You needn’t be a tech genius to take your PowerPoint presentations from drab to dynamic. There are a host of quick wins you can use to make your next presentation sing – and to look much more professional than the ready-built basics.

Here are five ways to do just that.

1. Align images

One of the easiest jobs to do, but also one that makes an enormous difference, is simply aligning your shapes, graphics or images. Select all the relevant images, then under the Format tab select Align – where you’ll be presented with options for right, centre, left, top, middle or bottom.

A quick and simple job it may be, but this will neaten up your presentations and make them look much neater.

2. Make your text highlights sing

Whether it’s a title you want to show off, or a pull quote you want people to pay attention to, making specific text ‘pop’ is a quick and easy way to ensure your points land with the audience. Play around with font, shape, colour, size and position to ensure the main points cannot be missed.

3. Use the right animations and transitions

PowerPoint comes bundled with a host of different ways to animate pieces of content or transition between slides. Some are quite formal, others a touch zanier. Choose the right one for your presentation to ensure things flow well and are suitable for the topic in question. If none fit the bill, you can even try designing your own animations, for options your audience won’t have seen before.

4. Add audio

Adding audio to your slides – be it background music or a pre-recorded presentation – is easier than you may think. Simply click Insert > Audio to either add a sound file from your computer or to pre-record something. You’ll then have the option Play in Background, if you want it to just run whilst the presentation goes on.

5. Create a custom template

If all the above has got you considering doing a bit more, why not build your own, branded template to use in future? It’s not as difficult as it may sound, and the results not only look professional but can also be deployed in future presentation builds.

All you need to do is select Edit Master > Slide Master from the Themes tab to open the PowerPoint Master editor, which can take you through the whole process.