One of the first blogs I shared was my top tips for PowerPoint, that was almost 2 years ago now so I thought it was about time to share some more PowerPoint hacks that I’ve picked up over the last few years. Of course, there are so many alternative presentation tools out there that offer better results… keynote, Prezi, Google slides and Visme are just a few examples but PowerPoint is still a favourite with approximately 38% of office suite users choosing Office 365.

So, if you are still a keen PowerPoint user here are some hacks I’ve discovered that make life a little easier

Convert other documents into a presentation

If your content starts life a word document here is a shortcut that will convert it to a PowerPoint document quickly and easily. You’ll need to adjust the formatting but all of your content will be there and saves the bother of copying and pasting slide by slide.

• Go to the Home Toolbar
• Go to the Slides section
• Click on the arrow next to New Slide
• Select Slides from outline
• Select the document you would like to use

Reduce the size of your presentation

Images make a presentation visually appealing and can grab the audience’s attention far better than pages of text. The downside is that images can make the presentation file size huge and can slow everything down. There is a quick way to compress all images…

• Select the image you want to compress
• Go to the Picture Format Tool section
• Go to the Adjust section
• Select Compress Pictures
• Uncheck Apply only to this picture
• Choose the resolution
• Click ok

Turn your presentation into a video

Video has a great impact and can work well if you’re sending the presentation to someone rather than presenting. It can be much more engaging to watch than manually clicking through some slides. The other plus is it’s really easy to do!

• Click on File
• Select Export
• Create Video

Create an invisible hyperlink

If you need to add a hyperlink to an image or set of text follow these steps to make it invisible and the process of transitioning to the linked content seamless

• Insert a square from the shapes function
• Format it to ‘no fill’ and ‘no line’
• Select the shape and press CTRL+K
• Paste the link into the address space and click ok

Add “align” to your Quick Access Toolbar

This is one of my most used functions in PowerPoint, save time and add it to your toolbar too. You’ll never have to align by eye again!

Also, make sure you turn on the guides on your slides to help align objects accurately, it makes such a difference to the professional finish of your slides.

• Right-click on the slide
• Select Grid and Guides
• Select Display Grid on-screen and Display drawing guides on screen

Quickly navigate your slides

A shortcut to make life easier when in slide show mode, if you need to go to a specific slide rather than scrolling through the entire deck use this command to jump directly to a slide

• ENTER + slide number

Use a drawing pen to highlight key points on your slide

Another hack to make life a little easier when presenting. If you need to highlight a point or add to a slide you can use the drawing pen.

• In Slide Show mode CTRL + P

There you go, I hope one or two of these are new to you and help save a little time and make your life a little easier or if you read this and think you’d prefer to make life even easier and find someone else to create to presentation for you..take a look at my PowerPoint package here.