Why You Should Consider PowerPoint Add-ins for Your Next Presentation Design
When considering PowerPoint add-ins, there is really one core issue to resolve. Creating an effective presentation is critical to the success of your ideas, but there is one aspect of virtual presentations that we often tend to forget.
Have you ever thought about how much time you invest in them?
I’m sure that if it’s an important presentation and the stakes are high, you’ll spend more time on it.
If you look at the way you work on presentations, you will discover that you waste a lot of time on PowerPoint because of the tool itself.
Ever wonder how many clicks you spend on each action?
I know, you’re thinking I’m exaggerating, but thinking about the number of clicks per action is what has led to the development of tools that complement the operation of software like PowerPoint.
Do you understand what I’m talking about?
That’s right, let’s talk about PowerPoint add-ins.
What are PowerPoint Add-ins?
PowerPoint Add-ins are accessory feature sets that you can install on your PowerPoint to perform extremely specific actions – significantly reducing the number of clicks, and therefore the amount of time, that you spend designing your presentation.
When you discover the world of PowerPoint add-ins, you realize how much time you could have saved by letting software do most things, especially on recurring tasks.
Interesting, I agree, but over the years PowerPoint add-ins have evolved and have become a lot, leaving users lost when it comes to choose the right one.
There are PowerPoint add-ins that are very useful and powerful, some free and some to pay, but there are many that are often useless and not worth their price.
It makes no sense to spend time and invest resources to acquire and test dozens and dozens of different solutions. Doing so would likely waste more time than the actual design of your presentations.
So, I did the work for you, creating a PowerPoint Add-in template that significantly improves your presentation level by investing the right budget.
My Framework for Optimal Use of PowerPoint Add-ins
The foundation of the template is dictated by PowerPoint and the version you are using. I use Office 365 because I like to always have all the newly released updates.
In my opinion, PowerPoint is the most powerful and versatile tool at your disposal for creating professional and accessible presentations.
The productivity level is cross-cutting, and it provides features to save you time and get more effective communication results.
The attic is a transversal level, useful for all companies to manage, access and circulate corporate graphic assets such as logos, photos, icons, and other branding elements recurring in presentations.
You can complement your toolbox with specialized add-ins that perform specific functions.
All clear so far?
For your temple of productivity to sustain itself you need at least one roof and two columns.
That’s why, in order to provide you with the tools that can make a real difference with a small budget, I’m providing you with a base of 3 PowerPoint Add-ins to start with.
Let’s explore them together feature by feature.
The Roof: MLC PowerPoint Add-in
This is my very own magic wand.
MLC PowerPoint Add-in combines an advanced set of productivity features with powerful asset libraries and built-in software tools.
What am I talking about?
Let’s see together the most relevant features.
Swap shapes in PowerPoint
Swap shapes is the most famous feature, and the first one invented.
For example, imagine you have to work on the following slide to align the colors to the text boxes. You would have to swap the circles between them twice:
If you did it by hand you would have to take several steps for each swap, thus wasting several clicks.
With the swap shapes in PowerPoint you can reverse the positions of two shapes in a single click.
Easily Make Elements the Same Sizes
In the following slide the images all have different dimensions:
If you’re thinking it would be enough to make them all the same size to fix the slide, you’re right.
But the images have different proportions, so if you make them the same size, you risk deforming them.
Matching all the images to the same size by hand would require multiple steps – but with Same Sizes you just need to select them all at once and click once.
Advanced Distributions
With the distribution buttons in PowerPoint you can even out the spaces between objects by making them equidistant from each other.
The problem arises when you want to change the distribution space between the shapes. Do you want the shapes more or less distant?
If so, you will have to move one shape away from or close to the others and repeat the alignment operation several times.
The result? A huge waste of time searching for the right distribution.
With advanced distribution, MLC PowerPoint Add-in allows you to control the exact number of points of the space between shapes.
At this point it’s up to you to adjust it in the optimal way without having to proceed by trial and error.
Stack Shapes
I often use this feature to compact shapes quickly.
What do I mean by “compact“?
Look at this example of recomposing the decomposed image:
This feature often comes in handy when you’re working with schemes and processes.
Did you see how I compacted the process in one single click?
You can use both the vertical and horizontal stack.
Copy / Paste position
Have you ever noticed how, when passing from slide to slide, some objects “dance“?
This happens because they are not aligned between slides. Suddenly you are jumping back and forth from slide to slide to align objects.
I won’t even comment on this pointless waste of time.
What if I could copy the position of an object from one slide and paste it on an object on another slide?
In that case, you already know what the copy/paste position is for.
Do you see how, in the following example, switching from one slide to another, the charts are not aligned?
To align the objects, you just need to select the chart in the first slide and copy its position.
Then, you select the pie chart on the next slide and paste the copied location.
Make Elements and Icons the Same Color
A convenient feature to even out the filling color of different shapes.
With a single click, the color of the first selected shape will be applied to all other selected shapes.
Rectify Lines
How many times have you had to straighten crooked lines in PowerPoint?
All normal, we’ve all been there.
Let me ask you a question.
How long would it take you to align all the crooked lines in the following slide?
With the rectify lines feature you just need to select all of them and click once.
Save Active Slides
When you create a presentation, you may have to share some slides with a colleague, or maybe just send a selection to your boss.
How do you extract just a few slides from your presentation?
With this feature, you just need to select the slides you want to export and click Save Active Slides to save the selected slides as a new PowerPoint presentation.
Erase all elements
Sometimes we waste time adjusting the design of a slide, when it would be better to delete everything and start from scratch.
You don’t think so?
Erase all elements was born from this idea – removing all the elements of a slide with a single click.
Do you like it?
This way you’ll have a clean slide and you will be ready to draw.
Copy-paste to active slides
Have you ever wanted to replicate the same object in the same position on multiple slides without using the Slide Master? Meaning, being able to reposition the object and resize it differently on each PowerPoint slide?
With Copy-Paste to Active slides you can do so. You just need to select the object click Copy to Active Slides.
Then, select the slides to which you want to paste your object and click Paste to Active slides.
As you can see, the logo, which we just copied, is now on all the Active slides.
Merge / Split text
If you work with bullet points, this feature will soon become your best ally.
Take a look at the bullet point list on the next slide:
To enhance the slide’s effectiveness, a good method is to turn vertical bullet points into horizontal distributions.
To do this, select the bullet point text box, apply the split text and you will see that the bullet points will be distributed in different boxes.
At this point you could remove the list points, center the text in the boxes and use the grid shapes to distribute the boxes horizontally.
Now you just need to center the slide and add three simple icons that well represent the concepts of the bullet points.
Did you see how we enhanced a slide in a few simple steps?
This is an example that shows how different features can be combined in an effective way to simplify the working processes.
MLC Assets – millions of photos, icons, and vector maps just a click away
Every quality presentation needs to be completed with quality graphic assets. So, forget grainy images, watermarked maps, and icons with that annoying white background.
To work correctly with the different types of graphical assets in presentations, you need to have a good knowledge of the formats to use in different occasions and you need to know all the editing features.
For this reason, I’ve listed some guides that may be very useful for you:
- PowerPoint Icons – The ultimateguide
- Presentation images: the complete guide to sculpting the audience’s memory
MLC PowerPoint Add-in collects all the assets you need in one sidebar – you will have the best quality and the right format for each presentation.
All you will have to do from now on is choose and click on the asset that suits you best.
Sign into MLC Assets and you will have at your disposal:
- Millions of copyright-free, high-resolution slideshow images
- A collection of unique vector icons with an elegant and coherent design drawn by my team of experienced presentation designers
- A collection of vector maps that hide a little secret
Each map is built in region by region vector graphics.
Are you wondering what that means?
Try opening the levels panel, and you’ll see what I’ve done for you!
As you can see in the following picture, I have renamed all the regions and organized them in alphabetical order. This way you can select and color the regions you are interested in.
Having all the regions organized by name you won’t even have to search for the geographical location if you don’t remember it – this will save you a lot of navigation on Google maps.
- Your organization’s graphical assets
In the Corporate tab you can organize a collection of your personal or organization assets, so that they will always be available in PowerPoint.
Imagine the convenience of being able to collect logos, icons, and every other graphic element of the brand you work for and have it always available while you prepare your slides.
With the MLC Graphic Assets Management extension, my PowerPoint Add-in turns into a true management platform for your corporate graphic assets.
In fact, by clicking on the Corporate Assets button, you will have direct access to the online version of the platform.
If you are curious to know more, I’ll let you browse the section of my website dedicated to the MLC Graphic Assets Management extension.
Crop to slide
Imagine you have an image larger than the slide, which therefore extends beyond its perimeter. If I asked you to cut out all the excess parts of the slide, how would you do it?
The crop to slide does exactly that, only it does it in an automatic way and one click!
Applying the crop to slide, I removed all the parts of the image that exceeded the slide.
Fit to slide
To enhance an image, it is often necessary to put it full slide.
This way you will have a high visual impact slide that you can also use to emotionally engage your audience.
How do you quickly enlarge an image full slide?
For this purpose, here’s the fit to slide.
Rule of Thirds
This is a feature that automatically places PowerPoint guides on the rule of thirds.
Do you know why you need the rule of thirds?
If you do not, this golden rule could change the way you design presentations forever.
This is not the right place to get into it, but given the importance of this rule, I’ve dedicated a whole guide to it that I’ll share with you to promptly: create beautiful and professional PowerPoint presentations with the rule of thirds.
YouTube videos
Videos in presentations have a strong communicative impact, but they present some technical difficulties.
Has it ever happened to you that the video didn’t start, maybe because it was linked to a video on YouTube and the connection was not good at the time of the presentation?
If you want to make sure you present a video smoothly, it’s best to insert it directly into your presentation by avoiding links to external resources.
Have you ever tried downloading a video from YouTube in order to embed it in a PowerPoint presentation?
If you have, you’ll know that finding the portal to download it is a waste of time and exposes you to high chances of catching viruses and infecting your computer.
With this feature you can download videos from YouTube and insert them into your presentation in just one click – all you need to do is copy and paste the URL address of the video.
Easily Create Gantt Charts
Gantt diagram is a powerful tool to map the progress of a project. In presentations it is convenient because it allows you to quickly share your project progress with colleagues and other stakeholders.
However, creating a Gantt diagram in PowerPoint is not easy at all, as you need to create several well-proportioned streams of activities within a timeline and update them as you go forward.
MLC PowerPoint Add-in offers you a point-and-click wizard to create an already proportionate and easily updatable Gantt diagram.
By clicking on the Gantt Chart button in PowerPoint, you will access the graphical creation interface.
Enter the activities defining the name, start and end date of each one.
You can also decide to start one activity as soon as another ends, as if they were sequential.
Lastly, you can define the percentage of completion status of each task.
Give your approval and you’ll see your Gantt diagram appear on the slide in less than a second.
Your project has come to life in a visual form of very easy reading and interpretation.
By selecting the timeband the sidebar appears, which allows you to further modify the diagram.
In this case I want to add a progress meeting, and then a new milestone to the project plan.
You just need to enter the milestone tab and choose the name and date.
Here it comes, right after I give the okay:
In summary, with the Gantt Chart tool, MLC PowerPoint Add-in allows you to create Gantt diagrams easily and effectively in PowerPoint for your presentations.
Color Manager
Just in these last few days I realized one of the presentations to talk about the services of my company (mauriziolacava.com) to potential new customers.
Like any good brand, we use an official color palette that must be consistently applied to our presentations.
Our main color is a warm yellow of a specific shade.
However, when creating the presentation, it is easy that the yellow may be changed in the application and used in different shades that are not consistent with the branding.
Do you know how hard it is to go slide by slide to align all the wrong color shades with the correct one?
The wrong color could be applied to texts, fills, borders, graphics, etc.
Do you realize how long it takes to align them all by doing them one by one?
What if you had a single panel where all the colors used in your presentation were listed, grouped by shade (e.g. yellows with yellows, reds with reds, etc.)?
Have you already figured out what the MLC PowerPoint Add-in Color Manager is for?
As soon as you open the panel you will find the list of all the colors used in the presentation.
As you can see, you only need a moment to see the wrong shades. You don’t need to know which is the right yellow, you just need to know that there should be only one to know that something is not right.
The great thing about the MLC PowerPoint Add-in’s Color Manager is that you can replace the wrong colors with the right one by simply copy-pasting the correct color code on the others.
As you see, once you paste the correct color code the others will disappear, and all elements of the presentation will be automatically aligned.
This way, you’ll no longer have to work slide by slide, just do a couple of copy-paste and you’ll have aligned all the colors of the entire presentation.
Font Manager
As with the correct use of colors, fonts, if not used consistently, can cost you a lot of rework – and therefore, a lot of time.
Which font do you use, or should you use in your presentations?
It is a good idea to work with one main font without mixing it with others within the same presentation.
The problem is that we can often use different fonts – this can result from a misuse of the slide master (see: Slide master PowerPoint – the complete guide to making the best use of it), from merging multiple presentations – perhaps by collecting slides made by others – or simply as a distraction.
When presentations become long, it is challenging to align the font slide by slide.
Here comes the Font Manager part of the MLC PowerPoint Add-in suite to the rescue.
A control panel that lists all the fonts used in the presentation.
In this slide I have specifically inserted 4 different fonts:
You can see all 4 listed in the font manager on the side.
How to align them right away?
Just select the wrong font and change it to the correct one. In this case I’ve selected ALGERIAN and replaced it with SEGOE UI.
I did the same for the other two.
Here I have just aligned all the fonts throughout the presentation in an easy and effective way.
Gift a license
When we find something particularly useful, we like to share it with friends and colleagues so that we can pass on to them the same benefit that we have derived from it.
For this reason, if you have an MLC PowerPoint Add-in license, you will always be able to give a free trial period to anyone you think will benefit from it.
MLC PowerPoint Add-in Summary
MLC PowerPoint Add-in is a complete tool that works with a wide range of features to make you more efficient in creating better presentations.
What all the features have in common is that they significantly reduce the number of clicks needed for recurring actions considered time consuming.
MLC Assets complement the productivity suite by providing you with images, icons, and vector maps. With the corporate tab, on the other hand, you can immediately access all the most important corporate assets (logos, corporate images, icons, product photos, etc.).
Furthermore, with Gantt Chart, Color and Font Manager, MLC PowerPoint Add-in provides you with real built-in software to save time and make your presentation even more effective and consistent.
In the combination of 3 add-ins that I proposed in this article, MLC PowerPoint Add-in takes the place of the more generalist productivity tool and, with the corporate graphic asset management function, takes the place of asset manager.
From here on, I’ll introduce you to two other historical add-ins that focus on specific features.
The Pillars: PowerPoint Add-ins that Support Your Design with Specific Features
Office Timeline
Do you need to draw a project roadmap or timeline to show the next steps?
Do you need to create a professional looking Gantt diagram in record time, maybe importing data from Excel? In that case, Office Timeline is a highly specialized PowerPoint add-in that cannot be missing from your toolbox.
The timelines created are very colorful, and the tool offers you several templates from which you can choose the one that best matches your project.
Let’s see how it works.
Come on, let’s create a new timeline together!
There are several alternatives to which you will have access with the PRO and PLUS paid versions.
Let’s start with the basics by selecting the rounded version:
At this point, you can decide to import data from another application, or create your timeline from scratch.
Let’s create it from scratch and explore this fantastic PowerPoint add-in.
Create the first task, assign it a start date, an end date, and a percentage of completion. Create a second task, repeat the actions, and change the stream shape.
You can also add notes to the activity if you wish, but this is not a feature I use often.
Now enter a project milestone, which is a punctual moment in the timeline (if you want to learn how to use Gantt diagrams to manage your projects I’ll send you back to: PowerPoint Gantt Charts in simple steps).
To be clear, a milestone could be a progress meeting or an update with a key stakeholder.
Are you satisfied?
You already have two activities and a milestone, that’s more than enough to test how Office Timeline works. So, go ahead with Create.
As you see, each element is selectable in PowerPoint as a simple shape.
Did you notice what happened when you selected the timeline?
A side panel was activated – let’s see it together.
Milestone Options
From here you can decide whether to show the title and date, change the size and shape of the milestone, and you can also decide whether to place it above or below the timeband.
Task Options
From this tab you can set different task sizes, you can of course change their color and decide whether to show them above or below the timeband.
It is interesting that it allows you to enter the duration of the activity in working days and to place the text box of the duration days in relation to the task bar.
You can even change the working days during the week – this will impact the calculation of the duration of the activity.
Timeband Options
This tab allows you to intervene on the timeband.
You can change the color:
You can change the time scale from, say, months to weeks.
One feature that I find very useful is the Elapsed time, which shows you the time elapsed from the beginning of the timeband to the present day.
Swimlanes Options
To activate this tab, you must first add a swim lane where you can insert an existing task (Task 2) and maybe create a new one (Task 3).
Go ahead and you will see that the swimlane allows you to graphically group the activities.
What else do you need to manage a project and share its progress?
Offline vs Online
An interesting new feature, recently introduced by Office Timeline, is the possibility to use the tool in a completely online version.
Here’s the result:
Let’s try the timeline template for a new product launch.
The online version is clearly collaborative, and it allows you to work with other people.
Office Timeline In summary
Office Timeline is the first specialized PowerPoint Add-in that I propose to you. MLC PowerPoint Add-in also gives you a feature to create simple Gantt diagrams, but Office Timeline is only about Gantt and Timelines, giving you a wider choice.
Graphics and Charts with ThinkCell
Now let’s talk graphics.
In business presentations, it is common to find yourself viewing data to make your conclusions usable.
Imagine a graph that represents the sales trend or a bar graph that shows performance against the previous year and budget targets, or a waterfall graph that shows the blocks of innovation that will contribute to the growth projected in the strategic business plan.
We’re used to create charts in Excel and import them to PowerPoint, but what if I told you that with this add-in you will forget about going back and forth from Excel?
ThinkCell is the best PowerPoint add-in that allows you to create and manage charts directly within your presentation.
What charts?
Well, all kinds of charts!
As you can see there are several opportunities, but let’s see together what the strengths of this historical PowerPoint add-in are.
The waterfall graph is certainly a highlight of Think Cell.
As soon as you enter it, you can enter the source table of the numbers that feed the graph via the icon in the lower right-hand corner of the table.
The numbers entry uses Excel, so you’ll be comfortable with the working environment.
Enter a few numbers to fill in the chart.
Have you noticed that the last box is not a number but an “e”?
If so, congratulations, good eye!
The “e” is used to set the last bar so that it starts from zero.
In the example below I will show you on the left what happens with an “e” and eliminating it on the right.
Did you see that?
In the image on the right the last bar doesn’t start from zero, but from the base of the bar before it.
The graphs are easily modifiable thanks to a pop-up window that allows you to change the font size and the color combination of the graph.
And even on the order of presentation of the categories in the graph.
Even the bar graphs on ThinkCell offer a great interaction experience.
ThinkCell gives you the ability to reconstruct graphics even from an image.
Amazing, isn’t it?
As you can imagine, I couldn’t resist trying it out – but I have to tell you, it’s still not very accurate.
Nevertheless, it allows you to reconstruct the structure of the graph quite faithfully.
Instead, now I will give credit to ThinkCell for another feature that I have always found extremely useful and unique in its kind.
ThinkCell charts are objects created specifically to allow you the custom actions that you can activate with a right click of the mouse.
See the function wheel?
These two, for example, allow you to see the differential in percentage between the total of two selected bars.
If one bar of the graph is too high compared to the others, as in the example below:
ThinkCell gives you the ability to cut it.
See? With one cut, the graph is well-proportioned again.
Another feature that I found noteworthy is the diary creation and management environment.
ThinkCell In summary
ThinkCell is a simple and intuitive – but extremely powerful – tool. You can download a 30 days Trial version that will allow you to test all its features.
In this article I wanted to give more attention to those that I have always used and that have made a difference for me.
Learn to think of this tool as the PowerPoint add-in for more efficient graphics.
ThinkCell is a PowerPoint add-in that can’t absolutely be missing in the set of those who really want to make a difference in creating presentations.
Cut Your Design Time in Half with These PowerPoint Add-ins
I showed you the basic set of PowerPoint add-ins that can significantly affect the way you create presentations:
You can download and purchase them to make them part of your daily routine. However, what I would like to leave you is a method of choice that allows you to enrich your PowerPoint toolbox, add-in after add-in.
Remember, once you’ve built the roof and the two essential pillars, all you have to do now is integrate other vertical add-ins that can be combined with the setup I shared with you.
If you find any add-ins that are worth adding to this guide, write them in the comments and I’ll think about writing about them.
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