You likely know Figma as a powerful tool for designing user interfaces and prototypes. But its capabilities extend into another common task for designers and product teams: creating presentations. Instead of switching to separate slide software, you can build, share, and collaborate on decks directly within the Figma environment you're already familiar with.

While you could always build slides in a standard Figma Design file using frames, the dedicated Figma Slides tool streamlines the process. It provides a familiar, yet optimised, environment specifically for presentation design, complete with templates and features tailored for decks.

When you open Figma Slides, the interface will feel comfortable if you've used Figma Design. It's built on the same foundation but is simplified for creating presentations. The layout is divided into three primary areas.

1. Slides Panel (Left): This is your deck's table of contents. Each slide appears here as a thumbnail. You can add, delete, duplicate, and reorder your slides by dragging them up or down in this list.
2. Canvas (Centre): This is your main workspace. The currently selected slide from the left panel is displayed here, ready for you to add text, images, shapes, and components. All your design work happens on the canvas.
3. Properties Panel (Right): When you select an element on the canvas, this panel shows its properties. You can adjust colours, fonts, dimensions, strokes, effects, and other attributes here. It's the control centre for styling every part of your slide.

Starting a new presentation in Figma is straightforward. From the Figma file browser, you'll find an option to create a new Figma Slides file. This is separate from creating a new Design file.

Once you create a new slide deck, Figma immediately presents you with a selection of templates. These are pre-designed layouts for common slide types, like title slides, section headers, and content slides with columns or image placeholders. Using a template is the fastest way to get started and ensure a consistent look.

From here, you can begin customising the content. You're not locked into the template; you can modify every element, add your own branding, and create new slide layouts as needed. The initial setup simply provides a solid foundation to build upon.