'all want information technology to.

A screenshot of the

A screenshot of the "Draw" tab, showing the unlike options for pens.

A screenshot of the "animations

A screenshot of the "animations" tab, showing the "Ink Replay" option

That's information technology!

This feature is astonishing and is however another reason PowerPoint is my #1 recommended software to use for presentations.

Pro tip: You lot can use multiple pens in a unmarried slide, so yous can use dissimilar colors or the highlighter to assist you focus their attention on certain parts of the slide.

Other ways to use your drawings in PowerPoint

And then far, I've focused on the ways you can utilize your blithe drawings in PowerPoint for didactics.

Simply there are other ways you can apply this characteristic!

  1. You can use this feature to create an explainer video.

  2. You can also use this feature to create your own visuals for other ways you might communicate data — like visuals for blog posts!

Which version of PowerPoint has this feature?

That depends on when you're seeing this. Here is the Microsoft Function page that lists which versions have this characteristic.

2. How to depict in PowerPoint while presenting

Good news: This option is easier give thanks the Ink Replay / Cartoon Animation one and is available on more versions of PowerPoint.

1. Go into presenter fashion (i.e., start presenting)

2. Get-go moving your mouse, and then await to the bottom left for a bar that volition pop up.

3. Click the icon that looks like a pen.

iv. From there, you'll be able to choose the pen, highlighter, or erasure

5. Describe (and/or erase!)

(you could also choose a laser bespeak, but don't. Those are annoying).

I show yous the unabridged process here:

How to draw in Powerpoint with Ink Replay, a tutorial featured by top presentation expert and trainer, Dr Echo Rivera

When you're done, PowerPoint will ask y'all if you want to go along or discard the drawing. That'south totally up to you.

However, information technology volition not exist blithe the adjacent time you prove it. That'due south why I like choice #i and then much.

How to draw in Powerpoint with Ink Replay, a tutorial featured by top presentation expert and trainer, Dr Echo Rivera

Although this option is easier to utilize, I practice want to caution you lot that information technology tin can slow down the stride of your presentation significantly. The time it takes to click through everything and draw is slow, and you can lose the attention bridge of your audience during the process.

If y'all have the Draw tab and Ink Replay animation, I strongly encourage you lot to use that instead.

Once you start drawing on your slides, you might have more questions, such as:

  1. Strategies for getting smoother lines and meliorate drawings

  2. How to fix it when the animated drawing order doesn't get the mode you wanted

  3. Recommended fix and pens to utilize

These are all great questions, and the answers are in my signature course, Blast Off to Stellar Slides.

If you establish this mail on how to draw in Powerpoint helpful, then y'all'll LOVE my free training!

free presentation training by Dr Echo Rivera