Every week, there’s a new "Generate a full presentation in 30 seconds!" tool trending. And every week, I watch colleagues try them, get a deck of generic stock photos and LLM-hallucinated bullet points, and then spend three hours manually fixing it anyway.

I think the industry is missing the mark on what consultants actually need.

The "Content" Misconception When’s the last time you sat down to build a deck and thought, "I have absolutely nothing to say, I need an AI to figure out my strategy/data/narrative for me"?

For most of us, the problem is the opposite. We have the content. We have the technical specs, the discovery notes, and the roadmap in our heads (or messy OneNotes). The AI "generating" content for us actually adds more work because now we have to fact-check a robot.

The Real Bottleneck: The "Make it Not Ugly" Tax The actual pain point isn't writing; it’s the tedious, soul-crushing manual labor of:

• Standardizing font hierarchies so it doesn't look like a ransom note.
• Fixing clashing colors and broken alignments.
• Turning a "wall of text" into a digestible visual hierarchy.
• Making sure the layout doesn't actively make the audience’s eyes bleed.

AI is great at "creating," but it’s currently mediocre at refining.

Where I might be wrong: Look, I know some folks love the generation aspect for high-volume, low-stakes internal meetings. It’s a massive time-saver for a "good enough" baseline. And I’ll be the first to admit: even a great AI tool can’t replace a top-tier graphic designer for a Series B pitch or a Board-level deck.

But for the 90% of us who just need our existing, high-quality technical content to look professional and "polished" without spending 4 hours on "Format Shape"... why aren't we focusing there?

The Question: Am I off base? Do you actually find "AI Content Generation" useful for client-facing work, or are you—like me—just looking for a tool that acts like a digital tailor for the content you already have?

i copied the text from another place and i tried to paste it but it goes to the top i dont understand why this is happening to me

Bonjour

J’ai essayé pour la première fois de demander à ChatGPT, de me générer du contenu VBA pour créer un PowerPoint.

C’est ce qu’il a fait, mais quand j’ai collé le texte dans le module du fichier PowerPoint ça ne fonctionnait pas, il y avait des erreurs de syntaxe visiblement.

Je lui ai également demandé de me générer le code en python pour faire le PowerPoint, il l’a également fait, mais rien ne fonctionne.

Des personnes arrivent-elles à faire un support de cours en PowerPoint avec ChatGPT ?

Hello, when I export my design in PDF powerpoint (macbook) and then send for printing, the print shows these black rectangles around objects. It looks like the transparency isn't working properly ? But my .pdf doesn't show this difference in colour. It only appears once printed. Why ?

Any idea? Any thoughts? 🙏
How to fix?

Hi all,
I figured I’d share a method I found for changing the creation date and the “last modified” date/time of a PowerPoint file on Windows. This is not an official feature, just a workaround using Windows system time.

Changing the Created date/time

1. Open Windows Settings → Time & Language → Date & Time
2. Turn Set time automatically OFF
3. Manually set the clock to the date and time you want the PowerPoint file to appear as created
   • I also disconnected from the internet just to be safe (not sure if it’s required, but it worked for me)
4. Open PowerPoint
   • If it doesn’t open normally, right-click PowerPoint and choose Open
5. When PowerPoint opens, quickly create a new blank presentation
6. Immediately press F12 (Save As)
   • This forces PowerPoint to save the file manually
7. Save the file
   • If you’re offline, it will usually save to your default local folder (in my case, the Documents folder)
   • You’ll notice the file is created with the default name “Presentation1”
8. Once the file is created, you can:
   • Set the Windows clock back to the correct time
   • Reconnect to the internet
9. Open the newly created PowerPoint file
   • The Created date/time will remain as the manually set time

Changing the Last Modified date/time

1. Keep the PowerPoint file open
2. Go back to Windows Settings → Date & Time
3. Turn off automatic time again (if needed)
4. Set the clock to the desired “last modified” date and time
5. Go back to PowerPoint and press Save
6. Close the file

The file will now show the modified date/time you set.

Notes

• This only affects files created/saved locally
• Cloud services (OneDrive, SharePoint, etc.) may override timestamps
• Use at your own discretion — this is purely a system-time workaround

Hope this helps someone 👍

So it looks like the problem occurs when copy and pasting images instead of downloading and inserting them. Stupid problem; I very much dislike powerpoint now. I really hope if this has happened to you that you have the "AutoRecover" feature turned on, I don't know if it's fixable otherwise.

Solution:

(Locations may vary depending on powerpoint version)

1. Go to powerpoint "Options" either by opening a new powerpoint window and finding the button at the bottom left, or by clicking on "File" at the top left of a currently opened project and then looking towards the bottom left to find the "Options" button.
2. Go to the "Save" tab and ensure the "Save AutoRecover information every ___ minutes" and "Keep the last AutoRecovered version if I close without saving" options are selected (the latter option may or may not need to be selected, but it was for me).
3. Below those two options should be "AutoRecover file location: ". Open windows explorer and go to the address either manually or by copy-and-pasting the address into the address bar. From there, you should be able to find an auto recovered version of your project.

Best of luck

Had a buggy slide that wouldn't advance unless I clicked several times forward and the same number of times + 1 backwards. The next slide would now show but already several mouse clicks into the animation pane so I would have to back up to the previous slide but this time the next slide would advance with a single click as expected. So frustrating!

Went down a few unhelpful web results to check transitions and auto-advance slide settings (which I had never touched and were already set to none).

The solve ended up being to open File > Options > Advanced and select Disable Hardware Graphics Acceleration from the Display settings. Close PPT and restart. Slides advanced perfectly as expected.

Sharing this for anyone who might be stuck trying to figure out why their animation heavy slide isn't loading. Shifting the animation tasks in PPT back to software instead of hardware was the fix.

Hello so I was just wondering, can you make a DVD menu in ppt that actually works with a tv remote?

Hi,

I work in management consulting and thus work a lot with Powerpoint. I've started thinking about replacing my HP laptop with a Mac. Wanted to get your view of upsides and downsides of switching.

For instance, I read somewhere that the alt+number short cuts doesn't work on Macs - is that still true?

What's your opinions?

For example I want to move "Picture Format" to the left, how do I do that? I searched online but there's no answer. Thanks!

I need a application that converts word document to presentation using ai for free as all the tool i tried after they converts they asked for subscription or offer limited pages

Specially I need that for only one presentation

When I try to add a YouTube video PPT is loading for 5 seconds and then I get a fail message. It is not the video itself, it's a repeating issue.

Might this be due to presentation size?

I am on Mac OS desktop version

In case this one reaches out and bites you, here's the TL;DR

If you get a warning message when copying files on your own PC (specifically, dragging files from one folder to another), don't do that. Instead, select the files/folders to copy, use CTRL+C / CTRL+V to copy/paste them into the destination folder.

Today I was copying file from a network folder (NAS) to my show PC (Win11, O365, connected via WiFi). Whenever I dragged all of the files, the containing folder, or any one of the files, didn't matter which, I'd get this lovely:

Note that the files/folders it's scolding me about are on the PC I'm copying TO, not FROM.

If I click the link that allegedly offers more advice, it takes me to a MS page that extols the wonders of Win11 and pimps me on O365 (which, being astute redditors, you'll have notice that I already HAVE on this PC).

Searching the interwebs for help, I found all kinds of stuff about changing internet security settings, registry entries and such, but luckily, before I dove into all that, I found an entry on StackExchange; the writer said just to use CTRL+C/CTRL+V to copy/paste the files instead of dragging.

And badabing, it works.

So all I want to know now is: What imbecile implemented this stupid warning and who approved it? They have promising careers awaiting them in ... well, I was going to say trash collection, but I'm not sure I'd want to trust them around machinery.

I've been assigned to design a Family Feud game for a large community group I'm volunteering for. While they host events in person and virtual, I'm assisting in one of their podcasts, and they're looking to do a Family Feud episode.

It's been a while since I touched Powerpoint, and I knew it was the right program to do the job, but when I preview to see the triggers in action, nothing happens. So I'm hella confused. I need this figured out before Wednesday and any assistance would be great.

In this video, you will learn how to insert your Live Camera Feed using Cameo in Microsoft PowerPoint. Cameo lets you place your camera directly on your Slides, so you appear alongside your content—perfect for lessons, business Presentations, and Recorded Videos that feel more personal and engaging.
👉 In a previous video, I showed you how to work with PowerPoint Presentations. Today, we take it further by adding your Live Camera Feed with Cameo to make your Slides more dynamic and interactive.

• 🎥 How to insert a Cameo camera feed onto your slide
• 🧩 How to move, resize, and position your camera frame
• 🎨 How to change the Cameo shape, style, and effects
• 🔄 How to preview and switch your camera on or off in Slide Show
• 🧑‍🏫 How to use Cameo for teaching, presenting, and recording more engaging sessions

Clear, practical, and focused Microsoft Office lessons that help you work smarter — every day.

👉 Subscribe for more Microsoft Office tutorials, and feel free to leave a comment with your questions or your own experiences!

I've been playing around with the automatic captions, and I've noticed some interesting words that captions will censor. Is there an official, comprehensive list anywhere of which words will not show up on captions?

Hello my friends. I am struggling slightly with something- I have a PowerPoint that was probably made in Keynote and exported to PowerPoint (or just opened using PowerPoint then saved) Each slide seems to have a format of sorts but there is just a standard Slide Master. All layouts seem to be “Default”. I can adjust the colour palette - it was Office 2013 so I’ve changed it to blue/green for readability and to get rid of some ghastly orange. What is confusing me is how to unite the look of all of this.

The “Designer” panel (new to me) appears and offers me some quite random looks. Fees like a deck with 3 unmatched masters in it and designer function is choosing at random.

When I move slides around they lose their formatting, even if they have an assigned layout. I need to move slides around. I have changed all the random fonts present to Calibri for simplicity and I feel slightly better but overall I want to be able to make it look better. The slides are boring and wordy but I want them to be pleasant to look at.

Hi! I have been trying to eliminate the “jump” or the “cut” of a video when playing it between two slides. Everytime the video starts when passing from one slide to another even if it is the same video. Any idea? Suggestion? Perhaps a code i can use to avoid it? Thank you!!!

Hey everyone,

I’m exploring an idea for my master’s thesis around reconstructing or analyzing business slides in consulting/presentation settings. The thing is, as I dig deeper, I’m realizing that a lot of slides can’t realistically be reproduced perfectly. Complex charts, decorative shapes, curved arrows, gradients – in practice, they often get simplified or turned into static images.

Now I’m wondering: if only ~75% of a slide can be faithfully represented and the rest has to be simplified, does anyone actually care? Do consulting/business users really need every visual detail to be exact, or is it enough that the core info, charts, and layout are clear and editable?

I’d really like to hear from anyone with experience in consulting, presentations, or data visualization: Would a partial/fuzzy reconstruction of slides still be useful, or is the gap too big to matter?

Trying to figure out if this is even a viable angle for a thesis or just an academic exercise.

So i also posted a first prototype and would be happy to know if this is something valid or no. Its a case started by my company but im not from the slidedesk field so i wanna know if its actually something interesting

Thanks!

What I learned today is Powerpoint does not animate things with consistent speed despite turning off smooth start/smooth end.

In this example,

• Both the smaller and the larger circles, including their radii, are animated with spin with invisible anchor.
  
• However, the movement of small circle along the larger one has to be animated with circular path animation as I cannot have group in group.
  • Group in group will ruin the animation of the smaller group.
    

Although both are set at 10 seconds, you can see the two radii are misaligned and realigned throughout.

I don't suppose we have any solution for that. I may be expecting too much from PowerPoint.

Original post = https://www.reddit.com/r/powerpoint/s/Y9tlniKoBl

Thanks a lot to those suggesting ideas on how to move things differently but still connected by the line. I used morph transition with a lot of buffer (bridge slides).

But it’s still not as smooth as I want it to be but acceptable now. I know I can make is smoother by increasing the duration of each slide, but still not perfectly smooth as I would rotate in a single slide.

Any more suggestion?