From performance improvements to new slide layout and color options—this update is all about enhancing and streamlining the slide creation experience. Read through to get all the juicy details.

But First—New Smart Slides!

In addition to improving our existing library, we've built three new Smart Slide templates.

• Timer: Perfect for shorter periods of time, like a coffee break or breakout session.
• Countdown: For longer periods of time, like days until a product launch or deadline.
• Big Number: Highlight important stats in a flexible grid.

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Switch Smart Slides (BETA)

Like slide Variations, you can now switch to any template. Wherever possible we'll preserve your content so there's no need to start again from scratch. We've taken the busywork out of finding the right visualization for your story.

For a Faster Workflow

In addition to performance improvements and bug fixes, we've optimized the UI in key places, so you're done that much faster. Many slides now have the option to jump to the intended number of items in one click. Double-click an image, logo or icon to quickly access its settings and controls, like scaling and filters. We've improved text editing for elements, side text trays and impact slides, like the Headline Slide. This means direct text editing, better scaling and better drag reordering. We've added new styling options here as well, including vertical gap settings and new divider line styles.

More Control Over Color

Change the color of almost anything! This includes text, icons and most shapes. Selecting a new color from the slide color panel will re-set custom shape colors. Shapes will continue to auto-adapt when the background color is changed. You can now define colors for positive and negative values for your theme—perfect for checklists and indicating change in value. New slide header options include background colors and layout. When positioned on the left, you can now drag to scale it up or down. Icons on muted frames will now use that color, instead of black or white. Beautiful!

New Frame Styles

In many cases, you can now change image and icon frames to another shape, fill style or even a device frame, like a phone, laptop or tablet! You'll find these options available in Smart Slides, including Icons with Text, Photos with Text, Carousel, and impact slides like Headline—as well as added text trays and media elements. Now you can show off your new feature—in the right device frame—right along side your growth stats or process diagrams.

Slide Background Images

Upload slide background images to your theme. Choose whether it is treated as light or dark to ensure legibility, and opt to select one as a default background.

Smart Slide Improvements

We've gone through our 60+ Smart Slides and added even more layout options, variations and improved design.

Venn Diagram

• Preserves relative spacing of bubbles when scaled—when you resize your header, for example.
• Labels now have descriptions, can be manually positioned and resized horizontally. Auto Position will intelligently position your labels again.
• Bubbles can be reordered (bring to front, send to back). This is great for selecting smaller bubbles within larger ones.

Pyramid and Funnel

• New styles! Represent your marketing funnel graphically by numbering or adding icons (or images) to your sections.
• Improved text scaling.

Target

• Position your target on the left, center or right, leaving more space for call out text.
• Switch labels to callouts and back again without losing data.

Bullet List

• Drag to arrange items in multiple columns, and add column headers (think pros and cons!)
• New checklist style! Click to change check icons to a muted style or an X.

Carousel

• View, reorder and delete carousel items in a single view, with the new management menu.
• Resize, reposition and add frames to images per item—yes, device frames too!
• Customize transition effects for carousel playback.
  

XY plot

• Control layering of items (bring to front, send to back).
• Simplified items for simpler editing.

• Copy/paste items.

Hub and spoke

• New, simplified item elements.
• Choose to position the hub at the top, with the spokes radiating down, or at the bottom.
  

Org chart

• Color code your org chart per item.

% icons

• Added flexibility to show more stats on a single slide.
• Improved behavior when using numbered stats instead of percentages, so you can manually set the icon fill independent of the number input.
• Option to fix the number of icons shown in each stat so that all of the items on your slide look consistent.

Charts

• Improved performance when dragging change in value annotation.
• Change in value annotation now includes CAGR formatting, a Growth/Trend Line style option.
• Choose to position chart titles above or below.

Classic Slides

While we are passionate about the automated design that our Smart Slides offer, we know sometimes you just need to start from scratch with a blank slide. We haven't overlooked our Classic Slide here.

• Frame style options are now consistent across Smart Slides and Classic, helping to create a more cohesive look throughout your deck, and improve fidelity and usability when converting to Classic.
• Additional shortcuts and right click menu options to speed your creation process, including Select Layer, and Cmd-D to copy and repeat your last transform.
• Improved grouping, locking and selection behavior.
• Prevent default browser behavior on keyboard shortcuts like command-g.

As you can see, we've been busy! Give these new features a try, and as always, let us know what you think. We love hearing from you and take your feedback to heart.

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Viewer Comments

Enable your audience to interact with your presentation. Now when you share a link to a presentation, you can decide to allow viewers to comment on it. Presentation editors can view and respond to all comments—both Internal and Viewer—right from the presentation editor.

Centralized Team Assets

Beautiful.ai's new Team Asset Library makes brand-compliant decisions the default for all employees building presentations. Librarians can upload pre-approved brand assets to a centralized library for Members to grab from as they’re building slides.

The Asset Library also enables Librarians to maintain presentation media with 100% precision. Modified screenshot? New headshot? No problem. When an asset is replaced in the Team's library, it updates automatically in every presentation where it’s used.

This is a Team feature.

Upload your logo or branded animation to customize your team's presentation loading screen. Go beyond branded themes, and ensure your viewers' experience is true to your brand from the very first impression.

This is a Team feature.

Now save all of your go-to themes under one account. Whether you're working with multiple brands, serving many clients, or simply using different designs for internal and external presentations, you can now make these shared themes available to your entire Team.

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The Webview Slide

Demo your product, show off your website, or display a live poll! The new Webview Smart Slide allows you to embed webpages on your slides.

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