Tips to Highlight Text in Presentations

One of the best ways to draw attention to specific words on your presentation is to highlight text on it.

As the golden rule of designing your slides goes, having minimal content on them helps your viewers better focus on your key message.

And even with only the most important information visible, there may be a need to underscore certain parts of your content. That’s where highlighting text plays a crucial role. In this article, we’ll look at the seven different ways you can do so.

1. Employ colors

One of the easiest ways is to apply a different shade to the word(s) you want to place under the spotlight.

This is exactly what we’ve done with the timeline from our Around the World template.

By having the names of the planets in a different color, your eyes pivot immediately to them. It also helps to stress the focus of the presentation.

When choosing a color, make sure to pick one that complements the rest of your design. The trick is to provide just enough contrast to ensure your viewers can easily read and comprehend it.

2. Vary typography

Utilizing the many forms of typography such as the different typeface weights available is also a great way to highlight pieces of information.

You can have fun with bold, cursive, or different sizes to make sure viewers are focused on one section of the slide.

Remember to do this sparingly and only for words you want to emphasize. Formatting everything in bolded or in cursive is like having nothing highlighted, and the result would be uniform and plain.

Plus, by using different typographic formats, you’re also establishing hierarchy.

In the example above, it’s clear how the content is expected to be consumed.

3. Combine fonts

Another wonderful method is to combine and contrast fonts.

After all, with such a wide plethora of options at your disposal, whether you’re using Google Slides or PowerPoint, why not take full advantage of them?

You can see how fonts are smoothly combined in our Science Weekly Planner template.

The thick and cursive Permanent Marker is used for the main concepts to make them stand out against the Fira Sans Extra Condensed that’s applied to the text body.

And yes, as you’ll have noticed, using different fonts can also help to determine hierarchy if you’re consistent with the way you apply them (I.e., you can try using the same font for titles and a different font for the rest of the slide).

4. Use uppercase

One other method to highlight text on your slide is actually as easy as toggling a key on your keyboard—the almighty CapsLock!

Without a doubt, this is one of the most straightforward and direct ways to play up particular words for an effective presentation.

It doesn’t require playing around with colors or fonts to achieve its effect. By just hitting that CapsLock key, you can make words or phrases more noticeable.

In this example, we’ve used uppercase letters for the title of the slide and the people’s names to whom the quotes are attributed.

In doing so, the audience can distinguish, right away, the quote from the person who said it.

5. Add space

What better way to emphasize a sentence by positioning it within a field of white space? Limiting the amount of text can actually be a great hack to highlighting it.

That’s because by having it as the only words on your slide and adding tons of space around it, you’re simplifying your design and the focus goes immediately to what’s left.

As an added plus, it also helps to reduce clutter!

6. Highlight

The classic highlight is another great way to feature particular words. This is a tried-and-tested method that you may recall from your school days.

When using this method, apply a color that’s already in your presentation to maintain stylistic coherence. That aside, you also want to make sure that the text remains legible.

For instance, in our example, we’ve highlighted the words “extremely poisonous” with the same shade of blue used in the title.

And instead of leaving the words in orange like the rest of the paragraph, which may make it difficult to read against the blue background, we’ve changed it to white to facilitate reading.

7. Enclose them in shapes

Last but definitely not least, shapes are a fantastic tool to emphasize key information.

By having some words set within different forms like a rectangle or an oval, you’re intensifying its weight and giving it importance.

If you’re using Google Slides or PowerPoint, you’ll be spoilt for choice. There is a wide selection of shapes you can use, including varying arrows and callouts.

For example, we’ve propped the word “opinions,” which is also the title, in a speech bubble. In doing so, we’re immediately communicating what content is.

Pro tip: Choose a different color for your shape to make it stand out even more.