Infographics are hot! They provide an attractive and effective method for illustrating your information. However, creating an infographic seems like a daunting task. After all, it has a lot of graphics and that requires a graphics program. Or does it? Turns out you can create effective infographics with PowerPoint – a tool you are already using.

I want to acknowledge the excellent instructions given by Pamela Vaughan in her How To Create An Infographic In An Hour or Less. Not only was she thorough in her explanations, but she also offers several free PPT templates that you should download. With those examples in hand, here are the steps I followed to create my first infographic.

Create Your Infographic

1. Open a new presentation in PowerPoint (PPT). Right-click on the slides and choose Layout – Blank.

2. Go to the Design menu and choose Slide Size. Choose Custom and set it to 10 x 30 inches.

3. Create your Infographic. I strongly recommend you look at the examples referenced above, as well as other infographics you like. Keep this first one simple. Explore the SmartArt options within PowerPoint.

4. Add graphics, once you have your words and ideas in place. I went to DepositPhotos and downloaded samples to try them out for a consistent look, as well as conveying the ideas of the infographic. Once I was sure those were the graphics I wanted, I paid for the xsmall versions and added them to the infographic. I removed the white background for the graphics with the transparency tool in PPT.

5. Keep adjusting and modifying until you are happy with the full infographic. At this point it may or may not fill the full length of the graphic. Don’t worry about it.

6. As a last step, set a background color for the full infographic. Design menu, Format Background color. You don’t want to leave it white, as it will fade into many of the web pages on which it appears.

7. Remember to add your attribution copy at the bottom of the graphic. You want people to be able to find your website as a result of reading the infographic!

Resize Your Infographic

This is a little tricky, so be patient. I found that my infographic looked good, but I had blank space at the bottom of the slide. I tried opening up the space between graphics to make it fit the full slide, but that didn’t look as good. So I want to cut off the bottom. However, that wasn’t as easy as I had thought – PowerPoint kept wanting to resize everything. So here’s how I got it to work.

1. Open a new PowerPoint presentation. Set the slide to Layout-Blank.

2. Size the Design to Custom – 10 x 28 inches.

3. Go to your infographic and select all. Copy.

4. Go to your new presentation and Paste. Does it fit? Great! You now have your finished infographic.

5. If it doesn’t fit, undo your paste. Reset Design to Custom – 10 x 26 inches.

6. Paste into this new size. Does it fit? Excellent! Still doesn’t fit – keep repeating this until it does fit.

7. Once you have the right length, you may want to resize the entire graphic. I didn’t see any reason to have my infographic be 10 inches wide, so I resized the entire file with Design – Custom – 5 x 14 inches. As long as you keep the proportions the same, you can easily resize it.

8. Save this presentation as your Final version. Keep your working copy as well, in case you get to get back to your original work.

Export Your Infographic

You want a JPG file for your infographic. Plus you want it in a PDF. So you will save it twice.

1. Go to your File menu and Save as a JPG file.

2. It will ask if you want to save all slides or just this one. You only want this one.

3. Repeat this process, saving as a PDF. Again you only want this one slide.

Create An Embed Code

Rather than repeat already good instructions, use these instructions.  Copy the resulting code and paste it into your note pad for now.

Post Your Infographic

Create a blog post and insert your infographic as a graphic. Let it link to the full-size image of the infographic that you uploaded.

Under the infographic add a reminder to click to see the full size image.

Using the Text window in your blog editor, paste the embed code. This allows someone else to embed your infographic into their page, while still giving you credit for it. Plus it gives an incoming link to your blog.

Add social media buttons if you don’t already have them built into your blog.

Share on Social Media

Slideshare now allows you to add infographics, so it’s an additional place to feature your infographic. For this you need to upload the PDF version of the infographic.

Share your infographic from your blog post on Pinterest, a popular place to feature infographics.

Remember to share it on all of the major social media sites as well!

 Want More PowerPoint? Jeanette offers her unique time-saving techniques in her OneHourPowerPoint course. Check it out today!