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Making slides can eat up way too much time, especially if you’re only using the basics. PowerPoint is so feature-rich that it’s easy to overlook the most useful ones. Once you know them, you’ll wonder how you ever did slides the hard way.
8Pin Frequently Used Commands to the Quick Access Toolbar
Slide creation would be quicker if you had easy access to your most frequently used commands. The best way to do this is to add them to the Quick Access Toolbar instead of relying solely on the menu items in the ribbon—something many of us do.
To tweak the Quick Access Toolbar, go toFile > Options > Quick Access Toolbar. Select a command (e.g.,New Slide,Shapes, orFormat Painter) on the left, clickAddto move it to the right, and then clickOK. This will add it to the Quick Access Toolbar.
If you don’t see the commands you want, set theChoose commands fromdropdown to the tab with the commands you want.
7Get Inspiration from Design Suggestions
A good design can make your presentation pop, and this is where people spend a lot of time. With Design Suggestions, PowerPoint can generate professional layouts that fit your content. This allows you to polish your slides in seconds.
To use Design Suggestions, select theDesignertab and clickDesign Suggestionsin theEditssection of the ribbon.
From there, select one of the designs in the right panel to apply it to the slide.
If you scroll to the bottom and don’t find a design you want to use, clickSee more design suggestionsto get more.
6Reuse Existing Slides
Creating slides can also be faster if you reuse existing ones instead of recreating the content and design or copying and pasting stuff from one presentation into another.
To do that, select theInserttab and clickNew Slide > Reuse Slidesin theSlidessection of the ribbon. In the panel that opens on the right, clickBrowse, and select a presentation to import.
Once imported, you will see all the slides in the presentation listed in the panel. To insert one into your current presentation, simply click it.
5Use the Placeholder Text Generator
When you design a slide, it can be helpful to see what the layout looks like with some text in it. This is wheredummy text like Lorem Ipsumcomes in handy, as it saves you the trouble of having to think of what to use as a placeholder. PowerPoint has its own lorem ipsum generator that many people don’t know of, meaning you don’t even need to leave the program to get it.
Here is the syntax for generating Lorem Ipsum text in PowerPoint:
Here,xis the number of paragraphs you want to generate. That means, if you wanted to generate two paragraphs, you would write the following and hit theEnterkey:
4Create Charts Faster With Templates
When youdesign a beautiful chartwith all the right layout, colors, fonts, and all kinds of additional formatting, you may want to reuse it without having to create it from scratch every time. What you can do instead is save it as a template and reapply the design to other charts to speed up the process.
To do that, right-click the chart and selectSave As Templatein the menu. In the dialog box, give the template a name and clickSave.
To use the template, select theInserttab and clickChartin theIllustrationssection of the ribbon. SelectTemplatesin the left sidebar, select the template you want on the right, and clickOK.
3Use Master Slides for Consistency
Suppose you have created a bunch of slides and realized you don’t like the font of the heading, or you need to add a logo to every slide. you may go into each slide and make the change manually, but that can be time-consuming, especially if there are many slides. An alternative is to use the Slide Master feature to ensure that any change you make is consistently applied to the relevant slides.
To do that, select theViewtab and clickSlide Masterin theMaster Viewssection.
Select a master slide, make the necessary changes, and clickClose Master Viewin theClosesection of the ribbon to apply them to the rest of the slides.
2Trim Audio From Within PowerPoint
Inserting audio into a presentation can make your presentation more engaging. But what if you need to trim the media to fit your needs? Instead of opening something like Audacity, PowerPoint allows you to do it from within.
To do that, select the audio clip and clickTrim Audioin theEditingsection of thePlaybacktab.
Click and drag the green (start time) or the red bar (end time) on the track to adjust the audio length. Afterward, clickOKto save the edited clip.
1Generate Entire Presentations With Copilot
If you’re using the desktop version of PowerPoint, then it means you’ve paid for the Microsoft 365 subscription. This allows you to use Microsoft’s AI assistant Copilot in PowerPoint and other office apps. You cangenerate an entire PowerPoint presentation with Copilot, as well as use it for quick slide creation.
To add a slide to your presentation using Copilot, select theInserttab and clickNew Slide with Copilotin theSlidessection of the ribbon.
Describe what the slide will be about and then hit theEnterkey to generate it.
Remember that since this is AI-generated content, be sure to double-check it for accuracy.
If cutting down time on slide creation is your goal, then mastering these underrated features will serve you well. They will not only make you faster, but also ensure the quality of your presentation. Keep them in mind as you’re creating your next presentation.
