PowerPoint and Presenting Stuff

Creating and Editing AutoCorrect Entries in PowerPoint 365 for Windows

The AutoCorrect feature in PowerPoint and other Microsoft Office programs is dependent on a small list of words and phrases. This list contains two columns called Replace and With. For example, the Replace entry for teh will correspond to the With entry containing the word the. You can easily tailor your AutoCorrect list by adding your own commonly misspelled words. Similarly, you can make changes and delete entries from within this AutoCorrect list.

Learn how to create and edit AutoCorrect entries in PowerPoint 365 for Windows.

Filed Under: PowerPoint 365
Tagged as: AutoCorrect, Microsoft Windows, Office 365, PowerPoint 365, Proofing, Spelling, Tutorials

Building PowerPoint Templates v2: Conversation with Julie Terberg

    Julie Terberg is the creative force behind Design to Present and Terberg Design, focused on crafting presentations that better communicate with audiences. With decades of experience in the presentation industry, Julie has trusted partnerships with other presentation professionals and valued clients around the world.

Since 2005, she has been recognized as a Microsoft PowerPoint MVP for her contributions to the presentation community. Julie enjoys teaching and sharing ideas at industry conferences, including the Presentation Summit and the Present to Succeed conference. She is a director of the Presentation Guild and cohosts the webinar series “Inspired by Design,” exclusively for Guild members. She just completed her latest book, Building PowerPoint Templates, version 2, with co-author Echo Swinford.

In this conversation, Julie talks about her updated book, Building PowerPoint Templates v2.

Geetesh: Julie, the new version of your book, Building PowerPoint Templates, co-authored with Echo Swinford, looks at PowerPoint templates so comprehensively. What’s new in this version of the book?

Julie: The process of constructing a PowerPoint template hasn’t changed much since we wrote the first edition. The components and basic steps remain the same. That said, we have updated our advice regarding default slide layouts and default placeholders.

We cover all of the newer features in the program that are relevant to template building. New since 2013, Theme variants are present in all of the stock themes including PowerPoint’s blank template. In the book, we stress (repeatedly) the need to save as a POTX file to strip these variants from your new template in progress.

Another new feature, PowerPoint Designer, uses artificial intelligence to surface alternate design ideas for your slide content. These design ideas can pull from custom layouts within a template. In the book, we teach you how to build a template to work with Designer.

One of the biggest changes to PowerPoint is the font story. A couple of years ago, Microsoft introduced a font service with hundreds of new and legacy fonts available for folks with the latest versions of Office. This cloud font service offers up many gorgeous new typefaces, perfect for presentation templates. We have included a ton of advice about choosing fonts for templates and we cover updates with font embedding, also. While this is exciting news, there are many caveats to embedding and we list all of them in the book.

Geetesh: Echo and you have shared knowledge that you both use in your work life, creating PowerPoint templates for organizations. Can you tell us more about your work, and how it helped you write this book?

Julie: Along with crafting presentations and related materials, I design and build templates, and template systems, for large and small companies. Echo and I work together on many projects; I design, and she builds the templates. Together, we’ve built hundreds of templates, many of them for worldwide corporations with thousands of presentation creators. We’re always keeping these folks in mind when designing and constructing, aiming to make templates that are useful and timesaving. And we’re learning and adapting our methods along the way.

Years ago, we worked together on a large project with Microsoft, designing and building unique templates representing a wide range of topics. We learned a lot during the project and honed our process along the way.

Along with you, Geetesh, Echo and I are Microsoft MVPs and as such, we meet regularly with folks on the PowerPoint team. This enables us to learn about new features from the source, to ask specific questions pertinent to template building, and sometimes, to influence changes to the program that will benefit everyone in the future.

You May Also Like: Building PowerPoint Templates: Conversation with Julie Terberg

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.

Filed Under: Interviews
Tagged as: Books, Interviews, Julie Terberg, Templates

Building PowerPoint Templates v2: Conversation with Echo Swinford

  A Microsoft PowerPoint MVP since 2000, Echo Swinford began her PowerPoint career in 1997. She holds a master’s degree in new media from the Indiana University School of Informatics and is the owner of Echosvoice, a PowerPoint consulting firm specializing in custom template development, presentation creation, makeovers and cleanup, and training for large and small corporate clients. Echo has written and co-written five PowerPoint books, developed a number of video publications, and has a string of tech editing credits to her name. She is President Emerita of the Presentation Guild, a not-for-profit trade association for the presentation industry which she founded in 2015. She just completed her latest book, Building PowerPoint Templates, version 2, with co-author Julie Terberg.

In this conversation, Echo talks about her updated book, Building PowerPoint Templates v2.

Geetesh: Echo, the new version of your book, Building PowerPoint Templates, co-authored with Julie Terberg is a great resource for PowerPoint users. What are the main pain points that you help resolve for them in this book?

Echo: Honestly, I think the guidance around which fonts to use in your PowerPoint templates is the most complete information I’ve seen anywhere. I have to give a ton of props to Julie for doing that research and compiling all of the current information in a few easy-to-understand pages. PowerPoint is horrible about font substitution and it’s not intuitive at all for folks who use the software, whether they are building a template or simply using one that’s been provided. So we tried really really hard to help template builders consider the ramifications of using various fonts – and we included about a page worth of cautions to go along!

Also, because there are so many different uses and designs for templates, there’s often not one specific exact right way to do something – but there are plenty of wrong ones. So we tried to give better insight into how we think through some of those decisions: dealing with footers, when to add a custom layout vs using one of the defaults, when to set a dark background style, how to get the logo to appear on top of a picture, things like that.

Geetesh: You have a comprehensive section within the book that looks at editing template nuances using an XML editing environment. How doable is this part for everyday PowerPoint users, and does the book hand-hold them?

Echo: Well, I guess that depends on how much hand-holding you expect! Seriously, though, the chapter on editing XML gives plenty of guidance for getting started with editing PowerPoint’s XML as well as pointers to additional resources. We cover the things that Julie and I do most often, like stripping “most recent” colors, adding custom colors, and changing the default font size for tables. We also explain how to remove userdrawn settings to help prevent getting weird overlapping graphics when applying a theme. None of these are absolutely critical to do, but they do take your template to the next level. Anyone who’s interested in these things should be able to get started with a minimum of fuss after reading the chapter on XML.

You May Also Like: Building PowerPoint Templates: Conversation with Echo Swinford

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.

Filed Under: Interviews
Tagged as: Books, Echo Swinford, Interviews, Templates

Manage and Remove Connected Services in PowerPoint 365 for Windows

We already explored how you can add connected services in PowerPoint 365. Although it may seem that you are adding these services to PowerPoint, you are essentially connecting them to all programs and platforms connected with your Microsoft account, including OneDrive, all of Microsoft 365, and even your Windows operating system. Wherever used, these connected services help you access your settings and recent files or templates across all your devices, including laptops, tablets, and smartphones.

Learn how to manage and remove connected services in PowerPoint 365 for Windows.

Filed Under: PowerPoint 365
Tagged as: Interface, Microsoft Windows, Office 365, PowerPoint 365, Services, Tutorials

PowerPoint and Presenting News: October 19, 2021

We first look at the AutoCorrect options in PowerPoint 365 for Windows. This is an important feature that works similarly in other Microsoft Office programs as well. We then look at setting options for AutoCorrect in PowerPoint 365 for Windows.

We bring you a short review of AKVIS Magnifier AI 11, a standalone tool that also includes a Photoshop-compatible plug-in that intelligently enlarges images. We also bring you quotes, press releases, and templates from the last few days.

Stay informed about updated tutorials and happenings related to PowerPoint and presenting.

Filed Under: Ezine
Tagged as: Ezine, Indezine, News, PowerPoint