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A business card is a strong brand or marketing tool. It conveys important information and professionalism.

If you are a businessman, you probably understand why you need a business card. The same thing goes for certain categories of staff in many organizations—they too need business cards to stay on top of their games

In this article, we will show you how to create a business card in PowerPoint in 6 steps.

Step 1: Set up a slide for the business card. Prepare the card background

Open the PowerPoint app on your computer. Click New and then select Blank Presentation.

Ideally, you should delete all elements on the slide. The latter should be empty.

Now, you have to come to terms with the typical size of a business card—3.5 × 2.0.

If you plan to use any elements or colors that may extend out to the edge of your business card, you will do well to use slighter larger dimensions (3.75 × 2.25). And we plan to use the latter in our sample.

It is important that you get the dimensions for your card right now to avoid problems. If you later have to make corrections to a card’s dimensions, you might lose some quality from resizing.

This is how you specify the slide size for your business card:

1. Click the Design tab.
2. From the options on the right corner, click Slide Size.

3. Click Custom Slide Size.
4. On the Slide Size window, specify your preferred dimensions for the business card.

5. Click OK.

PowerPoint may bring up a dialog to ask whether you want to Maximize the slide or Ensure Fit. Either of these options should work fine given what you are looking to do.

Step 2: Create a box for the card. Specify your preferred dimensions

To create a box for a business card in PowerPoint, you have to start with a shape:

1. Click the Insert tab. Click Shapes and then select a rectangular shape.

A shape should appear on your slide. If it does not appear, you have to draw the shape.

2. Click the box to get it highlighted. Go to the parameters screen on the right pane (Height and Width).
3. Set the figures in the box to 2.25 inches and 3.75 inches for Height and Width. Or you can use your preferred parameters.
4. Click Align and then click Align Center.

We recommend you use the No Fill setting for the shape or you can set white as its background color.

However, if you prefer to use a gradient setting, this is how you do it:

1. Click the box (to get it highlighted) and then click Format Shape.
2. Set the Fill to Gradient Fill and Type to Linear.
3. Set the Direction to Linear Up.

To perfect the gradient stops, you may want to adjust the slider until you stumble on the setting that feels right. Or you may as well remove the slider by clicking on it and then using the options on the right. You can select a new color for the gradient by clicking its slider and then selecting your preferred color.

Step 3: Format the box. Add safety elements

PowerPoint lacks automatic margin functions, so you have to define your preferred margin parameters. In any case, we strongly recommend that you use dimensions that allow you to keep all relevant content a few inches (say 0.25) from the cut line. That extra bit of space ensures that nothing important gets cut when you head to print your card.

This is how you make a cut line:

1. Insert a new box into your slide (like you did earlier).
2. Set the Align position for the new box to Center.
3. Set the box’s Fill to None.
4. Select Red as the color for the box line.

This is how you make a safety line:

1. Insert a new box into your slide (like you did earlier).
2. Set the Align position for this new box to Center.
3. Set the box’s Fill to None.
4. This time, select Green as the color for the box line.

You may see (or you can imagine that) the background elements go beyond the cut line (and this is normal or expected). If you print the card right now, then those elements will bleed to the edge of the card.

Meanwhile, you have to ensure that all relevant details stay within the safety line (green line).

Step 4: Add images. Customize your card

It is time you added images to your card.

Click the Insert tab and then click Pictures.

• If the picture you want to use on your business card is stored locally on your computer, click This Device.
• If you plan to use an image from the web, click Online Picture.

Drag the image to an appropriate location and resize it if necessary. Depending on your plans for the business card, you may want to add another image.

Step 5: Add some text. Fill in personal information

1. Click the Insert tab.
2. Click Text Box.
3. Click any spot outside the design area to add a new text box.
4. Type in some text for your business card.

Since you are designing a business card that will be printed on a relatively small material, you will do well to use fonts that are easy to read. A font size between 7pt to 12pt should be appropriate.

These are the most common details found on business cards:

• A name
• A company’s name
• A company’s address
• Phone number, email, or similar contact details.

Add as many text boxes as necessary but avoid clutter.

Step 6: Clean things up. Save the presentation

At this point, you have to remove the margin lines or boxes (delete both the cut and safety lines).

Save the presentation.

You may want to save the presentation as a PDF. The PDF format is great for printing.

• Go through File > Save as and then select PDF as your preferred format.
• Alternatively, you can use Aspose FREE PowerPoint to PDF Converter to convert your presentation to a PDF.