The PowerPoint® Blog

I work with PowerPoint on a daily basis and I am very honored to be a Microsoft PowerPoint MVP. We have a talented team of presentation designers at TLC Creative Services and ThePowerPointBlog is our area to highlight PowerPoint tips, tricks, examples and tutorials. Enjoy! Troy Chollar

A Look Back, and an Updated Version of our “It’s a Small Social Media World” Animation

We pulled the original PowerPoint slides from our archives and did a makeover to the animation. In 2014, we posted 4 slides we designed as part of a client presentation. Great layouts, clean messaging, and engaging animation!

Here is the 2019 version of the slides and animation:

For 2025, the first thing was updating the social media logos and icons to companies that are still available (that is a good history lesson!).

Next was revising some aspects of the animation – although the original motion was great (!) it was a complex combination of motion paths and other animations. Morph was introduced in 2016 – 2 years after we created this animation. So our updated version leverages morph for almost all of the motion and animation.

Because we are continuously integrating video into presentations as design elements, we updated the slide styling with 2 embedded videos that are seamlessly integrated into the design (eg. the videos are part of the graphics and not seen as a “video”).

And here is our 2025 version of “It’s a Small Social Media World”:

-The TLC Creative design team

By |2025-05-22T08:02:52-07:00June 13th, 2025|PowerPoint|

The “Waterfall” Animation Technique

At TLC Creative, we use a technique we call the ‘waterfall’ to make animations feel smooth, connected, and dynamic. It’s all about overlapping animations—not stacking them, but letting each start just before the last begins.

Let’s build our waterfall using five simple shapes. You’ll see how just a few clicks can create a professional-looking sequence! 

For starters, a typical animation has every element set to “Click” on the slide: 

Or “After Previous” is set for every element: 

Let’s create an animation “waterfall” which is an effect only available in PowerPoint (not Google Slides, Keynote, or Canva).  

1. Remove all animations (if needed) and then Apply a “Fade” Animation to all elements: 

  • Select all of the shape elements 
  • Go to the Animations tab 
  • Choose “Fade” from the animation gallery 

2. Open the Animation Pane 

This will give you more detailed control. You’ll now see an animation entry for each box shape. 

3. Change the animation Start to “With Previous” as this is key to the waterfall effect: 

  • Select each animation (you can select them together) 
  • Change the animation Start from “On Click to “With Previous”  

Why? This makes each shape element animate with one another, not waiting for a click or full completion. 

4. Adjust the Delay for Each Animation

Now the magic happens!

  • Select the second box and set a Delay of 0.30 seconds. 

  • Set the delay for the third box to 0.60 seconds 
  • Set the delay for the fourth box to 0.90 seconds 
  • Set the delay for the fifth box to 1.10 minute 

Each shape element now starts with the previous one but is delayed just a bit — producing a staggered, overlapping fade-in. 

This process can be a bit tedious – but the PowerPoint animation effect is worth the effort! However, the design team here at TLC Creative kinda cheats. We use the ToolsToo PowerPoint add-in to automate the animation settings process to make overlapping (aka waterfall) animations! 

Let’s continue the tutorial! Using ToolsToo, here’s what we do: 

  • Set the last shape element to the time you would like the animation to end 

  • Select the shapes in the order they will animate in, clicking on the final box last 

  • Navigate to the ToolsToo tab 
  • Ensure the “Stagger Animation” is selected 
  • With all shapes still selected, click “Animation Resequence”   

Now all of the shape animations are spaced out evenly in an animated sequence! (So much faster this way, right?) 

Animating slides is my happy place, so… happy animating waterfall animations! 

-Christie and the TLC Creative Design Team 

By |2025-06-06T15:10:13-07:00June 11th, 2025|Software/Add-Ins, Tutorial|

PowerPoint Video in a Custom Shape!

Want to make your PowerPoint videos stand out and grab some extra attention? Videos do not need to be limited to the standard rectangle. Imagine a video playing inside a circle, a star, a speech bubble, or even a custom shape! It really adds a creative touch that feels way more immersive.  

Typically, all videos are inserted onto a slide as a rectangle.

Videos can be cropped, resized, and positioned anywhere on the slide – all using native PowerPoint features. Videos can also have styling effects applied; drop shadow, outline, recolored, etc. – also all using native PowerPoint features. 

Change the Shape 

Now for the fun part. Change the rectangle into something else. Native to PowerPoint is the ability to change to any of the shapes in the Shape Library; circle, triangle, parallelogram, 3D cube – pick whatever you like! Select the video > go to Video Format > open the Video Shape selection > pick a shape!  

All of the PowerPoint shapes work flawlessly, automatically masking a video to that shape. So don’t hold back! Video shapes, just like the rectangle, can be customized with a border or effect. How about an oval video? 

Or how about a thought bubble (using PowerPoint’s preset thought bubble shape)? 

TIP: use the CROP tool to resize and reposition the video within the new shape. 

Add a Video to a Custom Shape 

The basic PowerPoint shapes are nice, but what about a complex shape with multiple parts or a logo? With the use of the Merge Shapes tool and a vector graphic as the custom shape, virtually anything is possible. For example, let’s make a video play inside this shape. 

  • First, add the video to the slide (Insert > Video) 
  • Add then add the custom vector art to the slide.
    • NOTE: This must be a vector art file (eg. .SVG)
    • TIP: If the Merge Shapes step below does not work, select the shape(s), copy, delete (yes, it’s okay to delete), then “Paste Special” and select “SVG”
  • Resize and move both the shape and the video to the desired placement. Keep the vector art on top of the video.

  • Select the video first, then hold Shift and select the shape (the order you select the shapes is critical to this working). 
  • Go to Merge Shapes > Intersect. 

Now your video takes the shape of whatever you picked. Use the Crop tool to adjust the size and position of the video as needed. 

 

And that’s it! It’s a great effect, all done within PowerPoint, and can definitely level up your slide and impress the audience! 

-Mike, and the TLC Creative design team 

By |2025-05-28T13:24:59-07:00June 9th, 2025|PowerPoint, Tutorial|

A Look Back – 40 lines of PowerPoint Amazing Animation

During the crazy year that was 2020, we at TLC Creative had several internal design challenges. This particular challenge was to create a dynamic PowerPoint animation – using just 40 lines. The premise was simple: take five slides, integrate exactly 40 lines, and build something visually captivating and animated – in under two hours of design time. 

Making it Happen 

The rules were flexible and open to interpretation to encourage lots of creativity, while keeping the focus of the slideshow on the lines themselves. Each line could vary in color, length, position, arrangement, width, etc. All that mattered was that the 40 lines were the centerpiece of the animation! 

The result of the design team’s creations was a mesmerizing two-minute sequence, built entirely within PowerPoint, that showcased the power of simple design elements when thoughtfully animated. 

The Update 

If you go back to the original blog post, the animation from five years ago was rendered in 480p resolution (not certain why – but it was). We remastered it in full 1080p, to bring a fresh level of clarity to the line movements and transitions – along with a fun upbeat music track.

What began as a small challenge turned into a showcase of how a tool like PowerPoint can be pushed to create Adobe-style animations! 

Final Thoughts 

This project gave us a reminder that creativity thrives under constraints. Sometimes, setting a few boundaries can create the perfect environment for creative breakthroughs! 

-Troy and the TLC Creative Design Team

By |2025-05-28T15:30:40-07:00June 6th, 2025|Portfolio, PowerPoint|

New Podcast Episode Available! “Beyond 16:9: The Art and Science of Ultra-Wide Presentations”

New episode of The Presentation Podcast now available!

Ever wondered how those stunning ultra-wide presentations you see at big corporate events, concerts and trade shows come to life? In the latest episode Troy Chollar is joined by Lori Chollar for an all TLC Creative Services conversation. And the topic of the day? Ultra-wide presentations! These presentations are becoming increasingly common, as more events use LED walls along with multi-projector setups, the opportunity to use PowerPoint for content that is beyond 16:9 grows. Troy and Lori share their biggest insights when it comes to creating these kinds of templates and presentations, with many tips for setup and design in this unique presentation format! Listen on your favorite podcast app, or at The Presentation Podcast site here.

By |2025-05-30T14:15:19-07:00June 4th, 2025|Resource/Misc|

Morph is the New “Tweening”

If you’ve been designing presentations for a while, you’re already familiar with Morph transitions.  It’s the PowerPoint transition that creates animations to smoothly move objects from one slide to another. It can be a shape or color change, words and text that magically rearrange, or photos and tiles that fly in across the screen, doing whatever you tell them to. Whether it’s changing location, becoming other objects or shapes, rotating, or spinning, Morph transitions can make it happen!

Since 2016, PowerPoint has been offering this amazing feature that simplifies the old tweening process between objects. 

What is Tweening? 

For years, tweening – short for “in-betweening” – was the way to animate graphics in video, games, and presentations. The term actually goes back to the early days of hand-drawn animation.

It’s the process of creating images that go between keyframes – a keyframe being the start or end rendering of an animation. In hand-drawn animation, the main artist would draw the keyframes, and the start and end looks. Then the “inbetweener” artist would draw several frame-by-frame animations to create a smooth movement connecting the start and end looks (aka Keyframes).  

Today, the legacy term “tweening” is still in use. Adobe Flash (now Adobe Animate) adopted the term and process pre-2000. It is also used in Adobe After Effects. With Flash, the artist set the start and end keyframes, and the software accomplished the “in-between” animation frames. 

Furthermore, Flash had three different types of tweens, depending on what type of motion animation you needed.  

  • The Classic Tween: Just a basic move, scale, or rotate.  
  • The Motino Tween: Added additional motion and effects within the move, scale, or rotate.  
  • The Shape Tween: Changed one shape to another. The definition of this is literally Morph! 

What is Morphing? 

So how does PowerPoint Morph compare to tweening? Well, basically Morphing is a form of advanced tweening: a simple-to-use transition effect that animates smooth movement and transformations of objects, photos, and text between slides. 

For those with old-school Flash experience, the one thing PowerPoint’s Morph is missing is the ability to see the “in-between” frames and modify them (with additional keyframes). It’s the cost of simplification, where more of the software is empowered to make the decisions.

Essentially, with PowerPoint, the motion is smooth because Morph understands structure, whereas tweening uses numeric values. Think of it this way: Tweening says, “Move from A to B.” Morphing says, “Become B.” 

Why is Morphing the New Tweening?

Well, first, Morph just feels more natural. It’s simple to use. And it fits into presentations seamlessly. When things Morph from one shape to another, you’re not jumping from slide to slide or screen to screen; you’re watching things actually change.  

This enhances presentations because it’s easier on the brain. Sudden changes on screen can be kind of jarring and distracting. Morphing helps ease you into what’s coming next by showing the transition, not just the end result.  

The best part is that moving content with Morph just looks really cool. For PowerPoint, Morph adds a modern, professional vibe without making things overly flashy. It gives presentations a “wow” factor with minimal effort. 

Here is an example of PowerPoint Morph (aka tweening) by the TLC Creative presentation design team. Only 4 slides, each is a keyframe. Slide 1 is the start keyframe. Slide 2 is the end keyframe for the slide 1-to-2 animation, AND the start keyframe for the slide 2-to-3 animation. Slide 3 is both an end keyframe and start keyframe, and slide 4 is the end keyframe for the slide 3-to-4 animation (This is probably the most complex aspect of Morph, and all you really need to do is set up the 1st slide, adjust on the 2nd slide, set to Morph transition, done). 

By |2025-05-28T15:40:42-07:00June 2nd, 2025|Resource/Misc|

A Look Back at Presenting in Teams 2021 vs 2025

A few years of use and improvement is always fun to review and compare the before-and-after! We are reflecting on our December 20, 2021 post series, “Teams – Presenting with PowerPoint, which was a 4-part series on Teams PowerPoint Presenting. 

This was Teams in 2021: 

And this is Teams in 2025 (pretty much the same interface, although I have updated my preference from the Teams dark mode to light mode):

Overall, it’s the same UI and layout with several feature updates. Here are our summary notes on Teams PowerPoint Presenter View improvements and newer features.  

Edit Speaker Notes Directly in Presenter View 

We can now edit speaker notes during a presentation; something very recently added to most builds of Desktop PowerPoint. Presenter View continues to (only) have basic text formatting, including keyboard shortcuts like bold (Ctrl+B) and italics (Ctrl+I). 

Teleprompter View with Auto-Scroll 

In Teams PowerPoint, speaker notes can auto-scroll like a teleprompter, something also available in Desktop PowerPoint’s record feature, but not available while actually presenting. The adjusted Presenter View layout and speaker notes auto-scrolling is great for the smooth delivery of presentations! 

Enhanced Magnify Capabilities 

Zoom, as in to enlarge, into parts of your slide while presenting. Desktop PowerPoint Presenter View has a zoom/magnify icon that magnifies the slide content at a fixed 200% larger. Teams Presenter View makes the magnification adjustable, up to 400%! 

Cameo Integration 

Presenter View now shows a live preview of your camera feed when using the Cameo feature embedded into slides. Cameo is a really great PowerPoint multimedia feature that has not received enough attention, or use, yet. The Teams Presenter View integrates Cameo into a seamless experience, and coordinates with the actual Teams meeting with the option to remove/turn off the Teams webcam of the presenter so attendees see the Cameo-enabled webcam directly in the slides. 

 

Private View Button Now Visible and Prominent 

The Private View button, previously hidden or buried in settings, is now clearly accessible in Presenter View. 

▶️ Tip: USE THIS FEATURE. It prevents meeting attendees from advancing through slides on their own or downloading the full deck—a security must for confidential presentations. Go to Slideshow > Set Up Slide Show and ensure the checkboxes for “Browsed by an individual” and “Allow viewers to navigate” are unchecked. 

“Present in Teams” Button Now Built Into PowerPoint 

PowerPoint now includes a Present in Teams button directly in the desktop app and web version. This lets you present slides natively in Microsoft Teams without screen sharing, launching into Teams Presenter View automatically. 

▶️ Bonus: Your audience sees crisp slides, while you keep full Presenter View control 

Present in Teams Button in Desktop App 

Provides full Presenter View, including access to speaker notes, slide thumbnails, and upcoming slides. 

Present in Teams Button on Web Browser 

In a Teams meeting go to “Share” and a list of available presentations is seen in the “PowerPoint Live” section, which means the presentation will open up in Teams Presenter View.

In PowerPoint desktop app the top right corner has a “Present in Teams” button which opens up in Teams Presenter View. 

In PowerPoint Online click the “Present” dropdown and select “Present in Teams” to open the presentation in Teams Presenter View. 

That’s our observations on Team Presenter View updates and improvements. Overall, many good things as Microsoft Teams continues to mature. 

-The TLC Creative design team 

By |2025-05-30T10:33:09-07:00May 30th, 2025|Resource/Misc|

Edit a Teams Based PowerPoint File – It’s Easy!

Opening a PowerPoint file from Teams in the desktop app is a common task, but we’ve had some questions about the exact steps involved. Let’s clarify the process with a straightforward walkthrough, along with some helpful tips. First, it’s important to understand that a file in Teams is actually a SharePoint file. Teams serves as an interface to SharePoint, making it easier to access files without navigating to the SharePoint site directly. However, the files are still stored in SharePoint, and the process for opening them remains the same.

Teams gives you 3 (yes 3!) ways to open a PowerPoint file:

  • Open in teams – Opens the file directly within the Teams interface
  • Open in browser – Pops the file open in your default browser in PowerPoint for web
  • Open in desktop app – This is the option we’re looking for, as the desktop app allows you to use the full features of PowerPoint AND any add-ons that you’ve enabled

Here’s how to open a PowerPoint file with the full features and power of the desktop app:

  1. Go to the file in Teams and select it
  2. Click the three-dot menu (“More Options”)
  3. From the dropdown menu, choose Open in Desktop (or it may say Open in App)

TIP: Update the Teams open default by clicking  “Change default” in the drop-down menu and selecting Desktop and hitting save. Now whenever you click a PowerPoint file in Teams it (should) open in the desktop app automatically.

That’s it. The presentation is now stored on Teams, ready for collaboration editing, AND open in the PowerPoint Desktop App!

-The TLC Creative Design Team

By |2025-05-27T07:56:21-07:00May 28th, 2025|Resource/Misc, Tutorial|

TLC Creative’s Teams External Guest Invite How-to

TLC Creative was an early adopter of Microsoft Teams, and we remain a fan today. We love the collaboration it brings to the table, allowing us to work more efficiently and gain feedback more effectively, whether collaborating with our internal team or co-authoring a presentation with clients.

And while Teams is excellently proficient in many areas (file collaboration, chats, meetings, and @mentions…to mention a few), when it comes to inviting clients into your bubble (tenant) or vice versa, this is where things often go awry.

Being positive, Microsoft is continuously improving Teams. In the future, we hope things will “just work” – but it is not at that level of functionality yet (but we are looking ahead to the “Hero Link” process!). Because things do not always work smoothly today, we invested internal TLC time to work through many of the issues and then created a how-to guide to help overcome this “outside tenant” frustration.

We are sharing our internal Teams tutorial to (hopefully) help your clients connect with and collaborate better with you. Full disclosure, we are mostly PC-based when using Teams, so the nuances of Mac Teams are not captured in these steps.

This guide is written under the assumption that you have a Microsoft Teams account and have already created a “New Team” – which is set up as a “Private” Team. Here are our steps to connect an external person to your Teams project, from the perspective of your client:

1. Once the private Team is created, click “Add Member” to generate the email that is sent to each person added to the Team.

2. Instruct your client to use the “Open Microsoft Teams” button in the email they received (Note: the email will come from an automated address: noreply@email.teams.Microsoft.com.).

3. We recommend using the Teams desktop app. The invite email has a button to download and install if needed.

If the Microsoft Teams app is already installed, this pop-up dialog will appear to open with the invite credentials. Click the “Open Microsoft Teams” button.

4. Once Microsoft Teams is open, a pop-up dialog to sign in with an email address is required next. This email address must be the same address that the Teams invite was sent to.

5. Enter the email address (this is the email address of the person being invited to the Team) and click the “Next” button.

6. There may be an additional pop-up asking permission to use Teams. Click “Yes” or “Agree” (after you’ve read and truly do agree, of course).

7. The external person has now been added to the project team!

8. This is the key step! To access the project team, your client needs to change Teams to your company (in this example, it is changing Teams to the TLC Creative connection).

    • In the upper right, click your “Account” button (the circle with your initials inside).

    • From the list of available accounts, select the company that invited you…for example, if you were to receive a Teams invite from TLC Creative Services, you would click on “TLC” in the menu.

    • Then on the left, go to “Teams”
    • Locate the project Team name and click to expand
    • Click “General”
    • Click “Files” at the top of the right side, or “Posts”, and from that dropdown menu select “Files”

9. Your client should now have access to all project files, to open and edit files, upload new files, etc.

10. TIP: To open a PowerPoint presentation (or a Word or Excel doc), Teams has 3 options: PowerPoint for Teams, PowerPoint for Web, and Desktop PowerPoint. Our team uses the full power of the Desktop version. See our earlier blog post on how to open presentations from Teams in the Desktop app: MS Teams – Open in App – The PowerPoint Blog.

Hopefully, this how-to reference minimizes some of the frustrations we encountered with a Microsoft Teams workflow. Wishing you productive collaboration with your clients and excellent results with your presentations!

-Lori @ TLC Creative Services

By |2025-05-22T08:26:28-07:00May 26th, 2025|Software/Add-Ins, Tutorial|

A Look Back at Teams Phone and Now with SMS!

Our “Look Back” series has brought to the surface blog posts and topics from 4, 6, even 15 years ago! This one is a look back to just this past December’s post “TLC Welcomes Teams Phone!” as technology is moving fast! 

Let’s talk about something that every graphic designer, and company, needs, but no one really talks about today – telephones! We all need phones to quickly communicate with clients, field new projects, and hunt for work. 

And for over 20 years, TLC Creative Services has maintained the same company phone number – even as it transitioned through multiple business phone providers! Six years ago, everyone at TLC Creative had a corporate phone with their own extension – sitting on their desk. It was a setup that seemed essential for many years. 

Yet as business communication evolved, we noticed something: our phone call usage was in free-fall, but projects and work were increasing. Where we once logged thousands of minutes in phone conversations each month, during an audit we discovered that we now averaged less than 50 minutes of monthly calls – total, for everyone! 

The lack of phone call minutes did not mean that communication within our team, or with clients, shrank – we were now talking in Microsoft Teams or Zoom for meetings, chat, and email. Phone calls, using an actual phone, have become rare occasions. 

Going Fully Virtual 

Now, after lots of planning and testing, TLC Creative officially ditched the desk phones and has gone virtual! Our longtime company phone number remains active, but now incoming calls ring to an auto-attendant that directs inquiries, provides key information, and connects callers to the right team members.  

The major shifts? 

  • All calls happen through the Microsoft Teams Phone, which is an add-on service to Business M365 accounts.  
  • Incoming calls, outgoing calls, voicemails, call transfers, and all traditional phone functions remain – just accessed via the Microsoft Teams app instead of a physical phone. 
  • Plus, all the telephone services work through the desktop Teams app, or the mobile Teams app. We are no longer tied to our desk – or even our computer! 

Honestly? This transition has been smooth for us, given how heavily we already rely on Teams calls for internal and client meetings. Using Microsoft Teams as our primary phone system was simply an adjustment to our daily workflow and learning how to use the Teams app phone tab when it became active. 

Something New! 

One missing piece to the TLC Creative phone system has always been text messaging —until now. 

Two months ago, Microsoft released SMS functionality for Teams Phone, allowing users to send and receive text messages directly in the Teams app! After working through the technical setup (something our IT manager needed 3+ weeks to accomplish – with the assistance of the Microsoft Teams Phone people), TLC Creative now has SMS capability on our business phone lines – yay! 

This update is especially important because it means we no longer need to use personal cell numbers for business communication. Now, all client interactions via text remain within our professional environment, further centralizing communication. 

What’s Next? 

While SMS is a welcome addition, it’s still a “Short Message Service”, so text only. We are hopeful that MMS (“Multimedia Messaging Service”) will be integrated, so photos, emoji’s and videos will be supported  

Overall, this shift to a virtual phone system has streamlined our workflow, cut costs, and aligned with modern business communication trends. Traditional phone calls are becoming increasingly rare, replaced by email, chat, and video meetings. And yes—our accounting department is happy with the cost savings! 

-Troy @ TLC 

By |2025-05-15T11:15:37-07:00May 23rd, 2025|Resource/Misc|
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