Whether you’re an Executive Assistant or not, chances are you’ve had to use Microsoft PowerPoint at some point in your career to either put together your own presentation, or produce a suite of slides for your manager or team.

This neat little software package can be used to produce simple or all-singing-all-dancing presentations, embed videos, produce handouts or create worksheets. And the best part is that it’s so easy to use.

Here are my top ten shortcuts/tips to ensure you look like a PowerPoint pro…

  1. SELECT THE SIZE OF YOUR PRESENTATION
  • To produce an A4 document, switch from landscape to portrait, or switch from standard size (4:3) to widescreen (16:9), head to File and Page Setup. Here you can select the size and orientation of your slides or document.
  1. KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS
  • Control your PowerPoint slideshow from your computer with the following shortcuts:
    • N – next slide
    • P – previous slide
    • B – apply a blank black screen to hide the presentation
    • W – apply a blank white screen to hide the presentation
    • Slide number, followed by Enter to jump to that slide
    • Esc – leave the slideshow
  1. ADD SOUND TO YOUR PRESENTATION
  • Add some audio such as a little music to your presentation. Firstly, you will need to save your required audio file to your computer. Go to Insert and Audio. Select your required audio file from your computer.
  • You can either have this playing continuously throughout your presentation, or link it to a particular slide.
  1. CREATE A HYPERLINK TO ANOTHER DOCUMENT/WEBSITE
  • Select the word, shape or image where you want to create a hyperlink. Or insert a square with no fill and no line to create an “invisible” hyperlink.
  • Go to Insert, hyperlink and insert the link to the webpage or the file you wish to switch to.
  1. CREATE YOUR OWN CUSTOMISED ANIMATIONS
  • You’ll no doubt have used PowerPoint to animate your words and pictures, but did you know you could create your own animations? Under Animations, click More and select Custom Path under Motion Paths. You can create the ‘path’ you want your animation to follow (e.g. a particularly line, shape or pattern).
  1. HIGHLIGHT THE SMALL STUFF
  • Are your audience struggling to see your slides? You can zoom in and out of your presentation to highlight things such as charts or financials. Go to Presenter View and select the magnifying glass. Drag this to the bit you want to zoom in on and select Click Again. To return to the normal view, click the magnifying glass again.
  1. HIGHLIGHT SOME MORE WITH A PEN
  • To reference a specific point in your presentation, you can create a pen by pressing Ctrl and P, which will allow you to underline or highlight any specific parts of your slide.
  1. TURN YOUR SLIDES INTO A VIDEO
  • To create a short video of your slides, click File, Save and Send, then Create Video. Or if you’re using a Mac, File and Create Movie.
  1. REDUCE THE SIZE OF YOUR POWERPOINT FILE
  • Need to reduce the size of your presentation to send a version via email? First, compress the pictures to make the file sizes smaller by going to Format and Compress Pictures. You can then opt to apply this to all the pictures in your document.
  • To reduce the file size further, go to File, Save As and save the document as a PDF rather than a PowerPoint. This helps if your slides are full of charts and images.
  1. CREATE YOUR OWN TEMPLATE
  • You may wish to create your own background for your slides, for example with your own company branding. Create your design and go to File, Save As and under the file format, select PowerPoint Template (.potx).