Timeline Templates: The Web's Top Free Downloadable Templates

Creating timelines from scratch take time. If you want to speed up your job and put together your presentation slides quickly, then high-quality timeline templates are your best bet. I know there are tons of free templates on the web, but most of these aren’t really what you’d call ‘professionally’ designed. To help make your search for the perfect timeline templates faster, I’ve compiled some of the best-looking and easy-to-edit free timeline templates in this article.

A Timeline? What’s That?

A timeline is basically a visual representation of dates, milestones, or events. It’s usually shown in either chart or graphical format. With a timeline, it’s easier to show people the sequence of events that’s happened in the past or is about to happen in the future.

You can use a timeline to show how long it took someone or something to get from Point A to Point B, or how certain important events panned out. Even with just a simple line graph on your slide, your audience can easily deduce the amount of time that has passed or will pass between two events or milestones.

Here’s a short YouTube video explaining what a timeline is all about:

When it comes to presentations, you want to keep your audience’s attention on what you’re saying. So, if you’re presenting a timeline of events or activities in nothing but boring, plain text format, your audience is most probably going to tune you out.

Writing down a series of dates on a slide is not visually appealing. At all. Unless, of course, you’re only presenting two or three dates. In this case, simply writing down these dates will probably be a more effective way of getting your message across. However, if you’re presenting a series of dates (more than 3-5), then it’s best to show this in a more visual manner. This is where timeline templates come in.

Depending on the topic you’re presenting, timelines can be as simple or as complex as you like. Just make sure, however, that your audience will understand the point(s) you’re trying to convey. You can have the best-looking timelines ever, but if your audience didn’t understand a single word you said, it would all have been for nothing.

4 Benefits Of Using Timeline Templates

Whether you’re an educator looking to present a chronological arrangement of important dates in history, or a project manager getting ready to share your project’s milestones or proposed schedules to higher management, you’ll surely benefit from using a timeline template for PowerPoint.

Here are the top benefits of using timeline templates for your presentation:

Time-saver. When you use a timeline template, you’re basically using a ready-made timeline. You don’t need to create it from scratch. Rather, what you need to do is just edit the template, and insert your data on the slides. If you need to add more milestones or delete some pre-set events on the template, it should be relatively easy for you to do so.

Ready-made design. You don’t need to worry about your timeline’s design. Most templates already come pre-designed, though of course, if you want to customize it and make it match with your overall presentation theme, then you can tweak the template accordingly. For example, if the template is primarily in a blue theme, and your presentation uses mostly yellow and red, then you should do the necessary changes to make sure your presentation flows from one slide to the next. In most cases, it will still take far less time to edit a template than to design one from scratch.

Tons of options. There are plenty of timeline templates on the Internet, both free and premium. For free (but professionally designed) templates, you can check out our very own Template Hub. For premium timeline templates, you should head on over to sites like Graphic River, Envato Elements,Slide Store, and Slide Bazaar. These sites have thousands of premium templates between them, so you’ll not run out of templates to choose from!

Visual presentation of data. Timeline templates already come pre-designed with various shapes, charts, graphs and even animations to make it easy for you to present your data to your audience. Most template providers include screenshots of the slides included in the template pack, so you can easily see which designs are going to make sense for your topic and the data you’re going to present.

Where To Download Free Timeline Templates For PowerPoint

Downloading free PowerPoint timeline templates is, fortunately, relatively easy nowadays. Gone are the days when you’d need to spend days creating your timelines from scratch simply because you couldn’t find any suitable templates on the Internet!

Here are the top places where you can download the best-looking timeline templates on the web:

Templates by 24Slides

Our in-house team of graphic designers professionally designs all of our free templates. Whether you’re looking for a history timeline template, a simple timeline template, a creative timeline template, or even high-level project plan timeline templates, we’ve got all these for you!

Timeline Pictures PowerPoint Template

This 9-slide template pack is essential if you’re looking for more than just the usual diagrams and graphs that are usually used to present timelines in presentations. As the name suggests, this template uses pictures or images to help you present your timeline to your audience.

The template’s color theme is yellow and gray, so if you’re into these colors, feel free to download this template. Otherwise, it’s quite easy to change the colors to something that’s more in line with your presentation’s color theme!

Here are some screenshots:

Cover slide of the Timeline Pictures PowerPoint Template pack — The cover slide of the Timeline Pictures PowerPoint Template. You can edit the text and replace the background image and make this your presentation’s cover slide or a section slide.

The Chevron Process slide of the Timeline Pictures Template pack — The Basic Chevron Process slide of the Timeline Pictures Template Pack. Use this slide if you want to highlight some events and replace the placeholder images with your own. The good thing about this particular template design is that it’s easy for you to add more years or steps. You can simply copy and paste the chevron shapes, type in the year or process number, and add them to your presentation.

Colorful slide in the Timeline Pictures Template pack — Use this slide if you want to present your events or milestones in a non-graphical, but visually-appealing, format. As you can see, you can show 6 different events, but if you want to add more, you can simply duplicate the boxes as needed. Feel free also to make it match with your presentation’s color theme.

Timeline Pictures Template

This 11-slide timeline template for PowerPoint uses plenty of white space, and the design accent is in a stunning aqua color. As you’ll see in the screenshots below, the overall design is easy on the eyes, so any timeline you want to share with your audience should be easy enough to remember!

Here are screenshots of the timeline slides included in this template pack:

Cover slide of the Timeline Pictures Template pack — The cover slide of the Timeline Pictures Template pack. Make sure you edit the text on this slide and replace the 24Slides’ logo with your company’s logo!

Company Timeline Pictures slide of the Timeline Pictures Template pack — If you want to share your company’s history, this is the slide to use. You can put up an image of your company’s founder, and then add more events along the timeline. As you can see, this slide only has 2 events on it. The next slide below is basically just a continuation of this slide.

Continuation of Company Timeline Pictures slide — If you need to add more dates/milestones/events to this timeline, duplicate the slide and edit as you see fit!

Company History Background slide of the Timeline Picture template pack — The Company History Background template slide is another option you can use to showcase your company’s history. You can add a short paragraph describing your company’s past. And then on the right half of the slide, you can add images that depict your company’s journey through the years.

Company Timeline Pictures slide included in the Timeline Pictures Template pack — The other slides I’ve shown above will only allow you to add one image per important date/event/milestone. If you want to showcase two pictures, this is the template slide to use.

This specific template pack will work best for introducing your company or business to a new audience. This is because, in addition to the timeline slides, this template pack also includes some company-specific slides. For instance, a couple of the slides will allow you to list down your company’s main services as you see below:

Option 1 of Company Main Services — The Company Main Services slide (option 1). Of course, if you want to present your company’s main products (not just services), you can easily edit this slide. You can add images of your top services and products here, too.

Option 2 of Company Main Services template — The Company Main Services slide (option 2). Capitalize on the abundance of white space in this particular template slide and use it to showcase your company’s top products and services.

Timeline Presentation Templates

This 10-slide template pack follows the more recent trend of using icons, instead of pictures like the two template packs I’ve shown earlier. It also helps that the accent color is orange, so if you need to present information that needs to stand out, then this is the template to use. Orange, after all, is a color associated with energy and excitement. So, if you want your audience to feel these emotions, then you need to download this template pack right now!

Here are screenshots of some of the slides included in this pack:

Cover slide of Timeline Presentation Template — Timeline Presentation Templates cover slide

Quarterly Timeline Slide included in •Timeline Presentation Templates pack — The Quarterly Timeline slide is great for presenting quarterly activities, tasks, income reports, and more. You can easily make comparisons between quarters and see which ones come out on top.

Yearly Timeline Slide included in the •Timeline Presentation Templates pack — Presenting your company’s annual achievements and milestones is easy with the Yearly Timeline slide from this template pack. You can replace the pre-set icons with something that accurately depicts the biggest achievement for that particular year. For example, if you met your target goals for a specific year, you can highlight it in orange. And for years where your company fell short of its goals, you can use a gray color.

The Goals Accomplishment Bullet points Timeline Slide — You can use this Goals Accomplishment Timeline slide for presentations where you need to list down your goals for each event or milestone. For instance, let’s say you’re presenting your annual goals from 2019 (first column) to 2022 (fourth column). You can write a few words that describe each major goal for the year.

Timeline Presentation Templates curve slide — This specific template works best for timelines that depict a sequence of activities. You can use each icon to describe each step in the sequence.

Timeline and Roadmaps Template Package

Strategies and roadmaps are essential to any project’s success. If you find it extremely difficult coming up with a suitable design to make your roadmap easy enough to follow, then you should check out this 9-slide template pack right now. It has all the elements you need to convince your audience that the project is on the right track. Here are some screenshots:

The Project Steps Timeline Roadmap Slide included in template pack — The Project Steps Timeline Roadmap slide is a timeline chart you can use to showcase every phase of your project’s development. You can use this slide to list down all the steps you need to take from Start to Completion. If you need more than 3 or 4 steps, you can simply duplicate the slide and add more steps as necessary. Just make sure you put the ‘trophy’ icon after the last step to avoid confusing your audience!

Line Chart Timeline Roadmap Slide included in template pack — The Line Chart Timeline Roadmap slide will quite literally show your audience your data in a simple timeline. If you need to report revenue numbers or project costs, you can use this template. If you don’t need to show data for 3 countries (for instance, your business operates in one country only), then you can replace the map with something else that will represent the variables you want to compare in your line chart.

Team Members Timeline Roadmap Slide included in this 24Slides.com template pack — Don’t forget to give credit where credit is due. The Team Members Timeline Roadmap slide will give recognition to the people who’ve made your entire project possible. If you need to add more people, consider adding a group photo as the slide header. This way, no one’s going to get left out in the presentation.

Business Roadmap PowerPoint Template

This 10-slide template pack will allow you to present more than just timelines. It’s a full-featured template pack that you can use to present your business or company’s strategies to your intended audience. It even includes a slide where you can present your company’s mission and vision.

Check out these screenshots:

Cover slide of Business Roadmap PowerPoint template pack — The Business Roadmap PowerPoint Template cover slide

Time and Planning slide of the Business Roadmap PPT template — The Time & Planning slide includes a linear timeline chart. You can use this to share your company’s goals for the future. If you don’t want to use annual milestones, you can edit the years (2017 – 2021) and replace it with a variable of your choice. You can also remove or add as many targets or goals as you like.

The Roadmap Sales slide of the Business Roadmap PPT template pack — This Roadmap Sales slide is one of our more creative timeline designs. It’s great for presenting your company’s standard operating procedures or SOP’s. You can include up to 6 steps in this slide, but if you need to add more, you can simply move around the circles and edit the numbers as you see fit. Fortunately, editing this slide (and all of our free templates for that matter) is extremely easy to do.

The stage slide of the Business Roadmap PowerPoint Template pack from 24Slides — Use this chevron-shaped timeline chart for describing the different stages involved in a particular process. The good news is you’re not limited to using it for ‘stages.’ If you want, you can use it to highlight goals you want to achieve in the next few quarters or the next few years.

PresentationGo

PresentationGo has a number of good quality timeline templates you can download for free. However, note that you will need to check out their Terms of Use for each template. For instance, they may require attribution and you may only be able to use a particular template for personal use. With that said, here are some of their popular timeline templates:

Simple Timeline PowerPoint Diagram

Simple Timeline PowerPoint Diagram Dark Background from PresentationGo — This template only includes 2 slides, but if you only need a simple chronological timeline, then this may fulfill your needs. You can choose from either a dark or light layout.

Roll Film Timeline For PowerPoint

Roll Film Timeline for PowerPoint from PresentationGo — This ‘roll film’ template is a nice way of presenting your timeline or roadmap information in a relatively modern format. This template also comes in two layout colors: dark and light. As you can see from the screenshot above, the dark layout looks easy on the eyes, however, if it doesn’t match with your presentation’s color theme, then changing the background color should be a breeze. The icons are all editable, but there are better looking free presentation icons out there.

Growth Timeline With Trees For PowerPoint

Growth Timeline Trees PowerPoint Template from PresentationGo — This is another fun way of presenting your timeline to your audience. The template depicts 4 different stages of growth. You can use this to present your company’s growth over the years, or your projected growth in the near future. The template pack includes two layouts: dark and light. You can also choose between standard (4:3) and widescreen (16:9) slide sizes.

Office.com / PowerPoint Templates

There are a few good timeline templates you can download directly from the Office.com website (you’ll get timeline templates for Excel, Word, and PowerPoint). Alternatively, you can simply fire up PowerPoint on your computer and on the welcome screen, type ‘timeline’ and you’ll see something like the below screenshot on your computer. Click on the timeline template you want to use, then hit the ‘Create’ button.

Screenshot of Powerpoint welcome screen search for timeline templates — As you can see, PowerPoint is stepping up its free template game. These are modern-looking timelines. You’re not going to feel like your presentation is a throwback to the 1990s at all!

Of course, the only downside is you’ll have thousands or even millions of other presentations using the same timeline templates. So, if you want to stand out, you need to think outside the box and be creative with how you’re going to make your timeline unique.

AllPPT.com

This is another popular site to download free PPT templates from. They’ve got quite a collection of nice-looking timeline templates. These are our top picks:

Simple Table Timeline PowerPoint Diagram Template

Simple Table Timeline PowerPoint Diagram Template from AllPPT

This timeline template looks deceptively simple at first glance. You have a simple line at the top to denote the chronological arrangement of events. But the table at the bottom half is a great addition as it allows you to add more details about the various events you’ve added to the timeline. Remember not to get too wordy. Limit the text not just in this slide but throughout your entire presentation, so your audience doesn’t end up reading and not paying attention to what you’re saying!

Spheres Timeline PPT Diagrams

Spheres Timeline PPT Diagrams from AllPPT

This slide may look simple. But if you’re in a hurry and you don’t want to mess around with SmartArt or inserting shapes on PowerPoint, then this template may be useful to you. You can use this slide as well if you’re looking for a suitable history timeline template.

Create A Timeline Online

There’s a good number of tools you can use to create stunning timelines. First and foremost is, of course, PowerPoint. However, it’s not always the fastest way to go about editing existing templates and make it your own.

Note: If you’re interested in learning more about how to create timelines in PowerPoint, I wrote a step-by-step tutorial here: How To Make A Timeline In PowerPoint.

For instance, did you know you can make a timeline in Excel? Or in Google Docs? Or even in online software like Canva? There also interactive timeline makersyou you can use nowadays to create your timelines!

One of the most popular online tools you can use to quickly come up with stunning and easy to understand timelines for your presentations is an app called Princello. It’s a cloud-based app that creates PowerPoint slides natively.

If you’re not a fan of cloud-based technology, and you prefer working directly on PowerPoint, you should check out Office Timeline. It’s an add-in for PowerPoint that you can download and install for free (the plus edition unlocks even more powerful features).

Conclusion

Timeline templates and other timeline creation tools all have one purpose. They’re all there to make your life easier so you can focus on what’s really important: making sure your audience understands what your presentation is all about.