Giving presentations can be nerve-wracking. You don’t want to put all your content out there at once and overwhelm your audience. A great way to go through your presentation one bite-sized piece at a time is to reveal one line at a time in PowerPoint. This keeps your audience engaged as you methodically go through the key points.

Set Up the Text Box

Open your PowerPoint presentation and insert a text box onto the slide where you want to reveal content line by line. You can insert a text box by going to the Insert tab and clicking Text Box in the Text group.
Click inside the text box and type out the text you want to reveal one line at a time. Make sure each key point is on its own line by pressing Enter between each one.

Resize and position the text box where desired on the slide.

Animate the Text

With the text box selected, go to the Animations tab on the ribbon.
Click the Add Animation button and select Appear. This will make each line appear one at a time.

Open the animation pane by clicking the Animation Pane button. Here you can see each line of text numbered for when it will appear.
Select all the animation effects in the pane except the first one by holding down CTRL and clicking them.
With multiple animations selected, click the drop down under Start and choose With Previous. This will make each line appear right after the previous one.

Adjust the duration and delay under the Effect Options button on the ribbon to control the timing of the animations. For example, set them to 0.5 seconds each.

Present with Impact

When presenting your slide:

Click once to reveal the first line of text.

Let that key message land before clicking again to show the next line.
Continue revealing one line at a time in this methodical way.

Revealing content piece by piece keeps your audience focused as you highlight the most important pieces of information in your presentation.

Formatting Tips

Here are some tips for making your line-by-line text visually impactful:

Use a large, easy-to-read font so the audience can clearly see each line as it appears. Sans serif fonts like Calibri or Arial work well.
Make important points bold so they stand out.

Use colors strategically to draw attention to key words or phrases.
Add icons or images next to relevant lines to reinforce the meaning visually.
Animate more than just the text – also bring in accompanying graphics line by line or use entrance animations like Fade to put the focus on the text.