Explore Figma Slides

What is Figma Slides?

Figma Slides is the first presentation tool built for designers and their teammates. No matter your role or level of design experience, Figma Slides makes it easy to create beautiful and effective slide decks. Use Figma Slides to build decks for:

• Design reviews: Share ideas and gather feedback using interactive polls and alignment scales
• Startup pitches: Use clickable prototypes to build excitement with potential investors
• Class projects: Create slide decks together using collaborative tools like audio and cursor chat
• Conference talks: Stay on-message with built-in presenter notes
• and more!

Slide decks are live and always up-to-date, so you and your collaborators can work on the same deck at the same time. Having one live file gets everyone on the same page without the need to save, download, or pass documents back and forth.

You can identify slide decks in the file browser by the icon on the file card.

In this article, we'll cover the basics of working with Figma Slides decks. If you'd prefer to watch a video, check out our Intro to Figma Slides video tutorial. 

Find your way around

If you’ve used Figma Design before, the Figma Slides editor may feel familiar. The Figma Slides editor has four distinct regions: the canvas, the left and right sidebars, and the toolbar.

Canvas

The canvas is where you’ll build and manage your slide deck. The canvas has two views:

• Slide view: Slide view gives you a focused look at a single slide. This allows you to fine-tune your design and add presenter notes to specific slides. Learn more about adding presenter notes →
• Grid view: Grid view gives you a bird’s eye view of the canvas, so you can view your entire deck at a glance to make sure your narrative is powerful and concise.

To change views, use the toggle in the left sidebar.

To navigate around the canvas, you can pan and zoom.

Pan around to move

Pan to view different parts of your slide deck.

Mouse: Hold Space while clicking and dragging to move.

Trackpad: Slide two fingers in any direction to move. Figma uses your computer’s default scroll direction settings.

Zoom in and out

Zoom in to take a close look at a specific slide, or zoom out to see your full deck. Your current zoom level is displayed in the top-right corner of the right sidebar.

Mouse: Hold down Command (on Mac) or Control (on Windows) and scroll down to zoom in or up to zoom out.

Trackpad: Pinch two fingers together to zoom out or stretch two fingers apart to zoom in.

Left sidebar

The left sidebar is where you manage slides and organize your deck. You can also access the template picker to add new slide layouts to your deck. Learn more about using templates →

Right sidebar

The right sidebar is where you control the look and feel of your slides.

Design tab: Access the properties for objects in your slides. Your permissions on the slide deck will determine what you can see in the Design tab, and what actions you can take.

When you select an object on the canvas, the properties available for that object type display in the right sidebar. If you don’t have anything selected, you can access the styles available for templates used in your deck. Learn more about slide deck templates →

Animate tab: Insert transitions between slides to keep your presentation flowing smoothly. Learn more about slide transitions →

Toolbar

The toolbar has all the building blocks you’ll need to create your slide designs:

• Add objects like text, shapes, and live interactions and prototypes
• Browse for and use assets from Figma Design libraries
• Get access to Figma AI tools or enable design mode to bring the power of Figma Design to your slide designs (currently in a limited beta)

Slides mode vs design mode

Figma Slides has two modes: slides mode and design mode. You can toggle between modes from the toolbar.

Slides mode

Slides mode is the default mode in Figma Slides. Slides mode has everything you need to design professional-looking presentations. No matter your skill level, slides mode’s simplified interface makes it easy to find and use slide deck templates, modify content, add interactive elements, and put your own spin on slide designs.

Design mode

If you have a full seat for Figma Design, you can enable design mode using the toggle in the toolbar. Design mode unlocks Figma Design features such as auto layout, the layers panel, and advanced properties, so you can dig into the details and customize slides to your exact specifications. Learn more about design mode →

Build your slide deck

To build your slide deck, you’ll start by selecting a template, then customize it to suit your needs.

Templates

Templates consist of curated colors, fonts, shapes, and slide layouts that give your deck a consistent look and feel. Unlike many presentation tools, you’re not limited to one template per deck. You can mix and match slide layouts from different templates to customize your deck, and apply template styles to keep everything looking consistent. Learn more about using templates and template styles →

If you’re on the Organization or Enterprise plan, you can also publish custom templates so that no one in your organization ever has to build a slide deck from scratch again. Learn more about publishing custom templates →

Objects

You can customize your slide deck using the objects and tools found in the toolbar:

• Live slides: Encourage two-way conversations and drive alignment with polls, alignment scales, and clickable prototypes. Learn more about add live interactions and prototypes to slides →
• Libraries: Use components, styles, and variables created in Figma Design in your slide deck designs. Learn more about adding libraries to your slide decks →
• Text: Create new titles and headings and add blocks of body text. You can also add external hyperlinks to text, or link to other slides in your deck. If you’ve added a library with text styles to Figma Slides, you can apply those text styles to your content. 
• Shapes: Shapes are great for building out flows or diagrams, or for adding a bit of flare to your slide design. Add text within a shape to capture your ideas, then use connectors to connect them to other objects.
• Images and videos: Bring in visual assets to replace placeholder images in slide layouts. Copy and paste, or drag and drop, to add visuals to your deck. You can crop the visual, give it a border, and even add an overlay or blur effect.
• Tables: Tables help you organize, synthesize, and structure information on your slides.

Collaborate on and present your slide deck with others

Figma Slides has everything you need to build and present your slide deck by yourself or with a group:

• Presenter notes: Add presenter notes to any slide to help you stay on message during your presentation. Learn more about adding presenter notes →
• Spotlight: Spotlight allows others to follow you as you move through your slide deck. It’s great for facilitating meetings and letting others take over the presentation so no one ever has to say “Next slide”. Learn more about spotlight →
• Audio and cursor chat: Use audio and cursor chat to have live conversations with other collaborators, without having to leave your slide deck. Learn more about audio and cursor chat →
• Comments: Use comments to give feedback, ask questions, or leave notes for your collaborators. Learn more about comments →
• Export options: Export your slide deck to share with others or to save a copy outside of Figma Slides. Learn more about exporting from Figma Slides →

Permissions in slide decks

Your permissions will determine what actions you can take and whether you can make changes to a slide deck.

• People with can edit access can add, move, edit, or delete objects in a slide deck. They can present slide decks and use multiplayer features like comments, cursor chat, and spotlight.
• People with can view access can see existing objects in the slide deck, but can’t edit or add objects. They can also present slide decks and use multiplayer features like comments, cursor chat, and spotlight.

Learn more about setting permissions on files →

How to check your permissions

The quickest way to see whether you can edit a slide deck is to check the toolbar. If you see the Ask to edit button, you have can view access to the slide deck. You may be able to request access to edit the slide deck. Click Ask to edit to request access.