The PowerPoint® Blog Archives - Page 2 of 221

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

Wait, PowerPoint Can Embed Fonts?

PowerPoint can embed fonts! On the surface this sounds like an amazing idea, especially when it comes to sharing presentations among multiple people. However, there are plenty of downsides that make this feature something that the TLC Creative team avoids. But if you’re looking to embed fonts into a PowerPoint file, here’s how:

First, if the fonts used are Microsoft fonts, these do not need to be embedded as they will automatically download and dynamically install when the presentation is opened.
Open the presentation in PowerPoint
Navigate to File > Options > Save
Near the bottom, is EMBED FONTS IN THE FILE checkbox. After checking, there are two options for embedding the fonts.

Embedding only the characters used in the presentation – best for reducing file size (there is not a lot of file size in fonts, so this is not our recommendation).
Embed all characters – best for editing by other people (this is the better – and obvious – choice).

Select an embed option, save the presentation, and the fonts would be baked into the file itself.

SOUNDS GREAT – BUT…

Before deciding to embed a custom font, it’s best to check its licensing restrictions as some fonts won’t allow embedding.

To verify, go to your system fonts folder (often C:\WINDOWS\FONTS)
Right-click the font, select Properties, then Details
Look for the embeddability value:
- Installable or Editable: Embedding allowed
- Preview/Print or Restricted: Embedding not allowed

There’s also other downsides of Embedded Fonts:

They can bloat file size
May cause editing issues
Have limited cross-platform support
Risk potential corruption

Best Practices:

Use System or Microsoft Standard/Cloud fonts for maximum compatibility
If necessary, share custom fonts with viewers (check license allowances)
Google Fonts are all embeddable (see “How to Use Google Fonts in PowerPoint” post)

By TLC Creative Services, Inc.|2025-02-10T10:23:21-08:00March 26th, 2025|PowerPoint, Tutorial|

Are Google Fonts Variable Fonts?

Microsoft Cloud offers many fonts that can complement any PowerPoint presentation design. These fonts are not only visually appealing, but they are cloud based and require no installation. But, if you’ve ever struggled to find the perfect Microsoft font for your slide designs, there is another choice. Google fonts are a great resource that offers hundreds of options for all design projects. While these fonts can be used for PowerPoint presentations, there are some limitations that you need to consider.

If you do decide to go with Google, realize there is a big difference between Google fonts and Microsoft Cloud fonts. PowerPoint utilizes their unique Cloud fonts so every user, anywhere, can use these fonts without the worries of corruption. When these fonts are added to a PowerPoint presentation, the fonts are automatically downloaded and will not affect the look of the slides.

In order to use a Google font, you’ll have to download from the company’s website and install into your computer’s system. Also, each additional user of this presentation will have to install the same fonts to display properly.

There is a catch though – PowerPoint doesn’t natively support variable fonts.

That all being said, at TLC Creative, we do not use Google fonts as an option in PowerPoint. Unless it is a custom font from the client, we stick to the Microsoft Cloud choices to avoid problems during presentations.

What Are Variable Fonts?

Variable fonts are amazing because they let one font file handle multiple styles like weight, width, and slant. This means you can have a ton of design flexibility without needing a separate file for each style. While PowerPoint doesn’t support variable fonts just yet there are options. You’ll just need to download the font in its variable format (like regular, bold, italic, semi-bold, etc.) and install it manually to display properly.

How to Use Google Fonts in PowerPoint

Even though you can’t fully use variable fonts in PowerPoint, you can still find something from Google Fonts that will work.

1. Go to the Google Fonts website

2. In the left column, use the filter option to display only variable fonts under Technology. 

3. Select a variable font. We’ll use Oswald as an example. You will be able to view all the weight variations to see what is available. In the upper right select the blue “Get font” button.

4. In the next window, download the .zip file.

5. Find the downloaded font file on your computer and extract the .zip file.

WARNING: when obtaining fonts from Google to install on your system, you will download a .zip file. When the .zip file is extracted, you might see a font in the main folder that includes “VariableFont” in the name. Ignore this file! Open the folder named “Static” and install these fonts instead.

6. Within the font folder, open the static folder.

7. Select the desired variable fonts and right click to install. 

Now when you open PowerPoint, the newly installed Google fonts will be available in the dropdown menu. (Note: if you have PowerPoint open while you are installing, you will need to close and re-start for fonts to show)

Even though PowerPoint isn’t fully on board with variable fonts, but we are hopeful that Microsoft adopts Variable fonts soon! You can still enhance your presentations with Google Fonts. Don’t let this hold you back. Get creative and find the perfect font for your next presentation.

– The TLC Creative Presentation Design Team

By TLC Creative Services, Inc.|2025-03-26T08:11:00-07:00March 24th, 2025|PowerPoint|

Help, This Shape is Stuck in the Chart! – A Look back to September 2012

The latest episode of The Presentation Podcast, episode 218 – “Navigating the Data Visualization Landscape: Tools, Tips, and Techniques with Ann K. Emery” was a wonderful conversation about Data Viz, specifically around displaying content on slides (it is a great conversation – listen to it here!). Over the past 19 years of PowerPoint and presentation related posts here at The PowerPoint Blog, there is a rich library of chart, graph, table and general data viz related posts. As example, this post from September 2012, “Help – This Shape is Stuck in the Chart“. And this is still a common frustration for many people as they work on slides. Allow us to share this old post, so that you may troubleshoot, and get back to focusing the audience’s attention on the key data (eg. Data Viz).

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Let’s explore this common frustration that appears to be bug in PowerPoint, but is in fact the way PowerPoint charts and graphs work. There is a good reason for this feature, but for most it seems to be bug. Which is it, depends on your preference.

Here is the scenario. A chart is on a slide:

With the chart selected, you decide to add a callout box to highlight the important data in the chart.

The new shape is inserted, editable and look like what you wanted. But the shape is actually within the chart boundaries. In this case you select the new shape, and the chart is also still. Select the chart, and the shape is also part of the selection.

The dilemma is the new callout shape can be edited and moved – but it can only move within the chart boundaries. It is also connected to the chart for animation.

What PowerPoint has done, which is actually by design, is inserted the shape as part of the chart element, because the chart was selected while the shape was inserted. If the chart is moved, the shape moves. If the chart is deleted, the shape is deleted. But the shape does not directly interact with the chart. As example the chart styling options do not change the shape styling. Chart animations do not animate the new shape(but animations can be added and controlled for the shape, they are part of the chart element animation).

For some, this is a feature – the ability to tie new shapes to a chart. For others, it is a bug – they did not want the shape tied to the chart.

SOLUTION: If you want the shape outside of the chart, the easiest fix is to select the shape (select the chart, then select the shape within the chart) >> copy >> delete >> unselect the chart >> paste. Now the slide has a chart element and a separate shape element.

– Troy @ TLC

This is from our Look Back series, rediscovering previous blog posts with relevant PowerPoint tips, tricks and examples. The original post from September 19, 2012 can be viewed here.

By TLC Creative Services, Inc.|2025-03-18T14:52:15-07:00March 21st, 2025|PowerPoint|

New Podcast Episode Available! Navigating the Data Visualization Landscape: Tools, Tips, and Techniques with Ann K. Emery

New episode of The Presentation Podcast now available!

Data visualization is an essential skill in today’s data-driven world. It transforms raw data into visual formats like charts, graphs, and maps, making complex information understandable and engaging. In this podcast episode, Troy, Sandy and Nolan talk with Ann K. Emery of Depict Data Studio about the nuances of data visualization tools and best practices – especially for presentations. Listen on your favorite podcast app, or at The Presentation Podcast site here.

By TLC Creative Services, Inc.|2025-03-18T14:50:52-07:00March 19th, 2025|Resource/Misc|

Is Helvetica Bad?

Helvetica is a classic and widely used font known for its clean and modern appearance. However, when a PowerPoint presentation created on a Mac is opened on a Windows computer, the Helvetica font used might not display as expected. This issue stems from the differences between how macOS and Windows handle fonts.

On a Mac, Helvetica is one of the default Mac OS system fonts. This version of Helvetica is optimized for macOS and integrates seamlessly into the operating system – like how Aptos does for Windows OS (although Aptos is not locked to Windows and can be installed on a Mac!). But the Helvetica available on Mac devices is unique to the macOS, and only usable on Mac devices. A windows device does not see the Mac version of Helvetica as identical to any version that can be installed on Windows. The files available for Windows differ from the macOS version in subtle ways, such as variations in spacing, kerning, and glyphs. Like any time PowerPoint replaces a font not installed with another font, content is not displayed as designed and things like line wraps can change.

Because the version of Helvetica used Mac devices cannot be used outside a Mac (such as on a Windows device), it should not be used on presentations that will be open on a Windows system.

But I have Helvetica installed (on my Windows device)! Yes you do, but it is a different version of Helvetica, and PowerPoint sees the Mac version and the installed version on the Windows computer as different fonts (and they are; remember, different spacing, kerning, glyphs). Same name, but different…

While Helvetica is a widely loved and effective font, its cross-platform compatibility can cause confusion when switching between macOS and Windows. It is not that Helvetica is inherently problematic, it is a good font. But rather the Mac version is only available on Macs, and that makes it a bad choice for cross-platform use.

An opinion from the TLC Creative design team

By TLC Creative Services, Inc.|2025-03-16T08:55:13-07:00March 17th, 2025|Resource/Misc|

Text Aliasing and Anti-Aliasing – A Look back to May 2016

Back a decade+ ago, onscreen fonts being “smooth” (aka anti-aliasing) was a big conversation – and concern. Windows did not have a good story on its display technology and PowerPoint relied on Windows for content rendering. In 2016, Microsoft had recently updated Windows the display engine, and PowerPoint was finally able to confidently display text anti-aliased (eg. “smooth”). Happily, this is not a conversation much today, as smooth font rendering and display from PowerPoint is taken for granted.

This post is just a good reminder that the PowerPoint team continues to improve its software, and general knowledge of what anti-aliased display rendering is (here’s a thought, do design schools even address this issue today…?).

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Picking a font style is important. Should it be a “safe” font, a professional font, a bold font, etc.? Any font style needs to display well and anti-aliasing is a big part of that. So, what is anti-aliasing?

antialiasing-2

The simple description of anti-aliasing is that it makes fonts display with smooth curves and angles, not jagged, low res looking edges. So if “anti-aliased ” is smooth, the opposite – hard edged fonts would make sense to be called “aliased.” However, the better term is “bit-mapped.”

Here’s a visual showing Aliased and Anti-Aliased Text:

Aliased (Jagged, Hard Edges):

text_03

Anti-Aliased (Smooth Edges):

text_07

The good news is PowerPoint applies anti-aliasing to text (which has not always been the case). But it is applied when in slide show. Objects and text may appear to have jagged edges (aliased) when editing. Anti-aliasing is also applied when printing, but through a different ‘engine’ than when presented. So, when running as a slideshow, everything is smooth, when printing, everything is (almost always smooth), when editing, it may not look as smooth.

In addition, Microsoft Windows OS has its own term and feature for anti-aliasing called ClearType. ClearType is basically Microsoft’s technology for doing anti-aliasing and making fonts have nice smooth curves and angles. ClearType is currently used by web browsers (all web browsers) and the operating system dialogs. But not Microsoft Office at this time.

On PowerPoint, when using the PowerPoint web app it is viewed through a browser for editing and slideshow. So, all text is anti-aliased in both views because the Microsoft ClearType works with all major web browsers.

So, should you be worried about anti-aliasing or smooth fonts with PowerPoint? Yes, it is a concern, but starting with Windows 10 and PowerPoint 2007 all fonts display anti-aliased with presented as a slideshow – and I can attest to being happy with text that is projected 20′ tall is HD, is smooth, and overall display very well (with the caveat that there is room for it to be better!).

-Troy @ TLC

This is from our Look Back series, rediscovering previous blog posts with relevant PowerPoint tips, tricks and examples. The original post from May 13th, 2016 can be viewed here.

By TLC Creative Services, Inc.|2025-03-03T16:53:52-08:00March 14th, 2025|PowerPoint|

What are Variable Fonts… and Can PowerPoint Use Them?

Variable fonts are the future for print, web, app, and Microsoft PowerPoint. Variable fonts are a font file type that stores a much larger range of design variants all within one font file. The common current file types are .OTF and .TTF; open type and true type respectively. These fonts use a separate file for each font style available (e.g. condensed, heavy, italic, thin, etc.). But variable fonts not only contain all the font styles in a single file, but they do not have the same font style and specialty glyph limits – by a lot!

Unfortunately, variable fonts are not used everywhere yet, and are not recognized by many apps – including PowerPoint. Everything about them sounds great – and the TLC Creative team is excited to see the design world shift to variable fonts. In reality, web browsers are currently the main apps that recognize and have the ability to leverage variable font features. PowerPoint and Adobe PDF, for example, do not like variable fonts, and can only display the base font style correctly. Encouragingly, Microsoft has started implementing variable fonts into the Windows OS font engine (see note below), and other Adobe apps recognize and can use variable fonts to varying degrees.

DYNAMIC STYLING AND ANIMATION EFFECTS

While it may be a while before we see the animation capabilities that variable fonts bring to typography, it is something we are looking forward to. The above example of web-based variable font animation effects is from this Google page – imagine having this type of animation on slides!).

MICROSOFT AND VARIABLE FONTS

The exciting news is the Microsoft font engine has already been updated to be compatible with variable fonts, and all of their styling features. Further, everyone with Windows has at least two variable fonts: Bahnschrift and Selawik. Bahnschrift offers 13 variations, all housed in a single font file. Selawik only offers 4 font variations in its single file. Ironically, because of legacy and compatibility concerns, most everyone will find these fonts on their computer in the older .ttf format – and multiple individual files… But trust me, Windows is Variable font ready.

ADOBE PHOTOSHOP AND VARIABLE FONTS

One of the easiest apps to see the formatting features of variable fonts is Photoshop CC. Photoshop not only recognizes the multiple font style options in the single variable font file, but allows full control of some of the styling options. For example, in the Character panel, the “weight” and “width” settings use sliders to truly customize for a completely vector-based and non-destructive styling. How the characters of a variable font are displayed for that project is based on the variable font styling applied.

The Bahnschrift font is a Microsoft font. Adobe apps can use Adobe TypeKit fonts (that are automatically locally installed) and all of the Microsoft fonts because they are also installed on the computer.

In Microsoft fonts we cannot do this, but in Photoshop, the Microsoft Bahnschrift variable font is recognized as a variable font and several variable font formatting options are available.

THE FUTURE

Variable fonts are the future, and we are hopeful that that future comes to PowerPoint sooner than later so we can have better typography styling – and integrate the dynamic styling options into animation effects!

Currently, it is better to steer clear of using variable fonts in PowerPoint presentations, as PowerPoint is unable to access most of the styling options and none of the display customization options…

-The TLC Creative design team (special thanks to Christie for creating this article)

By TLC Creative Services, Inc.|2025-03-02T12:50:15-08:00March 12th, 2025|Software/Add-Ins|

How to Use – and install – a Custom Font for PowerPoint

Custom fonts are tricky, because PowerPoint needs them installed on the computer to accurately display text with the custom font. However, Microsoft PowerPoint does not tell us if a font is missing on that computer, and “helps” us by swapping the missing font with a Microsoft font, which may or may not (and usually does not) keep the slide formatting as intended. Often, we are left looking at slides wondering why the text is jumbled and wrong… with a puzzle, a missing piece is obvious. With PowerPoint, the user needs to first on their own identify the piece is missing, then work on fixing the issue.

Once you know custom fonts are needed and missing, the solution is to install the custom font(s) on the computer, so PowerPoint slides display as they were designed.

Here’s a quick how-to for adding custom fonts to PowerPoint, with two notes:

these steps are for Windows computers. Mac users have a similar process (using the default FontBook app).
These steps assume you have know what custom fonts are needed, and have the font files on the computer (SlideWise is a great third party app for auditing a presentation and knowing what fonts are used on the slides).

The process is easy on Windows computers. First close the PowerPoint app. In File Explorer, right-click the font(s) and select “Install”. Done. The font will be added to the computer’s font folder (c: > Windows > Fonts).

It’s important to note that if you have PowerPoint open when you install the font, it will not show up in the font dropdown menu. Simply close and restart the application. Don’t just close and reopen the presentation; the entire app needs to be closed and then restarted. When launching PowerPoint includes all installed custom fonts in the font library dropdown menu (same for Word, Excel, etc.).

Troy @ TLC

By TLC Creative Services, Inc.|2025-03-14T08:55:42-07:00March 10th, 2025|PowerPoint, Tutorial|

Slidewise’s Font Management is My Favorite Feature! – A Look Back to July 2022

Font management has unfortunately not improved in PowerPoint since this July 2022 post. As such, the Slidewise PowerPoint Add-in still is the most robust font management solution for PowerPoint – and it has gotten better since the original post!

Neuxpower’s Slidewise PowerPoint add-in has many fantastic tools. When initially testing it, the font audit and management functionality instantly won me over and quickly was installed on all computers at TLC Creative Services!

In this sample demo deck, the Slidewise Font Audit shows there are 5 fonts used in presentation.

Doing a review of the content master slide confirms Arial is the only font that should be used throughout the presentation.

With this information, Slidewise makes it incredibly quickly to consolidate the fonts in the presentation. In a few clicks all instances of Calibri and Century Gothic are changed to Arial by using the the 3-dot menu and REPLACE FONTS function.

From the REPLACE FONTS dialog, choose the REPLACE WITH font (Arial in this deck) and REPLACE FONTS button. Note: the presentation will close, process and then reopen to the same slide. This is a bit unsettling (to have your work file close), but know it is part of the process.

For Century Gothic, I wanted to see where it is used to determine if it should remain or go. Click any slide in the Slidewise list and PowerPoint jumps to that slide and the text box of that font selected (which is amazing!). Clicking through the Century Gothic instances, all are slide content that should use the theme font, Arial. An easy and quick update using the Replace Fonts dialog.

Investigating the Tw Cen MT font, it is the Master Handout text boxes. First, this is a detail level that would virtually never be identified without the Slidewise Font Audit. These fonts can also be updated to the theme font, Arial.

In a very short time every font used in the presentation is consolidated to a single font – Arial.
Tip: review all slides to confirm line breaks, text fitting in shapes, and overall text formatting has not been adversely impacted!

Get more info about Slidewise here.

-Troy @ TLC

This is from our Look Back series, rediscovering previous blog posts with relevant PowerPoint tips, tricks and examples. The original post from July 29th, 2022 can be viewed here.

By TLC Creative Services, Inc.|2025-02-11T12:23:47-08:00March 7th, 2025|Software/Add-Ins|

New Podcast Episode Available! “Based on the PowerPoint template, is this Going To Be A Difficult Project?”

New episode of The Presentation Podcast now available!

In the latest episode of The Presentation Podcast, our three seasoned presentation designers: Troy Chollar from TLC Creative Services, Sandy Johnson from Presentation Wiz, and Nolan Haims from Nolan Haims Creative discuss PowerPoint templates from the perspective of evaluating client provided files – and the state of the template provided. A conversation with a wealth of knowledge on PowerPoint templates! Listen on your favorite podcast app, or at The Presentation Podcast site here.

By TLC Creative Services, Inc.|2025-03-03T16:46:14-08:00March 5th, 2025|Resource/Misc|