PowerPoint is a massive program with lots of capabilities built in, and there will always be things that not everyone knows about. Here are four awesome PowerPoint tricks we’ve found that 99% of people don’t know they can do in PowerPoint (including some of the pros):
#1: Break a table
#2: Break SmartArt
#3: Break up a list of bullets
#4: Resize and crop multiple pictures in one go
PowerPoint Trick #1: Breaking A Table
Breaking a table is the fastest way to get all of the information out of a table.
To break a table, simply:
- Copy and paste your table as a Metafile (CTRL + ALT + V for the Paste Special dialog box).
- Once you have a Metafile, simply ungroup it (CTRL + SHIFT + G) to break the table into shapes, lines and text boxes.
This will leave you with an individual text box for each entry in your table. From here, you can massage the pieces into your layout of choice.
This PowerPoint trick alone should radically increase the amount of things you can do in PowerPoint with your existing data.
PowerPoint Trick #2: Breaking SmartArt
SmartArt is a blessing and a curse. It’s a blessing in that it can quickly generate slide layouts, but it is a curse as it’s often a pain to format and work with. To bring SmartArt graphics back into a format that’s easier to manage, you can “break” it into shapes, lines and text boxes:
- Simply select the SmartArt graphic, ungroup it by hitting CTRL + SHIFT + G.
- Ungroup it a second time, and the SmartArt graphic is now simply a collection of shapes, lines and text boxes.
Now you can go ahead and massage the individual pieces into whatever slide layout you need.
PowerPoint Trick #3: Breaking Up A List Of Bullets
Everyone knows that you are not supposed to use long lists of bullets in your layouts, but the question becomes, what can you do with them without spending hours at the drawing board?
The fastest way to break up a list of bullets and generate layout ideas is to throw it into SmartArt:
- SmartArt will force your bullets into the different SmartArt layouts (you get a live preview of the graphics), so you can quickly generate layout ideas for your bullets.
- Once you find a SmartArt graphic that is close to what you want to work with, you can simply break the graphic apart (see #2).
I often use this technique to quickly break up my content, and end up combining two or three different SmartArt graphics into my final presentation layout, to create something unique and interesting.
PowerPoint Trick #4: Resizing And Cropping Multiple Pictures In One Go
How often have you had several pictures on a slide that were all different shapes and sizes and that you needed to make uniform to fit into your layout?
While cropping and resizing images manually is the more technically correct way to address this, it can be an extremely time-intensive and frustrating task. To shortcut your way through the process, simply throw the pictures into SmartArt:
- Select the pictures that you want to resize, select the “Picture Layout” button, and choose a SmartArt graphic.
- Just like with bullets, SmartArt will force all of the pictures into uniform shapes by cropping and resizing each picture for you.
- Once you find a SmartArt graphic that is close to what you want to work with, you can simply break the graphic apart (see #2).
If you don’t like the cropping and resizing that SmartArt does, you can always manually adjust the pictures yourself afterwards.
With these 4 PowerPoint tricks, you now know more than what most PowerPoint users know they can do in PowerPoint, so welcome to the inner circle. For a video summarizing the 4 tricks, see below:
About the Author:
Taylor Croonquist is the shortcut and productivity guru for Nuts and Bolts Speed Training company, which helps companies build better PowerPoint slides in shorter time frames. Hailing from the home of Microsoft and Starbucks, he came up with the “One Armed Mouse” technique in order to be able to combine these two passions: PowerPoint-ing with a coffee in one hand and a mouse in the other. For more information about the company’s services, visit nutsandboltsspeedtraining.com
