Software/Add-Ins

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.

This Jake at TLC Creative, and I am continuing our series on the new Adobe Express. I am focusing on the collaboration features, tutorials and some other fun design tools within the free to access and use, Adobe Express.

INVITE

One of the biggest features of Adobe Express is the ability for a team or group to collaborate on a project. You can invite others to work with you by sharing single files, projects or brands, by using the main navigation bar at the top and clicking INVITE:

There’s also another way to do this and that’s to click “Share” to share the file(s) within the editor, which allows you to add people or groups to it:

Note that “Share” and “Invite” are pretty much used interchangeably within Adobe Express. The only requirement is everyone must have an Adobe account (free or CC subscription).

SHARE

Along with inviting/sharing files and collaborating with others, the share feature also allows you to create and then upload posts to your social media accounts, all from Adobe Express. You would click “Share”, the same button used to invite others to collaborate, and then click on the “Share to Social” button. You can connect your accounts from Facebook, Instagram, Twitter (X), LinkedIn, Pinterest and TikTok. You can also add a caption or even generate a caption with AI.  From there you can choose to publish immediately or schedule for the future.

LEARN

If you’re new to Adobe Express or looking to become well versed in it, the LEARN section is your best friend. Also located in the top toolbar (as a lightbulb icon) it has an extensive collection of tutorials. Each tutorial comes with examples that show the tools in action, making it easier to grasp how to use them.

CHARTS

For those working with data visualization, Adobe Express includes a CHARTS feature. You can build charts and tables directly within the platform and export them as images (JPEG, PNG), PDFs or Videos with animations.

Of course, while Adobe Express offers these features, it’s worth noting that PowerPoint remains a much more robust tool for creating detailed charts and tables. One area Adobe can improve on is the ability to export chart videos with transparent backgrounds or in alpha format, as PowerPoint currently doesn’t have this feature either (exported charts from Adobe Express are on a solid color, white in this example). This would give even more flexibility in how animated charts are used within presentations.

THE CATCH

Like any other tool, Adobe Express has its pros and cons. One thing to keep in mind is that several add-ons are pay-to-use, such as the “Video Effects Pro” add-on, which requires its own subscription for the full version. Also, there are limits on the number of Firefly AI-generated content pieces you can create unless you upgrade to a premium plan. Additionally, while there is a free version, accessing some advanced features requires a subscription.

Firefly itself can actually be accessed via its own website at https://firefly.adobe.com/, “Photos” within the media section are powered by Adobe Stock (which of course also can be accessed via its own website), Remove Background as well as other effects are powered by Photoshop which can also be used in its native application. It’s no surprise that Adobe Express leverages all of the power and features across its Creative Cloud applications. However, some add-ons are free and require no Premium subscriptions, it’s best to explore within the “Add-ons” tab.

GENERATE TEXT

Remember the fun yet now outdated WordArt from early 2000s Microsoft Word? Adobe Express has its own version called Generate Text that actually utilizes generative AI. Of course, we had to experiment with this feature to see it in action:

Create:

Result:

I will continue to experiment with Adobe Express features (I am looking at the plugins options next), and hope this small series on Adobe Express has provided some insights and inspiration.

-Jake @ TLC

Presentations are very visual, and sometimes PowerPoint’s internal tools are not up to the job of creating all design elements for a professional presentation slide design. I am continuing our Adobe Express series looking at how it can help presentation design with techniques such as removing the background from a photo, designing stylized text or creating videos. These can be done within PowerPoint, but its internal tools are often not able to provide polished and professional results. Adobe Express adds a next level quality to these image needs.

Adobe Express is a free, online platform which provides a new option that is a straightforward, user-friendly approach to photo and video editing. It has an amazing Remove Background feature for images that is incredibly easy to use, and an immediate fit for presentation design needs.

Many times at TLC Creative, we use photos that need to be masked and the background elements removed. We sometimes will use the Remove Background tool within PowerPoint – sometimes… Our general go-to process is pulling the image into Photoshop and either manually clip and mask with a pen tool (still a great design skill!) or utilize Photoshop’s Generative AI to isolate the subject and remove the background. The image is then cropped to the visible pixels, exported as a PNG, then imported into PowerPoint.

The background removal tool in Adobe Express uses the same AI-powered technology to automatically detect and separate the subject from the background in an image. It has fewer adjustments and tools over Photoshop, but the results are fast and quite literally amazing. Plus, it is web-based, so there is no software to install. This is ideal for masking profile pictures or product shots without the need for advanced editing skills.

In this example, you can see the original, and how PowerPoint’s remove background vs. Adobe Express’s remove background perform. Of special note is the curly, feathered hair. PowerPoint’s remove background tool is just not up to the task, even with lots of fine tuning on the removed parts. The Adobe Express image, completed in 1-click is presentation ready. The only downside is the extra steps and work outside of PowerPoint.

Now let’s take a look at the Adobe Express interface and how to use the Remove Background feature. There are two ways to do this:

Option 1: Modify an Existing Photo on Your Computer

1. From the web-based app home page.
   
2. Under More ways to start section, click the Remove background
   
3. In the new screen click the BROWSE button or drag and drop an image.
   
4. That’s it – done! Here is the original image:
   
5. And Adobe Express’s background removed:
   
6. Two notes:
   1. This option does not allow you to select from stock photos or the cloud.
   2. The image must be a JPEG, JPG or PNG, and under 40MB in size.
7. DOWNLOAD as a .PNG with transparent background,
8. Or before downloading, use the options to add a colored or patterned background,
9. Last, Adobe Express does have an online image editor with more advanced features, click the OPEN IN EDITOR

Option 2: Modify a Photo from Adobe Stock

Before demonstrating this option, it is important to know that Adobe has Adobe Stock. Adobe Stock is a paid service with literally millions of royalty free photos, illustrations, videos and music assets (TLC Creative has selected Adobe Stock as the resource for our design team). But for this blog post, the key bit of information is that Adobe Express, which is free to use, provides access to what they list as “over 1 million royalty-free photos”!!

TIP: this is a great, free, photo resource for presentation design!

1. From the Adobe Express home page, in the upper right corner, click the big blue plus buttons.
   
2. This opens the GET STARTED screen, which in other areas of the app is labelled as starting an “image from scratch.”
   
3. For slides, click the LANDSCAPE aspect ratio button.
   1. TIP: Adobe Express has dozens of options. From the basic square, landscape and portrait modes to the pre-set sizes of all major social media, video and print media needs.
4. Choose the Media option on the left column tool bar.
   
   1. There is an UPLOAD FROM DEVICE button, which is the same process as Option 1, just a longer way of getting there.
   2. The GENERATE IMAGE is Adobe’s AI that creates images from text prompts (the same engine is available on Adobe Stock, and it creates some really great images – but it is free here!).
   3. Below that is where you can search the Adobe Stock images available through Adobe Express. Use the SEARCH bar or the categories.
5. Find a desired photo, click on it and Express will automatically add onto the editing canvas.
   
6. Click the Remove background button and it’s gone. In the example below, we purposely have chosen a subject with a busy background to show the capabilities. Notice the thin strands of hair that remain.
   
7. Change the canvas background to none. This will ensure a transparent background when exporting.
   
8. Click Download and choose the PNG option. One thing to note, because we chose a template size of 1920px x 1080px (16:9), the new image will export at that size. Not the size of the edited photo. Adobe Express does have a crop tool, however it will only crop the photo on its layer. It does not crop the entire canvas size.
9. Insert the new image into a PowerPoint file or set as background so the image fills page.

The new offering from Adobe, Adobe Express, is separate from Adobe Creative Cloud subscriptions, so it can be a standalone set of design tools or used in conjunction with an Adobe CC subscription. These are just a few of the photo editing and design tools that work for presentation design where images are needed. Explore the Adobe Express offering here.

Mike @ TLC Creative

What is Adobe Express? Formerly known as Adobe Spark, is a user-friendly tool that lets you create professional-looking social media posts, flyers, videos, and more in just a few clicks. Whether you’re running a small business, managing your personal brand, or just love pretty visuals, Adobe Express might just become your new best friend.

At its core, Adobe Express is a simplified web-based design tool. Think of it as Adobe Photoshop’s cooler, less intimidating cousin. You don’t need advanced skills to create polished content; Adobe Express provides an extensive library of templates, fonts, colors, and even royalty-free stock photos to make your designs look like they were created by a pro.

It’s perfect for creating Instagram posts, YouTube thumbnails, or even business cards—basically, if it needs to look good and you need it done fast, this is the tool. It also can be helpful to presentation designers, which is the focus of the next 2 posts.

HOW MUCH DOES ADOBE EXPRESS COST

Here’s the good news, Adobe Express offers a free plan! It includes access to many templates, fonts, and basic design tools.

The more advanced features require a paid premium plan, ~$100 annually. It is also collaboration focused and offers “team” plans, that are lower pricing, ~$50-80 annually per team member. But the most exciting offering is if you already subscribe to Adobe Creative Cloud, chances are you already have access to the premium version as part of your CC subscription!

WHAT ARE THE PREMIUM TOOLS

The free version is great, but the premium tools really make Adobe Express shine:

• Remove Backgrounds: A click is all it takes to remove the background from an image. No need to fiddle with a million settings.
• Resizing Magic: Want to turn an Instagram post into a Pinterest pin? The premium version resizes your design for different platforms in seconds.
• Exclusive Templates & Fonts: More options mean less time spent tweaking designs.
• Brand Kit: Save your logos, colors, and fonts to keep your branding consistent across all designs.
• Access to Adobe Stock: Get premium stock images and graphics baked right into the platform.

DO I NEED TO INSTALL ANYTHING

Nope! Adobe Express is web-based, so you can use it directly from your browser without installing anything. Adobe Express is available for Windows, Mac, iPad, and smartphones (both iOS and Android). It’s basically wherever you need it to be.

The mobile version is especially handy if you’re managing social media on the go. It syncs with your Adobe account, so you can start a design on your computer and finish it on your phone or vice versa.

WHAT POWERS ADOBE EXPRESS FEATURES

Adobe Express is powered by Adobe’s AI technology, including Firefly. Just Adobe Photoshop, Firefly in Adobe Express can generate images from text prompts. This AI generated tool can assist with automatically removing the background or automatically resizing the layout for every social channel.

WHAT POWERS ADOBE EXPRESS FEATURES

Adobe Express is perfect for anyone who wants to create beautiful content without spending hours learning complicated software. As a team of professional presentation designers, we can see Adobe Express being part of a presentation design workflow.

Now that we have an overview and introduction to Adobe’s newest offering, Adobe Express, in the next few posts we are going to focus on using it to create presentation ready images.

Techsmith’s Snagit app is a must-have at TLC Creative. Literally everyone from the design team, to IT manager, to Project Coordinator and Accounting department – everyone has Snagit installed on their computer and uses it daily (note: TLC Creative maintains an Enterprise license for Snagit. It is a great value – and no sponsorship to endorse it!). 

One of the go to features is Snagit’s ability to capture documents or webpages that are longer, or wider, than your screen. Start an image capture, scroll as long as needed, and Snagit creates a super long, or super wide, image! For many years the access has been a series of click; expand the task bar, right-click the Snagit icon, go to Presets, and select SCROLLING CAPTURE. (TIP: on my computer setup I added a custom hotkey in the Snagit app and created a button on my Stream Deck to launch that hotkey, making it nearly instantaneous to start a Snagit Panoramic Capture) 

TIP: long images, like webpages or apps, are great to use on PowerPoint slides and animate under an image of a computer screen or mobile phone! 

TIP: capture extra wide Excel documents using this feature! 

Well, Snagit at some point in the past year eliminated the need for something like my Stream Deck hotkey by adding Panoramic Capture as a button directly on its capture bar! 

Christie on the TLC Creative design team takes us through how to get this new shortcut. And demonstrates how to use it. 

In order to use this new feature, Snagit must be updated to Version 2024.2.4, or higher. 

Updated Capture Dialogue Box: 

• Capture an image with Snagit by using the PRINT SCREEN button on your keyboard 

• A new dialogue box will appear with several capture options 

• 1. Image, 2. Video, and the new 3. Panoramic ratio, then info about the pixel size of the capture, reset and close options. 

• What we are excited about is the “new” Panoramic Capture button on the Snagit dialog. 

TIP: the pixel width and height, and position, of the capture can still be adjusted before the capture type is selected.  

• Click the PANORAMIC CAPTURE button and choose to scroll down vertically or horizontally to the right. 

• When all of the content is added to the small Snagit capture thumbnail, click DONE.  

• Depending on how big the capture is, a progression bar with cute clipart and phrase tells you how things are going for the image to process. 

• When processing is complete the Snagit editor opens showing the image. 

• Modify the image here (crop, add callouts, merge with other images, etc. – Snagit is powerful and full of useful editing tools). 

• Here is my example vertical panoramic capture of the TLC Creative website – as one long image. The capture process took around 25 seconds to create this image – and no needing to manually stitch separate captures together!  

PowerPoint has a wonderful eye dropper tool to update a shape fill, outline, shadow, etc. to any color on the slide. Outside PowerPoint, the TLC Creative team has a small Windows app installed on every computer – Instant Eyedropper.

Instant Eyedropper is a FREE color detection tool. Instant Eyedropper is an installed app, and Windows OS only. To use: click the Instant Eyedropper icon, move the mouse to spotlight the color needed, and click. The color value is added to the clipboard. This color eyedropper is an app that does 1 thing and does it well.

There are numerous supported color formats; RGB, Hex, HTML, HSL, and others. Our team preference is between RGB, like what the eyedropper in Paint and PowerPoint uses, and HTML. To get started, click the icon in the taskbar.

The cursor becomes a target (A), displays the color to be picked up (B), and the color value that will be copied (C).

Click and done, the color value is copied to the clipboard. The cursor then reverts back to a regular cursor. Paste the color value into any project notes or app as needed.

Instant Eyedropper is free to download from their website: http://instant-eyedropper.com/

If you’re frequently working with large files, especially images and presentations like the TLC Creative design team does every day, you might already be familiar with the pain point of dealing with oversized files. WeCompress is an online app designed to alleviate this problem by compressing a wide variety of file types — whether you want to compress PDFs, PowerPoint Presentations, Word documents, or images.

At its core, WeCompress is essentially a free, web-based version of the popular NXPowerLite desktop application. Developed by the same team at Neuxpower (who makes NXPowerlite), WeCompress allows users to upload and compress files without the need for installation, account or subscription. This makes it incredibly convenient for anyone who needs quick, on-the-go file compression, especially for presentations or documents that exceed email attachment limits.

One thing to keep in mind when using WeCompress, especially for images, is that it doesn’t save your files into different formats. For instance, if you’re working with a TIFF image that you’d like to use in a presentation, you want to convert it to an optimized PNG. But that’s not how WeCompress works. Instead, it will compress the file while keeping its original format intact. So, if format conversion is part of your workflow, you’ll need to use a different tool.

TIP: there is a file size limit. WeCompress will allow files up to 50MB.

TIP/or maybe this is a Public Service Announcement (PSA): the wecompress website contains A LOT of sponsor ads – everywhere on it. While these ads help keep the service free, they can be distracting or misleading, so be cautious about what you click on. Stick to the main functionality of the site, and you’ll be good.

The TLC Creative design team has the desktop version, NXPowerlite, on all design computers. NXPowerlite allows for larger file sizes (ugh, 2GB + presentations!), batch compressing of multiple files, and more advanced features like custom profiles.

Let’s walk through a demo of how to compress a file using WeCompress.com:

1. On https://www.wecompress.com/, upload a file for compression by either dragging the file to the upload area or clicking the purple + icon in the middle of the screen.
   
2. Select a file for optimization, then click OPEN.
   
3. The file uploads (FAQ says it is a temp file and not stored after file compression completes)
   
4. After the upload is complete, there is a notice that file compression is in process.
   
5. Once the file is ready to download, a “File Ready” notice appears with the new file size, and information about the percentage of compression.
   
6. Click DOWNLOAD FILE. The new file name has (wecompress.com) added to the original file name.
   
7. After download, a successful download notice with a link to compress another file if needed.
   

That’s it. Easy, quick (depending on file size and internet speed), and free! WeCompress offers only 1 compress option with no levels of compression or profiles, which is possible in NXPowerlite. Bookmark WeCompress and test it, the TLC Creative design team has used it many times (especially when working on provided show computers that lack our suite of apps and settings).

-Amber