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PowerPoint presentations can be a huge bummer — rambling bullet points, lame themes and boring visuals can put your audience to sleep, or at least make their minds wander away from you and to their much more fun smartphone screens.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. Microsoft PowerPoint presentations have the ability to be exciting, stunning and captivating when done right. Just browse LinkedIn’s SlideShare page to see what PowerPoints can do in the hands of people who know what they're doing.

We curated a list of the absolute best presentations on SlideShare you can find, starting with how to make your own killer PowerPoint presentation.

1. 8 Tips for an Awesome PowerPoint Presentation

This presentation by Damon Nofar takes you through eight different steps on how to make a good PowerPoint that keeps people’s attention and stands out, while doing the same itself. It starts off with an example of what not to do — a standard theme with bullet points. The slides move through the reasons why color, font choices, spacing, image use and more can make a big difference in your presentations.

2. Smoke — The Convenient Truth

As a first-place winner of the World’s Best Presentation Contest, this presentation by Empowered Presentations packs in a ton of information without the need for bulleted lists. By sticking to a mostly black background and short sentences, the presentation maintains a serious yet entertaining vibe. Some facts are split between two slides, building anticipation and keeping the presentation moving at a fast pace.

3. American Healthcare

By using simplistic drawings and simple words, Dan Roam created a unique, explainer-style presentation that breaks down the American healthcare system. The presentation isn’t flashy or visual appealing at a visceral level, but by keeping it simple Roam was able to describe how a very confusing industry works without getting too bogged down in details or not giving enough information.

4. #TeamClinton vs. #TeamTrump

This presentation by Empowered Presentations uses a ton of images and graphics to grab attention and make exciting slides. The contrast of colors give the two subjects their own unique themes, making them very easy to differentiate. Big bold fonts stand out against the graphics so information doesn’t get lost amongst all the colors.

5. How Google Works

Here is an example of how to use PowerPoint to tell a story and give your audience tips based on past experiences. Eric Schmidt, Jonathan Rosenberg and Alan Eagle of Google created this presentation using simple illustrations and clear, short bits of text to tell the story of how Google started while giving tips for how to start your own business. It reads almost like a comic book.

6. 10 Powerful Body Language Tips

This is another example of a great presentation that also teaches you how to be a better presenter. Made by State of the Art Presentations, it’s an example of how to effectively make additions to slides and really grab attention with graphics and flat colors. The graphics are cool but not too distracting, and the way each slide fills itself in is very satisfying.

7. The Brand Gap

This presentation is an interesting example, because its grayscale theme isn’t inherently exciting, but the way the text jumps around from slide to slide is an extremely effective way of grabbing and holding attention. User coolstuff has over 150 slides about business strategy and design but they go by quickly with their own use of design and occasional infographics.

8. Pixar’s 22 Rules to Phenomenal Storytelling

Put together by Gavin McMahon, this presentation is short, sweet and to the point, using simple but visually varied graphics to keep things interesting behind the important text entries. Mixing up fonts, styles and size of text highlights important words and phrases, while the changing backgrounds gives each entry its own unique personality and feel. This is a good example of how to take a simple list and make it engaging.

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