power point presentation hacks

27 Super Hidden PowerPoint Tips and Tricks Only The Pros Know!

Ausbert Generoso

Ever felt like your PowerPoint presentations could use a little magic? You’re not alone. Whether you’re a seasoned presenter or just getting started, there’s a world of PowerPoint tips and tricks waiting for you. In this guide, we’re diving into the nitty-gritty of Microsoft PowerPoint to uncover 30 hidden gems that’ll transform the way you create and deliver slides.

From making your designs pop to streamlining your workflow, these PowerPoint hacks are designed for real-world impact. No jargon, just practical insights that’ll have you presenting like a pro in no time.

Let’s cut through the noise and get straight to the good stuff – your next presentation is about to level up. Ready? Let’s get started.

27 PowerPoint Tips and Tricks That Put The Power in PowerPoint

1. Morph Transition for Seamless Animation

What’s it for:  Elevate your presentation by seamlessly animating objects and creating smooth transitions between slides. Morph transition is your key to a dynamic and visually engaging storytelling experience, allowing you to captivate your audience effortlessly. 

How to do it:

• Position the same object in different parts on multiple slides
• Select all slides, and go to the Transitions tab.
• Choose “Morph” as the transition effect.

2. SVG Image Integration

What’s it for:  Did you think SVG’s only work for websites and professional photo editing tools? They do, too, in PowerPoint! Import high-quality Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG). Maintain image clarity, resize without loss, and enhance your presentations with crisp logos and icons. 

• Save your chosen SVG on your device.
• Click on the Insert tab.
• Choose “Pictures” and select your SVG file.
• Adjust the size without compromising image quality.

3. Designer Feature for Quick Layouts

What’s it for:  Effortlessly create professional-looking slides with the Designer feature. Receive instant layout suggestions based on your content, saving time and ensuring your presentation looks polished. 

• Select a slide.
• Go to the Design tab and click Designer on the far right along the ribbon.
• Select through ready-made slide designs for instant layouts.

4. Insert 3D Models

What’s it for:  Amp up your presentations with manipulable 3D models, adding a dynamic dimension. Whether it’s showcasing products or visualizing data, 3D models bring your slides to life. 

• Click on the “3D Models” dropdown and proceed to Stock 3D Models.
• Search for a 3D model of your choice and insert.
• Manipulate and customize as needed.

5. SmartArt Graphics for Visual Hierarchy

What’s it for:  Convey complex ideas with visual hierarchy using SmartArt graphics. These graphics offer a structured and visually appealing way to organize information, making your content more digestible. 

• Go to the Insert tab.
• Select “SmartArt” and navigate through the available categories.
• Select a graphic template that fits your presentation needs.
• Enter your content and customize as needed.

6. Eyedropper Tool for Color Matching

What’s it for:  Maintain a cohesive design by using the Eyedropper tool to pick colors from images or elements within your presentation. Ensure consistency and professional aesthetics in every slide. 

• Select the editable, native PowerPoint object you wish to customize.
• Go to the Shape Format tab and click on the Shape Fill dropdown.
• Select “More Fill Colors…” and click the eyedropper icon to begin color appropriating.

7. Record and Insert Audio

What’s it for:  Infuse personality into your presentation by recording audio directly within PowerPoint. Ideal for adding voiceovers, explanations, or personal touches that enhance audience engagement. 

• Click on “Audio” and choose “Record Audio.”
• Record your audio and insert it into the slide.

8. Presenter Coach for Rehearsing

What’s it for:  Elevate your presentation skills with Presenter Coach. Receive valuable feedback on pacing, filler words, and more, refining your delivery for a confident and impactful performance. 

• Click on the Slide Show tab.
• Choose “Rehearse with Coach” to start practicing.

9. Hyperlink Navigation for Seamless Transitions

What’s it for:  Streamline your presentation flow by implementing Hyperlink Navigation. This trick allows you to create clickable links within your slides, enabling effortless transitions between related content or external resources, enhancing the overall navigational experience. 

• Select the text or object you want to hyperlink.
• Right-click and choose “Hyperlink” or use the Ctrl+K shortcut.
• Specify the destination, whether it’s another slide, a website, or a file, to create a seamless navigational experience.

10. Alt Text for Accessibility

What’s it for:  Improve accessibility by adding descriptive alternative text to images and objects. Ensure inclusivity for visually impaired individuals, making your presentation accessible to a wider audience. 

• Right-click on the image or object.
• Choose “Edit Alt Text” and enter a descriptive text.

11. Slide Zoom for Dynamic Navigation

What’s it for:  Elevate your presentation’s navigation with Slide Zoom, offering the flexibility to jump to specific slides during a presentation without adhering to a linear sequence. This dynamic feature ensures a more engaging and tailored audience experience. 

• Set a master slide where you’d like to put your “mini slides” altogether.
• Navigate to the Insert tab > Zoom dropdown > Slide Zoom.
• Select the slides you want to link onto your master slide and insert.

12. Live Captions and Subtitles

What’s it for:  Foster inclusivity by enabling live captions and subtitles in multiple languages. This feature enhances accessibility, making your presentation more engaging and comprehensible for a diverse global audience. 

• Go to the Slide Show tab.
• Select “Always Use Subtitles” and choose your language.

13. Password Protection for Security

What’s it for:  Safeguard your presentation’s sensitive content by adding a password. This security measure ensures that only authorized individuals can access and view the information, adding an extra layer of protection. 

• Navigate to the File tab.
• Select “Info” and click on “Protect Presentation.”
• Choose “Encrypt with Password” and set your password.

14. Animation Painter for Consistent Animations

What’s it for:  Maintain a polished and consistent look throughout your presentation by using the Animation Painter. Copy and apply animations across different objects with ease, ensuring a cohesive visual experience. 

• Select the object with the same, desired animation as the others.
• Go to the Animation tab.
• Click on “Animation Painter” and apply to other objects.

15. Linked Excel Charts for Real-Time Updates

What’s it for:  Integrate linked Excel charts for real-time updates in your PowerPoint presentation. Any modifications made to the linked Excel file automatically reflect in your slides, ensuring data accuracy. 

• Copy your Excel chart.
• In PowerPoint, use “Paste Special” and choose “Microsoft Excel Worksheet Object.”

16. Custom Slide Sizes

What’s it for:  Tailor your presentation to various screen dimensions by customizing slide sizes. This feature, accessible through the Design tab, ensures your content fits seamlessly across different display settings. 

• Navigate to the Design tab.
• Click on the “Slide Size” dropdown and choose “Page Setup”.
• Change “Slide sized for” to Custom.

17. Grid and Guidelines for Precision

What’s it for:  Achieve precise object alignment with gridlines and guides. This feature, essential for creating visually polished and organized presentations, ensures your content is visually appealing and professionally structured. 

• Go to the View tab.
• Check the “Grids” and “Guidelines” toggles for display options and customization.

18. Slide Master for Consistent Design

What’s it for:  Establish a cohesive presentation design by utilizing the Slide Master. This time-saving feature enables you to set consistent layouts, fonts, and colors throughout your presentation. 

• Click on “Slide Master” to access and customize master slides.

19. Quick Access Toolbar Customization

What’s it for:  Streamline your workflow by personalizing the Quick Access Toolbar with your most-used commands. This customization ensures quick access to essential tools, enhancing efficiency during presentation creation. 

• Click on the dropdown arrow on the Quick Access Toolbar.
• Select “More Commands” to customize your toolbar.

20. Ink Annotations for Handwriting

What’s it for:  Personalize your presentations with a touch-enabled device using ink annotations. This feature allows you to draw or write directly on slides, adding a unique and handwritten touch to your content. 

• Go to the Draw tab and click on Draw to begin drawing.
• Choose “Ink to Text” or “Ink to Shape” for handwriting annotations.

21. Crop to Shape for Image Customization

What’s it for:  Unleash your creativity by utilizing the Crop to Shape feature, allowing you to create custom image shapes. This adds a distinctive flair to your presentation, providing a visually dynamic and engaging experience. 

• Select the image.
• Navigate to the Picture Format tab.
• Click on “Crop” and choose “Crop to Shape.”
• Select the shape you want your image to have as frame.

22. Slide Show Recording with Narration

What’s it for:  Capture your entire presentation, including narration and animations, by recording a self-running slideshow. This feature is invaluable for sharing presentations with a wider audience, ensuring a consistent and engaging delivery. 

• Click on “Record Slide Show” and choose recording options.

23.  Dynamic Color Scheme Switch for Vibrant Slides

What’s it for:  Infuse energy into your presentation by dynamically switching color schemes. This handy trick allows you to quickly experiment with various color palettes, giving your slides a vibrant and fresh appearance in just a few clicks. 

• Explore different color options by selecting “Colors” and experimenting with the available palettes. Instantly transform the look of your presentation to match your desired mood and style.

24.  Smart Alignment and Distribution for Pixel-Perfect Precision

What’s it for:  Attain pixel-perfect precision in your presentation design with the Smart Alignment and Distribution trick. This technique allows you to not only align objects with accuracy but also evenly distribute them horizontally, ensuring a polished and visually appealing layout. 

• Select the objects you want to align.
• Navigate to the Format tab.
• Click on “Align” to access options like Align Left, Center, or Right for precise alignment.
• Further refine your layout by choosing “Distribute Horizontally,” ensuring equal spacing between objects and achieving a professional design.

25. Insert Online Videos

What’s it for:  Seamlessly integrate online videos directly into your presentation. This feature eliminates the need for external players, offering a smooth and immersive viewing experience for your audience. 

• Click on the “Video” dropdown and select Online Movie.
• Paste the video link and your video should be embedded onto your PowerPoint slide.

26. Embed Fonts for Portability

What’s it for:  Ensure consistent visual appeal on any device by embedding fonts in your presentation. This is particularly useful when sharing your work with others who may not have the same fonts installed, enhancing portability. 

• Go to the File tab.
• Select “Options” and go to the Save tab from the window popup.
• Check “Embed fonts in the file” as well as “Embed all characters”.

27.  Text Transformation

What’s it for:  Uncover the elegance of text transformation with the Shape Format trick. This hack allows you to access a myriad of text transformation designs, offering a swift and sophisticated way to elevate the visual appeal of your presentation. 

• Select the text you want to transform.
• Navigate to the Shape Format tab.
• Click on “Text Effects” and explore the “Transform” options for a variety of stylish text designs. Instantly apply a transformation that suits the tone and style of your presentation.

5 Critical Best Practices to Implement These Pro PowerPoint Tips and Tricks for a Technically Proficient Presentation

Enhance the technical brilliance of your presentation by focusing on these crucial best practices:

1.  Streamlined Font Selection

• Practice:  Limit your font styles to a maximum of three per slide.
• Why:  Simplifying fonts enhances readability, maintains visual consistency, and prevents distraction, ensuring your message is clear and impactful.

2.  High-Resolution Images

• Practice:  Source HD images from reputable free resource websites like Freepik or Unsplash .
• Why:  High-resolution images prevent pixelation, ensuring clarity and professionalism. Crisp visuals contribute to a visually appealing presentation.

3.  Cohesive Color Palette

• Practice:  Stick to a consistent color palette throughout your slides; use the eyedropper tool for precise color matching.
• Why:  A unified color scheme enhances visual harmony, reinforces brand identity, and elevates the overall aesthetics of your presentation.

4.  Efficient Data Visualization

• Practice:  Use charts and graphs for data-driven slides, choosing appropriate chart types for different data sets.
• Why:  Visualizing data through charts improves comprehension, making complex information more accessible and engaging for your audience.

5.  Transitions with Purpose

• Practice:  Apply slide transitions judiciously. Choose transitions that complement the content and avoid excessive animations.
• Why:  Subtle transitions maintain audience focus, while excessive animations may distract from the core message.

Final Thoughts

In presentation-making, technical practices harmonized with thoughtful design is the key to delivering an impactful message. Whether it may be as simple as considering font choices, to incorporating high-resolution visuals, you do not only get to enhance the aesthetics but also ensure your audience’s undivided attention.

Remember, a technically proficient presentation is not just a showcase of information, but also one that leaves a rather immersive experience for those who will see. But at the end of the day, it comes down to your delivery. So, no sweat! You’re doing amazing, rockstar!

Find them useful? Save them, or share these PowerPoint tips and tricks with others to make their day!

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15 Powerpoint Hacks That Will Help You Save Hours And Wow Audiences

• Presentation design /
• Visual communication

Creating a great presentation takes a lot of work if you want to impress your audience and convince them that PowerPoint is still a very useful tool. But as much as you invest in your presentation, be it in the content or the design, you could still benefit from a few pro tips that can save you some time and effort.

We’ve rounded up 15 PowerPoint hacks to help you design your presentation faster and more efficiently, but also to make the delivery easier and more outstanding.

PowerPoint Hack #1: Embed your fonts

Fonts are an essential part of your presentation design. Many experiments have shown how different fonts can make a message more or less trustworthy and appealing to your audience.

Also, if you need to share a deck with someone who doesn’t have all the typefaces you used, it’s going to be a problem.

To avoid this, click File > Options, go to the Save menu, and check “Embed fonts in the file.” Another alternative is to always save and send a pdf version of your presentation.

PowerPoint Hack #2: Convert any document to a presentation

Did you know that you can use an existing Microsoft Word document to create a Microsoft PowerPoint presentation? To set up the slides in a presentation, PowerPoint uses the heading styles in your Word document. For example, each paragraph formatted with the Heading 1 style will become the title of a new slide, each Heading 2 will become the first level of text, and so on.

Create a presentation from an existing document by clicking Home > Slides > Slides from outline.

Or you can do it directly from Microsoft Word. Open the document you want to use to create a PowerPoint presentation; on the File menu, point to Send To, and then click Microsoft PowerPoint. If you can’t see this option in your Word, all you need to do is add it manually to your Quick Access Toolbar from File >  Options.

PowerPoint Hack #3: Select separate bodies of text and other objects

Here’s a helpful tip about text selection. If you hold down Ctrl while highlighting text, you can select two completely separate sections at the same time.

You can use this to edit text quickly, to underline or bold certain terms or phrases, or to change the color of a series of non-sequential words.

This hack applies to selecting other objects as well such as geometric shapes or images.

PowerPoint Hack #4: Align images and objects to ensure symmetry

Organizing your content neatly will help convey your ideas more effectively. According to the American scientist Alan Lightman, human brains strive to see things symmetrically.

“The reason must be partly psychological,” he says. “Symmetry represents order, and we crave order in this strange universe we find ourselves in… [It] helps us make sense of the world around us”.  Via

Going slide by slide to ensure everything is aligned can be a real nightmare. To align all images on a slide, select all of the objects you want by clicking on one of them, then hold Shift and select the rest. In the menu click Arrange > Align or Distribute > chose the type of alignment you want. You can also choose Align Left, Align Right or Center. For horizontal alignments, you can also choose Align Top, Middle, or Bottom.

If your objects aren’t evenly spaced from each other, choose Draw > Align or Distribute > Distribute Vertically or Horizontally. To make sure you have a good overview of your content and how it’s organized, select the Grid/ Gridlines/ Guides option in the View menu.

PowerPoint Hack #5: Adding audio to your slides

This is perhaps my favorite hack. I feel like after I learned how to do this I became much more creative in my presentations. To add audio to your presentation, click the Insert tab > Audio > Audio online > Browse your computer for the file/ Audio on my PC > Play in background so that PowerPoint knows to play the audio in the background of the presentation. Or you can play the sound only when you click at that particular slide.

You can use music or white noise like waves or forest sounds, to create an enjoyable ambiance or mark a special idea (you can also use it to break into dance if you’re feeling dramatic).

This only works when you’re in presentation mode, not in editing mode. To get back to your presentation, use the same letter you used before.

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PowerPoint Hack #6: Use the Fade animation as a quick fix

If you didn’t have enough time to create an intro and outro animation for each slide, Fade will be your plan B. Changing each transition to a fade helps the presentation run much more smoothly. It only takes seconds to do and it makes every slide appear more considered.

The same goes for elements within the slides. Even if you just have each part of the slide fade in, one by one it helps to carry the narrative you are telling and looks so much better. However, make sure you don’t go overboard with the fade animation because it can drag the presentation and become tiresome for the audience. One fade animation per idea or per section is more than enough most times.

PowerPoint Hack #7: Need to show something specific? Create your own animation

If, on the other hand, you’re a more creative person with more time on your hands, you can create your own animation by creating a unique motion path. Select Add animations > Motion paths > Custom paths and you can draw freeform. When you are done, press the Esc button.

You can also select an existing motion path and edit it using the green and red buttons on the path. The green spot will show the initial state of the animation and the red spot represents the final position.

PowerPoint Hack #8: Reduce the size of your presentation

This is one of the most common issues with presentations – you do an amazing job of creating and designing it and then you have a huge document that you can’t send or transfer. Worry not, we have the solution for this. The first thing you’ll want to do is compress all your images, they are probably the biggest size troublemakers.

Click on an image, then go to Format > Compress Pictures. You can compress that image alone or, if you’ve finished the presentation, deselect Apply only to this picture. If you think you’ll need to re-work or edit the images, you might also want to deselect Delete Cropped areas of pictures. If you’re planning on using the presentation on a projector, click web(150dpi) is the best option, whereas if you’re planning to email it, go for the 96dpi compression when saving it. 

If you don’t need this specifically in a .ppt format, we recommend you save it as a .pdf, which will reduce the size even more. After that, you can use Adobe Professional, Acrobat Pro or online tools like ilovepdf.com and smallpdf.com to reduce the size of the final document.

PowerPoint Hack #9: Create an invisible hyperlink

A marketer’s favorite hack – this will allow you to embed hyperlinks to campaign landing pages and social promotions in web presentations, while still looking flawless.

To create an invisible hyperlink – Insert a geometrical shape, preferably a rectangle, and format it to No fill and No line. Select the shape and click CTRL+K. Paste the link into the address box and click Ok. This is a good solution if you do not want any of the text to appear different, but need to include a link in your slide.

Use this hack to create a nice-looking table of contents or an interactive menu in the beginning of your presentation. Or you can use it to embed links into your product screenshots, redirecting to the product website.

PowerPoint Hack #10: Turn your presentation into a video

Recent statistics show that video content isn’t just effective, it’s desirable. Did you know that Facebook users watch 8 billion videos per day? Why not repurpose your amazing presentation into an engaging video and add a cool soundtrack?

It only takes a couple of seconds. All you have to do is click File > Save and send / Export > Create video. Make sure you choose the right timing for each slide, otherwise you might end up with very slow or very fast-moving slides (we speak from experience).

PowerPoint Hack #11: Get creative and start drawing

When you’re delivering your presentation (in Slide show view), you can circle, underline, draw arrows, or make other marks on the slides to emphasize a point or show connections. I bet you didn’t know that.

Turn your cursor into a pen by click CTRL+P. This allows you to draw any shape, underline or highlight an area on the slide. I don’t recommend using this for writing, since that might be a bit tricky but it’s a great tool for sketching or circling. To make it stop, just click CTRL+A.

PowerPoint Hack #12: Combine geometric shapes

Sometimes you just need a different shape. PowerPoint is not perfect. If that’s the case, choose the shapes you want to combine from the Insert tab and select them. Click Merge shapes and choose the option you want. Here’s how they work:

Union joins the two shapes, becoming one shape that you can use like all other shapes in PowerPoint.Combine is similar to merge, but you get empty space where your shapes were overlapping.Fragment will combine them but give you a separate area to work with within these three compartments.Intersect will remove everything except the intersection of the two shapes, making it similar to the opposite of the combine function.Substract will remove from one shape what was covered by the second.

PowerPoint Hack #13: Get your audience’s attention back

The famous Microsoft “study” showed that the human attention span went from 12 seconds on average in 2000 to just 8.25 seconds in 2015, which is shorter than that of a goldfish.The truth is, most of the time, we don’t pay attention. It’s just how our brain works. If you’ve lost the attention of your audience or if you simply want to step away from the presentation for a moment and have a debate or emphasise an idea, we have the perfect hack.

Turn your screen Black or White for a moment, to get your audience’s full attention back with the simple pressing of the letter B on the keyboard (for black) or W (for white). Try it now (we’ll wait)!

PowerPoint Hack #14: Do a live poll of your audience

There’s this great app called Poll Everywhere that enables you to ask your audience questions and receive the answers in real-time. A great hack for webinars or conferences. The answers will be displayed instantly in your PowerPoint presentation. The app uses text messaging (SMS) to collect the replies, and audiences respond on their phones.

Here’s how it works:

Before the presentation, you create the questions and customize how the chart looks and how your audience can respond.During the presentation, you invite the audience to respond by visiting a webpage or texting. After the presentation you have access to a report.

PowerPoint Hack #15:  Zoom in and out of slides

Another way to attract attention to a specific element on a slide is to zoom in. When you’re in Slide show view, you’ll notice a magnifying glass in the lower left corner of the slide. Click on that, then click on the part of the slide where you want to zoom. Once you’re done, click the magnifying glass again to zoom back out.

Use this hack for data visualizations and charts or to make your presentation more dynamic.

That’s it for our hack list. Hopefully you’ll find them useful when creating your next presentation.

What other hacks to you use? Let me know in the comments below.

Are you ready to take your presentations to the next level?

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Excellent post. This article is really very interesting and effective. I think its must be helpful for us. Thanks for sharing your informative. Keep it up. Thank you so much again. Technical Azad.

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Very nice. Thanks for sharing.

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17 PowerPoint Presentation Tips From Pro Presenters [+ Templates]

Published: April 26, 2024

PowerPoint presentations can be professional, attractive, and really help your audience remember your message.

If you don’t have much experience, that’s okay — I’m going to arm you with PowerPoint design tips from pro presenters, the steps you need to build an engaging deck, and templates to help you nail great slide design.

Download Now

Buckle up for a variety of step-by-step explanations as well as tips and tricks to help you start mastering this program. There are additional resources woven in, and you’ll find expert perspectives from other HubSpotters along the way.

Table of Contents

How to Make a PowerPoint Presentation

Powerpoint presentation tips.

Microsoft PowerPoint is like a test of basic professional skills, and each PowerPoint is basically a presentation made of multiple slides.

Successful PowerPoints depend on three main factors: your command of PowerPoint's design tools, your attention to presentation processes, and being consistent with your style.

Keep those in mind as we jump into PowerPoint's capabilities.

Getting Started

1. open powerpoint and click ‘new.’.

A page with templates will usually open automatically, but if not, go to the top left pane of your screen and click New . If you’ve already created a presentation, select Open and then double-click the icon to open the existing file.

10 Free PowerPoint Templates

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• Creative templates.
• Data-driven templates.
• Professional templates.

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You're all set!

Click this link to access this resource at any time.

Creating PowerPoint Slides

3. insert a slide..

Insert a new slide by clicking on the Home tab and then the New Slide button. Consider what content you want to put on the slide, including heading, text, and imagery.

• Finally, PowerPoint Live is a new tool that enables you to do more seamless presentations during video calls and may be a better overall match for doing presentations remotely. Check out this video:

11. Try Using GIFs.

12 Free Customizable Resume Templates

Fill out this form to access your free professionally-designed templates, available on:

• Microsoft Word
• Google Docs
• Microsoft PowerPoint
• Google Slides

15. Embed multimedia.

PowerPoint allows you to either link to video/audio files externally or to embed the media directly in your presentation. For PCs, two great reasons for embedding are:

• Embedding allows you to play media directly in your presentation. It will look much more professional than switching between windows.
• Embedding also means that the file stays within the PowerPoint presentation, so it should play normally without extra work (except on a Mac).

If you use PowerPoint for Mac it gets a bit complicated, but it can be done:

• Always bring the video and/or audio file with you in the same folder as the PowerPoint presentation.
• Only insert video or audio files once the presentation and the containing folder have been saved on a portable drive in their permanent folder.
• If the presentation will be played on a Windows computer, then Mac users need to make sure their multimedia files are in WMV format.
• Consider using the same operating system for designing and presenting, no matter what.

16. Bring your own hardware.

Between operating systems, PowerPoint is still a bit jumpy. Even between differing PPT versions, things can change. The easiest fix? Just bring along your own laptop when you're presenting.

The next easiest fix is to upload your PowerPoint presentation into Google Slides as a backup option — just make sure there is a good internet connection and a browser available where you plan to present.

Google Slides is a cloud-based presentation software that will show up the same way on all operating systems.

To import your PowerPoint presentation into Google Slides:

• Navigate to slides.google.com . Make sure you’re signed in to a Google account (preferably your own).
• Under Start a new presentation , click the empty box with a plus sign. This will open up a blank presentation.
• Go to File , then Import slides .
• A dialog box will come up. Tap Upload.
• Click Select a file from your device .
• Select your presentation and click Open .
• Select the slides you’d like to import. If you want to import all of them, click All in the upper right-hand corner of the dialog box.
• Click Import slides.

When I tested this out, Google Slides imported everything perfectly, including a shape whose points I had manipulated. This is a good backup option to have if you’ll be presenting across different operating systems.

17. Use Presenter View.

In most presentation situations, there will be both a presenter’s screen and the main projected display for your presentation.

PowerPoint has a great tool called Presenter View, which can be found in the Slide Show tab of PowerPoint. Included in the Presenter View is an area for notes, a timer/clock, and a presentation display.

For many presenters, this tool can help unify their spoken presentation and their visual aid. You never want to make the PowerPoint seem like a stack of notes that you’re reading off of.

Use the Presenter View option to help create a more natural presentation.

Pro Tip: At the start of the presentation, you should also hit CTRL + H to make the cursor disappear. Hitting the “A” key will bring it back if you need it.

Your Next Great PowerPoint Presentation Starts Here

Now that you have these style, design, and presentation tips under your belt, you should feel confident to create your PowerPoint presentation.

But if you can explore other resources to make sure your content hits the mark. After all, you need a strong presentation to land your point and make an impression.

With several templates to choose from — both in PowerPoint and available for free download — you can swiftly be on your way to creating presentations that wow your audiences.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in September 2013 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

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11 Time-Saving PowerPoint Hacks For Creating Quick Presentations

If you’ve ever left a PowerPoint presentation for the last minute, you’ve probably ended up with the surprise that it takes up way more time than expected. We’ve all been there! Going from the default all-white canvas slides to a professional presentation that truly conveys your message and represents your brand takes time and effort. The easiest way to save time creating PowerPoint presentations is to outsource the process . It is, hands down, the most effective way to get the task of doing PowerPoint out of your hands forever. However, there are still a lot of time-saving PowerPoint hacks that do not need any money investment. Here you’ll find 11 easy tips to save time when creating PowerPoint presentations.

And even better, these PowerPoint hacks work even better in unison. At the end of the article, you’ll find a step-by-step guide on how to use these presentation tips in conjunction to save time and make a professional-looking slide pack in less than 3 hours.

The average time spent working on presentations is 4 hours

Working on presentation slides is a common task for pretty much everybody. Whether you’re a student, a manager, or a CEO, PowerPoint offers an incredible array of options for public speaking. Chances are, you’re already investing hours and hours of time and effort into PowerPoint presentations. For those who have to constantly work with it, learning how to save time creating PowerPoint presentations can become a key skill. According to our surveys, the average executive will spend around 4 hours a week working on presentations . This might not sound as much, but it sums up to 141 hours a year -probably at least $7,000 worth !

This means that learning how to save time creating PowerPoint presentations will not only free you time for more important tasks, but it can even save you precious money. Hopefully, these 11 time-saving PowerPoint hacks will help you become more efficient in your presentation creation process!

11 time-saving PowerPoint hacks to optimize your time better

The easiest way to make a PowerPoint presentation that looks both good and doesn’t take much time is to keep it clean and simple. A minimalistic style can be a great approach if you’re trying to save time when working on a PowerPoint presentation.

Luckily, there are a lot of options for improving your presentations’ design while still saving time! You don’t have to spend hours and hours working on PowerPoint presentations if you’re strategic in your approach. The PowerPoint hacks you’ll find in this list are easy to implement whether you’re a newbie or you’ve been working with PowerPoint all your life. And they will help you create a presentation that looks professional without taking hours of your time!

Time-saving PowerPoint hack #1: Plan ahead

One tip for saving time when creating a PowerPoint presentation that many people forget to take into consideration is working on the planning stage . Outlining might feel like a waste of time when you’re trying to get something done as fast as possible. However, it can be an invaluable step that can help you reduce time in the following tasks.

Planning can be something as easy as asking yourself some baseline questions for your presentation. For example, who is my audience, and what previous knowledge of this topic do they have? Or how do I want my brand to be perceived? Thinking about these things beforehand can help you define what you should include in your presentation and what it should look like. It can help you define what sort of data and information you need so you can make sure to collect it all beforehand. It can give you an idea of what sort of slides you should include, like a timeline, or a bar graph.

Even if it’s just a quick brainstorming session, having some previous idea of what you want your presentation to include will make the process of creating and designing your slides much more easier and efficient. Planning ahead will not only help you save time but also improve the quality of your presentation. By doing the extra work of outlining your presentation, you will be able to make sure that all the important points are being delivered and that your message is being conveyed exactly as you want it to be.

Time-saving PowerPoint hack #2: Outsource your PowerPoint presentation design

The most effective way to save time when creating a PowerPoint presentation is, hands down, not to do it yourself! This might come as a surprise for you, but outsourcing presentation design has become a very common practice among professionals in all kinds of industries. And no wonder why! It allows you to completely get rid of the annoying task of fiddling around for hours in PowerPoint while still getting an amazing final product.

If you want a truly outstanding presentation that will impress your audience and make them remember you long after the presentation is over, then professional help is probably the best way to go. By outsourcing your PowerPoint design you’ll not only get the ‘wow-factor’ assured, but you’ll also have much more free time for working on your presentation’s content and rehearsing or even other business tasks.

The power of outsourcing presentation design

When talking about being strategic with your time management and your presentation-making process, outsourcing is definitely at the top of the list . Leaving it at the hands of professional PowerPoint designers has been proven to save around 37 minutes per slide . This means that in a small presentation of just 7 slides you would be saving more than 4 hours!

Many people quickly dismiss outsourcing because they think that the price is too restrictive, or simply not worth it. But you would be surprised by the number of offers and options when talking about outsourcing presentation design. You can hire freelance designers , but there are also design agencies that work with worldwide companies and are experts on professional PowerPoint design. 24Slides works with some of the biggest companies worldwide, and offers custom-designed slides starting at only $9 ! You can even adjust the price according to how much detail you want to be put in your slides and how soon you want them to be delivered.

For a little extra pay, outsourcing offers you the possibility to completely forget about working on presentations, freeing up time for more important tasks. Plus, you get a custom-made, professional design that will take your presentation from ‘okay’ to ‘unforgettable’.

Time-saving PowerPoint hack #3: Use PowerPoint Templates

If you prefer non-paid options, however, there’s still a lot of PowerPoint tips and hacks you can use to save time when working on your presentations. And one of the most effective ones is definitely to work with templates . Templates are pre-made presentation designs you can fill and edit to fit your own needs. Microsoft Office itself offers a huge library of PowerPoint templates that you can go through to easily upgrade your presentations in pretty much no time.

There are also thousands and thousands of templates you can find online. There are probably PowerPoint template designs for every single topic you can think of. So if you’re looking for a specific business model or theme, it’s definitely worth looking up for some specialized templates that will help you get a great presentation with minimal effort.

On our Templates by 24Slides platform, you’ll find hundreds of professionally designed PowerPoint templates. And the best thing is, these are all completely free of charge ! You can download as many as you like, and even mix-and-match slides to create your perfect presentation.

The downside of using templates is that you’ll still have to invest some time in editing and formatting the slides to fit your presentation. Even if it’s only just adding the text to the template, you should still expect some effort to be needed. And as specialized as a template might be, you’ll never find a slide-pack that fits exactly your every need like a custom PowerPoint presentation would. But it is still a great option when looking for ways on how to save time creating presentations, as you’ll no longer be creating a presentation from scratch.

Time-saving PowerPoint hack #4: Convert your documents into PowerPoint slides

Another PowerPoint hack that can save you time when creating a presentation is directly converting your document into a PowerPoint file. For example, you can automatically convert a Word document into PowerPoint slides . You can even use different title sizes to divide your document into slides automatically!

However, it’s important to remember that a PowerPoint slide should never have the same amount of text as a word document. This PowerPoint hack is great to save your time with some tedious copy-and-pasting. But you’re still going to have to edit and alter it to make the most of your PowerPoint presentation. Filling your slides with text blocks is one of the easiest ways to bore and lose engagement with your audience. So when using this tip, be sure to be strategic when working with text!

Time-saving PowerPoint hack #5: Use the Design Ideas Tool

If you don’t find a template to fit your needs, or you want to make your slides from scratch, there are still some quick hacks that can make your PowerPoint design tasks easier. A great option for this is to take advantage of the Design Ideas Tool . This is a new feature for the Microsoft 365 subscription that will truly change how you design PowerPoint slides.

The Design Ideas Tool offers automatically generated design suggestions for your slides. It has great-looking, professional layouts, and it allows you to convert text into images and even graphs. This smart feature is definitely a gold mine when talking about saving time when working on PowerPoint slides. Like many features, it has a learning curve, but it’s fairly easy to use. You can also easily customize the slides after you’re done with what the Design Ideas Tool has to offer. In short, it’s a great starting point for quick PowerPoint slide design!

Time-saving PowerPoint hack #6: Use a unifying customized background

A great hack to make your PowerPoint presentations look better and cleaner with minimum effort is to work in your slides’ background. An all-white default slide background is a telling sign of a last-minute presentation, and it can make you look lazy and not detail-oriented. A good background can completely change the look of your entire presentation. And the best thing is that it’s very easy to do !

A dark background , for example, can give your presentation a very clean and professional look. It can help make the other elements pop-up, and keep your audience engaged. A textured background can take a plain presentation into an interesting one. The most important thing to keep in mind when working with backgrounds in PowerPoint is that it should never get in the way of your slide’s content.

An extra tip for saving time with PowerPoint backgrounds: Use a neutral backdrop that can be used for several slides. Not every single slide needs to have a unique background. You can save a lot of time repeating the same background along with your presentation. Even better, it’ll become a unifying design element, and you can save a more eye-catching, unique background for a title slide, for example.

Time-saving PowerPoint hack #7: Work with icons

Icons are great visual elements that can truly upgrade your presentation’s looks. This PowerPoint hack can quickly and easily turn a plain slide into a professional-looking one. Icons are an amazing tool for presentations because they can represent all kinds of concepts and categories in a very small space. Plus, the fact that they are images instead of text will help you declutter your presentation’s slides and make them look cleaner and sharper. Use icons to play with your slides’ layout. You’ll see how easy it is to make a presentation look much better with just a few of them!

The best thing about icons is that they’re easily accessible too. You can find hundreds of free icons online and import them into PowerPoint. You can even create your own icons! When talking about time-saving PowerPoint hacks, however, the best option out there is the Templates by 24Slides platform . You’ll find icon packs for all kinds of business topics that you can download for free and directly copy-and-paste into your own slides.

Time-saving PowerPoint hack #8: Stick to a single color palette

One of the most tricky things to take into consideration when working on PowerPoint design is the color palette. It can easily become a very distracting and time-consuming detail. Picking a color scheme will help you easily edit any PowerPoint template you choose to use, or even the slides you create with the Design Ideas tool. It gives you quick access to a determined color palette so it’s easy for you to edit and unify your slides’ design.

Microsoft Office offers some pre-made color palettes you can pick from, but you can also create your own color scheme in PowerPoint! This will not only save you time when working with your slides, but it’ll make sure that all your presentations stay on-brand.

Time-saving PowerPoint hack #9: Make the most of PowerPoint add-ins

Another PowerPoint hack that very few people take advantage of is using PowerPoint add-ins . PowerPoint add-ins are specialized tools that give you extra features beyond what Microsoft Office offers by default. If you’re someone who works with presentation design constantly, PowerPoint add-ins can help you make your work a little bit easier.

You can find amazing free PowerPoint add-ins for very specialized tasks. For example, THOR allows you to copy an image’s position into another slide -great for adding watermarks and logos. Word Cloud , just like its name suggests, helps you create and personalize word clouds for your presentations. Or my personal favorite, PowerPointLabs .This add-in has a lot of amazing PowerPoint hacks that will make your life easier. Its “Positions Labs” automatically organizes images and icons in your slides, making sure they’re the same size and arranged just like you want them to be, so you don’t have to do it manually. It might seem like a small thing, but if you have ever worked with icons and tried to get several of them in a straight line, you surely know how much time it can take!

Time-saving PowerPoint hack #10: Learn to use master slides

Master slides are perfect for “baking” repetitive elements. It can help you add watermarks, logos, and any kind of element that you want to keep throughout your presentation. You can even set information concerning the design, like themes, backgrounds, colors, animation effects, and much more. While it might be tricky to get the hang of this PowerPoint hack at first, it’s definitely worth the effort, as it can help you save tons of time.

Learn more about working with master slides with this Ultimate PowerPoint template guide .

Time-saving PowerPoint hack #11: Reuse your slides

Finally, a must-do for all those who have to constantly work with PowerPoint presentations: Reuse ! Why start a new presentation from scratch every time when you’ve already spent so much time and effort on the last one? This doesn’t mean that all your slides will look the same. You can still edit them and change elements. Reuse a set of slides for another presentation by changing the color themes and icons to fit the new topic. You can even reuse slides within the same presentation. For example, you can reuse a slide layout that can be used to convey different kinds of information.

How to save time when working with a constant presentation demand?

Working with PowerPoint presentations constantly can feel like a tiresome, tedious task. But practice makes perfect. The more you get to work with PowerPoint design, the more likely it is for you to become better and spend less and less time on it. The last two PowerPoint hacks are a must for those who have to constantly create new presentations. Learning how to use master slides will allow you to have a go-to design whenever you need to work on a new presentation. And reusing your slides for a new presentation is definitely a life-saving hack when working on PowerPoint!

If your work demands a high amount of PowerPoint presentations constantly, you might also want to consider getting a dedicated team of designers for it. If it’s a repetitive task that takes time away from you and your team recurrently, then it’s definitely worth it to get some professional backup.

24Slides offers subscription packages that will allow you to tackle anything from 50 to 10,000 slides per month . The best thing about it is you get a dedicated team that will learn everything about your brand and preferred design styles, so the outsourcing process will be more seamless each time. This assures you a constant flow of unique, outstanding slides without any worry . And, you can share your subscription with your colleagues, guaranteeing that everyone’s slides in the team will be sharp and perfectly aligned with your overall brand.

How to make a presentation in less than 3 hours

Working on a last-minute presentation? Don’t worry! As daunting as it might seem, it’s possible to make a clean-looking presentation with limited time. Of course, how much time you spend working on a presentation depends on the amount of information, the number of slides, and the design effort you want to invest in them. But it is possible to make a good, quick presentation . Especially when using the PowerPoint hacks detailed above! Here I’ll show you how to use these time-saving PowerPoint tips to create a quick minimalistic presentation that still looks good with minimal effort.

Step 1: Planning (25-30 min)

You might be surprised to spend so much time on this first step, but it will help you go through the next ones more easily. Think about what your audience should take away from your presentation. Organize your topic point by point to make sure you’re covering everything you want to convey.

Take time to also think about how you are going to present specific information. If you have chronological information, will you use a timeline? If you have number-based data, will you use a graph or chart? What kind of graph? This will help you define what kind of slides you need when looking for templates. Try to collect beforehand all your information so you’ll not have to go back and forward when you’re working on filling your template.

Step 2: Pick your main template (15-20 min)

There are so many great templates options out there that it’s easy to lose time just browsing through. That’s why it’s extra important to set yourself a limit if you’re short of time. Keep tabs on your options as you go through, and after your time is done, pick one template to use as a base.

This base template doesn’t need to fit your presentation outline perfectly. It’s more about design and style, as you can add things and edit them later. To truly make a presentation in less than 2 hours, preferably pick a neutral base template, as it will be easier to standardize later if you decide to add other slides.

Step 3: Search for complementary slides (20 min)

Now is when your outline and planning will come in handy. Look for specific slides according to your needs. For example, a timeline slide design, an organization chart, title slides, or anything your base template does not have. Again, the more neutral the slides you pick, the easier it’ll be to make them fit later!

Step 4: Fill your slides’ content (20-25 min)

Now that you have all the slides together, it’s time to fill them with your information. You can use the conversion Powerpoint hack if you have all your information in a Word document, for example. Just remember to limit the amount of text on your slides. Your PowerPoint slides are a complement to the speaker, not the other way around! They should have written every single word you’re planning to say.

Step 5: Add icons and visual aids (30 min)

PowerPoint is a visual medium, so take advantage of it! If anything can be replaced by an icon, graph, or image, is probably a good idea to do so. This will make your presentation more visually appealing and will make your information easier to read for the audience too. This step is all about adding icons, changing the template’s images to something that fits your topics, and so on.

Step 6: Standardize your slides’ design (25 min)

Finally, make sure your slides match each other, especially if you’ve added slides from different templates packs. Make sure you’re using the same color scheme throughout your presentation to make it look cleaner. You can also add design elements from your base templates (if it has any) to your added slides to create a feeling of unity. In short, make sure all your slides’ designs match!

Step 7: Rehearse (20 min)

Before a presentation, rehearsal is a must! Even if it’s just going through your slides to check everything is in order, double-checking can make or break your presentation. Some as easy as typing errors can make your presentation look sloppy and last-minute. Go through your outline and make sure that everything you need to add is converted and tweak the final details.

And that’s it! A clean-looking presentation in less than 3 hours. It’s not likely to be a work of art, but a minimalistic PowerPoint presentation can still look professional and sharp. It’s all about practice, and the more time you invest in working with PowerPoint, the easier and better it will become.

Save time by outsourcing: How to get a GREAT presentation in 1 hour!

However, if you do want a work of art that will leave an impression on your audience, and still get a presentation done at record time, then why not let professionals do what they do best? Creating outstanding PowerPoint slide designs takes not only time and effort but also experience. While anyone can make a PowerPoint presentation, there’s no easy and quick way to make a truly unique, eye-catching presentation.

If you’re looking for ways to save time creating presentations, outsourcing is the best possible solution for you. And, you’ll save tons of time! Even if it is a last-minute project, you can get amazing results you wouldn’t be able to get otherwise by entrusting your presentations to professionals. If you want a PowerPoint to wow your audience but you’re a little bit tight on your schedule, outsourcing your presentation design can become a true live-saving investment!

Outsourcing Step #1: Get your content ready (20-25 minutes)

Most PowerPoint outsourcing agencies work exclusively with the design part of the presentation. This means the presentation’s content is all on you. After all, you’ll be the one presenting! If you’re looking to outsource your PowerPoint presentation design, make sure you have your content ready to show how you want it divided into slides. A default all-white presentation is enough. If you have any design references, brand colors, or any other details that you want to be included in your presentation you should also think about them beforehand!

Outsourcing Step #2: Upload your presentation (10-15 minutes)

Now you just need to give your baseline presentation for the designers to work their magic! 24Slides offers an integrated platform where you can upload your presentation, select your design style, slide treatment, due date, complementary services, and any other detail you want to include for your presentation.

After it, you can just rest and relax, as the designers will do all the rest! You can even save time in your presentation by turning it in to be worked overnight. 24Slides’ designers will have ready your custom PowerPoint design by the morning.

Outsourcing Step #3: Give your feedback (15 – 20 minutes)

24Slides is committed to creating the perfect presentation design for you. That’s why you’ll always be able to give feedback and ask for changes if you think something is missing. Customer satisfaction is fundamental for our designers. You’ll always get a draft so you can approve or change anything you think necessary. You won’t be charged until you’re 100% happy with how your presentation looks!

Outsourcing Step #4: Wow your audience with an outstanding presentation!

Finally, you’ll receive the final presentation, perfect and ready for you to make an impression on your audience. And you have had the content ready from step #1, you can even start practicing and rehearsing while your presentation is getting done by our best designers. Outsourcing is an incredibly empowering tool for speakers in all sorts of business. It frees precious time and allows you to make the most of every tool PowerPoint has to offer.

Start saving time and effort in your PowerPoint presentations

Working on your PowerPoint presentations can be a tiresome, time-consuming process. Hopefully, these PowerPoint time-saving hacks will help you make your process a little bit more efficient. Remember that practice makes perfect! The more you try out and learn how to make the most out of these tips, the easier it’ll get. Try not to go for big, complicated designs and focus on getting clean and sharp slides that look professional before working on something more advanced.

Outsourcing presentation design is a great way to not only save time when creating presentations. It’ll also get you the best possible results to impress your audience. Professional PowerPoint designers will make sure that not only your message is perfectly conveyed, but also that your brand is represented and that your slides are as visually engaging as possible. And the best thing is, you can relax and completely forget about PowerPoint presentations forever! We’ve polled thousands of customers, and the overall consensus is that professional presentation design has helped them save an average of 37 minutes per slide . Just imagine how much time you would be able to save in a simple 20-slide presentation!

If saving time and effort when creating PowerPoint presentations sounds good, then you must try 24Slides design services . We work with some of the best companies all around the world by creating amazing PowerPoint slides that bring their message to life. Our designers will transform your presentation into a work of art that will make sure to stay in your audience’s mind long after the presentation is over.

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10 PowerPoint Hacks to Level Up Your Presentations

Are you tired of delivering lackluster presentations that leave your audience bored and disinterested? Do you want to captivate your audience and leave a lasting impression? Look no further! In this blog post, we will reveal 10 PowerPoint hacks that will take your presentations to the next level and make you a master presenter. So let's dive in!

1. Utilize PowerPoint AI to Create Stunning Slides

Gone are the days of spending hours designing slides from scratch. With the power of artificial intelligence, now you can create professional-looking slides in a matter of minutes. PowerPoint AI, also known as a slides generator, is a game-changer for presenters. It uses advanced algorithms to analyze your content and automatically generates visually appealing slides that grab attention.

2. Incorporate Engaging Visuals

We are visual creatures, so it's important to use eye-catching visuals to support your presentation. PowerPoint offers a wide range of options, from stock images to icons and illustrations. Make use of these resources to enhance your message and make it more memorable.

3. Choose the Right Color Scheme

Colors have a psychological impact and can greatly influence how your audience perceives your presentation. Opt for a color scheme that matches the mood and objective of your presentation. Avoid using too many colors, as it can be distracting. Stick to a maximum of three or four primary colors for a harmonious and aesthetically pleasing look.

4. Keep It Simple and Concise

Less is more when it comes to PowerPoint presentations. Avoid overcrowding your slides with excessive text and complicated graphs. Use bullet points and concise phrases to summarize key points. Remember, you are the presenter, not the slide. Focus on delivering your message effectively and let the slides support your content.

5. Use Transitions and Animations Wisely

Transitions and animations can add flair to your presentation, but don't go overboard. Use them sparingly to emphasize key points or create a smooth flow between slides. Too many flashy transitions can be distracting and take away from the content of your presentation.

6. Incorporate Data Visualization

Numbers and statistics can be dry, but with the right data visualization, you can bring them to life. PowerPoint offers a range of charts and graphs that can transform boring data into engaging visuals. Choose the appropriate visual representation for your data to make it more understandable and impactful.

7. Make Use of PowerPoint's Presenter View

Presenter View is a powerful tool that allows you to see your presentation notes, upcoming slides, and a timer while your audience sees only the presentation itself. This feature helps you stay on track, deliver your points confidently, and keep your audience engaged.

8. Practice, Practice, Practice

No matter how well-designed your slides are, if you stumble over your words or lack confidence, your presentation won't be effective. Practice your presentation multiple times before the big day. Focus on your delivery, body language, and timing to ensure a smooth and memorable performance.

9. Engage with Your Audience

A great presenter knows how to connect with their audience. Encourage interaction by asking questions, conducting polls, or even including a short quiz in your presentation. Engaging your audience keeps them interested and actively participating in your presentation.

10. Stay Updated with the Latest PowerPoint Features

PowerPoint is constantly evolving, and new features and updates are regularly released. Stay up-to-date with the latest features and incorporate them into your presentations. Exploring new options will help you stay ahead of the game and keep your presentations fresh and innovative.

In conclusion, these 10 PowerPoint hacks will help you create exceptional presentations that leave a lasting impact on your audience. By utilizing PowerPoint AI, incorporating visuals, keeping it simple and concise, and staying updated with the latest features, you are on your way to becoming a master presenter. So, what are you waiting for? Start implementing these hacks and wow your audience with your next presentation!

Posted on: Nov. 5, 2023, 12:42 p.m.

PowerPoint Tips, Tricks, and Hacks from 29 Experts

Bryan Jones

• eLearning Development , Posts , PowerPoint

PowerPoint is an extremely powerful tool when used correctly.

But when you’re new to it, it can feel like it’s just blank screens and bullet points.

It can take years (or decades) to fully master it.

But I decided to save you some time…

I asked the world’s leading PowerPoint experts the following question:

What’s your single best PowerPoint tip, trick, or hack?

Below you’ll see responses from some amazing PowerPoint gurus, including: top authors, speakers, instructors, bloggers, and even a handful of PowerPoint MVPs and Microsoft employees!

Enjoy the full tutorials by scrolling below or jump to these sections:

Summary | Presentation Approach |  Design | Shortcuts |  Delivery |  Setup | Beyond Presentations

PowerPoint Presentation Approach Tips

1. Use the Tell ‘n Show method: a headline with a single point and media to support it

To get your audience to understand and remember what you say, use the Tell ‘n’ Show(SM) method. Use the slide title to tell your point–what you want them to remember. For example, write “3rd quarter sales rose 5% over last year” instead of just “3rd quarter sales.” Then use the rest of the slide to show your point with an image, animation, graph, or diagram. Research has shown the students who see slides done like this do better on tests and similarly, your audience will “get” your point more quickly and easily. They’ll be more engaged, too.

Ellen Finkelstein  is the President & Owner of Ellen Finkelstein, Inc. She is one of only 12 Microsoft designated PowerPoint MVPs in the United States and is the author of one of the most popular PowerPoint blogs on the web.

2. Don’t open PPT until you have a clear message

Don’t launch PowerPoint until you have a clear message. Many people launch PowerPoint, think what they want to present, add slides, then think again, and add slides again. To compare with an analogy, they are on a fun journey, driving their car, stopping wherever they want, and then driving to wherever they fancy. It’s good to have an amazing journey–but a journey without a destination will get you nowhere. Continuing this analogy, a “clear message” is the destination where you want to go, and you want to take your audience along with you. So make sure you have a message before you begin creating your slides.

Geetesh Bajaj is the Owner of Indezine.com . He is a PowerPoint MVP and the author of the Indezine blog, one of the most visited PowerPoint and presentation websites.

3. Start with the end-scenario in mind

As a designer, I recommend you think more about the end scenario than the beginning. Practical considerations – is this a printout, email attachment, onscreen presentation, interactive discussion tool or combination of those? Where will it be seen – in a stadium, boardroom, café, at their desk? Then consider the conceptual considerations – who is your audience and what do they currently think about your topic? What would you like to change in that thinking? Based on what you know about them, how can you change that thinking? Write those things down, then build your presentation with that at the forefront.

Tom Howell is the Agency Director at Synapsis Creative. He was recently designated a PowerPoint MVP by Microsoft. His presentation blog  is a must-read for anyone looking to improve their presentation design.

4. Tease the audience by revealing info in parts

Do you struggle to hold your participant’s attention – especially when your training topic is dull and boring? There’s a secret technique I use that works like a charm every time. It is… “Tease your audience by revealing your information in parts” Let me give you an example… Want to present a Framework? Present just the skeletal structure first. Explain the context. Then reveal the first step. Explain. Then reveal the next step and so on. Your audience can’t take their eyes off, till you finish your explanation. Why does this work so well? Studies have shown that as humans – we experience ‘tension’ when we leave things incomplete. We feel subconsciously compelled to pay attention to the task till we see it finished. It’s called the ‘Zeigarnik effect’. Try it in your next presentation. All you need is to apply a simple custom animation to your visuals – to reveal information in stages.

Ramgopal is the Director and Co-Owner of PrezoTraining . He also runs a popular YouTube Channel focusing on PowerPoint .

5. Don’t open PowerPoint first. Instead, sketch on a notepad

The first step on PowerPoint is…don’t open PowerPoint. Sketch out your presentation on a notepad (regular or digital) and plan out the whole thing. Then rewrite, numbering and ordering your thoughts. That’s your slide order.

Doug Thomas  is a Video and Webinar Creator at Microsoft. He has created and appeared in over 250 videos at office.com.

PowerPoint Design Tips

6. Use transparent overlays on images for text contrast

My favorite trick to do in PowerPoint is to create transparent overlays over slides, videos, photographs in PowerPoint! First, you create a rectangle to cover up the slide > Then you set it to a solid color or a gradient > You right click, set the transparency of each color to around 20% or any value you like depending on the project > and there you have it! You can dim photos, create duo-tone overlays, darken, brighten, add exposure, add a vignette or do pretty much anything regarding colors with this type of object! Best part is – you can freely copy it between slides or even separate PowerPoints! Awesome to know about and use 🙂

Andrzej Pach is an Online Instructor for Udemy  & Skillshare. He also hosts one of the most popular YouTube channels  to focus on PowerPoint with over 2 million views and 19,000 subscribers.

7. Go big with visuals. Bleed photos and videos to the edge

Go big with your visuals. My top tip to presentation designers of all levels is a simple, elegant, and often overlooked technique: bleed your inserted photographs and videos all the way to the edges. Insert your image. Scale (don’t stretch!) and crop appropriately. If next is necessary, set it in a semi-transparent shape with sufficient contrast against the text color. Think about some of the best presentations you’ve ever seen. Think also about your favorite movies and TV shows. Their images take up all available screen space. Yours can too.

Tony Ramos is the Director of the Presentation Guild  and the Owner of TonyRamos.com. He was the first blogger on the internet to cover PowerPoint topics. Tony is an expert designer and producer of PowerPoint presentations and proposal graphics.

8. Create quick native PPT icons using your subtract and combine tools

Create quick native PPT icons using your subtract and combine tools.

Bethany Auck is the Founder and Creative Director of SlideRabbit . As a presentation and communication specialist, she helps clients build high quality presentations, from basic slide design to complex animations and infographics.

9. Structure clean layouts by using a grid system on slide masters

Keep your layouts clean and well-structured by implementing a grid system with guides on the pasteboard of your master slide.

Stephy Lewis is a Senior Designer for Aerotek and a Director of the Presentation Guild . She is a top visual designer of presentations and websites.

10. Find a beautiful, fresh font pair. One for headers and one for body

When I create PowerPoint tutorials on YouTube I am always thinking about techniques that would be really simple to implement and yet would have the biggest positive impact. So if you have 2 minutes to transform your presentation from good to awesome, I would suggest looking at your fonts. Find a beautiful, fresh looking font pair (one font for the headers and one for the body) and you can instantly change how your presentation feels and looks like. I am planning to do a video soon on this topic, so please visit my YouTube channel in the near future, if you are interested in awesome font pairs for your ppt 🙂 Good luck everyone!

One Skill (aka Kasparas Tolkusinas) is the CEO of One Skill PowerPoint Tutorials. He hosts one of the most popular PowerPoint YouTube channels , with over one million views and 14,000+ subscribers.

11. Create an arrow with broken SmartArt

I have an easy favorite that I often use. You know the arrow type that looks like a Nike Swoosh logo? The ones that start at a point then become thicker as they softly curve up or down? I have an easy hack that uses broken SmartArt to create such an arrow. Of course, if you have the newest version of PowerPoint (2016/Office 365), you can insert this arrow style as an icon, but it’s not easily editable (other than to recolor). Do this instead: 1) Insert > SmartArt > Process > Upward Arrow (or Descending Process) | 2) Ungroup | 3) Ungroup again | 4) Delete all extra shapes and text boxes, leaving only the arrow. You’re left with an adjustable arrow that allows you to use the yellow handles to change the swoosh width and arrow head size. Rotate, Flip Vertical, Flip Horizontal, or resize to further customize.

Sandra Johnson is the Owner and Chief Presentation Officer at Presentation Wiz  and is Vice President of the Presentation Guild. She has also been designated only 1 of 12 Microsoft PowerPoint MVPs in the United States.

PowerPoint Shortcuts, Tricks, and Hacks

12. Power-crop photos with SmartArt

The favorite hack is Power Cropping a bunch of photos in seconds. (1) In PowerPoint select a bunch of odd sized (or shaped) photos (2) Navigate to the Picture Tools Format Tab (3) Open up the Picture Layout drop down (4) Select a SmartArt layout (Bending Picture Semi-Transparent Text is my favorite) (5) CTRL+SHIFT+G to ungroup the graphic twice. It’s a great little PowerPoint hack that not a lot of people know about.

Taylor Croonquist is the Co-Founder of NutsAndBoltsSpeedTraining.com . He is the guru of time-saving PowerPoint tips. If you want to be blown away by how fast someone can whip a PPT into shape, check out his blog or videos.

13. Use Ctrl + arrow keys to nudge objects on the screen

Here’s a quick and easy one I share in my PowerPoint for eLearning 101 classes: Want to move something just a smidge using the arrow keys? You may notice that it’s hard to get to juuuuust the right spot using the arrow keys. Try holding down the [Control] key with the arrow keys and watch as your slide objects move by just a pixel at a time.

AJ Walther  is the Chief Creative Officer at IconLogic. She is also the instructor for several PowerPoint courses: PowerPoint for eLearning 101  and 201 , and the author of 2 PowerPoint books.

14. Use SmartArt to break bullet points into text boxes

Use SmartArt as a tool to eliminate bullet points and “chunk” your information out visually. Select your text box of bullet points and either right-click or choose from the Home tab “Convert to SmartArt.” Select a SmartArt graphic that contains horizontal boxes. Select the newly created SmartArt containing your text, right-click and ungroup it twice, giving you text in rectangles. Now, delete any extraneous SmartArt items (i.e. arrows) and format the boxes however you like. Voila, you have magically turned a page of bullet points into visual chunks—much easier to read!

Nolan Haims is the Principal of Nolan Haims Creative. He leads a team of visual design professionals dedicated to all types of visual communication. Nolan blogs at Present Your Story  and hosts the popular Presentation Podcast.

15. Create “smoky letters” with PPT’s new Morph transition

Magic Smoky Letters! I recently went on a crazy experimentation spree (channeling my inner mad scientist!) with the Morph transition and discovered this bizarre but very cool “smoky letters” trick. Let’s say, for instance, that you want the word TEXT to come out as smoke from a chimney (or fireplace, tailpipe, cigar, teapot, magic lamp, etc.).  You first put a picture of the chimney on your slide.  Next, you create smoke “seeds” by inserting a rectangle and editing one of the points (Format – Shape – Edit Points) – then making 4 copies of this rectangle (one for each letter in TEXT).  Make these “seeds” tiny and transparent, then place on top of the chimney (where you want the smoke to come out). Next, duplicate the slide and on this new slide, delete the “seeds” on the chimney.  Then, vectorize the word TEXT (by writing it in a text box, putting it on top of a colored rectangle, selecting both objects and going to Merge Shapes – Fragment and deleting the stuff around TEXT). Finally, add a Morph transition to the second slide, and you’re done! Simply view in presentation mode and prepare for your jaw to drop… check out this trick with more details and examples here .

Lia (aka “P-Spice”) is a management consultant with a passion for making presentations more innovative and “spicy.” She hosts a popular YouTube channel on PowerPoint with over 4 million views and 36,000+ subscribers focused on creative animation and design tricks. She is also the author of the Spicy Presentations blog .

16. Convert text to an image if the custom font might not be installed.

One of my favorite frustration-busters involves a work-around when I know my client won’t have a custom font installed. For example, if the slide would benefit from a gorgeous script as an accent element, I will turn that piece of text into an image. I do this by selecting the font as an object, copying it and then pasting it as a picture (either right click to paste or use the paste button in the Home menu). Now I know the “text” will display as designed on any computer.

Lori Chollar is the Co-Founder of TLC Creative Services, Inc .

PowerPoint Presentation Delivery Tips

17. Use the notes panel for detailed printed notes

I’m a College Professor and use PowerPoint for Lecture notes. Many students want detailed lecture notes, but get bored quickly reading mountains of text on a slide. So I use the “Notes Pages” panel for detail while keeping the slides simple – I urge students to read the notes which may contain more information than given in a lecture. If printing out the slides, it is essential to use “Notes Pages” print layout option.

Dr Eugene O’Loughlin  is a Lecturer in Computing at the National College of Ireland. He also hosts one of the most popular YouTube channels that covers PowerPoint topics and has over 12 million views and 26k+ subscribers.

18. Leverage “Presenter View” and “sections” when there are multiple presenters

Increase the power of Presenter View with PowerPoint Sections. Sections are used to organize slides within a presentation by grouping slides and giving each group a name. In addition, Presenter View leverages these Sections that can be seen in Presenter View’s Grid Layout. When running a presentation with multiple presenters, or an awards show with multiple award categories, I add lots of PowerPoint sections. The ability to minimize live-show stress and find the correct section to jump to is amazing!

Troy Chollar is the Co-Founder of TLC Creative Services, Inc. He is also a Microsoft designated PowerPoint MVP, PowerPoint blogger , and host the popular Presentation Podcast.

19. Use “triggers” to create interactive presentations

Create interactive presentations with triggers to start animations through hot spots on a slide. You can reveal specific parts of a diagram, make something change color by clicking it, or give people multiple choice questions and have the correct answer pop-up. It takes seconds to do and works brilliantly, particularly with visual slides. Right click on any animation, choose Timing, then Triggers in the pop-up window, and choose which object you click to start (trigger) the animation. You can have multiple triggers on one slide and multiple animations triggered by the same object. It makes really compelling and effective presentations.

Richard Goring is the Director at BrightCarbon. He creates compelling and persuasive presentations using visuals and diagrams. Richard also blogs at the Bright Carbon blog and has a post on this trigger technique  mentioned above.

20. Use a formatted “Notes” page for presentation handouts.

I open the most eyes when I discuss how to use the Notes page to create handouts that are contained within the same PPTX file as the slides. Most people have never spent even a second in the Notes master so they never knew you could globally reformat the Notes pages to allow them to better accommodate the creation of handout pages.

Rick Altman is the Director of R. Altman and Associates and the Conference Host of The Presentation Summit . If you looking to create PowerPoints that don’t suck, he literally wrote the book on it.

PowerPoint software and hardware setup tips

21. add “align” to your quick access toolbar.

Tired of eyeballing that slide to see if all the objects are all even or in the same grid? That is why my favorite tip is to make Align one of your favorites on your QAT. Imagine a slide that might introduce three speakers’ headshots and captions but they are not aligned or equidistant from each other. Let’s fix it. Select all three objects – click on the first object, then press and hold CTRL when you click on the others.  You can also use SHIFT and your mouse to draw a box over what you want to align – I call it a “Lasso”. To arrange the three headshots, click on the Format Tab in the Picture tools, you will see an option to align objects. You can choose to center objects horizontally, vertically or to a box of text. You do the same when working with shapes, text boxes, SmartArt graphics, and WordArt by selecting Format in the Drawing Tools. The result:  your objects snap to the grid and the smart guide lines that appear on your slide will help confirm it.

Sharyn Fitzpatrick is the Editor of PresentationXpert  and the Chief Marketing, Communications, and Webinar Guru at Marcom Gurus. She also lives in my home town (Los Altos), is a raving Penn State fan, and a former competitive swimmer!

22. Customize your “quick access” toolbar with frequently used buttons

I don’t have a ton of keyboard shortcuts in PowerPoint, but I do customize my toolbar. When I do that (right-click on the toolbar at the very top of the window), I can add any button I want, especially the alignment buttons, which makes life a lot easier when you’re working with different slide objects such as text, images, and graphs. In Excel, my favorite keyboard shortcut is CTRL+1 (CMD+1 on Macs), which will bring you to the Format menu. And it works for everything–cells, line charts, bar charts, axis labels, gridlines, whatever you need.

Jonathan Schwabish is the Founder at PolicyViz.com  and a Senior Fellow at the Urban Institute. He is well known in the presentation community for his presentation book Better Presentations and his expertise in data visualization.

23. Name screen elements on the “Selection Pane” for easy design layering and more

The Selection Pane is one of PowerPoint’s best kept secrets. By default, it’s hidden in the “Select” menu on the “Home” tab. I add it to my Quick Access Toolbar and keep the Selection Pane open anytime I’m working in PowerPoint. Once open, you can name all the objects on the screen. This really helps when you’re trying to change the layering order of the objects, add animations, and more. You can also hide objects by clicking the “eye” icon next to each object. That’s really helpful for revealing objects beneath that layer. Without the selection pane, both layering and animations are next to impossible.

Bryan Jones is the Founder and President of eLearningArt. He runs a stock photo and template site to help people build better presentations and graphics. He also blogs frequently about eLearning, PowerPoint, and presentations .

24. In a dark working environment, change the default interface for more contrast

When I’m working in a dark environment (at night in my office, backstage at a conference, etc.), I find it extremely helpful to change PowerPoint’s interface from the bright white and orange to black or at least dark grey. To do this, click File, then Account, then select Black or Dark Grey from the Office Theme dropdown. Note that _these_ Office Themes control your interface elements such as the Ribbon and the workspace; they aren’t the same Office Themes that you may think of when we talk about PowerPoint templates and themes. (Thanks for naming everything the same, Microsoft!)

Echo Swinford is a PowerPoint Corporate Presentation and Template Expert at Echosvoice . She is designated as 1 of only 12 Microsoft PowerPoint MVPs in the United States. Echo also authored a book on building PowerPoint templates and is the President of the Presentation Guild .

25. Get a good external mouse. One with a scroll wheel can zoom in and out

A comfortable external mouse is a must-have for quick toolbar navigation and graphics editing. Make your work even speedier by choosing a mouse with a scroll wheel. In PowerPoint, hold the Ctrl/Command key and scroll forward or backward to change the Zoom level. Go from big picture to the smallest details in an instant.

Julie Terberg  is a Presentation Expert, Visual Communicator at Terberg design. She is a designated Microsoft PowerPoint MVP, author of a book on creating PowerPoint templates, and is the Art Director for the Presentation Guild.

Think beyond PowerPoint presentations

26. think of ppt as a tool beyond liner presentations.

Strangely enough, my best tip/hack is to start seeing PowerPoint as a tool that can do much more than linear presentations. Here are a few examples: 1) Produce better visuals & handouts at the same time by moving text to the notes pane, and design your Notes Master so it has your corporate colors and logo 2) Use PowerPoint’s screen capture tool (PPT2010 and up), or screen recording tool (PPT2013 and up) to create quick tutorials without needing other software 3) Get to know the drawing/shape tools to create your custom graphics and save them as images.

Chantal Bossé  is the Owner of CHABOS, Inc. where she helps clients, such as TEDx speakers, maximize their presentation impact. She is also a designated Microsoft PowerPoint MVP.

27. Export to video and PDF to make content portable and reach a wider audience.

Exporting to video and PDF is a quick and easy way to make your content much more portable and mobile-friendly to reach a wider audience. The PDF option allows you to totally rethink your documents and make the switch to interactive “e-books”. The video option gives you a super flexible MP4 video file that you can use virtually anywhere. To see an example of each, visit this tutorial .

Mike Taylor  is a Learning Technologist at Mindset Digital, as well as a former Community Manager at Articulate He is also a frequent speaker and popular blogger.

28. Hyperlink between slides to create a non-linear experience

Hyperlinking: Many who build eLearning with PowerPoint rely too much on the default linear slide 1- slide 2 -next-next-next setup. Learning to hyperlink across slide decks enables you to build interesting interactions like branching simulations and quizzes with scaffolded feedback. It takes patience and thinking through but isn’t technically difficult. Another tip: Figure out how to do the planning/layout the way that works best for you: I like to use Post-It notes I can move around. Others like to draw it out, and still others use the PPT flowcharting tools.

Jane Bozarth  is an E-Learning Coordinator for the State of North Carolina. She is the author of several popular books, including Better Than Bullet Points: Creating Engaging e-Learning with PowerPoint.

29. Build clickable prototypes and hyperlink from any object to other slides

Creating prototypes is tough, right? Difficult software, expensive too. But wait… Do you realize that PowerPoint can be used to build prototypes? One of the coolest and simplest features that you’ll find in PowerPoint is the ability to put hyperlinks on any object on your slide and have it link to other slides. This way you can mock up any kind of e-learning, interactive job aid, software simulation or app you’d like and  get a real feel of how it would work. Just create the screens you need for your prototype, add clickable areas (transparent shapes are great for that!) and voila!

Jeff Kortenbosch  is a Performance Consultant at Bright Alley. He’s a PowerPoint guru and has a series of YouTube videos where he teaches users how to draw in PowerPoint.

29 PowerPoint Tips, Tricks, and Hacks Summarized

• Use the Tell ‘n Show method: a headline with a single point and media to support it | Ellen Finkelstein
• Don’t open PPT until you have a clear message | Geetesh Bajaj
• Start with the end-scenario in mind | Tom Howell
• Tease the audience by revealing info in parts | Ramgopal
• Don’t open PowerPoint first. Instead, sketch on a notepad | Doug Thomas
• Use transparent overlays on images for text contrast | Andrzej Pach
• Go big with visuals. Bleed photos and videos to the edge | Tony Ramos
• Create quick native PPT icons using your subtract and combine tool. | Bethany Auck
• Structure clean layouts by using a grid system on slide master. | Stephy Lewis
• Find a beautiful, fresh font pair. One for headers and one for bod. | One Skill
• Create an arrow with broken SmartArt | Sandra Johnson
• Power-crop photos with SmartArt | Taylor Croonquist
• Use Ctrl + arrow keys to nudge objects on the screen | AJ Walther
• Use SmartArt to break bullet points into text boxes | Nolan Haims
• Create “smoky letters” with PPT’s new Morph transition | Lia (P-Spice)
• Convert text to an image if the custom font might not be installed | Lori Chollar
• Use the notes panel for detailed printed notes | Dr Eugene O’Loughlin
• Leverage “Presenter View” and “sections” when there are multiple presenters | Troy Chollar
• Use “triggers” to create interactive presentations | Richard Goring
• Use a formatted “Notes” page for presentation handout.  | Rick Altman

PowerPoint Software and Hardware Setup Tips

• Add “align” to your Quick Access Toolbar | Sharyn Fitzpatrick
• Customize your “quick access” toolbar with frequently used buttons  | Jon Schwabish
• Name screen elements on the “Selection Pane” for easy design layering and more | Bryan Jones
• In a dark working environment, change the default interface for more contrast | Echo Swinford
• Get a good external mouse. One with a scroll wheel can zoom in and out | Julie Terberg

Think Beyond PowerPoint Presentations

• Think of PPT as a tool beyond liner presentations | Chantal Bossé
• Export to video and PDF to make content portable and reach a wider audience | Mike Taylor
• Hyperlink between slides to create a non-linear experience | Jane Bozarth
• Build clickable prototypes and hyperlink from any object to other slides | Jeff Kortenbosch

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10 Cool PowerPoint Tips and Tricks You (Probably) Didn’t Know About

PowerPoint is a versatile tool capable of many amazing tasks. It has lots of great features but unfortunately, most users aren’t even utilizing half of the software’s capabilities.

Today, we’re going to change that. In this guide, we share some of the best PowerPoint tips and tricks for doing cool things with the presentation maker.

You’ll learn cool tricks like inserting QR codes in PowerPoint slides, converting presentations to videos, removing the background of images, and much more.

These PowerPoint tips will not only allow you to design presentations more easily but they will also help impress your audience. Let’s dive in.

How Does Unlimited PowerPoint Templates Sound?

Download thousands of PowerPoint templates, and many other design elements, with an Envato membership. It starts at $16 per month, and gives you unlimited access to a growing library of over 19+ million presentation templates, fonts, photos, graphics, and more.

Pitch Deck Templates

Startup pitch deck.

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Third-Party PowerPoint Templates

We wanted to start the list with a bit of an obvious but important tip: Use third-party PowerPoint templates!

Microsoft PowerPoint comes with a set of default templates pre-packaged with the software. These free templates are pretty good but they have been used by everyone, over and over again, to the point that anyone could immediately recognize which template you’re using by looking at the slide design.

The worst part is that it will allow your audience to tell how little effort you’ve put into designing the presentation.

What most users don’t realize is that you can download templates from third-party marketplaces and use them to create unique presentations. These templates are made by professional designers and they will immediately make your slideshows look ten times better.

You can check out our best PowerPoint template collection for some inspiration.

Use ChatGPT to Write the Slides

ChatGPT is an AI tool that revolutionized the way we work and made our everyday tasks so much easier and simpler. Now, you can use it to write the slides of your presentations. Here’s how it works:

First, go to the ChatGPT website and start a new chat. Create an account if you don’t have one already. It’s free!

Now ask ChatGPT to write the slides of your presentation. Give it as many details as you can. Specify the topic, how many slides your presentation has, ask it to include quotes and statistics, break down information into bullet points, etc.

Once it generates the copy, you can simply copy and paste the text directly into your slideshow. Make any adjustments as necessary.

You can take this a step further and use AI art generators to create unique illustrations, icons, and infographics for your presentation. Midjourney and DALL-E are some of the top tools you can use for this task. Just be mindful of their copyright policies if you plan on using the images for commercial projects.

This tip is not exclusive to PowerPoint. But if designing presentations is part of your job, it will make your life so much easier. Don’t be afraid of the AI tools, learn to take advantage of them.

Experiment With Color Schemes

Colors play a key role in every presentation. It helps set the mood and tone of your slideshow and has a huge impact on the success of your presentation.

As you know, there are psychological effects behind the colors you use. With the right colors, you can evoke emotions in your audience to make each slide in your presentation more impactful.

Experiment with different color schemes for your presentation designs. You can use a tool like Color Hunt to find beautiful color palettes for your slideshows. But always keep in mind to pick colors that are appropriate for your topic, audience, and your brand.

Contrast Is Key

Speaking of colors, you can also use them to create a strong contrast between the content and the background. For example, using a dark color for typography on a light background will highlight the text much more effectively. Or you can use colored shapes to bring attention to specific parts of a slide.

The same can be said about fonts. Using unique fonts will go a long way to help create contrast in your presentation. Check out our guide on choosing fonts for PowerPoint to learn more.

Take Advantage of Add-Ins

PowerPoint has a built-in store full of add-ons (or add-ins as it’s called in the software). And it’s one of the most underused features of PowerPoint.

This store is filled with amazing third-party tools that can supercharge your work and slideshows. There are hundreds of tools in this store you can install and use for free.

Explore the PowerPoint Add-Ins store and see what you can find. One of our favorites is the tool for adding QR codes to slides directly from the slide editor. We’ll explain it more in the next tip.

Add QR Codes In Slides

Using QR codes in PowerPoint presentations has two great benefits. One, it will make things much easier for you to share links, apps, and resources with your entire audience. Two, it will encourage the audience to engage and interact with your presentation.

Normally, you have to use online tools or apps to generate QR codes. But you can use a PowerPoint add-in to create QR codes directly from the slide editor.

Simply go to Insert > Get Add-ins and search for the Personalized QR Code Generator.

After installing the QR code tool, you can instantly generate QR codes and embed them into your slides to share links. The free version of this plugin will leave a small watermark in the QR code but it’s barely visible. Using QR codes is much cooler and more effective than sharing links as plain text.

Design Cool Image & Text Masks

Image masking is a popular effect used in graphic design for making photos and images appear more creative. With image masks, you can give unique shapes to images rather than boring and old square shapes. You can use it to make your slides look more interesting.

We found a simple YouTube tutorial that shows you how to design liquid image masks in PowerPoint.

You can also use text masks to create cool typography effects in PowerPoint. And yes, there’s a YouTube tutorial for that too. Try using these effects in your next presentation.

Instantly Remove Image Backgrounds

Have you been using Photoshop to remove the backgrounds of images? Well, now you don’t have to. Because PowerPoint has a tool that lets you get rid of image backgrounds with just a few clicks. Here’s how it works.

Select an image in your slideshow and go to the Picture Format tab then select the Remove Background option on the top-left side.

This tool will automatically make a selection of the background. If it clips into areas of the main object, use the Mark Areas tool to fix the selection. Then click the Keep All Changes button to finish.

Now you have a PNG-style JPG image without a background.

Design Posters & Flyers

PowerPoint can be used to create many cool things than just presentations. You can use it for simple graphic designs, such as posters and flyers.

You can use pre-made PowerPoint poster templates to easily make posters or flyers in vertical layout using the app. We also have a step-by-step guide on how to make posters in PowerPoint . Check them out to learn more.

This can be a huge money-saver when you have to design a quick poster for a project and don’t have access to software like Photoshop.

Export to Video & PDF

If you want to share your presentation with a wide audience, one of the best ways to do that is to convert your presentation into video format. That way, your audience will be able to watch your presentation even if they don’t have access to Microsoft PowerPoint software.

PowerPoint has a built-in function to help you with that process. Go to the File menu and select Export. From there you can choose the Create a Video option to convert your entire presentation into a video.

It’s perfect for creating video content for YouTube, online courses, and schools too. You can also export your presentation in PDF format or even turn it into a Word document.

In Conclusion

These are just a few of the cool PowerPoint tips and tricks we’ve found to be quite interesting. It’s surprising how much you can do with an app like PowerPoint. If you want to learn more cool PowerPoint tricks, be sure to check out our other guides.

Start with 7 tips for finding the perfect PowerPoint template . Also, read our 10 pro PPT tips guide. And our how to give a fun presentation guide has some useful tips too.

15 PowerPoint Tutorials to Help You Master PowerPoint

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Need PowerPoint Backgrounds? Read The Best Places to Find PowerPoint Backgrounds [+ Freebies]

PowerPoint is software for presentations that offers many opportunities for creativity. If you want to create visually appealing and engaging presentations, check out this collection of 15 beginner PowerPoint tutorials that will help you step up your game, no matter if you are a regular presenter or a beginner in the software.

In this selection of PowerPoint tutorials, we’ve included tutorials for beginners, intermediate and advanced users. Some are incredibly impressive and will teach you hacks that you never thought were possible in PowerPoint. Let’s begin!

*Last updated July 1st, 2022

2. Tips and Tricks for working with PowerPoint

Level: Intermediate / Advanced

A one-hour web session with PowerPoint guru Tess Ausman. In the video tutorial, she shares advanced tips and techniques for PowerPoint which will take your presentations to the next level. Animations, screencasts, and everything you need to know in order to use and master PowerPoint’s superpowers.

You may also want to check out these amazing  12 PowerPoint Presentation Tips .

3. How to add audio in PowerPoint?

Level: Beginners

PowerPoint is perfect for newbies and experienced presenters and it allows a lot of audio customization. Our guide shows you how to add audio to PowerPoint in a quick step-by-step guide. You will also see how to record yourself, to get the best results. All steps are explained with images, to ensure you understand the concept well. Adding audio is one of the first things you need to do to attract customers’ attention.

4. How to make photos 3D in PowerPoint?

It’s always a good idea to come up with interesting concepts. In this PowerPoint tutorial, you will learn how to use separate images and then add them to PowerPoint, to achieve a smooth 3D look. The video is quite long, so if you want to watch only the PowerPoint part, you can skip to 15:31.

5. How to collaborate in PowerPoint?

Level: Beginner / Intermediate 

Learning how to collaborate with your team is crucial. Fortunately, PowerPoint has advanced a lot over the years and nowadays it’s not hard to work together with your peers. There are many collaboration tutorials for PowerPoint but this one is extremely easy to apply.

6. How to Insert a GIF in PowerPoint?

Level: Beginner

GIFs are a very powerful method to deliver a message. They represent information in a more visual way. Our guide on how to insert GIFs into PowerPoint will help you insert simple animations and attract attention. On top of that, you will learn where you can find resources for inspiration. All steps are visualized for easy access.

7. How to Add Speaker Notes in PowerPoint?

Level: Intermediate

Speaker notes are crucial for all presenters. They let you memorize key phrases during the slides, and avoid any mishaps. In this PowerPoint video tutorial, you’ll learn not only how to add and show speaker notes, but also some of the reasons why people use them.

8. Microsoft PowerPoint Tutorial for Beginners Level 1

If you are a complete beginner to the software, we recommend to start off with a tutorial that covers the basics of working with PowerPoint. Jamie K. from Teacher’s Tech explains the basic functions and the interface options of the software and takes you through the process of creating a basic presentation.

9. Ten Powerful PowerPoint Tips

Level: Beginners / Intermediate

A video of PowerPoint hacks and tricks that will help you create a more appealing presentation design. Again created by Jamie K. from Teacher’s Tech, this video presents you to handy features in PowerPoint that reveal how to craft visually pleasing presentations more easily and quickly.

10. PowerPoint Slide Master tutorial – Placeholders & Basics

Working with Slide Master in PowerPoint requires you to be at least an intermediate user of the software, so we recommend you to check out the PowerPoint tutorials for beginners first. This great tutorial by Andrzej Pach introduces you to the Slide Master tool which will be really useful to you if you’d like to create custom presentation templates. His channel is full of useful videos, so we highly recommend you to check it out.

11. Three PowerPoint Hacks for Instant Improvement

Level: Advanced

A very insightful video tutorial by Leila Gharani who shares advanced hacks on how to instantly improve your presentations in PowerPoint. She talks about working with smart shapes, morph transitions, and advanced morph available in the newest version of PowerPoint. Every step is explained and the final result for your presentation is super impressive.

Need an amazing resume template? Take a look at these  Top Resume Powerpoint Templates to Help You Stand Out .

12. How To Make Videos in PowerPoint?

A tutorial by Michael Kinney who will teach you how to turn your PowerPoint slideshow into a narrated video. The tutorial assumes you are already familiar with the software and explains how to set up your mic, use the recording features in PowerPoint, and later on, export your presentation into a video.

13. Animated 3D Models in PowerPoint – Part 1, The Basics

Thanks to the evolving technologies, incorporation 3D objects in your PowerPoint presentation is now completely possible. The following video will introduce you to the basics of using 3D models in PowerPoint and is a part of a sequence, so if you feel impressed, you can check out the second video which will show you advanced tricks with 3D models in PowerPoint. The video tutorial is made by Lia from Spicy Presentations and for doing it, you will need to have the latest Microsoft Office 365.

You may also be interested in How to Add Audio to PowerPoint: The Quick Step-by-Step Guide

14. How To Create Parallax Effect PowerPoint Step-by-Step?

A video tutorial by One Skill who shows how to create a parallax effect in your PowerPoint presentation. The tutorial is suitable for users who are already familiar with the software and want to make their presentations more attractive and modern. This step-by-step narrated tutorial will help you get there easily!

15. 40 Best Animation Tutorials for PowerPoint

There are so many animation effects you can achieve with PowerPoint that they cannot possibly be gathered into one video tutorial. The YouTube channel The Teacher regularly uploads great PowePoint tutorials which can be achieved by users with at least intermediate knowledge of the software. In the video below, you will see previews of 40 great animation effects. If you like any, just look for it in the description of the video and head over the tutorial itself.

To wrap up,

PowerPoint is a software that offers a lot as long as you know how to use it right. We hope this collection of 15 PowerPoint tutorials was useful to you and helped you learn new tricks and tips. It certainly was useful to us! If you want to recommend PowerPoint tutorials that helped you master your skills, you are welcome to share them in the comments below.

You may also be interested in these related articles:

• The Best Free PowerPoint Templates to Download in 2022
• 35+ Free Infographic PowerPoint Templates to Power Your Presentations
• 50 Free Cartoon PowerPoint Templates with Characters & Illustrations

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Microsoft 365 Life Hacks > Presentations > PowerPoint Tips: Make The Most of Your Presentation

PowerPoint Tips: Make The Most of Your Presentation

Got a presentation coming up but you’re not that familiar with PowerPoint ? We can help you get started with some easy PowerPoint tips and tricks that’ll help you create an impactful presentation , no matter what the occasion.

Our PowerPoint for beginners tips will show you how to:

• Make an outline.
• Choose a theme.
• Find a font.
• Use visuals.
• Not use too much text.
• Limit your color.
• Use a free online “speaker coach”.

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Outline your presentation before you start. Don’t spend time making unnecessary slides for your presentation. Create an outline before you start. Not only will this make it easier to put the content on the slides, but it will also let you know how many slides you need to make. Rather than winging it and making slides as you go, use your outline to make your slides efficient and organized . Working without an outline can sometimes lead to jumbled slides with more information than you need.

Choose a theme and template. Not everybody is a graphic designer, so coming up with the perfect slide theme and template can seem hard. Thanks to PowerPoint templates, it isn’t. Find a free online template that gives you the design, layout, color scheme, and aesthetic you want. Be sure to choose something that fits what you’re talking about (e.g. Don’t use a whimsical theme with bright colors and butterflies if you’re presenting a serious topic.)

Find the right font . Knowing which font to use for your presentation isn’t always easy. When it comes to the basics of selecting the best font, follow best-practice recommendations that say an easy-to-read sans-serif font is preferred. Fonts like Arial, Calibri, Helvetica, and others like it make for simple fonts that are easy to read. Although, there are some serif fonts that still look great on PowerPoint and are easy to read on high-resolution screens. When you’re building out the format of your slides, a great way to distinguish the title section from the body text is by using a different font for each or bolding your title font.

Use visuals . Words on a page aren’t nearly as engaging as visuals. Keep your audience’s attention during your presentation by using visuals like graphics, animations, photos, and videos. PowerPoint makes it easy to insert clipart, tables, graphs, and much more by using the features built into the program. You can also include gifs and YouTube videos to up the ante on your presentation.

While it’s great to use fun gifs or YouTube videos to enhance your presentation, don’t go crazy. Eventually, your audience will get tired of looking at a five-second loop on a gif as you speak, and videos don’t always have the impact you want. Videos can be distracting to your audience because they change the pace of your presentation, so it’s a good idea to limit the number of videos you include.

Tip: If you’re going to lay words over a picture, use a colored box with the opacity down around 50% to create more contrast between the image and the words.

Limit your text. Your audience doesn’t want to read; they want to listen to you. Don’t fill your slides with long sentences and complex phrasing. Instead, include only the most important points of what you want to say. The PowerPoint 6×6 rule suggests limiting your slides to six lines with a maximum of six words per line. Following this rule makes for slides that include only the most important points while avoiding information overload. Using bullet points is a great way to stick to the 6×6 rule.

Go easy on the colors. Be careful of the colors you use when making a PowerPoint presentation. Too many bright colors can be hard on the eyes and reduce the contrast between the letters, making them hard to read. It’s generally a good idea to use a black or white font with a color that makes the font pop against the background. Black on white is always easy to read, and white looks great against most solid colors. If you’re not sure how a specific font color looks against a background, sit back in your chair, and try to read it. If it’s hard to read with the font and background you have, it’s a good idea to change one or both.

Use a free online “speaker coach”. Rehearsing in front of a mirror is good, but using free speaker coaching software is even better. Do you say “um” a lot? Are you talking too fast? Did you use a culturally insensitive term? A free digital “coach” with built-in AI will catch all that stuff and more.It’s the best way to assess your strengths and weaknesses and identify areas of growth.

These PowerPoint tips are enough to get you started on your presentation. Soon, you’ll be creating and presenting a beautiful deck.

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Advanced PowerPoint Presentation Tips and Hacks

Many have a love-hate relationship with Microsoft’s PowerPoint. While super flexible, the tool can also be manual, tedious, and all-consuming, especially for the uninitiated. Authored by a former management consultant and finance expert, this article will help every user—from the beginner to the advanced operator—smooth out some of their points of friction and become an expert-level user of the application.

By Melissa Lin

Melissa has worked in ECM, tech startups, and management consulting, advising Fortune 500 companies across multiple sectors.

Key Highlights

• Keep Your Presentations Simple: Minimize cluttered, distracting slide-decks that are overly saturated with content; they will lose or confuse your audience more often than not.
• Seek to Communicate One Takeaway per Slide: Streamline your message and its supporting content to one key takeaway per slide. Much more tends to reduce engagement, comprehension, and retention by your audience (think "diminishing economies of content").
• Leverage Illustrations in Place of Text: Prose-heavy presentations tend to induce content fatigue, which again induces a loss of engagement on the part of your audience. Relevant, high-quality images have proven themselves useful in maintaining engagement, especially for longer presentations.
• Understand That Formatting Is King: Clean, simple and consistent formatting, complete with discernible themes, colors, fonts, shapes and sizes perform wonders where creating a polished, professional, and finished product is concerned.
• Customize Your Quick Access Toolbar: The Quick Access Toolbar (QAT) is a customizable toolbar that sits above the PowerPoint ribbon, and where one can add frequently used commands. Effective use of the toolbar is a PowerPoint trick that eases friction for power users and saves hours in the long run.
• Use PowerPoint Shortcuts in Place of Your Mouse: Understand the functions that you use most frequently and memorize their keyboard shortcuts. This PowerPoint hack will cut hours of manual work from your PowerPoint experience.
• Create Your Own Go-to Templates: Using the "Slide Master" view in PowerPoint, you can create personal, pre-formatted, and pre-fabricated templates, complete with font choices, font sizes, color schemes, and more, that will minimize your formatting load in the "polishing" phase of your presentation.
• Work alongside you as a thought partner to design, create, and deliver a polished and professional PowerPoint presentation/pitch ahead of your meeting.
• Draft and clean up the content (literary) that will be featured in your slide deck, including your personal speaking points and audience takeaways.
• Create the financials, models, infographics, and outputs that will be featured in your slide deck.
• Assist you with dry-runs, rehearsals, and other preparation assistance ahead of the presentation date, with expert feedback and tips regarding performance.

Love It or Hate It…

Love it or hate it, PowerPoint is ubiquitous when it comes to formal presentations. Perhaps you are pitching a new proposal. Or perhaps you’ve spent weeks number-crunching or conducting intensive research and it’s time to communicate your findings to the relevant stakeholders. Whatever your purpose, PowerPoint is arguably one of the most important components of your success.

When I was a management consultant I lived in Microsoft Excel and PowerPoint, toggling between the two programs every day. I loved that PowerPoint’s flexibility allowed me to illuminate and transform data into a story—a story of financials, an industry’s growth trajectory, or recommendations for restructuring a business process. However, especially as I was just starting out, this flexibility often proved to be a double-edged sword. It was frustrating how tedious slide design could be, and how long it took to aesthetically perfect a slide. I often found myself choosing between effective slides that took hours to create and a more basic deck that was quick to produce but less effective in communicating the data and the message. It wasn’t until I mastered some essential PowerPoint tips and tricks that I no longer experienced this dilemma.

This article showcases a selection of advanced PowerPoint hacks and presentation tips and tricks that will enable you to use the tool with ease. It will hopefully also prevent you from sacrificing effective messaging in an effort to save time. While many PowerPoint articles provide qualitative advice around effectively delivering a message, this piece focuses on the technical components of how to make an advanced PowerPoint presentation. It utilizes functionalities and commands in Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2016 and 365 for PC. Let’s get started.

The Basics of Creating Effective PowerPoint Presentations

Though this article is designed for users with more advanced PowerPoint skills, it may be useful to kick off with a refresher of some basic do’s and don’ts for creating effective PowerPoint presentations. Subsequently, we may then delve into some of the nitty-gritty of PowerPoint’s more advanced features. Throughout my career, the following four rules have served me well:

Rule 1 - Keep Your Deck as Simple as Possible: Likely the most important PowerPoint rule, “less is always more” with great presentations. Avoid clutter; minimize flashy, complex slides with distracting clipart in motion; and always focus on delivering a clear and succinct message.

Rule 2 - Keep Each Slide to Just One Key Takeaway: Resist the temptation to throw the kitchen sink at your audience, in general, but especially on a per-slide basis. You will hold your audience’s attention far more easily and leave them with more tangible, digestible takeaways simply by limiting the scope of your content to just one key point per slide.

Rule 3 - Use Simple, High-Quality Graphics Often and in Place of Words: As an addendum to Rule 1, too many words on a page tend to be both tedious and a bore for your audience, often resulting in a loss of focus, or “content fatigue,” during your presentation. GIFs, graphs, charts, and other informative and relevant illustrations tend to be great ways to break up tedium and add dimension to your flow.

Rule 4 - Clean and Simple Formatting Will Take You Far: Clean bullet points, consistent color themes, soft font styles, and legible font sizes all go the distance in leaving a great, professional impression on your audience as you present a polished finished product. Calibri (font), in metallic grey (primary color), punctuated by sky-blues (secondary color) have worked wonders for me over my career. Feel free to adopt them.

Customizing the Quick Access Toolbar

The first step to becoming a PowerPoint expert is building your Quick Access Toolbar. It’s a customizable toolbar sitting above the ribbon, where you can add your favorite and most frequently used commands. Invest five minutes to set it up, and you won’t regret it—it’ll pay dividends each time you use PowerPoint thereafter. Here’s a quick lay of the land before we delve into the logistics:

To customize your toolbar’s functionality and ordering according to your preference, simply click the white downwards-facing arrow above your ribbon. Then click “More Commands” → Choose Commands from “All Commands” → Select and add your favorite commands. If you want to remove any commands, simply select the command and hit “Remove.”

My “must-haves” for the ultimate quick access toolbar (QAT):

Align: The alignment tool is hands-down my favorite tool in PowerPoint. Bypass the futile, manual effort and instead highlight the shapes you want to align, and choose which direction to align them. You can align objects to the middle, right, left, top, and bottom of each other. Keep in mind that the positions of the objects are all relative to each other.

If you want to use this tool outside of your QAT: Highlight your desired objects → Format tab in the ribbon → Click Align → Select your preferred alignment direction → The objects will be aligned.

Distribute: If you have multiple objects or shapes that you want to make equidistant from each other, this tool will be your new best friend. Before distributing objects, it’s best to first align them. Then, to distribute, simply highlight the objects you want to distribute, and select “distribute horizontally” or “distribute vertically.”

If you want to use this tool outside of your QAT: Highlight your desired objects → Format tab in the ribbon → Click Align → Select Distribute Horizontally or Distribute Vertically → The objects will be distributed.

Format painter: Allows you to copy the formatting from one object and apply it to another one. It is essentially copying and pasting , but for formatting and not content.

• One click on format painter: Applies the formatting from the original object to the next object you select/click on.
• Two clicks on format painter: Locks in the format painter. After double-clicking, any object you select will convert to the formatting of the first object. To unlock format painter, click on any white space on the slide (not an object).

If you want to use this tool outside of your QAT: Select the object you want to mimic → Click Format Painter once or twice in the Home tab in the ribbon → Click on the object you want to change → The formatting changes will be applied.

Rotate: As the name implies, this feature enables you to rotate objects, in increments of 90 or 180 degrees. You can rotate a text box, shape, WordArt, or picture. This includes rotations to the right 90 degrees, to the left 90 degrees, vertically, and horizontally.

If you want to use this tool outside of your QAT: Highlight your desired object(s) → Format tab in the ribbon → Click Rotate → Select your preferred rotation option → The objects will be rotated.

Life-changing PowerPoint Keyboard Shortcuts

You might think I’m exaggerating, but once you realize you don’t have to manually perform these actions, you won’t look back. Generally, utilizing PowerPoint does not require memorizing as many hot keys as Excel does , but there are a few that you should be aware of.

Easily change the order and indent level of bulleted text in text boxes:

• Change the order of bulleted text in text boxes: ALT + SHIFT + Up/Down Arrow Key
• Change the indent level of bulleted text in text boxes: ALT + SHIFT + Right/Left Arrow Key

Resize an object while keeping them regular and in proportion:

• Hold SHIFT while you’re resizing an object with your pointer/mouse

Micro-nudges (small nudges for your objects):

• Select the object and hold CTRL + Up/Down/Right/Left Arrow Key to move it

Duplicate your shape or object without copy & paste:

• CTRL + Drag the shape with your pointer/mouse

Ensure that your lines are actually straight:

• For vertical lines: Insert the shape → Right click → Format Shape → Size & Properties → Set “Height” to “0” → Perfectly straight line
• For horizontal lines: Insert the shape → Right click → Format Shape → Size & Properties → Set “Width” to “0” → Perfectly straight line

Transform a number into a footnote superscript:

• Type in the number of the footnote (e.g., 1, 2, 3) → Highlight the number → Hold CTRL + SHIFT + the equal sign (=) → Your number will now be a footnote superscript

Adjust the case of your text by toggling between text cases (lowercase, title case and all caps):

• Highlight the desired words and use the SHIFT + F3 shortcut. Each time you hit F3, the highlighted text will change to all lowercase, all caps, or title-style where only the first letter of a word is capitalized.

PowerPoint Design Tips for Common, Frustrating Situations

If you’ve worked in PowerPoint consistently, you’ve likely encountered the following conundrums. Instead of spending an unnecessary 15-30 minutes Googling the issue for a workaround, here’s how to navigate the situation every time:

How to convert text to SmartArt

Example Situation: I’ve got a list of boring bullets and I need inspiration to make them more polished.

Solution: Leverage the “Convert to SmartArt” tool.

Select the text box with the bullets → Under “Home” in the ribbon, Select “Convert to SmartArt” → Hover over different SmartArt options to see your bullets transformed → Select whichever SmartArt strikes your fancy, and continue to edit from there

How to Resize Multiple Objects/Shapes at Once

Example Situation: I used multiple shapes/images in the slide and I want to change their collective size without messing up the proportions.

First, group all the objects together. To group, highlight all objects and either right click → Group, or highlight and hit ALT + G.

Then, adjust the size with your mouse while holding SHIFT to keep the proportion. This will help you resize and fit multiple objects without distorting the original proportions and shapes.

How to Identify and Match Exact Colors

Example Situation: You need to utilize a specific, custom color but you can’t seem to find it in the color palette.

Solution: The eyedropper tool quickly identifies the exact color you are looking to match, and applies it to the text or object you are trying to change. While format painter can be helpful for applying the exact same formatting (size, coloring, etc.) from one object to another, sometimes you might only be looking to apply the same color. In these cases, the eyedropper tool is very helpful.

A common use case for this tool is for pitch decks. If you are looking to match the theme of the deck to the potential client/partner’s logo, the eyedropper tool can prove invaluable.

• Select the text box you want to change → Click on the coloring format → Select the eyedropper tool → Using the eyedropper tool, hover over the color you want to mimic → When the color’s identification appears, click the color you want

How to Leverage Arrows with Elbow Connectors

Example Situation: I’m trying to draw arrows from one shape to another, but the arrows are crooked and look unprofessional.

Solution: Use the arrows with an elbow connector (90-degree angles). They automatically snap to the center of an object and can be formatted in different colors and sizes. These are especially helpful when building organizational charts.

• Go to the Insert ribbon → Insert a shape → Under the “Lines” category, select the arrows with elbow connectors → Once selected, use the arrow to connect the center of one shape to the center of another shape → Repeat until completion

How to Fit Text into a Shape

Example Situation: I’m typing a text label into a shape, but the text doesn’t fit and breaks the word into two lines.

Solution: There are two ways to go about it:

• Option 1: Right-click the shape → “format the shape” → Change the text margins to “0” from the left, and “0” from the right. Nine times out of ten, this will solve your issue.
• Option 2: Forget about dealing with the original shape. Instead, insert a text box over the original shape (text box should use a transparent background) and type directly into the text box. The text will show up over the shape, but nobody will know it was a manual workaround.

How to Remove the Background of a Picture

Example Situation: I used an image from the web in a slide and I want to change the background image color but can’t figure out how to do it.

Solution: This technique is most effective when used on images with high contrast.

• First, you must remove the original background color of the image. Click on the image you want to change → Select the “Format” tab in the ribbon → Click “Remove Background” → Fix any portions that were not perfectly removed → Click outside the image when you’re ready
• Next, you will want to add in the new background color of the image. As you can see, the perfect execution of this does require a steady hand (that I clearly do not quite have). Still, it’s a helpful trick to have in your back pocket.

How to Convert a Table to Text Boxes

Example Situation: You want to convert a datatable into different formatting on another slide, but you don’t want to manually type the numbers in and risk a mistake.

Solution: Break your table into multiple text boxes and objects, which saves you the trouble of retyping the data and will be easier to manipulate

• Copy the entire table → Paste special (paste as picture enhanced metafile) → Ungroup it → Answer “yes” to the dialog box → Ungroup it again → Answer “yes” again.
• Voila, now your table has been broken into text boxes and shapes. You can now copy and paste the data you need into another slide and re-format as you like.

How to Make a Table’s Rows or Columns the Same Size

Example Situation: You’ve created and filled a table with data, but the size of some rows or columns do not match the others. Your OCD starts to kick in but you can’t figure out how to get them to match perfectly.

Solution: Use the “Distribute Rows” and “Distribute Columns” tools.

• Select the entire data table → “Layout” tab in the Ribbon → Click “Distribute Rows” and “Distribute columns.”

Other PowerPoint Features and Best Practices

Create custom deck templates using Slide Master, which can be found under the “View” tab in the ribbon. Slide Master allows you to quickly modify the slide design in your presentation. You can either customize the slide master, which will affect every slide in the presentation, or you can modify individual slide layouts, which will change any slides using those layouts.

Rely less on your eyesight when moving objects around with the Guides or Gridlines view. First, you should adjust your settings to utilize the “Snap-to-Grid” function. Here’s how to do so: “View” tab → Click on the “Grid Settings” next to the word “Show” → Enable “Snap objects to grid. If you’d like to view the actual guides or gridlines, you can select these options under the “View” tab in the ribbon; they can easily be turned on and off. Please note that you can move guides around, while gridlines are set.

Link a chart from your Excel workbook to your PowerPoint presentation to enable dynamic updating of numbers.

• When your chart is ready in Excel, copy the chart → Toggle to PowerPoint → In the “Home” tab in the ribbon, click “Paste” → Select “Paste Special” → Select “Paste Link” and “Microsoft Excel Chart Object” → Now when you update the numbers in Excel, the chart in PowerPoint will update dynamically. This feature works best when both programs are open in tandem.
• If you close the Excel document and then update the figures in the table, remember to go back to your PowerPoint chart, right-click the chart, and select “Update link” to ensure that the data is refreshed.

On busy slides crowded with data, visually highlight your main takeaway at the bottom. A rectangular box (as shown below) is common.

Remember to include keys with your graphs and charts to help orient your audience.

Slide Templates and Presentation Graphics for Common Concepts

Have you ever felt déjà vu when designing a new PowerPoint deck? It’s probably because we often create new slides to convey similar concepts, even if the content is different—be it a process, progress, or an organizational chart. At the end of the day, it makes sense to reuse a slide structure even if the actual content refreshes. To communicate these common concepts, many of the largest consulting firms repeatedly utilize the following slide components:

Project Schedule: Gantt Chart

Organizational Structure: Organizational chart

Process: Arrows leading into one another

Indicating the degree to which a particular item meets a criterion: Harvey Balls

Final Thoughts

Thus, As I began, so shall I finish. PowerPoint presentations don’t have to be painful. Like most personal and professional skills, practice, consistency, and attention will get you most of the way there. Once you become familiar with the application as a powerful productivity and storytelling tool, gain comfort with its nuances and logic/flow, and, dare I say, begin to leverage this article as a how-to companion, you might actually find yourself beginning to enjoy building PowerPoint presentations as you transition toward mastering them.

In the interim, if you are interested in reviewing some top consulting presentations that put a lot of my content into practice, feel free to browse 30 McKinsey presentations and a mix of Mckinsey, Boston Consulting Group and The Parthenon Group decks .

With that, happy building!

Understanding the basics

How do i customize the quick access toolbar in powerpoint.

• Click the white downward-facing arrow above your ribbon; 2. Click “More Commands”; 3. Choose Commands from “All Commands”; 4. Select and add your favorite commands; 5. If you want to remove any commands, simply select the command and hit “Remove.”

What makes for an effective PowerPoint presentation?

Adhere to the following: (1) Err toward simplicity, in message and illustration; (2) Limit the use of prose (bullets are more succinct); (3) Use high-quality illustrations in place of text; (4) Use video or audio; and (5) Be sure you have a clear objective, point, and/or use-case for the end output.

How do I link an Excel chart to PowerPoint?

• Copy your Excel chart; 2. In PowerPoint’s “Home” tab, click “Paste”; 3. Select “Paste Special”; 4. Select “Paste Link” and “Microsoft Excel Chart Object” → The numbers are dynamic; 5. If you close Excel and then update the raw data, right click the PowerPoint chart, and select “Update link” to refresh the data.
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8 Life Changing PowerPoint Hacks for Consultants

By Paul Moss

If you spend all day in powerpoint, these 8 powerpoint hacks will completely change the way you work..

More than any other profession of which I am aware, Management Consultants are obsessed with PowerPoint efficiency. Often under tight deadlines, consultants at places like Bain, McKinsey, and BCG have to find creative ways to churn out slides in a matter of minutes, using whatever PowerPoint wizardry they can conjure. Most often that means using a simple keyboard shortcut, repeated hundreds of times throughout the day. But other times it’s more about “the art of the possible”, and knowing the features available to you as slide creator.

In this post I’ll be covering the 8 absolutely best PowerPoint shortcuts I’ve learned throughout my career as a consultant turned MBA turned corporate strategist turned PowerPoint instructor. I’ll start with some basic ones, then build on each to show you how the usefulness of each compounds as you combine them together. 

Important note:  if you haven’t already make sure you download our  Top 50 PowerPoint Shortcuts  cheat sheet. It’s a list of our 50 best keyboard shortcuts for PowerPoint ranked and organized for maximum clarity.

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PowerPoint Hack #1 – Quick Copy

The very first hack on our list is a keyboard shortcut that allows you to quickly copy objects on a slide. It’s really simple. All you need to do is just  hold the control key and click on the object you want to copy, then just drag it away .

This might not seem like a big deal; I’m sure you already know how to copy objects (in fact there are multiple ways). But remember that although this is a very small action, it’s something you’ll do over and over, so learning how to do it quickly can really pay dividends.

If you’re really serious about improving your slide building speed your underlying goal should be to use whatever you already have on the slide, rather than going up to the ribbon each time to add new objects like boxes or text. Over time this is really going to save you a lot of time. 

PowerPoint Hack #2 – Move Objects in a Straight Line

This one is similar to the copy shortcut except this time you’ll just  hold shift and drag the object away,  and instead of copying the object it will move the object in a straight line.

But the real power with this shortcut comes when you combine it with the first one. Essentially this lets you copy something like a box and put it directly below the original. 

This probably seems pretty boring still. But stick with me, it’s about to get more interesting…

PowerPoint Hack #3 – Repeat Commands

Now that you can copy objects in a straight line really quickly you’re ready for hack number three, which is to  use the F4 key to repeat commands.  For example, if I decide I want to change one of my boxes to green I can do that by selecting the box, then moving my cursor up to the ribbon and selecting a green shape fill. But then when I want to change the next object to green, I can just select it and then hit the F4 key. 

This is helpful enough but check out what happens when we combine all three of the shortcuts we’ve learned to actually start building a slide. Let’s say I’m trying to build a slide with four subtitle boxes on the left. Once I have my first box in place I can just  hold Control and Shift   then click and drag  it down to make my second box. But then after copying the box I can  hit F4,  and PowerPoint is going to copy the boxes down and also space them all evenly apart.

So already in just a few seconds I’ve got a main chunk of my slide completed and it’s already formatted and spaced exactly how I want. Okay but hang on, it’s about to get even better…

PowerPoint Hack #4 – Ribbon Shortcuts

The next hack is to use ribbon shortcuts, which can help you format shapes and objects really quickly. The ribbon is the bar of commands at the top of PowerPoint where you’ve got most everything you need. For example in the home tab you can change the size of your font, or in the insert tab you can add new objects like a box or a table.

This is probably all stuff you already know. But what’s genius about the way Microsoft has set this all up, is you can actually access all of these commands with your keyboard without having to memorize anything – which can really save you a lot of time.

All you have to do is  hit the Alt key  followed by the letter for the tab you’re trying to open, then the letter for the command you’re trying to use. For example, here is the process I would follow to change the font color: Alt –> H –> FC. 

Now before you fall asleep because this is the world’s most boring hack, let me show you how much time it can save you. Let’s say I want to take one of the boxes on my slide and turn it into a regular text box with bullet points.

First I’ll copy the original box over while  holding Control and Shift,  then I’ll just use the commands in my ribbon to change the box (I’ll need to change other things too like the font color, shape fill, and shape outline). But instead of using my mouse to come up to the ribbon every time, I’m just going to use my ribbon shortcuts.

This might look like I’m going lightening fast but what I’m doing is actually really simple. I’m just following the shortcuts it shows me when I hit the Alt key. And let me reassure you, getting to this level is not hard at all.

So now I can combine all of the shortcuts together to put together the meat of my slide really quickly:

But hang on, it’s about to get even better…

PowerPoint Hack #5 – Copy and Paste Formatting

This next hack is probably my absolute favorite of the bunch because it’s gotten me out of a lot of sticky situations. The hack is copy and paste formatting, and just like it sounds this lets you copy the formatting of one object onto another object.

Let’s say I decided I wanted it change one of these boxes into a set of bullet points, like what you see in the two columns on the right. First I’ll just select the bullet points,  hit Control + Shift + C  and then select the box and  hit Control + Shift + V.

And check that out – the box is no longer a box, it’s a set of bullet points. I can’t tell you how helpful this really is, especially when you start doing multiple objects at once.

Another situation where this is really helpful is when you’re trying to adjust the formatting to look the exact same on every object, but for some reason the formatting of the objects look a little different from each other. Maybe the margins are off, or the line spacing is different, or the font size is off by half a point.

Rather than trying to find and fix what’s different, you can just copy the formatting from one object, and paste it onto the other. Then magically the formatting for all the objects is the exact same. Seriously, this will really save you in a pinch

PowerPoint Hack #6 – Align and Distribute 

With the slide in place lets say we wanted to make it 5 rows instead of the current four. Easy enough right? We just select the entire bottom row and drag it down using hacks #1 and #2 from earlier.

Well, obviously that creates a problem because not only is there not enough room down at the bottom of the slide, but now the spacing between the boxes is all off. To fix this we’ll need to use the distribute command, which is going to allow us to take the boxes and distribute them evenly. To do that select all the boxes you want to distribute, then  go up to the home tab, then Arrange, down to Align, and select Distribute Vertically.

See how the spacing between each of these is perfect now? Now we can do the same for the second two rows but this time using the ribbon shortcuts. I’ll  hit Alt, H, G, A… then select V  to distribute these vertically. Then I’ll do the same thing for the last column only this time I’ll do it at normal speed. 

Taking it a step further, let’s pretend that one of the boxes was slightly sticking out. To align them all in a straight line I could just follow the same path with my ribbon shortcuts, but then instead of using the distribute command, I could  select L for Align Left.  Now all the boxes are perfectly aligned and distributed. 

So now we have five rows like we want instead of four, and they’re all evenly distributed and aligned and I can sleep peacefully at night knowing everything is placed where it should be.

PowerPoint Hack #7 – Group and Ungroup Objects

Now I’m going to show you how to speed up that process just a little bit. Then we have one more mega hack at the end and we’ll be done.

It was kind of a pain to have to distribute each of these columns individually. I’d rather just distribute all the rows at once and save myself some time. The way to do this is by using the group command. Basically what that does is it allows you to treat a bunch of objects as one single object. What that’s going to let me do is select an entire row, group it together – which you can do by  hitting control G  – then distribute the whole thing at once.

There’s a whole lot more you can do with the group command that I can’t cover here but it really is a neat shortcut that will significantly help your slide building (to learn all the ins and outs check out our  Advanced PowerPoint  course).

PowerPoint Hack #8 – Quick Access Toolbar (QAT)

That brings me to the final hack – the quick access toolbar or the QAT. Remember back when we were using ribbon shortcuts to align and distribute objects (you know like 1 minute ago)?

Commands like that are great but sometimes can be a hassle because sometimes you have to hit 4-5 keys to get to the command you want. This is where the QAT comes in handy. It basically allows you take whatever command you want and create a really simple shortcut for it.

Let’s take the distribute command for example. If I go there with my mouse I can  right click on the command  and then add it to the quick access toolbar which is the row of commands at the very top of the screen that’s always showing no matter what ribbon tab you’re on.

So when I need to distribute vertically I can just click on the icon I need in the QAT. But then not only that, I can access it just like I do my ribbon shortcuts  by hitting the Alt key, and then whatever number shows up.  In this case rather than having to hit Alt H G A V, I can just hit Alt 5 to distribute my objects. 

Once you’ve customized your QAT how you want you can cut your slide building time in half. The trick is to add commands that you use often, but are also a little tricky to get to with the mouse. Which is why a lot of people like to add the Align and Distribute commands. 

Concluding Thoughts

With over 1,000 keyboard shortcuts available, PowerPoint is a very “hackable” piece of software. If you find yourself building presentations day in and day out, learning even just a few of these hacks can really save you time. Start with the 8 I’ve described today and you’ll see a significant boost in your productivity. Then be sure to download the  Top 50 PowerPoint Shortcuts cheat sheet  for some more easy-to-memorize hacks. 

You can watch a video version of this article on YouTube .

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PowerPoint hacks you've never heard of

Have you ever seen a very good colleague working on PowerPoint , only to be struck by something he does, and you don’t understand how he did it?

You know, those gestures, those functions or shortcuts that surprise you and that if you’d known them before, you would have saved a lot of work time? I’ll show you 10 PowerPoint Hacks you’ve never heard of.

With time and experience, I have learned countless functions, generally by working directly on PowerPoint presentations and also by answering specific community questions.

So, I decided to create a list of PowerPoint tricks that, in my opinion, are more interesting and can really change your life, saving you an important amount of time.

From now on, I’ll update this list every time I discover a new, interesting trick. So, do not hesitate to give me some suggestions!

Let’s start.

PowerPoint Hacks You May Not Know About

1. make multiple images the same size.

If you have two or more images of different sizes and proportions and you want to make them uniform in size, how do you do it? Here’s one of our PowerPoint hacks to make it fast and easy.

In the article Free images for PowerPoint presentations: the definitive guide, I explained how to use proportional Crop images in PowerPoint which, in my opinion, is a very useful technique in many situations and fits well in this case.

Let’s see an example.

I pasted 3 images of different sizes and proportions.

To make them all the same size , traditionally, you just have to choose the reference image and then re-proportion the cutouts of the other 2 on the dimensions of the first.

To do this, the only solution would seem to be overlaying the images to be cut out on the first image and manually proportion the cropping frame.

I remind you that the frame is recognized by the black handles around the image . Do not confuse it with the image handles, the white dots, which are used to resize the image itself (not the frame).

Note that I have matched the cropping frame with the dimensions of the image below.

Now I fill the cropping frame with the “Fill” command located inside the cropping menu, and the image will be centered and cut proportionally on the side edges so as to perfectly fill the cropping frame.

Repeating the operation, I get the same result and finally have the three alternatives re-proportioned, but there is a much smarter way.

Select the three images and access the menu called “Picture Layout” which, to be clear, is a kind of Smart Art menu dedicated to images.

I recommend a simple layout to the images clean up, and you will soon understand why.

You will get a sort of Smart Art that cages the images, re-proportioning them and making them uniform in size.

In our case, the text and cage are superfluous, so we can eliminate them. With the right mouse button, divide the group twice.

If you have the operating system in English, the shortcut is CTRL + SHIFT + G to split the group while you can use CTRL + G to group.

Now select and delete the blue rectangles, retaining only the images.

As you can see, the  re-proportioned images all of the same size. This technique can save you a lot of time when working with images in PowerPoint . Add it to the techniques presented in the complete guide of images in PowerPoint to complete your timesaving arsenal.

A special mention to my friend Taylor, from whom I learned this technique .

Taylor’s technique is not bad at all, but if you’ve started to know me, you know how much importance I give to efficiency, and this PowerPoint hack requires multiple steps to get the result.

Moreover, the technique works because the images are set as the background of some shapes, so the final result is not images, but shapes with your images as a background, and this affects the graphics quality of the images.

For this reason, I decided to develop my functionality to resize images in PowerPoint.

First, insert images from the MLC Assets panel directly into PowerPoint . If you do not know the panel, I invite you to consult the search section and insert images directly into PowerPoint article:

Note that I have chosen images of different sizes and proportions. The proportions of the images are an additional problem compared to the shapes that, in fact, can be more easily resized.

You do not want to unmask an image by applying the proportions of another!

Let’s try to apply the dimensions and proportions of the image of the tiger to the other two.

I select the image of the tiger, select the other two and then use the “Make Same Size” button of the MLC PowerPoint Addin .

The images will be immediately resized proportionally.

Now I want to talk to you about the next point, so I’ll leave you to examine the MLC PowerPoint addin on the reference page.

Write to me if you have any questions.

2. Keep everything at your fingertips with the Quick Access Toolbar

Among the most-used PowerPoint Hacks by those who work professionally in PowerPoint , there are alignments and distributions .

Let’s take the example in which 3 shapes sit on the same slide and you want to align them vertically with respect to their center.

How do you do it as quickly as possible?

Let’s see the necessary steps. After selecting the three shapes, you have to open the “Arrange” menu and then the “Align” sub-menu to be able to click once on the “Align Middle” alignment (x1 click + x1 Submenu + x1 click ).

You have aligned them, now suppose you also want to distribute them.

Open the “Arrange” menu again, the “Align” sub-menu and, this time, select the horizontal distribution button.

Finally, the three forms are aligned and distributed, but it has certainly not been efficient. Want to see what would be really efficient?

Look under the main ribbon of my PowerPoint , do you notice something?

Enlarged for clarity, this is my “Quick Access Toolbar” (QAT).

Do we try to redo alignment and distribution with the functions available just a click away?

I select the shapes and I click on the two buttons Align and Distribute. Very simple!

What am I suggesting?

If you have not already done so, this is the time to set up your Quick Access Toolbar, and that should include a set of basic features, arranged in a specific order to enhance your efficiency in PowerPoint .

Once you understand how this amazing tool works, you can even customize it by adding all the features you want.

Let’s start by opening your “Quick Access Toolbar” which, unless you have already undertaken customization, will be on top of the ribbon.

Do you see that little arrow at the end of the features?

That is the arrow you need to open the “Quick Access Toolbar” settings. In fact, clicking on it opens the menu that shows you some of the main commands that you can include in the QAT, simply by ticking them and then the “More Commands” option.

By clicking on “More Commands”, you can access the QAT administration panel.

The functions box on the left shows all the most popular PowerPoint commands (Popular Commands), while the box on the right shows the commands included in the QAT.

The first 5 commands of my QAT are automatically inserted by PowerPoint ;  the others are those that I have inserted and distributed, those on which we will focus.

Do we set your QAT by copying the basic functions from mine?

For me, the basic functions are all the alignments , the distributions , the door forward and the back door.

First of all, I advise you not to look only at the most popular commands, because you will not find any alignments or distributions. Replace “Popular Commands” with “All Commands” to display a list of all the commands in PowerPoint . There are plenty of other PowerPoint hacks to work with here!

To move a command from the left box to the right one, simply select it and then click on the “Add” button.

Look for the first alignment button in alphabetical order.

Click the “Add” button repeatedly to add all 6 alignment buttons to your QAT:

1. Align Object Bottom

2. Align Object Center

3. Align Objects Left

4. Align Object Middle

5. Align Objects Right

6. Align Objects Top

The typical mistake is to add other alignment buttons that are not part of these 6 or to add the “Align Objects” menu that would add a little arrow with the list of all the alignments in the QAT, moving them a click away from you.

You can add the “Bring to Front” and the “Send to Back” functions from this same menu, in the same way. The purpose of these buttons is to allow you to quickly send behind or bring an object in front of you without going crazy with the levels.

Finally, all you have to do is add the function to rotate shapes 90° , which can often be convenient to have on hand.

Once you move the buttons into the box on the right, it’s time to rearrange them so you can always have them at your fingertips. For this reason, I suggest you follow the order I set up because after years of testing, it proved to be the most effective.

One last tip:  move the QAT under the ribbon so you have it right near the work area and minimize mouse travel.

You can also watch my video tutorial on how to setup a Quick Access Toolbar.

Now you have the QAT set correctly, aside from the last buttons which are included in MLC PowerPoint Addin. 

3. Quickly duplicate any object

You have an object on the slide and you want to duplicate it several times by arranging it in line with the first one. How do you do it? Are there any PowerPoint hacks to make it easy?

The most common answer is copy-paste (CTRL + C and CTRL + V). And then position by hand, or with the alignment functions at the desired point.

What if I wanted to duplicate it again? You just have to repeat the procedure.

There is a PowerPoint function called “ Duplicate ” and it is activated with the keyboard command CTRL + D.

Let’s see how it works.

When you select a shape and activate the CTRL + D shortcut, it’s as though you copy-paste the square.

Now position it manually, like you did before.

At this point, if you reactivate the CTRL + D shortcut, the square will be duplicated, keeping the alignment and the distribution (same distances).

Interesting, right? But I want to take it to an even higher level. In fact, this basic PowerPoint duplication technique has a problem, in that the first square has to be aligned manually.

I propose you the alternative I use.

Select the first image , hold CTRL (to duplicate) and SHIFT (to constrain the drag to the horizontal axis or abscissa).

Once positioned, you are ready to apply the great trick.

Try using the CTRL + Y combination, and the shape will be duplicated while maintaining distribution and alignment.

This advanced form of duplicating is more accurate than CTRL + D because, in this case, the restricted drag of the mouse is achieved thanks to the SHIFT button and, therefore, nothing is left to the free hand of the operator. 

Do you have any other PowerPoint hacks for this?

4. Getting rid of bullet points

The classic bullet list is one of the most serious ills in PowerPoint.  Here is an example.

We know that bullet points in presentations are not effective because they force the audience to read, distract them and cause the loss of attention that many speakers suffer because of their own slides.

One of our PowerPoint hacks is to fix the bullet point.

To solve a bullet point, the first thing to do is to independently manage each bullet point.

Are you wondering how to separate each bullet from the text box?

Certainly I will not tell you to drag the text sentence by sentence into new text boxes, because it would mean repeating an inefficient action several times.

An alternative is to convert the bulleted list into a SmartArt.

At first glance, it seems that you have caged the text in a model. In fact, all you need to do is split the group twice to get each separate point.

If you have the operating system set in English, the keyboard shortcuts are: CTRL + G to group and CTRL + SHIFT + G to divide.

To arrange them horizontally, simply drag the first one to the left, the last one to the right

And then combine the align and distribute functions.

I’ll show you first the distribute (function) that makes you better understand the dynamics of what I’m doing.

Now I can align center.

Now you just need to group the shapes and drag them inside the perimeter of the slide.

This procedure is certainly much more efficient than dragging any message outside the main text box.

However,  dealing constantly with bullet points in the slides of my clients, I have developed an even more efficient alternative.

Do you remember the initial bullet point?

Just select it and apply a function that I have integrated into the MLC PowerPoint Addin, called “ Split “. This function breaks the bullet point into independent text boxes in a single click (the “Merge” button obviously does the opposite).

For the arrangement, it could then be combined with the historical “Grid Shapes” function that is always present in the MLC ribbon.

To prepare the texts before applying the “Grid Shapes”, make them smaller and remove the bullet point.

Launch the “ Grid Shapes “, setting the distribution on 4 columns and a row.

There’s still a trick I’ve used,  and you’ve probably noticed that I have never closed the MLC ribbon, not even to make the text smaller.

How did I reduce the text without clicking on the button to make it smaller on the “Home” tab?

No, I didn’t use a shortcut.

In fact there are some very frequently used features (like font size change) on PowerPoint that do not have very practical keyboard shortcuts.

For this reason, I have provided myself with a very, very special mouse that allows me to be even more efficient when I work with PowerPoint .

Thanks to my very efficient friend Taylor, who taught me this hack.

5. Fixed page numbers (requires knowledge of the slidemaster in PowerPoint)

Have you ever had to add the page number to your slides?

In the PowerPoint default template, the page number is shown at the bottom right of the slide.

Do you remember how to apply the page number? Here’s one of our PowerPoint hacks to help.

In the insert menu, you will find two small buttons that open the same panel, from which you can check all the footers of your presentation.

The second panel entry concerns the page number.

Once checked, just click “Apply to All” to apply the page number to all slides. To be precise, the page number will be seen in all slides that are linked to a layout in the master that contains the field footer (If you do not know what I’m talking about, it means that you’re probably losing a lot of time when you work in PowerPoint , so I suggest you learn what the slidemaster really is and how to use it – Slide Master PowerPoint: the Complete Guide to make the best use of it ).

Another interesting check is the option “Do not show on title slide”, which allows you to hide the page number from the title slide so that it starts from the first slide.

This is very useful when you do not want the page number in the opening cover, and I expect that you don’t brutally delete it with the mouse, because it is a master placeholder that should be treated appropriately.

The page number is a very useful tool that I use often in my presentations, but it has a problem that I find very frequently.

When more people work on the same presentation, the page number ends up being modified or moved from its original location.

I would like to give you an example where each slide has a page number that is sized and positioned differently.

It’s not strange that something like this happens because the page number is a text placeholder, which it is easy to stumble across during the processing of a slide. Therefore, you may need to move it or resize a PowerPoint slide easily , and this can result in a dancer page number on your slides.

One day, during a training session, a person asked me if it is possible to set the page number in the master so that it could not move in normal mode when working on the slides.

Thanks to this input and a bit of testing we did that day, I discovered this useful technique, which I want to share with you.

To access the placeholder of the page number, you must enter in the slidemaster (I repeat that if you are not prepared on, you should look at Slide Master PowerPoint: the Complete Guide to make the best use of it ).

When you enter the slidemaster, positioned on the first slide (the theme), look at the bottom right. See the page number?

That is the placeholder of the page number.

The page number is a rather special placeholder ; it is identified by a pound sign in quotation marks.

In fact, when you apply it to changing slides, it increases by +1 and counts the pages automatically. But, being a placeholder, if you click on it during normal view, you can easily modify it and lose its functionality.

In the example below, I selected it and wrote in it to show you how easy it is to change it.

How do you block the page number so that no one can change it while maintaining its functionality (that is, that it updates slide by slide)?

The technique consists of imposing the special field: a page number inside an object that you can modify only in the master that is a text box.

Enter the slidemaster and insert a text box (not a text placeholder). Place it just above the placeholder of the page number to let you see the difference once set.

Instead of writing in the text box, apply the special text field: page number.

Be careful: Applying the page number via the button directly in the text box is not the same as writing it by hand. If you write it by hand, it doesn’t work, as the complete, hidden formula is not built into the slides.

At this point, exit the slidemaster.

On the slide, you will have two page numbers: the placeholder indicated in gray, and your text box. Try pulling a selection box with the mouse and selecting them both. What happens?

The placeholder can easily be modified by anyone that clicks on it, while the text box is protected from any changes; the only way to change it is to enter the slidemaster.

Now try to create some slides and you’ll see that the number is updated progressively, just like the placeholder field.

With this technique, you have learned to protect the page number from accidental changes that may occur during the processing of slides, especially in presentations made by more than one person, with different needs and styles.

6. Learn how to manage layers in PowerPoint

Do you know that in PowerPoint objects can be overlapped on each other?

This means that PowerPoint thinks of objects as levels, so it is possible to create a scale of priorities according to what is above which object.

One of our PowerPoint hacks is to understand the best way to utilize these layers.

In the paragraph where we talked about the Quick Access Toolbar, we have placed the buttons “Bring to Font” and “Send to Back” at your fingertips just to be able to manage the front level and background.

What happens if I have more items and intermediate levels to manage?

In this case, the level management panel can be very useful. Do you know where it is?

You can find the layer management panel in the “Home” tab under the heading “Select”.

The panel shows you the order of the levels of the objects you have on the slide, from top to bottom. Those at the top are in front, while those at the bottom are in the background.

By clicking on the name of the levels, you can change the name.

You can change the order of priority simply by dragging objects within the panel.

You can also hide some objects temporarily by clicking on the eye that is to the right of the level.

This function is extremely useful in cases where you want to lock an object once positioned, so you can work on everything else without clutter and then have it reappear at the end.

In the example in the picture , I could hide the oval that is in the foreground to work comfortably on the levels placed below, and then let it reappear in its place when I finish.

7. How to make a transparent image in PowerPoint

PowerPoint provides you with a good number of tools to edit images and customize them to make them effective

There is a technique that allows you to set a certain level of transparency on images in PowerPoint on Windows – How to Make Images Transparent in PowerPoint . I extracted this technique from the definitive guide to use images, to share it in this list of very special techniques.

Making a transparent image is an exceptional technique to create compositions in which the background image creates the context and the overlapping image an enrichment.

Thanks to the transparency, you can get effects in PowerPoint for which you often use Photoshop.

Wondering how to do it?

Get a high resolution image to be placed at full slide on your slide (Access millions of free, high resolution images free from copyrights from MLC Images for Presentations ).

Desaturate it, since we will keep it in the background and it has pretty bright colors. Keep this image in the background.

Now get another image to overlay the background and to which you’ll apply degrees of transparency.

Since this image represents a brainstorming and the principal object for each session of sharing ideas is post-it notes, I thought using an image of hands with post-its would fit.

I got an image with the white background so I can quickly remove the background in PowerPoint and keep my hands.

The PowerPoint background removal feature allows you to set a single color of the image to transparent. For this reason I need the background to be uniformly white.

In this image , I’ve removed the background, so I just have to size the image so that it overlaps the whole page.

Activate the cropping frame, drag it horizontally, while holding down CTRL on the keyboard, to cover the entire slide with a single drag.

Now enlarge the image so that it fades the cropping frame and do not worry because all the parts that exceed the frame will be automatically cropped (note the black parts out of the frame).

Now it is time to give transparency to the image superimposed on the background.

Insert a rectangle.

Give the rectangle the same dimensions as the image . To do this you can simply drag the edges of the rectangle until they coincide with the image that, in this case, coincides with the edges of the slide.

To go faster, I like to use the Make Same Size function of the MLC PowerPoint Addin .

Cut the image to give transparency (CTRL + X). The image disappears but is actually saved in the clipboard. You just need to paste it with CTRL + V to make it visible again on the slide.

Select the shape with the right button and click on the “Format Shape” option.

Apply a background that is not the usual “Solid Fill” but “Picture or texture Fill” and indicates that it comes from the Clipboard.

Assign a background to the shape, to which you can apply transparency.

Here is your image that has acquired the desired transparency.

I showed you how to take the image from the Clipboard because I think it is the most advanced and interesting technique, but clearly you could take the image directly from a file,  as shown in this video of Microsoft .

What do you think? Did you like this technique?

The last technique I want to show you is the simplest and it is useful only when you have to add trasparency to pictures .

All you need to do is to go to “Format” section, click on the image and select the grade of trasparency.

This technique is available only with the last update of PowerPoint.

8. Record videos in PowerPoint

Have you ever wanted to record a video of your screen while doing operations? Maybe you want to record a presentation, a course, or simply show steps to a friend or colleague on the other side of the screen. What software do you use?

There are many alternatives. The search for the easiest and most immediate free tool on Google to make videos often takes you on strange sites to download viruses, never really finding the tool you want.

Or you have to use a paid solution but, unless you are really professional, you are looking for a way to record your screen that is decent but not the best recording tool in the world.

PowerPoint has a feature that allows you to record videos of your screen or part of your screen, and then it makes them available in .mp4 format;

Too easy, right? In fact, it is!

In the “Insert” tab, there is a button called “Screen Recording” which allows you to record sessions of a selected area of your screen.

Note that the shot must not necessarily take place in PowerPoint ; you could take a recording of everything you want out of PPT.

After clicking on “Screen Recording”, a small panel appears at the top of your screen with 5 main functions:

Record : Start recording.

Stop : Stop recording.

Select Area : Indicate the area to be registered.

Audio : Record audio or not.

Record Pointer : Record pointer movements.

Clicking on the red button start recording, imagine it as your clapperboard!

To stop shooting, if you lose sight of the small panel at the top of the screen, you can simply perform the keyboard combination WINDOWS + SHIFT + Q.

The video will be available on PowerPoint in the slide where you were working. You can use it directly in the presentation or save it as an MP4 and use it as you like.

9. How to create image templates in PowerPoint

If I ask you to transform this image :

Applying a set of templates in PowerPoint .

Can you do it?

I’ll show you another example to help you understand how much you can play with this technique.

I leave to your galloping fantasies more creative experiments, so I will explain the technique.

To create a template formed by many different shapes in an image , the first thing to do is draw the template with simple shapes in PowerPoint .

The set of shapes that I have designed represents the template that I will apply to the image .

For the technique to work, you must group all the forms into one group. Then select them all (CTRL + A) and then right click on Group> Group (CTRL + G for English operating systems).

All the shapes will now be grouped together in a single selection box.

Select an image , right-click on the image and click “Cut” (CTRL + X).

The image disappears from view, but is actually saved in the Clipboard.

Now select the template with the right mouse button, open the “Format Shape” menu and assign a background from an image taken in the clipboard.

As long as you keep the merged group, you can even edit the shapes within the selection frame, and the template will update in real time. You could even delete some shapes and change others. For example, you could change rectangles into circles.

Now it’s up to you to experiment with the technique of template, free your creativity and use it to amaze your audience.

10. Auto play videos in your presentations

When you insert videos in the presentation, must you stop your presentation to play it? You have to go to the PC and click on the screen to start the video.

I use a lot of videos in my presentations, especially during company training, because if they are used at the right point and without excess, they help to change the rhythm and advance the audience through the flow of communication.

The best use of a video in a presentation is to launch it at the exact moment when you stop talking, in order to create a continuity effect for your audience.

In order to do that, you certainly can’t think of going back to the PC, which may not be at hand, and launching the video.

Here is where autoplay comes to our rescue.

First of all, you have to insert the video into the presentation.

I advise you that always have the videos on your PC so you don’t have to worry about collapsing wi-fi or lack of connection on the day of the presentation.

Select a video and enter it in the presentation.

Click “Sequence” option to “Automatically”

Thanks to this option, when launching the presentation mode the video will start automatically when you will pass to this slide from the previous slide.

Try Out These PowerPoint Hacks

So, in summary, in this article i showed you the tricks which will save you a lot of time and make your presentations more efficient..

• Make a lot of images the same size only in few steps
• With QAT you can customize up to 5 commands according to your needs and  duplicate an object with the shortcut CTRL + D
• You can delete  bullet points and redesign cleaner, more impactful layouts
• Apply the page number to all slides also with the use of Slide Master
• Use levels in PowerPoint , changing the order of objects priority . This function is extremely useful in cases where you want to lock an object once positioned
• Use  transparency which is an exceptional technique to create compositions in which the background image creates the context and the overlapping image – an enrichment
• Recording video in PowerPoint which can be extremely useful during a presentation and you can easily convert it in MP4
• Create an image template in PowerPoint using shapes
• Autoplay in presentation : it helps to change the rhythm and advance the audience through the flow of communication.

Key Takeaways

Resize Multiple Images Efficiently : Use the “Picture Layout” feature to quickly resize multiple images to the same dimensions, saving time compared to manual cropping and resizing.

Quick Access Toolbar (QAT) Setup : Customizing your QAT with frequently used commands like alignments, distributions, and rotations will significantly speed up your workflow in PowerPoint.

Duplicate Objects Precisely : The CTRL + D shortcut allows for quick duplication of objects, but combining it with CTRL + Y after manual alignment ensures perfect distribution and positioning.

Break Free from Bullet Points : Convert bullet points into individual text boxes or use the MLC PowerPoint Addin’s “Split” feature for cleaner, more engaging slide layouts.

Stabilize Page Numbers : Protect your slide numbers from accidental changes by embedding them in text boxes within the Slide Master, ensuring consistent placement and format.

Manage Layers with Ease : Use the layer management panel to organize objects by priority, lock layers, and hide elements temporarily, giving you full control over your slide design.

Create Transparent Images : Apply transparency to images by using shapes as placeholders for your pictures, allowing for creative overlays and backgrounds directly in PowerPoint.

Record Screen Activity : PowerPoint’s built-in screen recording feature is a convenient tool for capturing tutorials or demonstrations without needing additional software.

Design Image Templates : Group shapes to create custom templates for images, enabling dynamic and visually appealing layouts that can be adjusted in real-time.

Autoplay Videos Seamlessly : Set videos to autoplay within your slides to maintain the flow of your presentation, eliminating the need to manually start the video during your talk.

How can I make multiple images the same size in PowerPoint?

You can make multiple images the same size by using the “Picture Layout” feature in PowerPoint. Select the images, apply a layout, and then ungroup them to achieve uniform sizing.

How do I keep everything at my fingertips in PowerPoint?

You can customize the Quick Access Toolbar (QAT) in PowerPoint to include frequently used commands such as align, distribute, and others. This helps in speeding up your workflow.

What is the shortcut for quickly duplicating any object in PowerPoint?

The shortcut to quickly duplicate any object is CTRL + D. This duplicates the object and maintains the alignment and distribution if used consecutively.

How can I get rid of bullet points in PowerPoint?

You can remove bullet points by converting the list into a SmartArt graphic, then ungrouping it. This allows you to manage each bullet point independently.

How can I make an image transparent in PowerPoint?

To make an image transparent in PowerPoint, insert a shape, fill it with the image, and then adjust the transparency of the shape. This technique can be used to overlay images for a professional look.

10 Essential PowerPoint Hacks For More Exciting Presentations

PowerPoint Hacks You Probably Didn’t Know

15 Powerpoint Hacks That Will Help You Save Hours And Wow Audiences

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Maurizio La Cava

About Maurizio

Comments on PowerPoint hacks you’ve never heard of

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I enjoyed going to your webiste. I leave comments rarely, but you definately up deserve a thumbs!

Hi, I’d like to create a slightly bent/curved line that is NOT a shape with a bounding box, but still has two line end handles like a straight line or a connector. Isn’t that possible?

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