Map for PowerPoint

A map in a deck shows where something is, and it should look like the rest of the presentation. The editor above starts on the slide background template, a quiet world in the Minimal style on a 16:9 canvas, the shape of a widescreen slide. Click the countries the slide is about, give them your theme colours, and download the map at the size of the slide.

Maps people put in slides

The commonest is the "where we are" slide: the countries a company sells in, the offices of a group, the markets on the plan for next year, each picked out in the brand colour on a pale world. A regional update needs a closer map, such as Europe for a European sales review or North America for a launch across the US and Canada. Territory slides go a level down, to the states, provinces or counties of one country, each coloured by the team that covers it. And sometimes the map is only a backdrop: the plain world behind a title, a quote or a few large figures.

Each of these places opens with its own map, ready to colour: the world, Europe, North America, the US, the UK, Canada and Australia. Open one in the editor and set the canvas to 16:9 before you colour.

Matching your deck

Minimal suits a light theme and Dark a dark one; both leave the colour to the countries you pick. Click a country and choose its colour on the card, or Custom colour for the exact shade of your theme. If the same colours go into every deck, add them once to the brand palette under Style, with Edit brand palette…, and they appear on each map you make.

A title can go on the map from the Canvas tab of More, but most decks put it in the slide's own title box instead, where it matches the other slides. Turn on Show legend when colours stand for something, and rename each line under Legend labels in the Data panel.

Getting it into the deck

In the Download dialog, keep the 16:9 size and choose PNG. Switch on Transparent when the slide has a coloured background, so the map sits on it with no white box. A larger scale gives a sharper picture on a big screen. Copy image puts the map on the clipboard, ready to paste onto a slide in PowerPoint, Google Slides or Keynote; otherwise add the saved PNG to the slide as a picture. If a designer will finish the deck, an SVG keeps every line sharp for their tools.

How to do it in MapMaker

1. Click the countries your slide is about and pick their colour on the card beside the map; click the sea to clear the selection before you colour the next set.
2. Switch to a continent or a country with Map of in the place list if the slide needs a closer map.
3. Pick a look in Style: Minimal for a light theme, Dark for a dark one.
4. Choose Download, keep PNG and switch on Transparent if the slide has its own background.
5. Paste the map onto the slide with Copy image, or add the saved PNG as a picture.

Where to go next

The slide background template is the starting map above, ready to open again. To pick out a handful of countries in one colour, the highlight countries on a map page starts from a map made for that.