What is H2.65?
Ever noticed how a crystal-clear 4K movie can stream to your TV without endless buffering? Have you wondered how your phone stores an hour of high-definition video without instantly running out of space? Or how a PowerPoint presentation can have lots of videos embedded in the presentation file, but still be a manageable file size? 
The magic behind this is an unsung hero of the digital world: the video codec. A video codec is the process an app uses for “compression/decompression” (“co-dec”). Raw, uncompressed video files are enormous (remember huge .AVI video files? – even those had some level of compression, and they were huge!). A codec intelligently compresses the video for storage, and then your device’s video player instantly uncompresses it for viewing.
In this post, we’re diving into one of the most important codecs in modern video: H.265, also known as HEVC.
Let’s break down what it is, why it’s a huge leap forward from its predecessor (H.264), and when you should – and shouldn’t – use it. And let’s also see if PowerPoint can use it.
What is H.265 (HEVC)?
H.265 stands for High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC). It is a video compression standard that was finalized in 2013. It was designed as the direct successor to the incredibly popular H.264 (also known as AVC, or Advanced Video Coding), which had been the standard for HD video during the previous decade.
The great news is, PowerPoint can use and playback H.265 videos!
Side note for context: .MOV is generally the 2nd most used video file type, behind .MP4. And yes, PowerPoint on a Windows computer can play .mov videos, although they run through an additional layer of processing, so .MP4 videos are recommended.
There are different file types; .MP4, .MOV, .AVI. These are the “container” and what we see when we receive a video file. Inside the container are the many parts of the video; the video picture part, the audio part, the instructions for what CODEC is needed to uncompress it for playback, and more. Just know that the file type (aka container) and the codec (aka H.264, ProRes, VP9) can be mix and matched – which is why sometimes a .MP4 will not play on a computer, but other .MP4 videos will. PowerPoint’s built in Video Optimization tool is super efficient in that it converts all videos to .MP4 using a standard CODEC that is recognized by all modern video players.
Back to H.265. The primary goal of H.265 is simple but powerful: to deliver the same level of video quality as H.264 but with half the file size.
The Big Showdown: H.265 vs. H.264
So, what makes H.265 so much more efficient? It uses a more sophisticated and intelligent compression method and is smarter than H.264 in how it analyzes and packages video data.
- Compression Efficiency: H.265 offers about 50% better compression than H.264. This means a 10 GB file compressed with H.264 would be roughly 5 GB when compressed as an H.265 file, with the same visual quality.
- Bandwidth Usage: Because the files are smaller, H.265 requires less internet bandwidth, meaning when you stream 4K videos, they play more smoothly with less buffering.
- Supported Resolutions: H.264 was designed for up to 4K, while H.265 was built for up to 8K (8192×4320).
- Processing Power: This is the main trade-off. H.265’s complex algorithms require more processing power to encode and decode. This can be a challenge for older devices, but modern computers and even phones can handle this processing without any issues. And since PowerPoint does not actually handle video playback (but instead relies on the device that PowerPoint is running on to do the heavy lifting) processing power isn’t an issue! Any modern laptop, computer, tablet, or phone is going to let PowerPoint play the newer H.265 video (yay!).
- Compatibility: H.264 is universally compatible and plays on almost any device from the last 15 years. And while the newer H.265 is widespread on modern hardware, it should be tested if someone is using a 15+ year old device.
In short, H.265 gives us two amazing options:
- Same Quality, Half the Size: Perfect for storing video or for viewers with limited data plans.
- Same Size, Better Quality: Perfect for delivering a more vibrant, detailed image without increasing bandwidth costs.
When Should You Use H.265? (The Sweet Spots)
H.265 is the go-to choice for modern, high-quality video applications. Use it for:
- Live Streaming: For streamers on platforms like Twitch or YouTube, using H.265 (if the platform supports it) means you can send a higher-quality stream to your viewers without needing a faster internet connection.
- 4K and 8K Content: Streaming and storing ultra-high-definition video is now practical because of its better file size and coding efficiency. For example, Netflix, Disney+, and Apple TV+ rely heavily on H.265 for their 4K HDR content.
- Modern Mobile Video: Most newer smartphones now record video in H.265 by default. This enables the tiny device to shoot those long 4K, 60fps videos without filling up the phone’s storage in a few short minutes.
- Security Camera Systems: Because H.265 creates smaller video files, while still being full resolution, the 24/7 recording needs of security cameras quickly adopted the new file format.
- PowerPoint: As noted above, H.265 works for PowerPoint. And it works well, so long as it is a modern device. In addition, the smaller video file sizes will be appreciated. But there is a caveat currently: if PowerPoint’s compress/optimize video is used, videos will be converted to H.264 (and file size will most likely get larger).
When Might You Stick with H.264?
Despite its advantages, H.265 isn’t always the right tool for the job. The main drawback is its higher processing demand. Here are two scenarios where it may not be the best choice today:
- Maximum Compatibility is Your #1 Priority: If you’re creating a video that needs to be playable by everyone – on old laptops, budget tablets, or corporate computers with limited software – H.264 is still the safest bet. It has large file sizes, and does not support super high resolutions, but it is the universal language of video.
- You’re Working with Older or Low-Power Hardware: Encoding (creating) an H.265 video takes longer and uses more CPU power than encoding an H.264 video. Likewise, trying to play a 4K H.265 file on an old device could result in a choppy, unwatchable mess.
The Verdict
H.265/HEVC is a technological marvel that makes our modern, high-resolution world possible. It’s the newest workhorse codec that balances stunning quality with manageable file sizes.
While the tried-and-true H.264 still has its place for ensuring maximum compatibility, H.265 is the clear winner for today’s devices, and the future. For PowerPoint presentations, H.265 works flawlessly for embedding and playback, but there are a few “gotchas” to know about. More on those in upcoming blog posts.
-The TLC Creative Team
MVP Renewal
It’s another celebration here at TLC Creative Services as Troy adds his 2025-2026 renewal disc to his now overflowing Microsoft MVP award – that makes this his 21st year being awarded as an MVP for PowerPoint from Microsoft!
Deprecation of PowerPoint’s Reuse Slides Button
Microsoft announced earlier this month (July 2025) that the Reuse Slides button will be removed from the PowerPoint ribbon. Why? We’re assuming usage analytics showed this feature was collecting dust, but it’s also possible that Microsoft could be implementing a new reuse system – we just don’t know!
If you aren’t familiar with the Reuse Slides button, you’re not alone. Here’s where to find it (until tomorrow):
It opens a menu within PowerPoint that allows you to pull slides from any deck on your computer, SharePoint, or OneDrive to use in the presentation you’re working on.
You may ask, “is this different from just copying and pasting with ‘Keep Source Formatting?'”
Technically, yes, but the result is the same. Slides from another deck are added to the current deck. The key difference is that Reuse Slides doesn’t require another deck to be open as it’s all done within its own interface in PowerPoint. And if “Reuse Slides” is part of your workflow, be prepared that you’ll now need to go find the other presentation, open the presentation, select the slides, copy the slides, paste the slides into the current presentation.
We feel most people have two or more decks open and simply copy-paste slides as needed as opposed to using the “Reuse Slides” button. However, after today, July 31, 2025, when the “Reuse Slides” button disappears from PowerPoint, everyone will be using the copy/paste method!
-The TLC Creative Design Team
When All is Bold, Nothing is Bold
Are you designing a PowerPoint presentation with a LOT of text? Want to make your points stand out in a sea of words but you’re not sure how? Here’s our answer: the skillful use of typography is one of the most important aspects of any slide layout! And how well it’s done will determine how well you can communicate your message.
Here’s An Idea: Go Big and BOLD!
One of the many powerful tools in a graphic designer’s typography toolkit is bold type. It’s heavier and darker than regular type and is designed to grab attention. It not only calls out significance but also helps the viewer quickly identify what is important.
We originally posted a similar article in August of 2020 and the same design principles apply today. Bold type can be used like a spotlight in the design with the goal of creating a clear visual hierarchy. Make something bold when it needs to stand out, like a headline, a call-to-action, or an important detail in a block of text or in a table.
But here’s the thing: bold fonts are used for emphasis, too much bolding can have the exact opposite effect!
When Everything is BOLD – Nothing is Bold
Overdoing the use of bold text makes the design feel loud, cluttered, and less legible. This is important because the presentation audience generally spends only a few seconds viewing a slide to capture the important details. The designer’s goal is to make sure the main points stand out and can be quickly identified.
The key is to use bold type sparingly, like a highlighter for your most important points. It should support your layout, not overwhelm it. So, don’t overdo it. A little goes a long way.
In the example below, everything is bold. Which points are the most important? The reader can’t tell, and the message is lost.
This next example uses bold type sparingly and only in the headline and subheads. At a quick glance, your audience can easily pick out ideas on what to do this summer, and your message is successful (backyard BBQ anyone?).
When used in the right place, selective bold text reinforces the message. Just ask yourself, “What do I want the viewer to notice first?”, then let bold type do the rest.
Happy bolding! This post is from our Look Back series, rediscovering previous blog posts with relevant PowerPoint Tips, Tricks, and Examples for today.
-The TLC Creative Design Team
Do This – Not That: Paragraph Space vs. Extra Line
What constitutes a good choice vs. a bad choice, when it comes to formatting slides? So many things! But for this blog post, let’s look at adding space between bulleted lines of text on a slide.
Let’s use the following two slides as an example. Both of these sample slides, Slide 1 and Slide 2, have 5 bullet points. Both have spacing between the bullets. But only one is built as a “good” slide (in our humble opinion)!
Slide 1 – The Wrong Way: Extra Lines Between Bullets
Our Slide 1 example has the most common formatting solution, which is also the “bad” formatting solution. An extra line has been added between each bullet. While this adds extra space visually, it introduces blank paragraphs and creates other formatting issues when the slide needs to be edited.
Problems with this method (aka – why this is a bad choice):
- Inconsistent spacing if the font size or line height changes
- Screen readers or accessibility tools may misinterpret the content
- Extra lines count as content, which affects slide layouts and animations
- It is more difficult to manage or edit later
Slide 2 – The Right Way: Paragraph Spacing
In our example on Slide 2, the professional formatting option is used to create added space between each bullet; paragraph spacing has been applied. Specifically:
- Paragraph spacing before each line of text is set to 18 pt (this can be increased or decreased for more or less space separating the bullets, designers’ choice!)
- No manual line breaks are used
Why this is the better method (aka – the “good” choice):
- Cleaner formatting behind the scenes
- Consistent spacing, regardless of font or text size
- Easier to edit, you’re not dealing with phantom blank lines
- Better for accessibility
- Simply, more professional formatting
TLC Creative’s Best Practice
When you need to visually group or separate bullet points:
- Use Paragraph Spacing “Before” or “After” in the Paragraph settings (we prefer setting “Before” spacing and leaving “After” at 0)
- Avoid manual spacing with extra lines (e.g. don’t hit that Enter key and quietly remove the bullet with a backspace, and please don’t do a Shift+Return for “soft returns”)—these shortcutscan cause long-term formatting frustrations
- Bonus Tip: You can set paragraph spacing directly in your slide master for automatic, consistent formatting across slides
Conclusion
Adding space between bullets makes content more legible—but how you add that space matters. Using manual line breaks creates cluttered code under the surface. Using proper paragraph spacing gives you clean, consistent, and professional slides every time.
Let your formatting work with you, not against you.
-The TLC Creative Design Team
A Look Back to Text Box Internal Margins
Need a little more breathing room around your text in PowerPoint? Or no room at all, with text starting at the edge of the shape? Adjusting the margins inside a text box can make a big difference in how clean your slide looks. Not to mention that consistent margins can make it way easier to align text boxes – as well as shapes, images and videos.
When adding a new text box, PowerPoint uses whatever internal margins were set as the default for the template. The dilemma is this internal margin can be a bit annoying when trying to align elements nicely and neatly with other elements on the slide.
PowerPoint’s text box and shape internal margin, or padding, is the distance text starts from the edge of the text box or shape. Think of every text box as a mini-Word document, with margins on the top-bottom-left and righthand side. Here is an example from the Microsoft PowerPoint 2025 default template. You’ll see it is set at .1″ for the left and right margins and .05″ for the top and bottom margins. Added text is slightly inset from the bounding box of the text box according to these settings.
What is great is that text box and shape margins (and table cell padding) are easily customized in PowerPoint.
- Select a text box
- Right-click and select Format Shape in the menu
- In the Format Shape pane go to the Text Options tab
- Click the text box icon
The internal margins can easily be adjusted by updating the value in the Left/Right/Top/Bottom margins fields. Type in exact values or use the up/down arrows to adjust these values in preset increments. Internal margins can be as small as .01″ if you are manually typing in the value. Also, if you are manually adding the margin values, the TAB key moves the cursor to the next margin box, with its value selected and ready to be updated.
At TLC Creative Services, our design team generally uses the template setting or removes the text margins entirely, so the text box has 0″ margins.
Here is the same text box as our previous example, but now with 0″ margins all the way around so the text starts at the top and the left edge.
If the slide title placeholder and content placeholder are both set with the left edge at 0″ (or both set with the same margins), aligning the text boxes also aligns the text, and then these elements can be easily aligned with other content on the slide.
Here is another example of where you might adjust text margins, this time in a callout bar. Here the text is left aligned but is inset significantly from the left edge. This is accomplished by setting the left internal margin to 1″ in from the left edge vs. the default .1″ setting.
That’s it! Like most typography work, the small margin tweaks may seem minor, but they play a big role in helping slides look neat and aligned with better text legibility. Hoping this gives you some solid formatting ideas for your next PowerPoint presentation formatting.
-Mike and the TLC Creative Design Team
How We Setup Reference and Source Text Boxes
PowerPoint presentations often need references, disclaimers, or legal notices on slides—but not always. Many of the presentations we work on have a variety of text box formatting and location needs for these important (but often small) amounts of text. Internally, our design team uses a special set of rules for formatting these text boxes. This makes the formatting task quicker and easier, and keeps the slide content clear. Let’s dive in!
What is a Reference Text Box?
On many slides – especially when showing data, citing sources, branding details, or adding footnotes – a small reference text box is needed at the bottom of the slide.
TIP: because this is generally not a text placeholder on the Master Slide Layout, we paste a reference version onto an extra (hidden) slide so we have all of these formatting options set to go! Here are the two “template” or reference text boxes, ready to be pasted into our slide deck.
TLC Creative Formatting Guidelines for Reference Text Boxes
When setting up a reference text box, these formatting details help maintain readability without distracting from the main content:
1. Font Size: Small – 8 to 9 pt (adjust as needed for the font being used)
2. Alignment: Left-aligned
3. Text Box Margins: None (set all text box margins to 0)
4. Vertical Position: Bottom aligned – because this is a bottom-of-the-slide element, additional lines of text should move upward, keeping the bottom line of text always in the same position
5. Paragraph Spacing: 4 pt before – provides a small gap between multiple lines of text when longer citations or source text is needed
6. Width: Set the text box to full slide width, and shorten as needed, to fit the layout design
For teams managing brand consistency or legal compliance, reference notes can make a big difference in creating polished, professional presentations.
Need help optimizing your templates or standardizing presentations – like assuring all reference text is consistent across all slides?
The TLC Creative team can help bring consistency, clarity, and design precision to every slide.
–The TLC Creative Design Team