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Microsoft has just announced a new feature for Copilot in PowerPoint for Windows that lets you quickly create a PowerPoint slide using a document and a prompt. This can help save you lots of time while making presentations. In this guide, I’ll show you how you can get started using this feature. Please note that this feature is only available to PowerPoint for Windows users with a Copilot license running Version 2502 (Build 18526.20144). Additionally, this feature is currently available only in English (US). Additional language support is coming soon! To get started, you need to open PowerPoint on a Windows device and open up a presentation that you’ve been working on. Next, look for the Copilot button above your slide and press ‘Add a slide’. If you cannot find the Copilot button above your slide, head to the Home tab and select New Slide with Copilot. Now, you should have the opportunity to enter a prompt explaining to Copilot what you want the slide to be about; you can also upload a document for the slide to reference by pressing ‘Reference a file’. If you are stuck on what to type in the prompt, Microsoft provides some ready-made prompt ideas. If you are referencing a larger file and want the slide to contain specific information, you can direct Copilot to a specific section or topic within the file. When creating your prompt, it’s also best to be concise and focus on one or two topics or key points. Once you are happy, press the Send arrow in the lower-right, and Copilot will make a draft slide for you to look at. You can edit the slide, ask Copilot to rewrite your text, or start over with a new prompt to generate a new slide. Prior to this feature being available, creating slides was only possible from Copilot chat. The new implementation is more efficient and fits in like any other PowerPoint feature. With that said, Microsoft does list a known issue with this feature. It writes: "Copilot does not currently support prompts requesting specific slide formatting like font, colors, background, and images." If you're interested in using Copilot in other ways, check out a recent article explaining how voice notes can be turned into documents. Let us know in the comments if this feature is available for you. Source Hope you enjoyed this news post. Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every day for many years. News posts... 2023: 5,800+ | 2024: 5,700+ | 2025 (till end of March): 1,357 RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend

Last year, OneNote received a neat feature (it later came to Word) that allowed PC users with touch-enabled computers that support styluses to draw perfect lines and shapes with the Draw and Hold gesture. In a nutshell, it lets you draw a freeform shape and then hold the pen for OneNote to recognize the shape and straighten it in. Now, the gesture is coming to more Office apps, such as Excel and PowerPoint. While Excel may not be the first app to come to mind when you hear about drawing with a stylus, it still has extensive tools for working with shapes and lines. Therefore, Microsoft will soon let you use the Draw and Hold gesture for tidier spreadsheets. Also, it is a welcome addition to PowerPoint, where drawings and shapes are more common. Here is how Microsoft describes the feature: Draw and Hold supports the following shapes: circle, ellipse, triangle, square, rectangle, rhombus, trapezoid, pentagon, and hexagon. After straightening a shape, Excel and PowerPoint can also let you move it, resize, rotate, or leave it as is. Microsoft says the new gesture is now rolling out to Beta Channel users with Office Version 2410 (Build 18108.20000) or later. As usual, new stuff is rolling out gradually to ensure stability and avoid bugs, so getting the Draw and Hold gesture might take a few days. In other Office news, Microsoft recently confirmed a hilarious bug in Word. It deletes files instead of saving them locally, so beware. More information about it and possible workarounds are available here. Source RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend Hope you enjoyed this news post. Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every day for many years. 2023: Over 5,800 news posts | 2024 (till end of September): 4,292 news posts

Animations are now easier to control and customize within PowerPoint for the web. What you need to know Microsoft has improved animations within PowerPoint for the web. Feedback to the company explained that the previous workflow for animations was "daunting," so Microsoft revamped how to set and customize animations within PowerPoint. The Animation Pane now features cards for each item that can be customized and reordered with a familiar drag and drop movement. Microsoft just rolled out an update to PowerPoint for the web that improves animations. The web version of PowerPoint now has an Animation Pane that's easy to use and that provides more controls over animations within a presentation. Each item within the Animation Pane has a card that can be reordered using drag and drop and that can be customized with a few clicks. Microsoft explained in its blog post announcing the improvements that many find the current animation workflow to be "quite daunting." The update should fix that, as it has a more modern interface that is easier to use. The updated animation features are available now, apart from a preview feature that Microsoft teased. At some point in the near future, you'll also be able to preview animations within PowerPoint for the web using a preview button. Fixing PowerPoint animations Animations are easier to control and customize after an update to PowerPoint for the web. (Image credit: Future) When it comes to ease of use, there's little to say about PowerPoint animations that would be considered a compliment. The best thing I can say is that animations work if you can figure them out. But the overall interface is clunky, and the web version of PowerPoint has even less animation controls than the desktop version. The new animation pane within PowerPoint for the web is even easier to use than PowerPoint for the desktop's version. The same general options are there, but they're laid out in a way that's easier to understand and customize. Maybe I've gotten used to the drag and drop interface of smartphone apps, but the new animation pane within PowerPoint for the web just feels right. Microsoft's blog post about the new animation features listed three priorities: being intuitive, being quick and efficient, and having a simple workflow. Based on my early testing, I'd say the new animation features check all of those boxes. The learning curve is smaller, the interface is more natural, and animations are easier to control and customize. How to use animations in PowerPoint for the web Microsoft outlines the steps on how to use animations in PowerPoint for the web. As a quick reminder, these features roll out gradually, so you may not see the updated animation options yet. Open an existing presentation and select an object you want to animate. Select Animations > Animation Pane. In the Animation pane, click the Add Animation button. In the animation card for the selected object, edit the animation properties as needed. To add more than one animation to the selected object, click the Add button at the top of the task pane and notice that corresponding cards are added to the Animations pane. To delete an applied animation, click the Delete icon in the top right corner of the corresponding card. To reorder animations, select the six-dots (reordering dots) icon in the top-left of the card and drag the card to place the selected animation in a new position. Source

Dennis Austin, the co-creator of the PowerPoint presentation software that was quickly acquired by Microsoft just a few months after it launched, has passed away. The Washington Post reported that Austin died on September 1 due to complications of lung cancer at the age of 76 in his home in Los Altos, California. Austin wrote his own account on the creation of PowerPoint which can be read at the ComputerHistory.org site (in PDF format). Austin was hired by the Silicon Valley software company Forethought in October 1984 by its vice president of product development Robert Gaskins. The company was making software for Apple's Macintosh PCs but was in financial trouble. Austin wrote that the company was trying to develop a presentation software app, based on an idea by Gaskins. In the end, Austin and Gaskins worked together on the app. Austin wrote: The product design details required a lot of invention. Bob was able to spend many hours with me hashing over ideas. It was a productive process and the quality of my designs reflected Bob’s support and feedback. I have compared our collaboration to a building design project: Bob wanted to build a dream house and I was his architect. The app had the working name Presenter, and as the name implied it was designed to not just show slides but to create presentations. Austin wrote: It should allow the production of various presentation materials from a single master file. This would include both presentations slides (overhead transparencies, but also on-screen presentations, and perhaps eventually 35mm slides) and printed handouts. The potential high quality of output should be matched by high-resolution graphics and typeset-quality text. As the development of Presenter moved forward, the company was looking for a new and better name. Austin wrote: On a business trip, Bob looked out the airplane window and noted the “Power Point” runway sign just before takeoff. The name cleared the trademark search and before long we were putting the finishing touches on an About PowerPoint window for the new product. PowerPoint 1.0 was launched on April 20, 1987, for the Macintosh. In August 1987, Microsoft bought Forethought and the rights to PowerPoint for $14 million. It was the company's first major acquisition and it turned out to be a good one. The software continues to be used extensively, and The Washington Post states that it's used to make 30 million presentations a day, according to Microsoft. Austin continued to work on PowerPoint as part of Microsoft until he retired in 1996. Source

Earlier this year, Microsoft added a way for people who use the PowerPoint presentation app on the web to upload and insert videos in their presentations. This week, Microsoft revealed that the feature had received an upgrade, with users able to add captions and subtitles to their PowerPoint videos. As the Microsoft 365 Insider blog points out, the ability to add captions and subtitles to PowerPoint videos has a few benefits for people who check out presentations. Some people who may view the PowerPoint event may speak another language, so adding subtitles in that language will be very helpful. People with audio disabilities will appreciate any captions added to the video. Finally, people who simply want to check out the video quietly without disturbing other people around them will likely use captions or subtitles while viewing the PowerPoint. The captions and subtitles must be created in the WebVTT format before they are put into the PowerPoint video. Microsoft has its own support site for help in creating the caption files, which can be made with a variety of apps, even with a text-only app like Notepad. Once you have created your captions or subtitles, it's time to put them in your PowerPoint video. First, users must sign into the PowerPoint site with their Microsoft account. Then they open up a PowerPoint file, select Insert, then select Video, and finally select Insert Video From (This Device) to pick which local video they want to insert into the presentation. Finally, you can then select Video, and then Insert Captions. You can then select the WebVTT file you have created for the video's captions and it will be inserted with the video in the PowerPoint app on the web. People who then view the video on the PowerPoint web app can click on the Captions button in the lower right corner of the video player to start showing the text on the screen. Microsoft adds: The new video captions feature for PowerPoint is available now for all web users. Source

Microsoft has announced two powerful new PowerPoint features for Windows and iPad users. In its Office Insider blog post, the company highlighted two new capabilities, including Cameo in Recording Studio and the ability to set line spacing in PowerPoint slides on iPad. PowerPoint's Recording Studio allows you to create and share videos of your presentation, thanks to its enhanced recording experience. But now, with the availability of Cameo in Recording Studio, you can also use the camera feed to "make the video recording of your presentation even more personal and create an immersive storytelling experience." You also get the option to customize your camera feed's appearance: it allows you to "apply your favorite camera styles, shapes, and sizes to cameo, and choose the place on the slide for your camera feed." Microsoft is also bringing Cameo to Teams users in August this year. The way the whole thing works is pretty simple. Open the PowerPoint presentation you want to record and share, then on the Record tab, select Cameo to add your camera feeds to the slides. Cameo in PowerPoint Recording Studio is rolling out to Office Insiders running Beta Channel Version 2207 (Build 15425.20000) or later. In another post, Microsoft mentioned that Line Spacing was one of the most-requested features from iPad users. And the company has finally introduced it to PowerPoint users on iPad, allowing them to "customize the line spacing before and after paragraphs, within blocks of text, and more." Users need to select the text and tap the Line Spacing button on the Home tab and then choose their preferred spacing settings. The new Line Spacing button is available to Insiders running Version 2.59 (Build 22030101) or later. Sources and images: Microsoft (1, 2) Microsoft introduces some useful new features to PowerPoint

Microsoft made a commitment in 2021 to make Windows 11 and other apps more accessible for people with disabilities. That same year, Microsoft announced a new accessibility ribbon for its PowerPoint presentation app for Windows and Mac. It allowed users to make slides with features that would make them more accessible to certain audiences including people with hearing and visual disabilities. Today, as part of Global Accessibility Awareness Day, Microsoft announced new features for the PowerPoint accessibility ribbon for Windows and Mac platforms and PowerPoint on the web. These features are being added based on feedback from users from the past 18 months. Here's what's been added to the new version of the ribbon: The accessibility ribbon now appears whenever the Alt Text Pane and Reading Order Pane are open (in addition to when the Accessibility Checker Pane is open). The ribbon now makes it easy to spot issues that would prevent your content from being accessible to colour blind people using the Inspect without colour button. The ribbon now enables you to mark images included in your presentation solely to add visual interest rather than information, using the Mark as Decorative button one object at a time or in bulk, and avoid having to include alt text. It also speeds up adding a header row or column to a table in one easy step with the new Insert Header Row and Insert Header Column commands. The new version of PowerPoint is available now for Office Insiders to try out for Windows (version 2304 - Build 16327.10000 or later) and for Mac (version 16.72 - Build 23040900 or later). There's no word on when it will reach general availability The accessibility ribbon feature has also been added to other Microsoft Office apps, including Excel, and most recently to Outlook for Windows. Microsoft puts in improvements to its PowerPoint accessibility ribbon