Create a Poll slide

AhaSlides Poll in a live session: the presenter bar chart shows nine votes beside a participant phone choosing an option

A Poll slide is a quick and easy way to get live opinions in poll format from your audience. It is unscored: you ask a question, your audience votes on their phones, and the results update live.

Poll at a glance


Type	Unscored
Find it	+ New slide, then Poll in the Poll tab of the slide type picker
Limits	2 to 30 answer options, each up to 150 characters; question up to 300 characters
Self-paced	Yes, see the tip below

AhaSlides Poll slide type highlighted in the slide type picker

Add a new slide

On the AhaSlides editor, click + New slide in the top-left corner. (On a brand-new presentation, you can also click Choose a slide right on the canvas.)

Select Poll

Pick Poll from the slide type list — you’ll find it in the Poll tab.

Type your question

Fill in your question in the Your question box on the right.

Add answer options

Fill in or upload images as your answer options. You can have between 2 and 30 answer options, and each option can be up to 150 characters long.

AhaSlides Poll slide in the editor with the question and answer options in the Content panel

This is the minimum you need to do for any Poll slide to work.

If you’re using a multiple-choice slide for a do-at-home survey, you can allow participants to cast their votes without needing you to present it live. See Setting up a Self-Paced Presentation on AhaSlides.

Prefer to watch? This video tutorial shows how to create a Poll slide and run it live:

Present a Poll slide

Want to see exactly what your audience will see before going live? Hit Preview in the top-right corner — see how previewing works. When your slide is ready for your audience to vote on, invite your audience to your presentation and press the Present button in the top-right corner. Your audience votes for one or more of the answer options on their phones. The poll updates live, so on the presenter screen you see a chart displaying the results. By default, participants don’t see the vote counts on their phones after voting; tick Show on audience’s devices in the slide settings if you want them to.

Poll settings

Setting	What it does	Default
Show results manually	Keeps the results hidden until you press the button to reveal them to your audience. This also hides the results on each participant’s phone screen. Not available on every plan; if yours doesn’t include it, you’ll be prompted to upgrade.	—
Show on audience’s devices	Allows the audience to see the vote counts for that slide on their phone screen after they have submitted their own vote. Off by default, so vote counts stay hidden on phones until you tick it.	Off
Show in percentage (%)	Displays the results as percentages instead of the number of participants who voted for each answer option. This can also be toggled by simply clicking on any of the coloured segments on the presenter’s screen.	—
Layout	Displays the results in one of 3 different options: a bar chart, donut chart, or pie chart.	—
Allow picking more than one option	Allows the audience to select multiple answer options. When selected, choose the maximum number of options a participant can pick, between 2 options and all of the options on the poll.	—
This question has correct answer(s)	Allows you to ask a multiple-choice question with one or more correct answers. When selected, you’ll be asked to mark which answer option(s) are correct. The answer stays concealed until you press the Show correct answer button on your slide.	—
Close submission	Useful if you need to explain a question before your audience votes, or for any other reason where you don’t want participants to vote on a question at that moment. While presenting, click the Close submission button in the control bar to stop voting, and click it again (Open submission) to reopen it. You can also press S. Not available on every plan; if yours doesn’t include it, you’ll be prompted to upgrade.	—
Time limit	Sets a time limit for your audience to answer, between 5 seconds and 20 minutes. To use the same time limit on your other slides, open the setting’s More actions (⋯) menu and choose Apply to all Poll slides or Apply to all unscored slides. While running the Poll slide, you can turn off the timer or change the time limit — but if you turn off the timer while presenting, you can’t turn it back on until you switch back to edit mode. Not available on every plan; if yours doesn’t include it, you’ll be prompted to upgrade.	—

A multiple-choice slide with a correct answer is not scored. If you’d like to create a quiz question where your audience earns points for correct answers, use one of the slides in the Quiz section instead.

Frequently asked questions

Can I hide the voter count on a Poll slide?

There’s no setting to hide only the vote count on a single poll, but you can hide the whole presenter status bar — the voter count included — using Hide controls and status. Tick it under Settings in the Advanced tab, or toggle it live while presenting from the menu button (the ☰ icon) by opening Display and choosing “Hide controls and status”. It auto-hides when your mouse is idle and reappears when you move the mouse. See Hide controls and status.

Can I make Poll option text bigger, or are long options cut off?

A Poll holds 2 to 30 options, and each option can be text or an image. Each option holds up to 150 characters. On the results chart, long option labels are shortened with an ellipsis when the poll has three or more options — the more options, the shorter the visible label. There’s no setting to change the option font size — the text is sized automatically to fit the layout. If an option is too long to read comfortably, shorten it, upload an image as the option instead, or add a heading or content slide before the poll to carry the extra detail.

How many options can a Poll have?

A Poll needs at least 2 options and can have up to 30. The question can be up to 300 characters, and each option up to 150. If you need a scored question with a correct answer, Pick Answer allows up to 8 options. Have a question? Contact our support team — if you’re logged in, use the chat bubble in the bottom-right of your dashboard; otherwise contact us here or email hi@ahaslides.com. Want to connect with other users? Join the AhaSlides community to share tips, request features, and see how others engage their audiences.

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Create a Poll slide

Poll at a glance