30 Ultimate PowerPoint tips
and tricks. Updated for 2020. This video is the ultimate compilation
of PowerPoint tips and tricks to enhance your skills using Microsoft PowerPoint.
I've combined long established tips and tricks featured in previous
versions with prominent new ones Microsoft added in 2019 and 2020.
You'll find these tips and tricks useful whether you're using PowerPoint
for the first time or just wanting to enhance your PowerPoint skills. For the
complete list of contents, please refer to the description of this video.
Let's get started. #1 Stock Images. In 2020 Microsoft added stock
images to PowerPoint for office 365. It's available under the Insert tab,
Pictures, Stock Images. Here you'll find thousands of royalty-free images that
you can insert into your presentation. Select between stock images, cut
out people, icons, and stickers. Choose one from the list or select
from a category of different choices and you can insert it into your
presentation. Then it's resizable, movable however you want. Add some stock
images to your presentation. #2 Remove Background. PowerPoint comes with a
great tool to remove the background on images. So let's say we insert a
picture from our stock image list and we'll select this bird. You'll see
that this picture has a bird in the foreground and a background that we want
to remove. So let's go into the Picture Format which becomes available anytime
you click on an image and the first option is to remove the background.
Click that and it highlights in color all of the background image around that
object. It's not perfect so we're going to mark areas to keep like right here
where it's missing part of his wing. It does a pretty good
job once you click on it and now that we have this set, click
Keep Changes and it removes everything in that colored area. Now you have an
image with nothing in the background. #3 Edit Shape. If you've inserted a shape
into your PowerPoint presentation, did you know that you can customize the
shape even more. Once it's selected you have an option here for Edit Shape
and Edit Points. Click on any corner and now you can drag and move the
points to change the shape even further. When it's all done, click outside
and you have a customized shape to fit your needs. #4 Morph Transition.
Morph is a great tool to use to transition from one slide to the next.
Let's say we duplicate this slide. Click on the second slide and we want
it to transfer these two images from one side to the other. We'll go
to the Transition and hit Morph and now you'll see that transition from
one slide to the next. When you're in your presentation that's the action
that will occur. #5 Enhanced Morph. We've seen how we can morph from one
object to the next by doing a duplicate slide and taking the object and moving
it and then going to Transition, Morph and it moves that object from one place
to the next. Let's say the second object we didn't want the same square and
instead we wanted it to be a circle. Now when we do the transition morph,
it doesn't work like we expected it to. It just transitions from one object
to the next and doesn't do a smooth transition between the two but there is
a solution where you can make this work. Go to the first object, click
on it, under the home tab look under arrange, and there is a
Selection Pane. This tells you the name of the object that we've selected. To do
an enhanced morph you just need to use two !! and a name so that's what we're
going to call that object. Now we're going to go to the second object and
we're going to name it the same thing. Now that they're the same name
when we do the Transition Morph it does a smooth transition between
the two and that's how you do enhanced morph. #6 Ctrl-Drag to
Copy. If you hold the Ctrl key down and drag an object it makes a
copy. This works for text too. #7 Design Ideas. You can take a boring
presentation and turn it into something much better by using design ideas it's
available on the home tab just click on design ideas and PowerPoint takes text
from your presentation and transforms it into different layouts choose one
of the recommendations and it updates your slide you can also add pictures
as part of your slide presentation and design ideas will use that picture
as part of the recommendations as well it's a great tool to enhance your
PowerPoint presentation and it's available with a click of
a button. #8 QR4Office. If you need to add a 3d barcode to
anything in your PowerPoint presentation go to the insert tab choose get
add-ins and search for qr for office this brings up the add-in app that
generates 3d barcodes click add and from the menu you can choose between
a url a secure url a mailing address a telephone number a text message
geolocations or do a custom code for a url just type it in and it creates
the barcode you can expand the size change the colors change the
background and when you insert it it adds it into your PowerPoint
presentation that barcode is now scannable by any phone or device
that can scan 3d barcodes and it will take you to this link this get
add-ins feature is available in any of the office 365 current versions
of PowerPoint. #9 Filled Map. You can create a map in PowerPoint using data
in a table. Just go to the Insert tab, click on Chart, and from the menu
select Map. Hit OK and it inserts it into your PowerPoint presentation.
This table represents the data that shows up in your map. Let's remove
some of the data from the list here and you can see that it updated
to just North and South America. Let's get rid of those two and now it
shows a map of just the united states. You can enter just states in here and it updates the map to reflect that
data. You can use countries, regions, cities, zip codes, or any other location
specific data that can be mapped and a nice feature is you can select
from the list up here of chart styles. So for a quick method to show a map
in your PowerPoint presentation use Filled Map. #10 Dictate and Translate.
Brand new in PowerPoint is an option to dictate text directly into
a text box. Just go to Insert, Text Box. Set it up somewhere on
your screen and then click inside. Now click on Dictate and wait for
it to record your voice. "This is a test of PowerPoint dictation".
Exclamation mark. New line. Smiley face. You can also choose from a variety
of different languages to record. Translate is available
from the Review tab. Just highlight some text and click
the Translate button from the menu. It brings up the translator and
converts it into any language that you choose. Here you also have a number
of languages to choose from. Choose one and then hit Insert and it replaces
the text with that new language. You can reverse the translation and
insert it back. Dictate and Translate adds a new dimension to how you handle
text in your PowerPoint presentation. #11 Quick Alignment. The quickest
method to align objects on a slide is to select all of them, come up to
the Arrange button on the Home tab, select a line, and then choose whether
you want to align to the left, center, or to the right. This aligns
them all in the same location and then you can also align the
distribution vertically or horizontally, which makes the spacing
between them even. The other options to be aware of is
if you have one object over another and you want to move the
order. Come to the Arrange and you can choose to bring something
to the front or move it to the back. That changes the layering of
objects on top of each other and if you have multiple objects that
you want to combine into one choose Group from the menu. Now they move
and act as one object. So remember, all the quick alignment options are
available under this menu Arrange. #12 Ink to Text. PowerPoint comes with a
great drawing tool that you can convert ink into text or shapes.
Just pick Draw from the menu, select a pen, and write
some words on the screen. Now choose the Lasso and select that
area and click the Ink to Text button. That converts it to text. Now the key is
make sure you turn off the Draw tool and now you can select this text and even
edit it just like a regular text box. You can also convert Ink to Shapes and this time we're
going to draw some shapes like a square. We'll call that #1.
We'll do a circle and we'll call that #2 and let's do a triangle
and we'll call that #3. Now lasso those and we'll choose Ink to Shape and that converts them all to shapes.
We'll turn the drawing tool off and now you can select each one of
those and move them around as needed and even edit them with the text inside. You can also work with
math. Let's draw an equation and we'll lasso that and do Ink
to Math. It converts to text similar to the Ink to Text
option but it knows about math and formulas. You can also use the Ink
Equation Editor. You can write a formula and it fills it in on the fly. Insert
it into your presentation and you can drag it where you want. It also has
an equation menu where you can select from different formulas and operators if
you don't want to type them in yourself. So if you need to work with math in
your presentation that's a great tool. There's one final option from
this menu and it's Ink Replay. If you draw something you can do Ink
Replay and it replays the whole drawing that you created. This can be used for
some animation in your presentation. Obviously this works best with a
pen device that you can handwrite but you get the idea. #13 Eyedropper.
Eyedropper allows you to apply a specific color to multiple objects
on your PowerPoint presentation. Let's select multiple objects
by holding down the Ctrl key and if you go to the Shape Format
menu under Shape Fill. Let's choose the Eyedropper and now we're
going to select this red color and it fills all those
objects with that color. You can do the same thing
with the Shape Outline and it applies that outline color to all
the objects we've selected. Eyedropper is available in a bunch of different
locations like under Shape Effects, Glow. So if you need to select a color
from your screen use the eyedropper. #14 Chart Animation. You can add
animation to your charts in your PowerPoint presentation. Just select
a chart, go to the Animations tab, select an animation like Float-In and you can see that the whole chart
floats into your presentation. Click on this Animation Pane and you can
see the animations that are in effect but right now let's add an effect
option and choose by Series. This floats each series in one at a
time. You can also choose by Category and that brings the entire category in
one at a time. Other options available by Element in Series, or by Element in
Category. You can adjust the duration. So to spice up your chart use Chart
Animations. #15 Alt-Shift Order. If you have a list and you need
to change the order of those items just highlight the one you want
to move, hold down the Alt-Shift keys and hit the Up Arrow to move it up and
the Down Arrow to move it down. That's a quick trick to change the order of items
in a list. #16 Quick Access Toolbar. In the upper-left corner of all the
Office apps is the Quick Access Toolbar. This gives you quick access to some of
the common functions that you want to access from within the program and
in this case it has Save and Undo and some other items available. If you
click this Down Arrow you can customize this Quick Access Toolbar. First you can
select from a number of common features by just turning them on and off but you
can also come down here to More Commands and select from popular commands
to add to the Quick Access Toolbar. For example, if we wanted to add the
Eyedropper Text Fill hit OK. It now adds that to the Quick Access Toolbar and
you can just go directly there when you want to use that function. Some of the
common ones i like to add is Quick Print and also Spelling so that you can
check the spelling of text that you insert in your PowerPoint presentation.
Just remember you can customize this toolbar any way you want and it is
available in all of the Office apps. #17 Smart Lookup. Smart Lookup is a
feature in PowerPoint that allows you to select text and look up information
about it from the web. For example, in this presentation let's select the
Covered Call text, go to the Review tab, click on Smart Lookup. It looks this
information up on the web and provides a definition, different web results, and
even pictures, and within each one of these you can select See More Results
and it provides other information. You no longer need to copy and paste any
information into a web browser. You can just do smart lookup directly from your
PowerPoint presentation. #18 Slideshow Tricks. There are a number of keystrokes
available while you're in a presentation to help communicate your message. You
can hit F1 to see the list of options. Some of the more helpful ones
is W to white out your screen. Hit it again and it brings it back.
B blacks out your screen and B again brings it back. Ctrl-P brings up
a pointer where you can circle and draw lines and arrows anywhere in your
presentation. Hit the E and it erases. Ctrl-P again turns that off. Ctrl-I
brings up a highlighter where you can highlight different areas of your
screen. Ctrl-I again turns that off and E erases. The plus key zooms in.
Minus zooms out and if you hit it all the way out it shows you all of your
PowerPoint slides or you can select and go directly to one. Minus again
to go back. Hit a number and Enter to go directly to that slide. Two-Enter
takes me to the second slide. One-Enter takes me to the first. Hit Ctrl-L
to bring up a laser pointer. Hit it again to turn it off. These are
just some of the shortcuts available to help control your presentation while
in presenter mode. #19 Animate Images. Did you know you can add
motion animation to an image. Let's select this bird.
We'll go up to Animations. In the pull-down menu select Custom Path
and now we're going to select and draw the direction that we want this bird
to move. Double-Click at the end and there's your animated motion. You can
also come up here and click this button to edit the settings for that custom
path. We can have it Auto Reverse when it's done. We can set sound
and do other triggers at the end. You can also set the timing. Let's
say we want to move this from two seconds to five and we'll hit OK.
Now it's moving at a slower motion and then reversing the
direction when it's done. You have a great deal of flexibility
about motion animation and you can do this with any image. #20 Instant Photo
Album. It's really simple to create an instant photo album using some of your
pictures. Just go to the Insert tab, choose Photo Album, choose File
Disk, and then select all the images that you want to insert into
your photo album. Click Insert. Choose these options. You can make them
all black and white, you can have them fit to the slide, but the defaults
generally work well. Hit Create and it instantly created your photo album
complete with slides for each picture and if you want to improve the look a
little bit use your Design Ideas and select from a format that makes it look
nice. It's that simple. Congratulations you've made it through two-thirds of
the tips and tricks list. The rest will continue in 15 seconds but please take
a moment right now to subscribe to Sele Training and click the bell icon to get
notified when new videos are released. Don't forget the entire 30 tips and
tricks list is in the description of this video with hyperlinks to each. Now
let's get back to it. #21 Reuse Slides. You can add slides to your
presentation directly from another PowerPoint file by selecting
Reuse Slides from the Home tab. It shows a list of
recent PowerPoint files. Click on one and select each slide you
want to insert into your presentation. In the left pane position the location
where you want the slide inserted. If you scroll to the top of the slide
list and uncheck this Use Source Formatting option, when you insert
a slide it will convert the slide to match the format of the slide above your
insertion point. In office 365 you'll also see recent PowerPoint slides that
have been shared with you from other team members. This feature makes it easy
to collaborate on team presentations. So save yourself some time and use the
Reuse Slide feature. #22 Link to Excel. Let's say you have an excel chart and
you want to link it to PowerPoint. Just click on your chart, do Ctrl-C
to copy. Go over to PowerPoint and do Ctrl-V to paste. Now before you do
anything else click on this link and make sure you select one of these two
entries with the chain representing the link to Excel. You have a choice
between using your destination theme or use the source formatting in your
PowerPoint presentation. We'll go ahead and use the destination theme and link
the data. Now when you right-click you can edit the data and it takes you back
to Excel where the source of the data is. So let's say we change this
number right here from 15 down to 6. When we go back to PowerPoint the
data is updated. Change it back to 15 and it's updated there. It's now linked
between Excel and PowerPoint. Just remember, make sure that you've saved
your Excel spreadsheet so that there's a file that it can link to and make sure
that you select one of these two chain options. That's all there is to it. #23
Animated GIF. You can create a custom animated gif to use in your PowerPoint
presentations or in other applications. Let's start by inserting a Smartart
and we'll choose this Gear tool but you can use any graphics
that you want or create your own. We'll label these A, B, and C and then
we're going to duplicate this slide and we'll take each one of these
and rotate it part of the way. Now we'll duplicate this slide again and we'll rotate it again and you get the idea. Create
some motion for your graphics that you'll create into a gif.
Now we're going to go to File, Export, and choose
Create an Animated GIF. You can set the resolution and
the speed between each slide. When you're ready create the
gif and we'll choose a name and hit Save. Now to see how that
works let's create a new slide and we'll make it a blank and we're
going to insert a picture from this device. Choose our test and
there's your animated gif. #24 Layered Images. Another form
of animation of images can use layering. Let me show you how this
works. I'm going to insert a picture from the Stock Images and we're
going to find a mountain scene. Let's select this one right here
and insert it. Let's crop it to the aspect ratio of 16:9 so
that it fits nicely into the frame. Now I'm going to right-click
and duplicate this slide and on the second slide I'm going
to remove the background. We want to remove all of this area here
but we want to keep everything here. We'll keep the changes and now I'm
going to Ctrl-C to copy, go back to our first slide and paste it over the
top. We'll line it up just right and now we have two layered images. Let's add a
third layer. Let's insert Stock Images this time we'll pick the moon and let's
select this one right here and insert it and I'm going to crop that one but I
just want the area around the moon. Now let's remove the background
on that image as well. Keep those changes and we'll take
the moon and move it down here in the corner. Now we want this moon to move
up so I'm going to go to Animations and from this menu I'm going to pick
the Up Animation and you can see that it moves from this location to this one.
Let's move this up a little ways farther and when you look at the Animation Pane
this is what that's going to look like. But with layering we want the moon to be
behind the one image and in front of the other one so if you go back to Home and
Arrange, the Selection Pane you can see the three images in order. This one is
the picture of the moon. We want to move that down behind the other picture so
it's in between the two in the layer. Now when we go back to play it you can
see that it raises behind the image. Now let's double-click here. Let's adjust
this so it's a smooth start and end and we'll change the timing to 5 seconds and now we have a smooth transition
motion graphics using layering. #25 Slideshow Loop. Sometimes you want
a PowerPoint presentation to play in a continuous loop. There's a couple
things you need to set up to make that work. First go to the Slideshow
tab. Click on Setup Slideshow and check this box for Browsed at Kiosk. Hit
OK. Now go over to your Transitions tab and on the After check that box, change
it to the amount of time you want it to be on each slide, and Apply to
All. Now when you hit Slideshow - one, two, three, one, two, three
and it repeats in a continuous loop. #26 Embed Fonts. If you intend to
share your PowerPoint presentation with another person or send it to present
on a different computer then it's a good idea to use embedded fonts. This
ensures that the fonts are in the file with the presentation. You can enable
this by going to File, Options, Save and check this box for Embed Fonts
in the File and hit OK. Now when you save your PowerPoint presentation it
saves the fonts within the file. #27 Compress Media. You can insert videos
into your PowerPoint presentation but sometimes these files can be
rather large. One thing you can do is go to File, Info, and this
Compressed Media option will be available if you have a video in your
presentation. It gives you the option to compress the media down to a smaller
size format by adjusting the resolution. So let's go to HD 720p and you'll see
that the initial size is 35.6 megabytes and it's compressed it down
to 29.6. Not a huge savings but it depends on the type of
file that you're compressing. Hit Close and now you can save that
file and send it to someone. If you need to adjust the media compression
come back in here, choose Undo, and then you can compress it again at a different
resolution. So if you need to reduce the size of your PowerPoint presentation
with a video use Compress Media. #28 HD Video Export. You're already familiar
with presenting your video live but you can also record your video and present
it as an exported HD video presentation. To do that just go to File, Export, and
choose Create a Video. You have choices here where you can set the resolution of
your video Ultra, Full HD, or Standard. You can choose to record
timings and narrations. This opens up your presentation for
video editing. Here you can record, stop, and replay your video. You can mark different points on your
screen with a laser pointer or with a highlighter, change the color of that
device, set your audio on and off, turn on video, scroll through your
different presentation screens, even refer to your notes, and when you're
all done recording close this window and it comes back to your Create Video
screen. If you don't want to record timings and narration just set the
seconds between each slide and choose Create Video, give it a name, and hit
Save and it exports your video out into a file and now you can share that
file as a pre-recorded presentation. #29 Shape Intersect. Here's a neat trick
to intersect pictures and images. Let's go up to the Insert, Pictures, Stock
Images, and we'll select this boat. Shrink that down a little bit.
Now I'm going to go to the Insert, Shapes and select one of these
stars down here. We'll draw that around the boat so that it covers
it up and here's the trick, you need to click on the image
first, hold down the Ctrl key, click on the shape secondly
and now go up to Shape Format, Merge Shapes, and choose Intersect
and you've just created an image shape intersect. You can do this with custom
shapes as well so let's go back and Insert a Picture from our Stock Images
again and we'll pick our bird this time so we'll shrink this down a
little bit. I'm going to go to Insert, Shapes but this time under
Lines I'm going to select this one right here. Then I'm going to draw a
line around the outside of this object and when the points connect
again it creates a shape. Now we're going to do the same
thing. Click on the image first, hold the Ctrl key down,
select the shape second. Shape Format, Merge Shapes, Intersect
and now we have a cutout of just our bird. So if you want to get creative
with your images use the Shape Intersect technique. #30 Picture Fill. It's really
easy to add a picture to a shape. Let's go ahead and insert a shape and we'll
pick this circle and we'll go ahead and change the outline to a different color
and make it a wider line. Now if you go to the Shape Fill there's an option
here where you can pick a Picture. We're going to go ahead
and select our Stock Images and we'll pick our bird again and
that adds a picture to that shape. Now it is one object that you can
move around. I don't quite like the alignment of that picture so what I'm
going to do is click on the Picture Format and we'll do the Crop
and now i can edit that image, change the size, and
adjust it however i need and now we have our final picture. Hey
if you want to see more videos like this one, please subscribe and if you've
enjoyed this video be sure to click the thumbs-up and leave a comment.
I really do appreciate your support!
