Timeline Slide Keynote: A Step-by-Step Guide

When creating a presentation, a timeline slide can be an effective way to showcase key events or milestones of a project. In this article, we will explore the steps to create a visually appealing and easy-to-understand timeline slide using PowerPoint.

The first step is to open PowerPoint and create a new blank slide or open an existing one. To add a timeline slide, click on the 'Insert' tab on the ribbon and select the 'SmartArt' button in the Illustrations section.

In the window that pops up, select the 'Process' category, where you will find various graphic options to choose from for your PowerPoint timeline. For a simple graphic that clearly shows the key events or milestones of a project, we recommend choosing the Basic Timeline.

Once you have selected the Basic Timeline, you can start adding your own data directly on the graphic by typing inside the boxes on the slide. However, adding new milestones or events besides the default three can become a little tricky this way.

To avoid this issue, it is recommended to use the Text Pane instead. To open the Text Pane, click on the small icon right on the left of your timeline arrow. Here, you can type in your milestone dates and descriptions, and PowerPoint will automatically update the graphic.

You may be tempted to manually increase the size of the text for improved legibility, but we suggest avoiding this as it tends to ruin the whole layout. Instead, you can expand the size of the graphic box as we did above, and PowerPoint will automatically make the milestone descriptions larger too.

To ensure your data remains easy to read, it is safe to keep a maximum of 5 to 7 milestones. You'll notice that PowerPoint automatically shrinks the text size the more events you add to your timeline.

If you want to add more milestones to your PowerPoint timeline, simply press Enter after an existing item in the Text Pane and insert your data. However, as you add more items on the timeline, the layout will get distorted because the tool 'reads' the dates you enter as plain text, so it can't calculate the number of days between two milestones.

Note that PowerPoint places your milestones equidistant on the timeline, regardless of the relative distance between their dates. To insert a line break and show the date and description of a milestone one below the other, press Shift + Enter.

Finally, you can change the style at any time from the SmartArt Tools Design tab on the ribbon if you want to try out different layouts for your graphic. By following these steps, you can create a visually appealing and easy-to-understand timeline slide that effectively showcases the key events or milestones of a project.

Timeline slide keynote