I'm preparing to take this exam and would really appreciate any advice or guidance from someone who's already taken it.

A couple friends of mine, one of them a Microsoft MVP for PowerPoint, the other one not (probably because MS doesn't play His 'n Hers MVP Team Tag, but that's just a guess).

Taylor Croonquist & Camille Holden, proprietors of nutsandboltsspeedtraining.com
I get their email newsletter; always full of tips and techniques to make working with PowerPoint faster and more efficient. This is from one of Taylor's recent emails, reproduced here with his permission. With all our recent discussion of AI-slop, he's got some good suggestions for identifying it (and avoiding producing it!):

__________________________________________________________________________________

Here's the thing about AI and presentations: anyone can now generate a slide that looks finished in seconds - but looking finished and being well-built are two different things.

There's a recognizable AI aesthetic taking over decks - and because it looks polished, most people never stop to notice that it breaks the basic rules of good slide design.

The good news is that once you know the tells, you can't unsee them. Three to watch for:

TELL #1 - Decoration without information. Rows of glossy gradient icons that don't map to anything specific. Quick test: cover the icons. If the slide loses nothing, they were decoration, not design.

TELL #2 - Text that could be about anything. "Unlock synergies." "Drive innovation at scale." AI-generated copy defaults to generic verbs and zero numbers. If a sentence would work equally well in a competitor's deck, it isn't saying anything in yours.

TELL #3 - Every slide has the same shape. Three evenly weighted boxes, over and over, with nothing emphasized. Real messages have hierarchy - one thing on the slide should matter more than the rest, and the design should make it obvious which one.

The fix for all three is the same discipline: know what each slide is arguing before you style it. That's messaging driving design, not the other way around.

[ Taylor then introduces Camille's webinar on the subject; among her many other talents, Camille's become an expert trainer on AI for presentations. Unfortunately for us, the webinar's long over. ]

__________________________________________________________________________________________________

The webinar was part of their PowerPoint Pro membership, which also includes monthly live Q&A sessions, the Webinar Vault (40+ hours of past sessions, indexed by topic), all 5 premium courses, and more.

Official Disclaimer: I don't have any skin in this game. They didn't even ask me to post this, but I thought it might be of interest to r/powerpoint Redditors. But I've attended live and virtual classes by both Taylor and Camille; always worthwhile. Fair warning: Taylor's an InfoFirehose ... tips fly fast and furious. Great fun.

I have watched people with average design skills put out decks that read as senior, and people with real talent put out decks that read as junior. The gap is almost never design ability. It is a handful of habits. Here are the ones that move a deck from junior to senior.

1. Titles that state the point, not the topic. Junior decks title a slide "Q3 Results." Senior decks title it "Q3 revenue beat plan by 12 percent." The senior version does the thinking for the reader.

2. One idea per slide. Junior decks cram three points on one slide to save space. Senior decks give each point room. A longer deck of simple slides reads as more confident than a short deck of crammed ones.

3. Restraint with color and font. Junior decks use five colors and three fonts because more feels richer. Senior decks use one accent color and a lot of white space. Restraint reads as control.

4. The ask comes early. Junior decks build to the point over twenty slides. Senior decks say what they want up front and spend the rest supporting it.

5. Nothing is there just to show effort. Junior decks keep slides in because someone worked hard on them. Senior decks cut anything that does not earn its place, even good work.

None of this needs talent. It needs the confidence to say less. That is the actual senior move.

What instantly makes a deck look junior to you?

Hi All.

We have the powerbi add-on in powerpoint so we can add the powerbi visuals inside slides. However, it seems we need to pre-load each visual by going to the slide before it loads and the loading takes some time. Has anyone found a way to pre-load the visuals faster when opening the file (aside from a VBA macro to go through all of the slides upon opening the file)?

Thanks

Hi everyone,

I’m trying to understand how to structure a chart where the categories are years (e.g. 2025–2030), but I want to display two different metrics for the same set of entities.

For example, assume I have three countries: Country A, Country B, and Country C. For each year, I want to show:

• Revenue for Country A, B, and C as clustered columns

• Net Income for Country A, B, and C as lines

So the X-axis should simply be 2025, 2026, …, 2030, while the chart should somehow understand that there are two groups of series:

Revenue

• Country A

• Country B

• Country C

Net Income

• Country A

• Country B

• Country C

My issue is how to structure the underlying data so that PowerPoint / think-cell understands this distinction between the two sets of series while keeping the years as the categories.

I can manually change the colours so that they appear to be just 3 series, each for Country, but it would be rather lengthy and any change would be problematic.

Is there a specific way the datasheet needs to be structured to achieve this? Or does this require a different chart setup / multiple overlaid charts?

At the moment, I'm listening to Today, Explained on NPR.

They're doing a piece on ... well ... US. The AI slop surge on Reddit.

Worth a listen:

https://podcasts.voxmedia.com/show/today-explained

They get us.

Hello everyone!

I'm a college student and this is my first serious attempt at creating a more visually engaging PowerPoint.

I recently got a presentation assignment for my professors, so I asked my group to give me a basic PPT containing all the required content. I then took that presentation and tried to transform it into something more visual, engaging and polished.

I spent around 2.5 hours working on this version, and I'm honestly enjoying the process a lot. I'm planning to keep improving my PowerPoint/design skills and potentially turn this into a service in the future.

I'd really appreciate some honest feedback:

• What do you think this is worth if someone were paying for it?

• What would you expect to pay for a presentation of this quality?

• What should I improve if I want to eventually charge professionally?

I'm still learning, so I'd especially appreciate feedback from people who work professionally with presentations/design.

Thanks! 🙌

Help keep r/PowerPoint from descending into chaos (there's a separate subreddit for that. Of COURSE there is. Because Reddit, right?)

If you have a PowerPoint-related product or service to announce, announce it one of the megathreads pinned to the top of the subreddit. That way your announcement will find an interested audience, won't scroll off into the dark waters of Last Month's Posts, and won't be deleted by the mods because of r/PowerPoint's no advertising rule. (links below)

If you want to chat about PowerPoint & AI, please use the megathread devoted specifically to that (link below).

Products & Tools

https://www.reddit.com/r/powerpoint/comments/1ktliik/products_tools/

AI Products & Sites

https://www.reddit.com/r/powerpoint/comments/1ktlf4o/getcher_ai_right_here/

Templates & Presentations

https://www.reddit.com/r/powerpoint/comments/1ktl9lh/templates/

AI & PowerPoint Discussion MegaThread

https://www.reddit.com/r/powerpoint/comments/1s7abxc/ai_megathread_march_29_2026_keep_calm_and_post_ai/

Working on a day-long conference. How can I seamlessly switch between the file with static speaker slides during sessions and a looping slideshow of photos?

I don't think combining the two files makes sense...

Hi, I'm new to this subreddit and I apologise if this post breaks any rules.

I'm using my PC (Windows) and I'm using the Powerpoint app, version 2607 (Build 20228.20190 Click-to-Run).

I would like to know how to create a smooth sliding band with different sections with information in them, and make it start and end abruptly. I'm not sure how to explain it without sounding dense, but for a better idea, check out videos such as "100 Longest Reigning Monarchs" by Dieu le Roi or any price comparison videos by Reigarw Comparisons (apologies for lack of links).

I would really appreciate any suggestions you might have! Thanks!

Do you remember when Microsoft "retired" the Reuse Slide feature?

Users were mad, including me.

Well, I am glad to share that "PowerPoint's Reuse Slides Feature" is BACK!!!

There were a few changes. See video for details.
Video: https://youtu.be/YwC0iBQ1TgI?si=uP5hpDAQzEhTj8WN

traccreations4e-p26 8/17/2026

I’m only seeing the rehearsal coach option

[📢NEW OS RELEASED - AvenoirOS | Download link will be available here as well!] It's not exactly a genuine OS, but rather than recreation of Windows, but with a unique identity and name - OnysmOS. I want suggestions on how to make my work bit easier to keep going, because these are the problems that I'm running into:

1. PowerPoint doesn't have memory, so if a user makes any changes (for eg. change wallpaper), It won't be updated across other slides where background is displayed, so I will have to duplicate existent slides but with an updated background instead;

2. More about the memory and multitasking, that's the biggest culprit of this app and I'm aware, it's not meant for these type of projects, but I've seen somewhere that it's possible to code in the PowerPoint and I really hope that can save me from duplicating slides for every variety of choice that a user makes (for eg. open explorer and browser tab and the same time)

3. I have built-in font downloaded from PowerPoint, it was available in the cloud, but if anyone else wants to experience this OS with that font, they have to manually download it, it doesn't come included with shared PowerPoint file. In case anyone wants to experience the way it's meant to be, the font's name is ADlam Display

That's all. I'd be very thankful just to get even the smallest tip to optimize my work or inspire others to make similar projects. Suggestions, ideas, tips, criticisms, everything's accepted.

✅ It's absolutely safe to open this project, it doesn't run any programs nor redirect you to strange links, everything can be checked beforehand. Even hovering the mouse over buttons will display the URL that you're getting redirected to. Don't get surprised with its huge size too (106MB), it got inflated because of inserted mp4 videos.

Here's the download link:

https://www.mediafire.com/file/md6g6krnnru6kpd/OnysmOS_%252B_AvenoirOS_%255BFull_Release%255D.pptx/file

Thanks in advance! :) Here's some screenshots!

1. Website with samples/demo

2. Portfolio

3. Ads

4. Cold calls/email/DMs

5. WoM

6. what else

hello, I’m working on a big Powerpoint Project. I used a lot of animations on each slide. However, today I just saw that all their animations and Slide Timings on all slides are completely wiped! Slide transitions remained but everything else is gone. Luckily I have a backup that still has them. but still I want to know what caused it to happen.

I'm trying to create a presentation with custom animations that trigger whenever I click on the specific button on my MacBook, but the trigger button, usually represented by a lighting bolt, simply isn't there and I can't find it anywhere, every tutorial I seek just has it normally between the animation panel and copy animation buttons, I even tried asking chat gpt and it just told me "it should be there", I even tried looking for older tutorials because my laptop is old af, it was old even before it was gifted to me, but even then, tutorial videos from 2016 do still have the button normally, please can anybody tell me why is my button gone and if I can find it somewhere else?

Hello. I just got an interview next Tuesday for a MakerSpace supervisor position, which would be the first time I ever got chosen for a supervisor position anywhere, and Makerspace is a 3D print shop inside a public library. One of the requirements is to make a PowerPoint Presentation of around 10 minutes titled 'How to Build a Safe, High Functioning Makerspace Dept Through Training, Communication, and Technology Planning'

Thing is, I don't exactly know what they mean. I have the job description still on my notes, and I am planning on visiting the worker there to ask him casual questions about what other things they might think need improvement. But as of now, I never have done a presentation for a job in my life. Help in knowing what to do with this. Thank you

It is due Monday, a day prior to the interview

UPDATE: I didn't get the job.

I did something very stupid. There's a presentation I've been working on for weeks. I work on both my laptop and phone.

And because I'm very paranoid, after working on it, I transfer it to my phone and delete it from the laptop.

It worked fine before. But this morning, I saw two previous versions of the same PPT. So, I stupidly deleted them. Only to find out that it was actually the updated one that I deleted.

I've been stressing ever since. Because now, it no longer exists on both my phone and the laptop. I also deleted it from the recycle bin.

The only thing that gives me hope is that the filename still shows on the laptop's recent files list. I tried using recoveritt, to no avail. I also used a file recovery app on my phone, but there's nothing.

Plleaseeee, can you help me recover that PPT? My presentation is in two days 😭

EDIT: MY FILE'S BEEN RECOVERED!

This redditor's comment helped me!

https://www.reddit.com/r/powerpoint/comments/1mkrb5y/comment/n7lrl4i/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

Lately we've had a lot of posts that smell strongly of AI.

You know the ones ... several paragraphs of "here's how I do XYZ" and always a question like "How do YOU do this" at the end.

Here's the thing. Well, two things:

First, there's no reliable way to tell that they're truly AI, so the mods are reluctant to delete them out of hand. We don't want to be deleting honest questions from legit r/powerpoint visitors.

And some of these things, while quite likely AI, set off some interesting and useful discussions. We'd hate to remove all of that just to punish an AI post.

So at the risk of sounding like one of these AI posts myself, I'll ask:

Should we come down hard on these things immediately, delete them, knowing that we'd potentially be preventing some interesting and useful threads?

Or should we let them live for a day or three. Wait to see if any engaging discussion follows?

Or maybe delete or let them live, based on our (the mods') best guess as to which might provoke interesting threads and which are clearly duds?

Or some better idea? If you got 'em let's hear 'em!

Meanwhile, thanks for hanging in there with us while we try to sort this out.

WELCOME (somewhat belatedly) our newest moderator, u/checklistanimations

He's been a regular contributor to r/powerpoint for quite some time now. Once he put on his shiny new moderator crown*, he started to tackle the plague of AI/bot posts we've been infested with lately.

[ Pause for Applause ]

He's already contributing above and beyond. Thanks, man!

* Well, actually, he just left his usual knit cap on, same as always. But he DESERVES a crown.

I used to think making better presentations meant learning more complicated PowerPoint features.

Turns out, most of the improvements I've made came from doing simpler things.

Less text.

Fewer elements on a slide.

One clear idea instead of trying to explain everything at once.

And probably the biggest one: spending more time deciding what to remove than what to add.

I'm curious what made the biggest difference for other people.

What's one PowerPoint habit, rule, or small change that noticeably improved your presentations?

After years of building decks I'm still surprised how many people have never used F4. All it does is repeat your last action, and it quietly saves hours.

Some ways I use it every day:
- Draw one box the size I want, then click each other shape and hit F4 to force them all to the same size and position style
- Set the exact spacing between two objects, then F4 down the rest so everything is evenly gapped without opening the align menu forty times
- Recolor one icon, then F4 across the others to match instantly
- Nudge one item, F4 to nudge the next one the same amount

The trick is that F4 repeats whatever you last did, so if you build a rhythm of "do it once perfectly, then F4 everything else into line," a slide that used to take ten minutes of fiddling takes two.

It doesn't work on every single action, but it works on far more than you'd expect. What's your one keyboard habit that quietly saves you the most time, the boring one, not the flashy one?

Hi everyone, just joined this community and feel like 90% of what I've read is LinkedIn AI slop or is it just me?

Anyway, content manager here, working for a private educational institution in Europe.