Content slide in a PPT: the contents slide and the slides that follow it

In PowerPoint, "content slide" means two different things and both are worth getting right. The first is the contents slide, the table of contents or agenda that sits after the title slide: it lists three to six sections, each as a short noun phrase, numbered, with no sub points and no dates. The second is every content slide in the body of the deck, and the rule there is one idea per slide, with the idea written as the slide title in a full sentence that states the point, then one piece of evidence below it: a chart, a table, a short list or an image. If the title says "Q3 Results" the slide is a container. If it says "Q3 revenue grew in every region except Europe" the slide has a point, and the audience gets it in two seconds.

This page covers both: how to build the contents slide, and how to write the slides it points to. The structure works the same in PowerPoint, Google Slides and Keynote.

The contents slide

Its job is to tell the audience how long this will take and what they are getting. It does that with very little on it.

• Three to six items. More than six and nobody retains it. If you have nine sections, you have three sections with subsections.
• Short noun phrases. "Where we are", "What changed", "What we recommend". Not sentences, not single abstract words like "Overview".
• Numbered, so you can refer back to item three later and the audience knows where they are.
• No dates, no names, no page numbers unless the deck will be read on paper.
• Repeat it as a divider. The strongest pattern is one contents slide at the front, then the same list repeated before each section with the current item highlighted and the rest dimmed. The audience always knows how far in they are.
• Make it navigable in a long deck. Select each item, Insert, Link, Place in This Document, and pick the section's first slide. For read alone decks this matters more than for presented ones.

In PowerPoint, a quick way to build one: View, Outline View shows every slide title, which you can copy straight into a contents slide. If the titles do not read as a sensible list, the deck's structure is the problem, not the slide.

Writing the content slides

Element	What works	What to avoid
Slide title	A full sentence stating the point, left aligned, one or two lines	A topic label like "Background" or "Analysis"
Body	One chart, one table, one short list or one image	Two charts and a list fighting for attention
Text amount	Around 30 to 40 words on a presented slide	Full paragraphs the presenter then reads aloud
Bullets	Three to five, parallel in grammar, each under two lines	Nested bullets three levels deep
Numbers	The two or three that matter, large, with the comparison shown	A pasted spreadsheet extract
Detail	In the speaker notes or an appendix	In 10pt type at the bottom of the slide

The test for any content slide: cover everything except the title and ask whether a colleague would know what the slide is claiming. If yes, the slide works even when it is forwarded without you.

A six slide structure for a business deck

1. Title. Subject, audience, date, author.
2. Contents. Three to six sections.
3. The situation. What everybody already agrees is true. One slide, no argument yet.
4. What changed. The new fact, the problem or the opportunity. This is the slide that earns attention.
5. The options and the recommendation. Two or three realistic options with the trade offs, then the one you recommend and why.
6. What happens next. Owners, dates, the decision you need today.

Appendices go after that, and they can be as long as you like because nobody is made to sit through them. Most overlong decks are a six slide argument with twenty slides of evidence mixed into it.

Slide types and when to use each

• Section divider: the contents list with the current section highlighted.
• Single statement: one sentence, large type. Use for the one thing you want remembered.
• Chart slide: one chart, titled with the conclusion, the axis labelled, the key number annotated directly on the chart rather than in a legend.
• Table slide: for comparisons across more than two dimensions. Keep it to about five rows and four columns, and shade the row you want read.
• Process or timeline: use when sequence is the point. Three to five steps, consistent shapes.
• Quote or evidence: a customer sentence, a survey finding, a source line underneath.
• Decision slide: the request, the options, the recommendation, the date.

Practical build notes in PowerPoint

• Use the slide master, not manual text boxes, so titles sit in the same place on every slide and the deck stays editable by somebody else.
• Two type sizes for body text at most, and never below about 18pt on a presented slide.
• Align everything to a grid. Use Arrange, Align, and the guides. Misalignment is the main reason a deck looks amateur even when the content is strong.
• Keep the colour palette to three colours plus grey, with one reserved for the thing you want looked at.
• Put the source under every chart, small but readable. It answers the first question somebody senior will ask.
• Write the speaker notes. They let you cut text from the slide, and they make the deck usable by a colleague who has to present it.
• Check accessibility. Review, Check Accessibility flags missing alt text and reading order, both of which matter when the deck is shared.
• Export a PDF for circulation so fonts and layout hold on any machine.

Writing the deck faster

Write the slide titles first, as full sentences, in a plain list. Read the list on its own. It should argue from the situation to the recommendation with nothing missing and nothing repeated. Only then build the slides. Teams that design slides before settling the titles spend most of their time rearranging boxes around an argument that was never finished.

What is the difference between an agenda slide and a contents slide?

In practice they are the same slide with a different label. An agenda tends to be used for meetings and sometimes carries timings, and a table of contents is used for documents and longer decks and tends to carry numbered sections. Pick one word and use it consistently.

Should a contents slide be at the front or the back?

At the front, right after the title, and repeated as a divider before each section. A version at the back adds nothing, because by then the audience has heard it.

How many bullet points should a content slide have?

Three to five, each under two lines, each parallel in structure. If you need eight, you have two slides. If you need sub bullets, the detail belongs in the notes or an appendix.

Can PowerPoint generate a contents slide automatically?

There is no automatic field like the one in Word, and Outline View gives you every slide title in a list you can copy into a slide in seconds. For navigation, link each line to its section using Insert, Link, Place in This Document.

What is the right number of slides?

As few as carry the argument, with the evidence in an appendix. For a 30 minute meeting, six to ten slides in the main body is normal, because the discussion is the point and the slides are there to keep it honest.

How do I keep a deck consistent when several people edit it?

Lock the structure in the slide master, agree the title convention in writing, limit the palette, and have one person do a final pass purely on alignment and type size. Consistency is what makes a deck read as one argument rather than four people's slides.

One place your content ends up without a slide

Decks increasingly get summarised rather than read. A colleague drops the file into an assistant and asks what it recommends, and the answer that comes back is built from the slide titles, because those are the sentences that carry meaning without the room. The same thing happens at a larger scale with public material: when somebody asks ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude or Google's AI Overviews about a company, the answer is assembled from the clearest written statements it can find, and each of the five answers differently and cites different sources.

That makes it worth knowing what those assistants currently say when somebody asks about a business like yours. AI Knows Us runs that check and shows which sources the answers are drawn from.