Google Slides is the presentation tool that comes with every Google account. There's nothing to install, your work saves automatically as you type, and you can share a slideshow with someone the same way you'd share a YouTube link. If you've ever used PowerPoint, the menus will feel familiar - they're just in a browser tab instead of a desktop app.
What makes Slides different is that it lives in the cloud. You can build a deck on your laptop at home, finish it on a Chromebook at work, and present it from a phone in a meeting room. Two or three people can edit the same slideshow at once, watching each other's cursors move. That's why teachers, students, and small teams use it as their default presentation tool.
This guide walks through the parts of Google Slides you'll actually use every day. Opening a new deck, naming it, picking a theme, adding text and images, inserting a YouTube video, presenting full screen, and sharing with the right permissions. Howfinity recorded the source video on a Mac, but every step works the same on Windows and on a Chromebook.
If you're new to the Google Workspace tools, our guides on how to use Google Docs and how to use Google Sheets cover the word processor and spreadsheet side. If you're setting up a fresh Chromebook to follow along, how to factory reset a Chromebook gets you a clean device first.
