Highlight+ for PowerPoint: Conversation with Zafer Mustafa

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  Zafer “Zafe” Mustafa is a visual advocate with over 20 years of experience helping legal teams present clear, compelling case themes. He specializes in complex IP, pharmaceutical disputes, and his background spans both litigation and media. He’s consulted on hundreds of legal matters and is the creator of Final Exhibits, a popular PDF stamping tool. He’s also served as a creative consultant on film and television projects, most recently producing visual concepts for a Hulu miniseries. Zafe’s approach blends precision and creativity—he also continues to pretend he can play the guitar.

In this conversation, Zafe discusses his new Highlight+ add-in for PowerPoint.

Geetesh: Zafe, what was the inspiration for Highlight+? What drove you to develop this specialized PowerPoint add-in for litigators?

Zafe: There’s never enough time when creating trial presentations. And while they’re important, they’re just one of many tasks on a trial team’s plate. Those of us in the graphics support space have developed shortcuts and systems to move quickly—but litigators don’t have time for all that. They need something that just works—and works simply. Highlight+ came from that need.

Geetesh: In your view, what distinguishes Highlight+ from the native highlighting tools available in PowerPoint 365? Are there specific features that elevate its value for legal professionals? Also, is this add-in only limited to litigators, or can other PowerPoint users benefit from it?

Zafe: Legal presentations tend to follow a consistent format—especially when it comes to presenting documents in court. You’ll often see what’s called a document call-out, where a portion of a larger document—like a paragraph of text or even a photograph—is pulled out from the page and shown full-screen. To guide the viewer, attorneys then highlight key items—specific phrases, a sentence, or sometimes entire sections of an image or exhibit.

The problem is, PowerPoint’s native highlighter wasn’t built for that. It’s awkward to work with—especially when you’re trying to quickly mark up large blocks of text. The casual PowerPoint user expects the highlighter to behave like any other shape—click, drag, resize—but instead, they’re stuck with something that doesn’t work the way they’re used to.

Highlight+ addresses that. It takes PowerPoint’s built-in highlighter and makes it work the way people expect. The Block Highlight in Highlight+ is actually a shape—just like the default rectangle or text box—so it moves, resizes, and aligns exactly the way users are used to.

And because it’s built on the native highlighter, anyone can view the highlights—no add-in required. Full editing is only available to Highlight+ users, but the presentation displays properly for anyone using PowerPoint 2016 or newer.

Beyond highlighting, Highlight+ also helps users create polished document call-outs quickly, using presets that speed up one of the other time-consuming parts of presentation prep. Whether you’re pulling a paragraph from a deposition or a clause from a contract, Highlight+ gives you tools to turn them into clean, consistent call-outs.

And polish matters. These presentations are a reflection on the attorney, their firm and more importantly, the client. That client might be a major company with an established identity. Highlight+ helps the presentation look clean, intentional, and on-brand.

PowerPoint also has a well-known issue when exporting to PDF or printing: native highlights are replaced with faint or faded versions of the original. Highlight+ fixes that too, with a custom “Save to PDF” feature that ensures what you see on screen is exactly what gets delivered.

While Highlight+ was built with litigators in mind, I’ve found it can be helpful to others as well. If you’re someone who presents or annotates documents in PowerPoint—whether you’re in consulting, teaching, or research—I invite you to give it a try.

Geetesh: Is there a trial version of Highlight+ available for evaluation? Additionally, could you walk us through the pricing structure?

Zafe: Yes—there’s a fully functional 14-day trial, so you can explore everything Highlight+ offers and see how it fits into your workflow.

If you decide to continue using it, Highlight+ is available as an annual subscription, licensed for individual use. I am currently offering an introductory price of $65 for the first year, available through September 1, 2025. After that, the standard subscription will be $95 per year.

The views and opinions expressed in this blog post or content are those of the authors or the interviewees and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any other agency, organization, employer, or company.