Layouts

Presenter analyzes your slides’ contents and chooses the best layout for you. Here’s how make sure that your presentation will come out picture perfect every time—on any device.

With Presenter your layouts are responsive, which means that your presentation automatically adapts to different screens, projector ratios, Zoom windows, tablets, and phones. That means no more endless fiddling to make sure it fits.

When Presenter chooses a layout for your slides it looks at the:

• Number of visual blocks in the slide
• Types of graphics in each block
• First heading level of each block
• Order of these blocks in the slide

Do you really need to know this? No. But it may help you understand what factors Presenter takes into account when it assigns a layout to your slide.

To add and choose a layout for a slide, click the layout picker button + on the left of the toolbar. Here you’ll find 15 distinct layouts to choose from.

Single-Celled Slides — or Two?

Slide content lives in cells. In general, the more cells you add to a slide, the better the layout will be.

For best results, add a line break by pressing ↵ twice between each element on a slide, such as between a heading and an image. Without line breaks, two or more elements will share the same cell.

In the first example below, a title and image share the same cell. In the second example, they’re in separate cells:

As with any rule, there are exceptions. In some cases two elements that share the same cell can lead to a pleasing effect, depending on what content you use. For example, a title and subtitle can work well when they’re part of the same cell:

Using Layouts

Adding Titles

Presenter comes with several types of titles. Choose an H1 (title) for your presentation’s cover slide. If you want to add more details here, try adding an H3 or H4 in the same cell.

Add an H2 to create a centered title, which works great for prominent sections.

For smaller subsections, try either an H3 or an H4, both of which are easily readable.

Tip: Kickers are cool—these are small headlines you often see just above the main title. To create a kicker, press ⇥ then type your text right above the title.

Text

Reading out lots of text on a slide will probably put your audience to sleep—but occasionally you may need to show body text on a slide. Here’s how.

Start your text paragraph with a tab ⇥. Adding an indentation like this will change your text from speaker notes (that are only visible to you) and display it on the slide instead.

Doing the Splits

When you add a line break (press ↵ twice) between two elements they will be separated and vertically display side by side. Splitting is useful when you want to compare two images, or two bits of text, for example.

If you want to arrange elements horizontally, such as having a title on the top and an image directly below it, do not use a line break. Instead, keep both elements in one cell.

Grid Work

If you have three or more elements on a slide, Presenter will arrange them a grid layout. Grids let you combine various elements such as text, images, and titles, all on the same slide.

To change the sequence of the grid, reorder your elements in the Editor. The element’s size will adjust to fit the grid. Occasionally a grid may not display a picture the exactly how you want it to. In that case, try out the Images options such as Cover or Contain.

Adding Captions

To add large captions to your pictures, use a combination of an H4 heading and an image. Where the caption appears depends on the order in which you place the image and text. No matter which order you choose, the caption’s text size will stay the same.

If you place the H4 heading first, you’re introducing the image. By contrast, showing the image first makes it more prominent, while the caption below it adds more context.

Tip: If you want smaller caption text, write your caption in straight quotes after the image, for example: /image.jpg "This is your caption". This is useful when you want to attribute a picture to a particular source.

Your small caption will appear as a semi-transparent box on the lower left. Keep in mind that this only works with images you add as Content Blocks —it doesn’t work for background images (yet).

Using an Image as a Background

You can enhance your presentation cover or regular slides by adding a background image that always appears behind titles or text.

To set a background image, select the dropdown next to it in the Editor and select Background from the menu.

If your background image’s colors make the text above it difficult to read, try out some image filters—or adjust the image’s opacity. More about those options in our Images section.

Visuals