If you’re here, you’re probably like me who thinks, “I want to make my next presentation something unique, something that my audience has never experienced before (in a good way, of course)”.
It’s possible, trust me!
Presentation design has changed vastly over the past few decades. Back in my school days, we only knew about PowerPoint – pick a theme, put your text and images, add some transitions, animations, and you’re done!
You might think, “Wait, isn’t that what we still do? Didn’t you say presentation design has changed and stuff?”
The answer is no and yes. “No” because many of us still make presentations this way (and you need these courses). “Yes” because using new features, you can make really cool ‘OMG’ presentations. By the way, that was my reaction when I first saw Luis Urrutia’s (known as ‘The Presentation Guy’) designs.
Presentations are no more “presentations”. They are literally mini movies! And even the complex ones are super easy to make.
If I’ve convinced you to learn better presentation design, you might want to take at least one of the 13 courses that I’ve handpicked for you from over 260 presentation design courses.
Take these shortcuts to jump straight into the section you like:
- Which Presentation Design Course Is Right for You?
- Popular Presentation Design Platforms
- How Can AI Help?
- How Have I Chosen These Courses?
- Courses Overview
- Why you should trust us
Which Presentation Design Course Is Right for You?
These courses are not ranked. They are the best in their segment, and you can choose your course(s) as per your needs.
Popular Presentation Design Platforms
PowerPoint is perhaps one of the most well-known software programs for creating presentations for all requirements, be it for school, university, office, business, or just about anything. It was the go-to application for many of us (still is for good reason). Now, it’s probably Canva or Google Slides.
But there are other amazing and user-friendly platforms where you can also design beautiful presentations just like PowerPoint, or maybe even better? In fact, while researching for this article, I came to know about some of these apps, or that presentation design was also possible with them.
So I decided to include at least one course on these platforms so that the list becomes diverse and we can learn about more options for better presentation design.
Quick Selection Guide
- For Complete Beginners: Start with Canva (most intuitive) or Google Slides (simplest features)
- For Business/Professional Use: Choose PowerPoint (industry standard)
- For Creative Presentations: Consider Prezi (unique style) or Keynote (elegant animations)
- For Team Collaboration: Best options are Google Slides (free) and Canva (paid subscription for advanced features)
- For Animation and Motion: Stay in PowerPoint and learn morph, motion paths, and 3D, which is where those ‘mini movie’ decks come from
How Can AI Help?
AI won’t design your presentation for you, but it will take the tedious half off your hands. Here’s where I’ve found it actually earns its keep:
- Structure before slides: paste in a messy brief or a long document and get back an outline with slide titles and talking points. This is the step most of us skip, and in my experience it’s where AI helps most.
- First drafts: tools like Gamma and Canva’s Magic Design turn an outline into a full deck in one go. Treat what comes back as a starting layout, not a finished design.
- Help inside your usual app: Copilot in PowerPoint and Gemini in Google Slides draft slides, rewrite text, and generate images without making you leave the file you’re already in.
- Visuals: image generators fill the gap when stock photos don’t fit, and there are AI tools for colour palettes, mockups, and upscaling too.
- Data slides: hand over a table and ask for the chart plus the one-line takeaway. Check every number it gives back, always.
- Speaker notes and rehearsal: notes for every slide from a single prompt, plus timing estimates and feedback on your pacing.
One caution: AI decks look like AI decks unless you edit them. The generated draft gets you to a rough deck quickly, and the judgment about what to cut, what to emphasise, and what to redraw is still yours. That’s the gap the two AI courses below are built to close.
How Have I Chosen These Courses?
I built this ranking following the now tried-and-tested methodology used in previous Best Courses Guides (you can find them all here). It involves a three-step process:
- Research: I started by leveraging Class Central’s database and the internet. Then, I made a preliminary selection of 260+ presentation design courses by rating, reviews, and bookmarks.
- Evaluate: I read through reviews on Class Central, Reddit, and course providers to understand what other learners thought about each course, and combined it with my own experience as a learner.
- Select: I selected courses that presented valuable and engaging content. Selection criteria include a comprehensive curriculum, affordability, release date, reviews and ratings, and enrollments.
Ultimately, I used a combination of data and personal judgment to make these picks. I’m confident these recommendations will be a reliable way to learn presentation design.
Courses Overview
- One course is free, and twelve are paid
- Twelve courses offer a certificate of completion (paid)
- Twelve courses are aimed at beginners; one is intermediate
- The shortest pick takes about 1.5 hours, the longest around 12 hours
Best Presentation Course for Creatives (Domestika)
A presentation designer with over a decade’s experience, Zach Grosser is the Managing Director of Zacht Studios, whose clientele includes Google, Adobe, SpaceX, and many more.
This course is aimed at creative minds and focuses on tools rather than presentation software. It will teach you presentation design with Figma, and help you gain confidence in delivering your presentation. So, unleash the designer in you and get ready to tell your story through creative pitch decks.
With this course, you’ll learn how to:
- Create elegant pitch decks using design tools like Figma
- Structure a story into clear, compelling presentation narratives
- Design slides that effectively showcase your portfolio and services
- Pitch confidently to win new clients and expand existing projects
- Build reusable presentation templates for creative service offerings
- Give interviews for design roles using strong visual presentations
This one’s for you if:
You want to build pitch decks and have a creative background/mind or prior knowledge of design.
| Provider | Domestika |
| Instructor | Zach Grosser |
| Workload | 3-4 hours |
| Enrollment | 1.24K |
| Rating | 4.75 |
| Cost | Paid |
| Quizzes/Assessment Items | None |
| Certificate | Paid |
Best Course for Creating Professional Templates (Domestika)
Katya Kovalenko, a graphic designer at Quiet Studio, will guide you step by step through the process of creating your own professional presentation template.
In this course, you will not just learn presentation design but actually explore color, style, composition, and typography – the essentials of graphic design in general, which will help you understand the full potential of presentation design in detail.
By taking this course, you’ll be able to:
- Build custom presentation templates from scratch using brand guidelines or personal style
- Master typography principles and composition techniques for professional slide layouts
- Apply color theory and visual hierarchy to create cohesive template designs
- Create templates that work effectively in KeyNote, PowerPoint, or other presentation software
- Develop systems for template design that save time on future presentations
This one’s for you if:
You’re new to graphic design and want to learn the fundamentals of good design while learning how to create presentations.
| Provider | Domestika |
| Instructor | Katya Kovalenko |
| Workload | 2-3 hours |
| Enrollment | 25.08K |
| Rating | 4.9 |
| Cost | Paid |
| Quizzes/Assessment Items | None |
| Certificate | Paid |
Extensive PowerPoint Course, Beginner to Advanced (Udemy)
This 10-hour course by Andrew Pach is a complete package if you want to learn PowerPoint from basic to advanced level in almost all versions, from old to the latest.
It will teach you to make infographics, world maps, graphs, charts, features, processes, introductions about your slides, and much more. If you need to make diverse presentations, this course is your one-stop destination to become quick and skilled with PowerPoint.
Pach also keeps it current, which is rarer than it should be for a course this old. The most recent additions cover Microsoft Copilot inside PowerPoint, charts and data visualization, accessibility, and design trends for 2026.
By taking this course, you’ll be able to:
- Learn PowerPoint from beginner to an advanced level
- Create a fully animated and transition-filled business presentation
- Rapidly improve your workflow and design skills
- Minimize text quantity on presentations by using graphs and images
- Apply consistent formatting and branding across multi-slide presentations using master slides
This one’s for you if:
You’re a beginner at making presentations and want to learn a simple tool to create them.
P.S. Andrew Pach’s courses have also been featured in our PowerPoint Best Courses Guide, check that out too!
| Provider | Udemy |
| Instructor | Andrew Pach |
| Workload | 10-11 hours |
| Enrollment | 136.01K |
| Rating | 4.5 (24.59K) |
| Cost | Paid |
| Quizzes/Assessment Items | Yes |
| Certificate | Paid |
Complete PowerPoint Course for Beginners (Udemy)
This is another great PowerPoint course of nearly 12 hours by Magine Solutions Team. If you want to dive deeper and learn PowerPoint from the very basics to pro-level, I highly recommend this course.
It teaches you everything you need to take control of presentation design in PowerPoint in your own hands and impress your audience with better presentations. It pushes you to explore core and advanced features that will help you create standardized business presentations.
Where Pach’s course above moves fast and assumes you can find your way around the ribbon, this one walks through PowerPoint tab by tab. Pick this if you want the slower, more thorough tour.
By taking this course, you’ll be able to:
- Design sophisticated, professional PowerPoint slides
- Use time-saving shortcuts and essential tools effectively
- Add animations, transitions, images, charts, and SmartArt
- Create and customize templates, layouts, and master slides
- Enhance visuals with background removal, color correction, and design alignment
- Build engaging presentations with timelines, portfolios, and business sections
- Navigate key PowerPoint tabs and features, including advanced view and review tools
- Apply strong design principles and storytelling techniques
- Present confidently using polished, interactive slides
- Complete hands-on projects and explore creative add-ons
This one’s for you if:
You’re a beginner, but you want to build elegant and high-quality presentations with PowerPoint.
| Provider | Udemy |
| Instructor | Magine Solutions Team |
| Workload | 11-12 hours |
| Enrollment | 5.11K |
| Rating | 4.5 (854) |
| Cost | Paid |
| Quizzes/Assessment Items | Yes |
| Certificate | Paid |
Best Advanced Course for PowerPoint Animation (Coursera)
Remember the ‘mini movies’ I promised at the top? This is the course that gets you there. Every other pick in this guide is a beginner course, so this one from Packt is here to catch you once you already know your way around PowerPoint and want slides that move.
The framing the course uses is good vs pro vs elite, and most of the 14 modules are spent on the last step. You’ll work through Morph and the Switcher tool for fluid shape transitions, word-by-word text morphing, motion paths, animated area and bar charts, and 3D object movement. There’s a section on presentation openings alone, which tells you how much attention it pays to the first ten seconds.
It’s the most technical pick here, and it assumes basic PowerPoint knowledge rather than teaching it. If you don’t have that yet, start with the A-Z beginner course above and come back.
By taking this course, you’ll be able to:
- Build fluid shape and text transitions using Morph and the Switcher tool
- Animate along motion paths and sequence 3D object movement
- Design custom animated charts from your own data
- Create slide openings and custom transitions that carry your pacing
- Build reusable branded templates that hold up across devices
This one’s for you if:
You already build decks in PowerPoint and want them to look animated rather than merely tidy.
| Provider | Coursera |
| Institution | Packt |
| Workload | 8-9 hours |
| Level | Intermediate |
| Enrollment | 619 |
| Cost | Paid |
| Quizzes/Assessment Items | Yes |
| Certificate | Paid |
Best Canva Course for Presentation Design (Coursera)
I said earlier that the default presentation tool is probably Canva now, so it would be strange to leave it out. This three-hour course is part of Coursera’s Canva Essentials Professional Certificate, and it’s the one I’d point most people to first.
What I like is that it doesn’t start with Canva. It starts with your audience, your key message, and the structure of the deck, then gets into choosing a template and building a consistent design system on top of it. Cognitive load comes up explicitly, which is a polite way of saying it will teach you to put less on each slide.
The second half covers the slides people struggle with most: data, timelines, team intros, and a closing call to action. Three modules, three graded assignments, three hands-on labs, and no design experience assumed. If you want the underlying design theory in more depth afterwards, Katya Kovalenko’s template course goes deeper on colour, type, and composition.
By taking this course, you’ll be able to:
- Plan a deck around a defined audience and a single key message
- Choose templates and build a consistent design system in Canva
- Apply hierarchy, typography, and balance to keep slides readable
- Turn dense information and data into clear visuals
- Design timelines, team profiles, and closing call-to-action slides
This one’s for you if:
You already use Canva, or you want the most forgiving starting point, and you’d rather learn design decisions than menus.
| Provider | Coursera |
| Workload | 3-4 hours |
| Enrollment | 2.05K |
| Cost | Paid |
| Quizzes/Assessment Items | Yes |
| Certificate | Paid |
Best Google Slides Course for Beginners (LinkedIn Learning)
This short presentation design course is for all of you who want to create your presentations in Google Slides. Instructor Erin Manning guides you through the complete presentation development process, from brainstorming and content strategy to final delivery and presentation.
You’ll learn core design principles, discover how to source and create professional assets, and master Google Slides’ features to build polished presentations. The course emphasizes both the creative and technical aspects of presentation design, ensuring you can craft presentations that not only look great but also deliver results.
It’s also the only pick that covers actually delivering the presentation, with lessons on voice, body movement, and wardrobe.
With this course, you’ll be able to:
- Develop your presentation, keeping your audience in mind
- Find and create appropriate assets
- Choose the right design for your presentation
- Collaborate with teammates and present your work
This one’s for you if:
You’re a beginner who wants to learn Google Slides in a short amount of time.
| Provider | LinkedIn Learning |
| Instructor | Erin Manning |
| Workload | 1-2 hours |
| Enrollment | 11.08K |
| Rating | 4.7 (180) |
| Cost | Paid |
| Quizzes/Assessment Items | None |
| Certificate | Paid |
Best Figma Course for Beginners (LinkedIn Learning)
If you want to experiment and try out unconventional applications, then you can check this course out on creating presentations in Figma. Create custom presentations and data visualizations that make a lasting impression on stakeholders.
Instructor Eric Nordquist, a seasoned UX professional, guides you through building customized UX research presentations that enhance your data storytelling compared to traditional presentation tools.
After this 4-hour course, you’ll be able to:
- Create stand-out custom UX research presentations using Figma’s collaborative design tools
- Design appealing title slides, agenda slides, and methodology slides with Figma’s built-in tools
- Build data visualizations for both quantitative and qualitative data
- Develop timeline graphics and interactive elements that make research findings more engaging
- Apply professional design principles to make UX research presentations that impress stakeholders
This one’s for you if:
You’re a UX researcher or you have knowledge of UX applications (also suitable for those who want to learn and explore Figma to create presentations).
| Provider | LinkedIn Learning |
| Instructor | Eric Nordquist |
| Workload | 4 hours |
| Enrollment | 28.55K |
| Rating | 4.7 (311) |
| Cost | Paid |
| Quizzes/Assessment Items | None |
| Certificate | Paid |
Best Free Keynote Course for Mac Users (YouTube)
This free Keynote course is for Mac users out there looking to learn the application and create wonderful presentations. It’s also the only free pick in this guide.
You will start with the basics of opening presentations, creating themes, and changing layouts. Then, you’ll work with animations and transitions, types of graphics, and wrap up with rehearsing, presenting, and sharing your presentation.
With this course, you’ll be able to:
- Master advanced animation techniques including 2D, 3D, object transitions, and Magic Move effects
- Add and customize multimedia elements like audio, video, images, charts, and tables
- Use collaboration features, including iCloud sharing, comments, and presenter notes, effectively
- Import content from PowerPoint and Word while maintaining formatting and functionality
- Export presentations to various formats and set up self-running shows or kiosk presentations
- Apply professional design principles, including photo enhancement, background removal, and custom themes
This one’s for you if:
You’re a Mac user who wants to design stunning presentations with built-in features.
| Provider | YouTube |
| Channel | Learnit Training |
| Workload | 2 hours |
| Cost | Free |
| Quizzes/Assessment Items | None |
| Certificate | None |
Best Sway Course (Guided Project) for Beginners (Coursera)
Yes, I am the instructor of this guided project on Microsoft Sway, a cloud-based presentation tool designed to help you create interactive, web-based presentations, reports, newsletters, portfolios, and more.
Even though I’m writing about my own work here, I assure you won’t be disappointed. In this guided project, I’ll teach you how to create a new Sway, add content to a Sway, customize a Sway using different design elements, and share a finished Sway on the web. In just 1-2 hours, you’ll become familiar with Sway and start creating awesome-looking presentations in no time.
One thing worth knowing before you start: Microsoft retired the Sway app for Windows in June 2026. Sway itself is very much alive on the web, which is where this project works anyway, so nothing here has changed.
After this guided project, you’ll be able to:
- Create a new Sway on the web and add headings, text, images, and videos to it
- Customize a Sway using different design elements
- Share a finished Sway on the web
This one’s for you if:
You’re new to Sway and want to build professional presentations from scratch.
| Provider | Coursera |
| Instructor | Archisha Bhar |
| Workload | 1-2 hours |
| Enrollment | 2.77K |
| Rating | 4.9 (14) |
| Cost | Paid |
| Quizzes/Assessment Items | Yes |
| Certificate | Paid |
Best Prezi Course for Beginners (LinkedIn Learning)
Were you waiting for a Prezi course? It’s finally here. In this course, Garrick Chow will get you started with Prezi Next and teach you all about the cloud-based presentation design tool so that you can effortlessly create your next presentation deck.
You’ll create dynamic, non-linear presentations using Prezi’s unique zooming and rotating canvas interface, convert PowerPoint presentations to Prezi format, visualize data with interactive elements, and collaborate with team members on Prezi projects.
In this course, you’ll learn to:
- Plan and build your Prezi with topics, subtopics, and custom layouts
- Add and edit text, images, audio, video, charts, and animations
- Present using tools like Live Prezi, presenter notes, and portable exports
- Share your Prezi via view or tracking links, PDF, and analyze viewer data
- Use Prezi Video to record, present, and import from PowerPoint
- Explore Prezi Design to create interactive, mobile-friendly visuals and charts
This one’s for you if:
You’re a beginner, and you want to give non-linear presentations (present slides in no particular order).
| Provider | LinkedIn Learning |
| Instructor | Garrick Chow |
| Workload | 2-3 hours |
| Enrollment | 5.93K |
| Rating | 4.8 (152) |
| Cost | Paid |
| Quizzes/Assessment Items | Yes |
| Certificate | Paid |
Best Course for AI Presentation Workflows (Coursera)
Most AI presentation courses are a tour of whichever tools were popular when they were filmed. This one, taught by Anton Voroniuk for SkillsBooster Academy, is built around a repeatable process instead, and it sticks to mainstream tools: Claude for planning, Copilot inside PowerPoint, Gemini inside Google Slides, and Gamma for first drafts.
The order it teaches is the reason I picked it. You plan and structure in plain text before you open anything with slides in it, then generate a draft deck, then refine slide by slide, then bring in data and charts, then polish. There’s a hands-on project where you build a complete designed deck in Gamma from start to finish, and you keep a prompt library at the end.
It also spends time on verifying the numbers AI hands you and on avoiding the generic AI-deck look, which is exactly where these tools tend to embarrass people. Fair warning that it launched in June 2026, so it has very few enrollments and no ratings yet. If you want the visual side of AI rather than the workflow side, Katya Kovalenko’s AI course below is the better fit.
By the end of the course, you’ll be able to:
- Turn a brief or messy notes into a slide-ready outline with AI
- Generate first-draft decks in Gamma, Copilot, and Gemini, then refine them slide by slide
- Build charts and comparison tables from raw data, and check the numbers
- Write prompts that produce speaker notes and consistent themes
- Reuse a prompt library across tools, topics, and audiences
This one’s for you if:
You build decks for work and want a process you can repeat, rather than a list of AI tricks.
| Provider | Coursera |
| Institution | SkillsBooster Academy |
| Instructor | Anton Voroniuk |
| Workload | 4-5 hours |
| Enrollment | 186 |
| Cost | Paid |
| Quizzes/Assessment Items | Yes |
| Certificate | Paid |
Complete Presentation Design using AI (Domestika)
Here’s another course by seasoned graphic designer Katya Kovalenko, which teaches you how to enhance visual storytelling while saving on your valuable time harnessing the power of AI. You’ll not just use AI to design presentations but also to brainstorm ideas and write your script.
Where the Coursera course above is about workflow, this one is about pictures. A designer’s share of it goes on generating and improving the visuals themselves, so take it if that’s the part you find hardest.
With this course, you’ll be able to:
- Use ChatGPT for brainstorming presentation ideas and creating structured content outlines
- Generate visual content with AI tools like Midjourney, Adobe Firefly, and IMGLarger
- Create professional presentation layouts using AI-powered design tools like BrightSlide
- Analyze and summarize large documents with Sharly AI and Notion AI
- Elevate presentation quality with AI tools for grammar checking, color palettes, and mockups
- Integrate interactive elements using Slido and streamline your entire presentation workflow
- Build complete presentations from scratch, combining multiple AI tools and traditional software
This one’s for you if:
You want to create comprehensive presentations with different AI tools (don’t worry, it’s beginner-friendly).
| Provider | Domestika |
| Instructor | Katya Kovalenko |
| Workload | 1-2 hours |
| Enrollment | 36.8K |
| Rating | 4.9 |
| Cost | Paid |
| Quizzes/Assessment Items | None |
| Certificate | Paid |
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