20+ useful Google Slides features are often overlooked

PowerPoint was once the king of the presentation world. Google changed all of this when it announced the launch of its Google Slides presentation tool, which relies entirely on cloud computing and is free of charge.

Google Slides has been evolving for years, but many people still don't know it. Here are more than 20 Google Slides features that every teacher should know:

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1. Create the main slide - If you are working on the same slide with many people, you must assign their own colors, fonts, interfaces. With the Google Slides Master slide feature, you can design a consistent presentation throughout your presentation to ensure a consistent content layout. To use this feature, click " Slide " from the top menu, then click " Edit master ".

You will see a main layout design. Any layout you place on the first slide will repeat on the following slides. You can also add photos (for example, a logo) to this slide so that it does not take time and effort to insert each slide.

2. Add background to Master slide - Another way to change Master slide is to insert text or photo on any slide and right click, then select " Add to them " and click " Master ". This will apply the text format or image position to each slide in the document.

3. Create a Template to Share - When you have a Master slide, you can share your presentation with others in your organization. To add it as a sharing template, go to Google Drive and select the arrow to the right of Google Slides, then select " From a template ."

Here, select " Submit template ."

Finally, browse the presentation and add the posts you want to submit.

4. Slide Links - You may already know the ability to copy and paste entire slides, but often skip the slide linker tool from another presentation. Copying and pasting slides from another presentation is extremely useful, but if the slide changes, it won't be updated to your presentation. Slide links make sure all changes are updated to your content. To take advantage of this feature, copy and paste the data as usual, but when pasting the slide, select " Link slides " from the options box that appears.

5. Import Slides - Importing a PowerPoint presentation into Google Slides is easy. Select " File " and " Import slides ", then click the " Upload " tab .

6. Import Keynote - Importing slides from PowerPoint is really simple, but how to import Keynote or other presentation software into Google Slides? The easiest way is to save the Keynote presentation as PowerPoint, then import it into Google Slides.

7. Insert video - You can insert YouTube videos and clip files into presentations. If you're live streaming on an online channel, this is a feature you definitely want to take advantage of. To add videos, go to " Insert " at the top menu, select " Videos ".

8. Video cutting - Google Slides does not have a video editor but it has a very useful video editing feature: cut video length. It is useful in many cases. For example, your colleague has a 10 minute video but you just want to use short clips in the presentation. To edit the video link, right-click on its avatar, then select " Video options ."

Here comes a new menu with several options. To trim a video, select the desired start and end time, then close this box. There is no save button here because Google Slides automatically saves changes.

9. Autoplay video - If you want to use Google Slides for online presentation, you will want the video to play automatically by right-clicking on the video> selecting “ Video options ”> When menu appears, select “ Autoplay when presenting . "

10. Slide autoplay - When publishing a presentation on the web (from the File menu> Publish to the web), you will find the option to automatically forward the slide. Change it to the desired time just before publishing the presentation.

11. Create FAQ section - One way to encourage feedback from users is to create FAQ section. For example, you can create a multiple choice questionnaire and then link to a location to get answers from your audience. You can create this item using Present mode. From the top menu, select " View " and " Present ".

From the Present mode, select the " Q & A " button. If this menu is hidden, just move the mouse cursor.

Next, click the " Start new " button . If you return to Q&A after turning it on, this button will change to “ Continue ”.

Please copy the Q & A link displayed if you want to display it in the presentation later. If you don't want to receive questions, just turn On to Off .

When going to Q & A, users will see the window as below. Note: This is an uncensored feature, meaning anyone can post anonymously. If you want to use this feature, you need to monitor it regularly.

12. Links to Google Sheets - If you can link to other presentations, you can also link to Google Sheets. This is a useful feature when users are displaying Chart or Table on the digital version constantly updating new content. Paste it into a Sheet like pasting a slide> right click on the slide and select " Paste " in the Options menu , select " Link to spreadsheet ."

To link the graph, go to the top menu and select Insert> Chart> From sheets .

13. Use shadows / reflections - Using bold is the easiest way to highlight text in a document, but if you want it to be the focus of your presentation, it's better to use the shadow feature. or reflective. How to do the following: go to the right of the format bar> click the 3 dots button> from the new menu, select " Format options. ”

This will open the format box which brings up the two shadow and reflection options. Clicking the arrow to the left will expand these options. After completing your selection, you just need to close the window and do not need to save because this function is automated.

14. Word Art - Another way of highlighting text is to convert it to Word Art. You can do this by clicking ' Insert ' at the top menu, then selecting " Word Art ". Here, add the text you want, then press Enter at the keyboard. You can edit Word Art font / color / size as usual with text.

15. Use Image Masking - Google Slides doesn't have many photo editing options, but it has a very useful Mask tool. It allows users to change any image into a shape like heart, lightning ... To use this tool, click the arrow button next to the Crop button in the format menu, then select the Shape you want to use.

16. Undo all changes - If you're working as a team on a presentation, saving the version history is really important. With Google Slides, you can easily undo any changes someone has made. To do this, go to File> Version history> See version history .

This opens the Version history menu . Here, you will find all changes and return it to the desired state.

17. Create shared folders - If you're working with others, creating a shared folder from Google will help you organize your data better. Here, you can easily add photos, documents are used in presentations. To do this, go to Google Drive, right-click on the folder you want to share, then select " Share ". Anyone can access shared documents via URL link.

18. Skip and sync slides - If you don't want to have some presentations for different reasons or want to reuse them, but you don't want to browse the same topics, this time, the Skip slide feature really helpful. Thanks to it, you can skip the unwanted content. To use this feature, click on " Slide " at the top menu, click " Skip slide ".

19. Google Keep - Windows has Notepad. iPhone has Notes; Google has Keep. Google Keep launched in 2013 as a simple way to track ideas. In Google Slides, you can easily jot down ideas but don't want to include them in presentations, for example diagrams, graphs and information that you want to reference only later. Keep is the native app available for iPhone and Android. They can sync seamlessly into every presentation. To use it, go to " Tools " at the top of the menu> " Keep notepad ."

20. Use of add-on - Do not rely on all features of Google. At the top menu, you have the option "Add-ons." They come in both free and paid versions, providing access to hundreds of slide support tools from importing graphics to using your own photos.

21. Export presentations - Google Slides works in the cloud, but you can still download and even export presentations. To do this, go to " File " in the top menu, select " Download as ". Here, you will have several different options.

22. Edit presentations without a computer - Most people use Google Slides on computers. However, Slides is available as an app version for phones and tablets. Use these applications to synchronize the created data. So, if you make changes on your smartphone, you'll see it on your computer.

Above are more than 20 great features of Google Slides. What do you think about them? Let us know in the comments.