Creative PowerPoint Timeline Graphics – Ultimate Collection of Tutorials, Templates and Ideas

Timeline Graphics for PowerPoint are a great way to add that visual impact to your next presentation.
We’ve rounded up our top creative ideas for creating Timeline slides in PowerPoint. This post provides suggestions like Infographics, Photos,  Software, PowerPoint tutorials and ready to use Templates, to save you some serious time creating your slides.

For a quick and easy visual representation of a timeline, you can insert a SmartArt timeline. There are some basic options available inbuilt with Microsoft PowerPoint software. 

You can learn how to add this timeline from Office tutorials in Microsoft website.  Instructions for different versions of PowerPoint ( 2007, 2010, 2013 and 2016)  are given there. 

You can also go beyond the usual timelines and design creative Timelines in PowerPoint yourself. Here are our Most Popular Timeline tutorials below.

In this video, learn how to create a SmartArt project timeline quickly and easily.  You'll also find creative alternatives to the regular timelines in the second half of the video.

In this tutorial, you will learn how to create a simple Timeline using Auto Shapes in PowerPoint. You will not only find a step by step demonstration of how to create a simple, scalable timeline graphic from scratch - but also see some useful applications of the graphic in business presentations.

In the following video, you will learn to create a visually stunning Animated Timeline Graphic in PowerPoint 2013. This tutorial can be followed in other versions of PowerPoint as well. By animating the timeline you can narrate your story step by step. Such animation is great for engaging audience in e-learning and training situations as well.

Learn to create a 3D timeline diagram in PowerPoint with this tutorial from our 3D  Graphics series.
The diagram shows a series of rounded text boxes linked by an arrow. You can customize the diagram based on your requirement and add more boxes as per the number of years you want to present.

You can get Structured and Comprehensive PowerPoint Training with Ramgopal’s PowerPoint Mastery Program. Details about the PowerPoint Training program here.

Need a dose of creative inspiration to create your own timeline slides in PowerPoint?  
We got you covered.

Take a look at some of our...

We uploaded a useful slide deck on Slideshare that got quite a few excited.  You can check it out here:

PowerPoint Templates showcased above are from PowerPoint Charts CEO Pack 1.

Now, it's time to check out a few creative ideas you can use in your next presentation...

A timeline is probably one of the most used diagrams in a business presentation. Whether you want to represent milestones of your organization’s growth or Year wise progress of your project, you can’t do without a timeline chart.
Discover 5 simple ways to represent timeline in PowerPoint slides. Get inspired to create a number of variations of your own.   
Read the article on Timelines here.

Here is inspiration from timelines from different industries. You can draw ideas from them to create your own presentation slides. This includes ideas from Medical Science, Computing, Engineering , personal history & more.

Click on a infographic image to preview the infographics timeline in detail. 

If you don't have the time to design your own slides or are looking for quick and easy ways to make over your slides, you can download ready to use PowerPoint Templates. 

Microsoft offers some free timeline templates ready to download on their website. You can access these PowerPoint templates from Microsoft here.

There are additional templates available on sites like FPPT. You can download timelines like these from their site.  Here is where you can find these timeline templates on FPPT.

If you need more creative timeline options, you can download these premium PowerPoint Timeline Templates included in our Comprehensive All In One PowerPoint Templates Bundle.

All the templates showcased above are from the Comprehensive All In One Bundle - a collection of 4020+ ready to use PowerPoint templates. 

Source: Gantt.com

Project Timelines or Gantt Charts can be created in PowerPoint as data-driven charts. Here are some examples of Data Driven Project Management Charts.

It is possible that you want to show extensive Project Timelines for 5 years or a Project Gantt. These type of detailed slides may be difficult to create in PowerPoint.

The Office Timeline Maker plug-in is a useful option in such cases.   It plugs into your PowerPoint. There are free and paid versions of the software available. (The plugin is not owned by Microsoft)

The following infographic captures a quick summary of many of the points in this post. You can also download it and save it to your desktop!

So, we hope you got a good number of creative ideas and inspirations from the useful collection of video tutorials, slide deck, articles and pins we put together from various sources.

Hope you found some new ideas to use in your next presentation, from this comprehensive post about creating and using Timeline slides in PowerPoint.

So, what are some of the unique ways you use to represent a timeline graphic in your PowerPoint presentations?

We are eager to learn. Share your thoughts in the comments section below.

Oh! By the way...
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