PowerPoint is one of the most commonly used presentation software. With its easy-to-use interface and powerful features, it has become an indispensable tool for business professionals. However, the default settings in PowerPoint may not be optimized for your personal preferences and workflow. Tweaking some of the default settings can help boost your productivity when creating presentations.
In this article, we will walk you through some of the default PowerPoint settings you should consider changing for better productivity.
1. Change the Default View
By default, PowerPoint opens presentations in Normal view. This displays the slide pane, thumbnails pane and notes pane side-by-side. However, this may not be the most suitable view for all tasks.
You can change the default view to better suit your workflow ([1]):
- For drafting presentations quickly, consider the Outline view.
- For an overview of the slide order, use the Slide Sorter view.
- For presenting, switch to the Slide Show view.
To change the default view:
- Go to File > Options > Advanced.
- Under Display, choose your preferred view from the dropdown menu next to “Open all documents using this view”.
- Click OK to save the changes.
2. Customize the Quick Access Toolbar
The Quick Access Toolbar allows you to add shortcuts to frequently used commands. Customizing this toolbar can save you time as your most-used features are always within reach ([2]).
To add commands:
- Click the dropdown arrow at the end of the Quick Access Toolbar.
- Select More Commands.
- Choose the commands you want to add from the left pane and click Add.
- Arrange the commands by using the arrows on the right.
- Click OK to save the customized toolbar.
3. Set Default Text and Object Formatting
Instead of manually formatting text and objects every time, you can set default formatting to be applied automatically ([3]).
To set default text formatting:
- Open the Normal template (Normal.dotm).
- Select the placeholder text and modify the font, size, color etc.
- Right-click the text and select “Set as Default Text Style”.
Follow similar steps to set default formatting for shapes, tables or other objects. This saves time as new slides will contain the predefined formatting.
4. Change Default Save Location
By default, PowerPoint saves presentation files to the local Documents folder. However, this may not be the optimal location if you prefer saving them to a cloud storage or network drive.
To change default save location ([4]):
- Go to File > Options > Save.
- Under “Save files in this format”, click Browse.
- Choose the new default location and click OK.
- Click OK again to apply the changes.
5. Disable Unnecessary Features
Some features in PowerPoint like ink, 3D models etc. may not be relevant to your presentations. Disabling them helps optimize performance ([5]).
To disable features:
- Go to File > Options > Advanced.
- Under “Enable Live Preview”, uncheck the features you do not need.
- Click OK.
Disabling unused features makes the interface less cluttered. It also saves system resources and speeds up loading presentations.
6. Compress Media
High resolution images and videos quickly increase file size. Compressing media can reduce file size without compromising too much on quality ([6]).
To compress all images in a presentation:
- Go to File > Info > Compress Pictures.
- Select the desired compression level and image quality.
- Click OK.
Follow similar steps to compress videos as well. This reduces file size and improves performance, especially when sharing presentations.
Conclusion
Tweaking PowerPoint’s default settings to match your workflow and preferences goes a long way in boosting productivity. With frequently used features easily accessible and unused features disabled, you’ll be able to create presentations more efficiently.
Changing default save locations also helps organize your files better. Compressing media reduces file size without compromising too much on quality. Overall, customizing PowerPoint to work the way you want can make you a lot more productive.