How to Use Design Ideas in PowerPoint

Earlier this year, Microsoft renamed its Office 365 suite as Microsoft 365. The change isn’t just about a new name. With Microsoft 365, the company is adding a host of features to Word, PowerPoint, and Excel. Microsoft Excel gets monetary integration while Word added Microsoft Editor to track grammatical errors. Microsoft PowerPoint is receiving upgrades for the Design Ideas feature which helps a normal consumer create attractive slides.

You might be wondering what exactly are design ideas in PowerPoint and how can they improve your in-app workflow? As the name suggests, Design Ideas gives you ready-made design ideas to implement in the PowerPoint slide. You just need to add relevant information to the slide and let the design ideas do the heavy lifting.

Design Ideas has been part of PowerPoint for some time. But with the latest update to Microsoft 365, the company is adding support for video background, which takes your boring PPT slide to the next level.

In this article, we will see how to use design ideas in PowerPoint, how to customize them as you like, and more.

Where are the design ideas in PowerPoint

When you create a slide, add all the information such as text, title, captions, and images. Now go to the Design tab in the menu bar. You will see design ideas in the right corner. Tap on it and you’ll see a separate Design Ideas menu on the right side of the slide.

Implement design ideas in PowerPoint slides

With the use of design ideas, anyone with a basic knowledge of PowerPoint can make a presentation that turns heads quickly. And this is the main motive for the added function. Empower normal consumers with AI tools that improve overall productivity and enable them to get things done.

Note: Before we begin, let me clarify that design ideas are only available to paid Microsoft 365 subscribers. You can access the Design Ideas feature on iOS, Android, Windows, Mac, and web. For this article, we’ll be focusing on Windows, as most people will be using the desktop to create PowerPoint presentations.

You need to make sure that you are running the latest version of PowerPoint on the device. To do this, open the PowerPoint software and go to File> Account> Update options and select Update now. This will check and install any pending updates.

Follow the steps below to learn more about design ideas and how to use them in PowerPoint. Let’s start from scratch, shall we?

Step 1: Open the PowerPoint app and select an appropriate template.

2nd step: If this is your first time using Design Ideas, go for a simple template with a white background.

Step 3: Add a title and a subtitle. Now go to the Design menu and you will see a bunch of attractive themes and variations. This is how people have been using PowerPoint for ages.

Step 4: Tap on Design Ideas and you’ll see a separate Design Ideas menu on the right side of the slide.

Step 5: Depending on your content, you’ll see some engaging design ideas out of the box to implement in the slide.

Step 6: The first design ideas will have a video background. Tap on it and PowerPoint will download the necessary media for you. You can press the play button to preview the live video playback in the slide.

Based on the PPT topic, you can choose from the different backgrounds to start your presentation perfectly. For example, you can opt for a financial context for a quarterly report. Or you can use a technological background for an IoT (Internet of Things). The possibilities are endless here.

You can use custom images or company logo and use the Design Ideas menu to get the best design among text, logo, and image background. In the example below, I’ve added a company logo, name, and simple text and am looking at what Design Ideas has to offer.

Customize themes and use design ideas

You won’t want every slide in your presentation to be drastically different from the others. In this case, you can still select themes from the menu above.

Design Ideas is also useful when you want to add bullet points to a topic. It’s smart enough to understand the context of the sentence, and based on that, and it will automatically add a relevant icon to it.

In the example below I have added some talking points and some design ideas have intentionally incorporated corresponding icons. You will also have a choice of styles in the Design Idea menu.

You can also use the Format Background option to set a solid, gradient, or image as the background. Design Ideas will automatically modify the suggestions based on your preferences.

The first impression is the last

PowerPoint remains unmatched in the presentation space. And you can clearly see why. Using Design Ideas, you can easily create professional looking PPTs in a matter of hours. Besides, it will save you hours on elegant presentation by investing as little effort as possible.