Forum Discussion
Favorite PowerPoint Features?
One of the reasons PowerPoint is so popular is because it's so easy to use - there isn't much you need to know to begin using it. That's probably why so many users often miss the newer features after upgrading.
So I thought it would be helpful to share our favorite and most-used features in PowerPoint 07 and 10. For those using 2003, this will be good ammo to make the case for upgrading
My top 3 features:
- Slide Masters - the ability to create my own text and image placeholders. Awesome for creating custom layouts.
- Selection Pane - there's no way to manage multiple animations and objects without it
- Change Picture - simple, but one of the most used features for me.
So, what about you? What are your top features or workflows in PowerPoint?
68 Replies
You guys are awesome! I'm doing a PowerPoint webinar next month for my E-learning Team and this will really help!
I am not a PowerPoint expert but I do leverage a lot of what you guys share. The only thing I use a lot that I didn't see is the new cropping features. I love how it lets me see the area I've cropped.
Thank you so much! I'm glad to see others work Saturday nights LOL.
Always working, it seems. Thanks for a great posting thread.
Mine is a simple one; I love the many treatments you can easily add to images. It saves so much time and looks great.
I'm going to focus on the animation side: Top three:
Fade in/out
Appear
Slide in
I ♥ the new shape tools that allow you to combine and customize all sorts of new shapes.
All great features. Add the ability to compress images (and make them transparent), cropping, motion path animations, and easy color corrections and artistic effects, and, to echo David, the selection pane and image replacement.
And one simple feature often overlooked. The ability to drag and have things off-canvas.
Also, the ability to have add-ins, without which they would probably be no Presenter.
Shape Tools are great as Jeanette mentioned. These days, I find myself firing up PowerPoint for some quick graphics work instead of opening up Photoshop simply because is easier to create and manipulate shapes, shadowing, and some of the other quick effects which I can then save as an image for use in a website, blog post, etc.
My top 3 are:
1. blank canvas
2. layers
3. photo and video effects
Hmm, funny that no one is mentioning SmartArt . . .
Gerry Wasiluk said:
Hmm, funny that no one is mentioning SmartArt . . .
Good catch Gerry. Ironically Smart Art is one of the best features in 2007 & 2010. Smart Art just work best when saved as image files rather than live vectors.Personally I like the idea of SmartArt but find that I don't use it very often.
