How to Loop a PowerPoint Presentation
Your brand’s look and feel must be polished and cohesive to stand out at a live event.
Visuals have to be engaging and accessible. Your branded storyline should impactfully guide your audience through key points and benefits. This is where a looping PowerPoint presentation comes in.
One of PowerPoint’s most useful features is the ability to create a looping presentation, which runs continuously without restarting it constantly. They’re especially valuable at conferences, trade shows or even in office lobbies, where your presentation needs to engage an ever-changing audience quickly.
In this step-by-step guide, you’ll learn how to loop a PowerPoint presentation.
Why Create a Looping PowerPoint Presentation?
Before breaking down how to make a PowerPoint presentation loop, let’s add context around why looping is so effective. Like a pre-recorded presentation, a looping presentation is perfect for situations where you need to repeat information for different viewers. The loop function restarts the deck automatically after the last slide, so your audience always sees your content, no matter when they tune in.
Key reasons to loop PowerPoint presentations:
- Engage rotating audiences: Whether you’re at a conference or trade show booth, looping your presentation means new viewers can jump in at any point and still get the full message.
- Reinforce your message: By repeating key information throughout the presentation, a looping slideshow makes sure your message sticks with your audience.
- No manual operation required: Once the presentation is set to loop, you don't need to manually restart it, freeing you up to focus on engaging your audience, peers or potential customers.
How to Loop a PowerPoint Presentation—A Step-by-Step Guide
Now that we’ve covered the why, let’s walk through how to make a PowerPoint presentation loop.
Step 1: Design Your Slides
If you already have your slide deck designed, skip down to Step 2. If not, there are several tools you can use to create your content and design your slides. Here are some recommended tools and resources:
- PowerPoint Designer: PowerPoint Designer will automatically make suggestions for ideal layouts and visual designs as you add text and images. Here’s more on how to use PowerPoint Designer effectively.
- PowerPoint templates: Professional PowerPoint templates efficiently produce high-quality, consistent, and branded looping PowerPoint presentations. Read up on our PowerPoint template do’s and don’ts.
- Microsoft M365 Copilot: M365 Copilot acts as a content-generating assistant, helping to build on-slide content(and design layouts) based on prompts.
Step 2: Create a PowerPoint Loop
Once your slides are designed, it’s time to set up the looping functionality (the instructions to loop a PowerPoint presentation are the same for both Mac and PC). Here’s how:
- Navigate to the “Slide Show” tab: On the top toolbar of PowerPoint, click on the "Slide Show" tab.
- Click on “Set Up Slide Show”: In the “Slide Show” menu, find and click on “Set Up Slide Show.” A dialogue box will appear.
- Select "Browsed at a kiosk (full screen)": Under the "Show Type" section, select the option “Browsed at a kiosk (full screen).” This will make your presentation loop continuously and automatically.
- Check "Loop continuously until ‘Esc’": In the same dialogue box, make sure to check the option that says “Loop continuously until 'Esc’”. This setting will keep your presentation looping until you press the Escape key to exit.
Step 3: Set Slide Timings and Transitions
To make sure your presentation flows at the right pace, you need to set the timing for each slide and the transitions between slides.
- Go to the “Transitions” tab: Click on the “Transitions” tab in the PowerPoint menu.
- Set the duration for each slide: Decide how long each slide should stay visible before automatically transitioning to the next one. Set this time by entering the desired number of seconds in the "Advance Slide" section.
- Test the transitions: It’s a good idea to run through your presentation to make sure the transitions are smooth and the presentation loops properly.
What is PowerPoint Designer?
PowerPoint Designer is an AI-powered tool that helps in creating professional presentations quickly and easily. It suggests layouts, images, and design elements as you input your content. PowerPoint Designer helps you save time and effort while ensuring your slides look cohesive and polished.
PowerPoint Designer has several key features that make it a helpful tool for building looping presentations, like:
- AI-generated layouts: As you add content to your slides, PowerPoint Designer automatically suggests professional-looking layouts so your slides are visually appealing and consistent.
- Visual suggestions: PowerPoint Designer recommends images, icons and other graphics based on your content, allowing you to enhance your presentation without needing design expertise.
- Seamless formatting: Using consistent fonts, colors and spacing, PowerPoint Designer ensures your presentation looks cohesive and polished.
How to Use AI to Enhance Looping Presentations in PowerPoint
While the basic looping presentation setup is straightforward, leveraging AI tools like PowerPoint Designer and Microsoft 365’s Copilot can elevate your presentation even more. These tools can help create seamless presentations with great design.
AI-Driven Design Suggestions
PowerPoint Designer is particularly valuable for looping presentations because it helps maintain a cohesive design across all slides. Here are some ways AI-driven tools can optimize your presentation:
- Content analysis and layout recommendations: PowerPoint Designer automatically analyzes your content and suggests layouts that help keep your presentation clean and engaging.
- AI-enhanced visuals: PowerPoint Designer recommends high-quality images and icons that complement your presentation’s theme, giving it a polished look without requiring additional design resources.
- Cohesive transitions: By ensuring transitions between slides are smooth and consistent, PowerPoint Designer helps maintain the viewer’s attention throughout the presentation loop.
Microsoft 365 Copilot
For those looking to automate even more of the presentation creation process, Microsoft 365’s Copilot is a powerful AI tool. It can generate entire presentations based on text input and work alongside PowerPoint Designer to refine layouts and visuals.
- Generate content from prompts: You can input text prompts and Copilot will generate slides with relevant content. This can be particularly useful when creating content-heavy presentations that need to loop.
- Refine slides with PowerPoint Designer: Once the content is generated, PowerPoint Designer takes over, suggesting layouts, images and other elements to refine the look and feel of your presentation.
Learn more about Microsoft 365 Copilot as an add-on license to Microsoft 365 or Office 365.
Best Practices for Creating a PowerPoint Loop Presentation
Here are a few best practices for a successful looping PowerPoint presentation:
- Keep it simple: Don’t overload your slides with too much text or complex graphics. A looping presentation works best when the slides are clear and concise.
- Use consistent branding: Ensure your company’s branding, including logos, colors, and fonts, are consistent across all slides. PowerPoint Designer can help with this by maintaining uniform design elements.
- Test your presentation: Always run through your presentation a few times to ensure the loop works properly and the slide timings are appropriate.
- Time it right: Most of the time, transitions shouldn’t last more than 1 or 2 seconds. The time on each slide depends on your storyline, number of slides, density of slides, and context. However, a good rule of thumb is no more than 9-10 seconds per slide in a loop PowerPoint presentation.
5 Tips for Building Effective Looping Presentation Content
The content in an impactful PowerPoint loop presentation should be created differently. Designing content for a looping presentation means creating slides that can individually stand alone while contributing to the core storyline. Here are 5 tips for creating sticky presentation loop content:
- Use Modular Storytelling: Organize content into clear, self-contained sections. Each module should address a specific topic or idea while contributing to the broader, core narrative.
- Focus on Visual Storytelling: Use visuals instead of words to communicate key ideas quickly. A strong visual narrative ensures real-time comprehension without requiring sequential viewing or too much context.
- Repeat Core Messages: Reinforce your central message by weaving it naturally into different slides using varied phrasing or visuals. This ensures consistent messaging without being redundant or boring the audience.
- Concise Text Only: Write short, clear statements that convey the main idea at a glance. Supplement text with visuals to ensure comprehension even without detailed reading.
- Create a Seamless Flow: Instead of relying on defined opening and closing slides, design each slide to transition smoothly into the next. This way, viewers can join the presentation at any point and enjoy a coherent narrative.
Want Additional PowerPoint Training or Loop Presentation Design?
While looping a PowerPoint presentation is relatively straightforward, perfecting your visual storytelling is more of a challenge. Additional training in how to design and loop PowerPoint presentations can enhance your overall impact.
Stinson offers specialized presentation training, ensuring that your story, design and communication is on-brand and engaging.
Looking for content and design support? Contact us for presentation training or to create an event presentation from scratch.
