There are times when one is so focused on just getting the basic PowerPoint slides in place that getting the presentation to fly becomes secondary.
Sometimes, there just aren’t enough hours in a day (or even minutes in an hour) to get the end-result you would ideally like (if you had time to breathe, or a battalion of assistants).
At such moments, it’s good to know, you’re not alone.
Over a billion users of PowerPoint are (often) in the same situation as you. And to help you out, there is a battalion of powerful add-ins that are available to all PPT users.
We thought we’d draw your attention to some power-packed freebies that give you a free hand at making the most of your PPT presentation:
Power-user: This has over a hundred features, charts, agenda-builders, 6000 vector icons and maps, 250 editable maps, and more than a million hi-res pictures …. In fact, it’s such a powerhouse, we suggest you stop reading this and download it right away to discover all the goodies that are available.
LiveWeb: This enables you to show webpages as part of your presentation without having to exit your slide show and open a new tab. Smooth and easy (not to mention – less distracting and time-wasting).
Web Video Player: This is an app – perfect if you want to add Youtube or Vimeo videos not just to your PPT slides – but even on Excel! Excellent is what we call it.
STAMP (Subtitle Text Add-in for Microsoft PowerPoint): No more stress about how to translate video conversations for a foreign audience. This helps you caption directly, or import the subtitles. You can make an impression with this one!
QR4Office: In today’s day and age, we can’t imagine anyone not wanting to use this. A plugin that creates a QR code that will open on a (pre-selected) url of your choice. Perfect for interactive presentations, for snap polls, or simply to lead your audience to a website in one shot.
Project Timeline: The name is self-explanatory – a tool to help you include project timelines, team tasks, track progress – the works. (Only one glitch – works with PowerPoint versions 2010, 2013, 2016 and 2019 on Windows, but not on Mac).
Plotly D3.js: A complicated name for a simply super add-in that helps you analyze data from Excel and embed charts in PPT.
Oomfo: Everyone loves a colorful chart! But which one should you use? Oomfo helps you to find and use just the right one.
Read my document: If you’re exhausted and your eyes are wrecked, this is what you need. An add-in that will read you the material – all you have to do is Play, Listen, Pause, Repeat!
FlevyTools: Diagrams, anyone? This is your little genie in creating and inserting shaped diagrams that make information so much easier to process.
ToDo: This sounds a bit basic, but it’s really very useful – it shows up as a pane on the side and helps you keep track of what else is left to be done on an ongoing presentation. (This one works on a Mac as well!) No more more horror-moments of – “oh my god! we forgot that bit!”
Pro Word Cloud: A Windows-users delight, this is so useful to conceptualize and convey your concepts in a manner that is easy-to-read and understand (not to mention visually powerful).
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There are, of course, other superpowerful tools you can get (at a price)! We’ll flag some of those later… But for now, here’s to the delightful feeling that sometimes the best things in life are, indeed, free!