Eye-popping diagrams for PowerPoint are just minutes away, if you own a Mac. Use Apple's free Keynote app to easily create impressive graphics, then use this little-known trick to create beautiful image files with transparent backgrounds in just 2 clicks. Drag the file onto your slide and voila!, great PowerPoint diagrams that are impossible to make inside PowerPoint itself.

1. Make Great
Diagrams for
PowerPoint …
Using Apple’s
Keynote for Mac.

2. FACT 1:
PowerPoint is the de facto software when
a deck needs to be passed around.
(Because everyone has it, and everything can import/export to it)

3. FACT 2:
Diagrams and other graphics made
in PowerPoint are usually awful.
But diagrams and graphics made in Keynote look great!

4. Keynote for Mac creates
great-looking graphics
for PowerPoint decks

5. Keynote has an extra shadow effect
called Curved Shadow.
It gives the illusion of the bottom
corners curling off the screen
It makes diagrams visually pop.
PowerPoint doesn’t have it.

6. It allows you to stack shapes.
Especially if you play around with
the opacity slider and with borders..

7. Add a border to
2 identical shapes to distinguish them.

8. Or to stack shapes.

9. Or to stack shapes
so you can fit more of them on a slide.

10. Now we’ll switch to a white background.
Create your diagrams on white backgrounds
for easy exporting to PowerPoint.

11. Sales
1
7
45
2 3
8 8
Part 5
Our Solution Partners
Operations
6
Part 4
Part 3
Part 2
Part 1
Result 5
Result 1
Result 4
Result 2
Reports Analytics
9
Result 3
Part 6
A diagram using stacked circles and curve-shadow rectangles.

12. The easiest way to export your diagram to PowerPoint is:
— select everything (see above, CMD-A)
— copy to the clipboard (CMD-C)
— open Preview (the app) and choose New Document (CMD-N)

13. In Preview, your diagram will look the same but with a gray background.
The gray represents a transparent background.
This is important for PowerPoint decks.

14. Transparent backgrounds in your diagrams
let you to cover parts of the
slide with invisible sections.
Slide 1Copyright 2015 by ABC Company Inc

15. It’s the difference between this:
Slide 1Copyright 2015 by ABC Company Inc

16. And this.
(This diagram also covers the teal footer, but the transparent background
lets the footer display properly.)
Slide 1Copyright 2015 by ABC Company Inc

17. Summary
Use curved shadows and borders to get a 3D effect.
Create your diagrams on white slide backgrounds.
Select all, copy, then paste into a new Preview document.
Save the Preview file, which now has a transparent background.
Drag the diagram onto your PowerPoint slide.