How to Make a LinkedIn Carousel People Actually Swipe Through

What people call a LinkedIn carousel is a document post: you upload a PDF, and LinkedIn shows it in the feed as a set of pages the reader swipes or clicks through. Each page of the PDF is one slide. There is no special carousel tool to learn — if you can export a PDF, you can make one.

That is also why so many of them are weak. A PDF will hold anything, so people upload slide decks made for a meeting room, with small text and a title page that says nothing. In a feed, read on a phone, that loses people on the first swipe. A carousel that works is built for the feed from the start.

Decide whether it should be a carousel at all

A carousel suits an idea that has steps, parts or a sequence: a process, a checklist, a before-and-after, a set of mistakes, a framework with a few pieces. Each slide carries one of them, and swiping is the reader moving to the next.

If your idea is a single opinion or a short story, a text post is usually better. Spreading one thought over eight slides makes the reader work for something they could have read in three lines. A quick test: if you can't name what is on slide four, the idea doesn't need slides.

Pick a size that reads on a phone

Most people see your carousel on a phone, in a column a few inches wide. A square page or a slightly tall one fills more of that column than a wide one, which is why landscape slide decks look tiny in the feed.

Keep every page the same size. A PDF with mixed page sizes looks broken when people swipe through it.

The cover slide does the work of a headline

The first page is the only one most people see. It needs to tell them what they get by swiping, in words large enough to read at a glance. That means a promise, not a topic:

• Weak: “Onboarding tips”
• Better: “5 emails we cut from our onboarding, and what replaced them”
• Weak: “Q3 learnings”
• Better: “We raised prices twice this year. What we'd do differently.”

Keep the cover to a headline and, at most, one supporting line. A logo is fine; a logo instead of a headline is not. If you want more on writing that first line, the guide to hooks on each platform covers it.

One point per slide

Each slide after the cover should make one point and make it fully. A short headline that states the point, then a line or two that explains or shows it. If a slide needs a paragraph, it is two slides.

• Lead with the point, not a label. “Send the agenda the day before” beats “Tip 3”.
• Use large type. If you have to zoom in on your own phone to read it, it is too small.
• Leave space. Empty space around the words is what makes a slide readable in half a second.
• Show where they are. A small page number (3/8) tells people how much is left, which makes them more willing to keep going.
• Keep one look. The same fonts, colours and layout family on every page, so it reads as one piece rather than eight.

A structure that works for most carousels

1. 1Cover: the promiseWhat the reader gets, in a few large words.
2. 2Slide two: why it mattersThe problem or the situation, in the reader's terms. This is where you keep the people who swiped once.
3. 3The middle: one point per slideSteps, mistakes or parts, in an order that builds. Usually four to eight of them.
4. 4Second to last: an exampleOne concrete case from your own work that shows the points in action.
5. 5Last slide: the summary and one askRestate the takeaway in a line, then one next step — save it, follow, reply with their version. Not all three.

Write the post that goes with it

The text above the document is what people read before deciding to look at the cover, so it isn't a place to write “Swipe through my latest carousel!”. Give it a first line that makes the same promise as the cover from a different side, a couple of lines of context, and say what is inside. LinkedIn also asks for a title when you upload a document; write a real one, since people can see it.

Uploading it

1. 1Export as PDFOne page per slide, all the same size. Check the file opens and the fonts came through.
2. 2Start a post and add a documentIn the LinkedIn composer, choose the option to add a document and pick your PDF. LinkedIn's menus move from time to time; it is usually behind the more or + button.
3. 3Give it a titleA plain description of what it is, in the same words as the cover.
4. 4Write the post text and previewSwipe through it once in the preview, ideally on your phone, before you post.

Making one without a designer

Any design tool that exports PDF will do. Write the words first, slide by slide, in a plain document; design is much quicker once you know what each page says. Then pick one layout for the cover, one for the middle slides and one for the last, and reuse them.

If you'd rather start from a draft, Postclo writes the slides from your project, draws them in your logo's colours at 1080 × 1080 or 1080 × 1350, and lets you edit every word and move anything on the canvas. It downloads the carousel as a PDF ready to upload as a LinkedIn document, along with the post to go with it. You upload and post it yourself. The pricing page shows what a carousel usually costs in credits.