5 Simple Ways to Work Faster in Google Slides

If you’ve visited the site before, you know my main goal is to save you time. And there are SO many easy ways to save precious minutes in Google Slides!

Today I’m sharing five ways to work faster in Google Slides.

The best part?

These are the kind of shortcuts that are easy to remember.

Once you try them out a few times, you will start to use them ALL of the time until it’s totally natural!

And then you’ll be able to work faster in Google Slides!

Let’s get started.

First, open a new Google Slide to try each of these shortcuts out.

Then, try each of the shortcuts below…

Adding clipart or images to your Google Slides? There is no need to go through all those usual steps…you know, Insert > Image > Upload from Computer:

Instead, open your image folder and drag the image right onto the slide. It will be instantly uploaded!

And it gets better.

You can add multiples images to your slide, all at once! Just hold the Shift key and click several images…then click and drag.

You can read more about this here: How to Add Multiple Pictures to Google Slides, Instantly

There is one thing to be careful of however.

As you drag images into the slide, be sure they go in the center of the slide and a blue border does NOT appear around your slide.

I’ll explain more in our next timesaver…

This is a newer feature and hands-down one of my favorite ways to work faster in Google Slides!

You can lock a background image in a slide with one single step.

Forget the whole multi-step process of adding that background image:

Try this: open your image folder. Click and drag your image until the blue outline shows on the slide…then release the image:

Your background will be added instantly!

(this is why we need to be careful adding images to the center of the slide, otherwise they will be locked in the background)

Want a closer look at this incredible shortcut?

Check out this post: Set an Image as a Background in Google Slides (in One Step!)

Ok, moving on to fonts. One of the easiest ways to work faster in Google Slides is by setting a default font.

I’ve shared how to set a default font in Google Docs before (and it’s super easy!).

But setting a default font in Slides is a bit trickier.

To help with this, I created a little workaround.

All it takes is formatting a Google Slide with your favorite font, then creating a copy and storing this template in Google Keep:

(I’m very passionate about the power of Google Keep for saving time…it’s an incredible tool if used to its fullest potential!)

Setting a default font like this involves a few steps, but you will save SO much time for the rest of the school year!

I have all the visual details right here: Set a Default Font in Google Slides (An Easy Workaround!)

This is a great little timesaver! If you’d like to create circles and squares, there is no need to click, drag, and format the shape.

Instead, choose your shape and click ONCE on your Google Slide. This will add a perfect circle or square, instantly:

Then you can hold the Shift key and pull the diagonal corner to resize the shape.

This is easiest to understand in video form, so please check out this reel right here: Make Perfect Shapes Instantly

This is another newer feature and it’s an AMAZING way to work faster in Google Slides!

Did you know you can replace images with one single move?

All you need to do is click and drag a new image over an image already in your slide. When you see a blue border appear around the image, release and your new image will be instantly uploaded:

This can be a powerful timesaver when creating resources for your students. I have more to share about this in the next post, coming soon!

More Simple ways to work faster in google slides

I hope you’ve enjoyed these easy ideas! I know they will help to save you so much time when creating for your students!

If you’d like to try some other timesavers for Google Slides, please be sure to visit this growing collection right here:

Which of these shortcuts will save you the most time? I find the replacing image one to have been the most helpful lately!

Thanks for reading!