What’s New in PowerPoint Latest Versions

Just like the rest of the MS Office suite, PowerPoint is constantly updated. Among the features that have appeared are many new visual effects and transitions, a virtual table of contents, added SVG vector graphics, the ability to add 3D models, background removal and much more.
Add a table of contents
How to remove a background
How to enable the Designer
How to bend text

Add a table of contents

With this feature, you can add a table of contents to an existing presentation as summary or intermediate slides. This can be done both for the table of contents of the presentation itself and for creating the content of individual sections. It is possible to make a separate slide with thumbnails of other slides and open them then with a mouse click.

This functionality was available in earlier versions of PowerPoint. It was possible to make links to individual sections there, but it was time-consuming and not as nice and elegant, without adding various transitions and animations as the latest versions allow.

1. To add a table of contents, open the “Insert” tab.
2. Find the “Links” group and click the “Zoom” button.
3. In this group, you can choose from three options: “Summary Zoom “, “Section Zoom “, and “Slide Zoom”.
4. After selecting one of these items, a block with thumbnails of files will open, in which you need to mark all the slides that will be included in the table of contents.
5. Click the “Insert” button.

Let’s consider separately the options from the group “Zoom”.

• Slide Zoom. This option is to create a slide page with thumbnail images of multiple selected slides. To use this section, create a blank page where the table of contents will be located, select the item in the Table of Contents section, select the slides that you want to use, and then click “Insert”. Then place the thumbnails on the page as you like. When you start your presentation, you can jump directly from the “Zoom” to the selected slide.
• Section Zoom. Before you can use this feature, you should divide your presentation into sections. To do this, select the “Summary Zoom” item and mark the first slides in the group. Slides that appear after the first slide in a section will be automatically assigned to that block until the first slide in the next section. Then you need to create a blank slide for the table of contents by sections in the “Zoom” section, select this item and tick the sections that will be placed there. When you start a presentation, moving from section to section will be accompanied by a beautiful zoom effect.
• Summary Zoom. When you use this section, all marked slides are added to the table of contents. After selecting this option to create a table of contents, you just need to mark all the necessary slides and click the “Insert” button.

With the help of this function, you can make beautiful multi-level table of contents.

How to remove a background

Sometimes when you create a new slide, you want to remove the background from the picture and wrap it with text. In earlier versions of PowerPoint , in order to do this, you had to use third-party programs, for example, Photoshop. In newer versions, this function is built into the program.

1. Create a slide and insert the picture from which you want to remove the background.
2. After double-clicking a picture, the “Picture Format ” menu appears at the top.
3. Click on the “Remove Background” button.
4. Use the “Mark Areas to Keep” and “Mark Areas to remove” buttons to gently outline the desired area of the image.
5. Click the “Save Changes” button.

Perhaps it will not be possible to do it beautifully immediately. The main thing is patience and accuracy.

How to Enable the Designer

Newer versions of PowerPoint have a feature called Design Manager, which lets you create professional-looking presentations based on the suggested templates and settings. The “Design” button is located on the main menu of the application.

1. Open or create a presentation.
2. Click the “Design” menu item.
3. Choose a theme from the suggested templates.
4. In the “Options” section, click on the “Advanced Options” arrow button.
5. In the suggested list: “Colors”, “Fonts”, “Effects”, “Background Styles” select the desired settings.
6. In the “Customize” section, you can select the slide size and background format.

How to bend text

The latest versions of PowerPoint include additional text features, such as the ability to bend typed text in the title or slide content to enhance the appearance of the slide.

You can create curved text by using the Transform effect, which allows you to twist or collapse text around a shape on a slide.

1. Open the slide where the text will appear.
2. From the main menu, click the “Insert” tab.
3. In the “Text” group, click the “WordArt” button.
4. Select the letter outlines that you want, and then type the text.
5. In the Format Shape menu that opens, locate the “WordArt Styles” block, and then click “Text Effects”.
6. From the “Text Effects” menu that opens, choose “Transform”.
7. Select the desired shape of the text bend.

If you want to wrap text around a shape with straight edges, such as a rectangle, you need to adjust the WordArt around each side.

When creating presentations, duplicate files are often created. Don’t forget to remove them in time. For this purpose, you can use a special program that will help you find duplicate files and remove them.