PowerPoint presentation: How to create a timeline

For years, a good PowerPoint presentation has made the explaining world at schools and universities, in evening classes and at business meetings easier, more colourful, more beautiful. What some don’t know: With Microsoft PowerPoint is also an excellent way to create a timeline that visualises, for example, a chronological sequence of events in such a way that it „sticks“. Here we show how to integrate the timeline into a PowerPoint design and even make it more concise with effects.

Does a timeline make PowerPoint more vivid? YES!

Although it is somewhat tricky to use, for instance Microsoft PowerPoint 2016 to insert a descriptive timeline into the PowerPoint design – but the PowerPoint presentation wins! It turns simple PowerPoint templates into a PowerPoint presentation that concisely shows what happened when and in what order. From birth to school enrolment to wedding and all the way to an adventure trip in South America. Of course, the timeline in a PowerPoint presentation is also invaluable in business. For example, if you want to clearly show when a certain business branch started, when the first highlight took place and when the sales figures went up Here we show step by step how the timeline enhances PowerPoint.

1: Set a timeline with Microsoft PowerPoint

  • With the drawing function "Line" from the corresponding box in the menu bar, you first define the timeline. Created with the Shift key held down, the line remains exactly horizontal
  • In the menu "Draw" menu you can still design the axis. For example, as a coloured line, dotted or in a stronger image.
  • If you click on the line with the right mouse button, you can use the function "Set as standard line function. This will format all other lines in the PowerPoint template accordingly.
  • At the beginning of the timeline, you now set a much shorter vertical start line as well as a first marker line - again by holding down the Shift key.

2: No timeline without a peak

  • Again from the box in the menu bar, first select the block arrow. Click on it with the right mouse button, then "Edit points select.
  • Right-click on the lower left point of the block arrow and select "Open path" "Open path select. Delete the two points at the bottom left and the one at the top left. What remains is a simple triangle
  • The same formatting as the time axis is obtained by activating the time axis with a click. Then with the key combination "Control + Shift + C" copy.
  • Next, click on the triangle and select the key combination " Control + Shift + V". This makes the filling of the shape disappear, the remaining lines are formatted in the same way as the timeline and the marking lines.

3: Place the timeline in the PowerPoint design

  • All the previous strokes including the tip are now roughly positioned at the right place in the PowerPoint presentation
  • To fine-tune the elements in the "Start" tab "Arrange - Align - Centre vertically" select.
  • Now mark the start line and the time axis and "Arrange - Align - Left-aligned" select.
  • For the correct positioning of the tip, select "Arrange - Align - Right-aligned" .

4: The events on the timeline of the PowerPoint presentation

  • Now, of course, the "highlights" should also be visible on the timeline of the PowerPoint presentation according to their occurrence
  • To do this, first create two text boxes. The first one marks the time of the event, the second one is needed for the actual text.
  • The text box for the time is now positioned roughly above the first marking line, the second below it.
  • Now mark both text boxes as well as the vertical line "Arrange - Align - Centre horizontally" select.
  • In the next step, group the three elements with "Arrange - Group" so that all elements can be copied at the same time or moved by drag and drop.
  • With the commands "Control + C" or "Control + V all elements can now be copied and pasted in any number at the desired position
  • Before you fill the individual event boxes with text, select all elements and choose "Arrange - Align - Distribute Horizontally" so that all events are displayed at the same distance from each other.

Header Image: © Aleksei, stock.adobe.com