In this article I will share with you my top 10 thing you may never have known PowerPoint could do. Death by PowerPoint should be a punishable offence. I hope these tips will save humanity from this brutal form of torture in the future.

You might be thinking I made a big typo and wrote PowerPoint instead of Power Platform here but rest assured this was not a mistake. I might be a Business Application MVP but that doesn’t mean I can’t have an overwhelming passion (obsession) with PowerPoint too. M365 May [1] gave me a great excuse to learn something new, have some fun and give good old PowerPoint some much deserved good vibes air time. It’s ironic to create a PowerPoint about PowerPoint but that is exactly what I did. Slide Share doesn’t allow the awesomeness to shine so much (see end of post for full slide deck) so hopefully the snippets below help you get a better idea.

Zoom

Hold on to your seats and strap in for the ride. I’m not talking about the video conferencing tool, I’m talking about PowerPoint Zoom to bring your presentations to life with a more immersive and engaging experience that you can use to take your attendees on a journey with you. Although super cool I advise that you take the time to sequence and rehearse the zoom interactions, its a bit like learning to dance with PowerPoint. Knowing where your zooms are and where they are going is important to delivering the awesome experience without severe motion sickness.

There are 3 ways to zoom in power point:

Add & Animate 3D Images

QuickStarter

Subtitles & Translations

Design Ideas & Perspectives

You have likely seen Design Ideas before, however I never really appreciated just how great they can be. By using slide layouts and focusing on just adding your content, the slide designer takes care of the visuals for you. See below for examples of it running on the different layouts below including title, title & contents and images. If you can’t see the ‘See More Design Ideas’ button it’s coming soon to your machine but in the meantime you can go to PowerPoint online to get endless design ideas. The design ideas now also work in line with your custom branded templates, suggesting design ideas in line with the defined layouts so you can get creative and keep it professional too!

Unbranded & Branded Template Design Ideas

Designer Perspectives

A newer feature to the Design Ideas family - Designer Perspectives are generated when a slide contains a large. It automatically adds text with a corresponding relative measure so its more digestible and your information is more effectively conveyed. For example:

• Commercial planes fly at 30,000 feet - About the height of Mount Everest

• A slice of pizza has 400 calories - About 32 minutes of running

• Farmer Joe owns 120 acres of land - About half the total floor space of the Pentagon

Why can't I get any suggested design ideas?

Design ideas has it’s limitations and sometimes you will leave the design idea generator confused, here a few tips on why this happens so you can get the design ideas you need and deserve!

• It’s a 'process-based 'slide

• No slide layout applied

• It can't come up with anything good

• Someone else is co-editing the slides (or you have opened your own document in the desktop and online!)

• A slide has a shape or text box drawn (design ideas only likes images and text placeholders)

• More than 4 photos on the slide

• Images smaller than 200 x 200 pixels 

Live Presentations

Presenter Coach

It’s so good that it deserves a session for itself, so check out the video below. Presenter Coach gives you feedback in real time as you present and produces a report at the end of your rehearsal too. The feedback evaluates your pacing, pitch, use of filler words, informal speech, euphemisms, and culturally sensitive terms, and it detects when you're being overly wordy or  reading from the slides. You need to go to PowerPoint online for this beauty but its worth the effort I promise!

More info -> Rehearse your slide show with Presenter Coach

Create & Edit Videos

Present with a Stylus Pen

Accessibility Checker