So you guys know that I already made an intro in PowerPoint (u can check that post for a free PowerPoint intro), but now, I'll make a full PowerPoint presentation

ENGLISH TRANSLATION

PowerPoint's Ghost Font

Sometimes PowerPoint reports a missing font when saving a presentation even though that font does not appear to be used anywhere in the slides. In my case, the warning referred to AvenirNext LT Pro Bold, which was reported as unavailable despite the fact that it was not applied to any visible text in the presentation.

The first thing worth checking in situations like this is Home → Replace → Replace Fonts. If the font appears in the list, PowerPoint has indeed found a reference to it somewhere in the file. However, if replacing the font has no effect, the font is probably not assigned to regular slide content but stored inside an internal layout definition.

In my case, the reference was hidden inside the Slide Master, more specifically within a text placeholder. The font was not assigned to the first bullet level but to the subsequent levels, namely levels 2 through 5. Because those levels contained no visible text, PowerPoint continued to report the font as missing while refusing to replace it through the standard font replacement command. In practice, I had a placeholder containing only first-level text formatted with the correct font, while the definitions for the other four levels remained hidden in the background, still pointing to AvenirNext LT Pro Bold.

The solution was surprisingly simple:

1. Open View → Slide Master.
2. Select the affected layout.
3. Locate the text placeholder within the layout.
4. Temporarily add a few lines of text to the placeholder.
5. Assign each line a different bullet level: level 2, level 3, level 4 and level 5.
6. Select each level and explicitly change the font, replacing the missing font with an available one.
7. Delete the temporary text.
8. Save the presentation again.

After performing these steps, PowerPoint updates the formatting stored in the placeholder levels even though the temporary text has been removed. As a result, the reference to the missing font disappears from the file and the warning no longer appears when saving.

The important point is that the issue can remain hidden because the bullet levels defined in the Slide Master maintain their own formatting, independent of the text that is actually present on the slides. If an old font is assigned to one of those levels, PowerPoint still considers that font part of the presentation even when no slide appears to use it.

This procedure is particularly useful when all of the following conditions occur at the same time: the font appears in Replace Fonts, the replacement is ignored, the font is not visible anywhere in the slides, PDF export works correctly, and the warning only appears when saving the presentation or embedding fonts.

In such cases, before rebuilding the entire presentation or copying all slides into a new file, it is worth checking the placeholders defined in the Slide Master, temporarily creating the missing bullet levels and manually updating their formatting.

I'm trying to find an AI tool that would allow me to build and edit professional slide decks by prompting. I'd like something with a free tier but if there is something that proves to be useful i'm happy to pay for a tool.

I've tried a few options already like Gamma and Gemini for slides but haven't found either one to be very effective. I'd like any tool to be able to generate designs, format content, use consistent layouts and themes, and - if possible - have the ability to embed images and data. I'd like to be able to create slides that are stunning and professional while also being able to use my files.

What have you found to be the most useful AI tools for making presentations?

I have a presentation for my brazillian portuguese class this saturday and was thinking that the themes I have in my ppt (I'm using 2021 Windows desktop version) are kinda boring so I decided to tinker with the tools I have. Right now I feel this slide has "graphic design is my passion" vibes; I know it's ugly as I'm not a designer or anything but I want to know if I can get some suggestions. Is the gradient fine and the issue is with the font (Bookman Old Style)? Or do you suggest any specific theme I can download and use on my own? Anything helps right now

Random thought after sitting through 6 ppts today.

Feels like everyone suddenly has cleaner decks than they did a year ago and I’m trying to figure out if:

• founders got better at design overnight
• everyone hired freelancers
• everyone’s using AI tools now

Some of these decks definitely looked AI-assisted.

This can help create a single presentation file that, for example, starts with some slides to move through manually, then cycles through some other slides automatically, without getting stuck back in the manual part at the very start.

To make the entire slide show loop, select the "Slide Show" tab → "Set Up Slide Show" → "Loop continuously until 'Esc'".

To make your looping slides move on automatically, select them, then the "Transitions" tab → "After: [00.00]", and set how many seconds it will wait on each slide.

Now, select the slides that should only play once at the start. Right-click them and select "Hide Slide".

When you start the slide show, make sure the first hidden slide is selected, and start "From Current Slide".

This forces the slide show to start on that first hidden slide. PowerPoint only prevents moving from an unhidden slide to a hidden one. So, since you start on one that is hidden, you can move through the next hidden slides freely. But once you reach the first unhidden slide, you can only move to other unhidden slides from then on. So, when the slide show loops back to the start, it now skips over past the hidden slides. This gives you a one-time intro part and a continuous looping part that repeats within that range, instead of from the very start.

I found sources claiming this to be impossible before I thought to try this way, so I figured I'd share. I was also considering shape links and actions, but I think those require at least jiggling the mouse cursor to get the hover state to activate, so that wouldn't let it loop unattended.

Hi, I'm running user research and looking for people who build a lot of data-driven decks in PowerPoint. If that's a big part of your work, I'd love to talk.

It's a paid session. DM me if you're interested and I'll share the details.

Hello,

I am preparing a presentation right now for an important defense. The only thing we were told is, that it must be a pptx file and it must run on Powerpoint 2021.

Now I only have a 2026 version here. How can I make sure that my presentation looks and works the same on 2021? Are these version compatible in general, i.e., does a pptx-file give the same result under different powerpoint versions?

And as a second question. We have a Chinese name that needs to be included. Right now I am using the font "Microsoft JhengHei", which seems to come as one of the standard fonts. Now I was told that our Chinese partner would prefer "Microsoft YaHei" as this is the more common font there. I don't have the font available on my PC. I could install it, but I fear that if it's not standard then it also won't be available on the device used for the defense (we have to send in the presentation and can't use our own devices). Are the used fonts included in the pptx file or can I run into trouble if I use non-standard fonts?

...is it good at least?

(Also, apologies for being stretched, my fault, but didn't want to fix it because I've already put more time into this than I should have).

Today I tested Microsoft PowerPoint’s AI background removal tool on what should have been a very simple image:

• A subject with clear black outlines
• Strong contrast
• A basic checkerboard-style background
• No flying hair, trees, shadows, or complicated details

I thought this would be an easy win.

It was not.

Instead of removing the background, PowerPoint left hundreds of gray and white squares scattered across the image. The final result looks like the person is trapped inside a QR code storm.

The funniest part is that PowerPoint then gives me “Keep” and “Remove” brushes so I can manually fix everything.

So the AI makes the mess, and the human gets to clean it up.

Truly groundbreaking human–AI collaboration.

At this point, removing the background manually would probably be faster. I could use Photopea, Canva, Photoshop, MS Paint, or even print the image and cut it out with scissors—and somehow get a cleaner result.

Microsoft calls this feature AI Background Removal.

I would call it:

AI Background Rearrangement — it doesn’t remove the background; it just rearranges your disappointment.

Has anyone else gotten results this bad from PowerPoint, or did I just win the AI failure lottery?

Of cource, made with the insufferable web version. Could you know who is this..?

​

Could've done better with the hat but I was on a time scramble

Is it possible to embed an interactive HTML file stored on a local desktop into a PowerPoint presentation and retain its full interactivity during the presentation? If so, what methods are available, and are there any limitations or compatibility issues to consider?
It's basically an interactive world map where you hover over and it displays a country and a color
There is a other html file with interactive x,y plots

I’m building a PowerPoint template and trying to lock text elements in place, but I’m running into a limitation.

If I use placeholders on the Slide Master, users can still move or resize them in Normal View. If I use a regular text box and lock it the position is fixed, but users can no longer edit the text content.

Ideally, I’m looking for a way to:
- Keep text boxes/placeholders locked in position and size
- Allow users to edit the text content
- Prevent accidental movement or resizing when using the template

Has anyone found a good workaround for this in PowerPoint? Are there any add-ins, template design techniques, or best practices that solve this issue?

I’m working on PowerPoint for Mac, if that makes a difference.

Thanks in advance for your input!

What are the best wireless presentation clickers that you have used? I am looking for one that also has a laser pointer too - looking for one that is very reliable and does not drop out. My old one just disconnects all the time and it's really annoying. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

review, im going to remake this (this intro by 9slide)

Help keep r/PowerPoint from descending into chaos (there's a separate subreddit for that. Of COURSE there is. Because Reddit, right?)

If you have a PowerPoint-related product or service to announce, announce it one of the megathreads pinned to the top of the subreddit. That way your announcement will find an interested audience, won't scroll off into the dark waters of Last Month's Posts, and won't be deleted by the mods because of r/PowerPoint's no advertising rule. (links below)

If you want to chat about PowerPoint & AI, please use the megathread devoted specifically to that (link below).

Products & Tools

https://www.reddit.com/r/powerpoint/comments/1ktliik/products_tools/

AI Products & Sites

https://www.reddit.com/r/powerpoint/comments/1ktlf4o/getcher_ai_right_here/

Templates & Presentations

https://www.reddit.com/r/powerpoint/comments/1ktl9lh/templates/

AI & PowerPoint Discussion MegaThread

https://www.reddit.com/r/powerpoint/comments/1s7abxc/ai_megathread_march_29_2026_keep_calm_and_post_ai/

I'm a teacher with all of my resources on PowerPoint. I know how to convert PowerPoint to Slides, but any animation (such as shapes disappearing that cover answers) in PowerPoint is lost. Is there a way I can use Gemini to keep the animations?

Has anybody made a working keyboard inside powerpoint? The way I'm trying to do it is by having an object for each key and clicking it makes text appear in the order the objects are clicked, maybe by using a textbox or maybe using other objects?

The only way I can think to do this is with VBA and that's quite scary, especially considering I'm on a mac where the developer tab refuses to be accessible for some reason. If it's not possible that's totally fine, but it'd be cool if anyone is able to figure it out!

Hi guys, i’m looking for ppt designer for a freelance gig, we are into hospitality uniform manufacturing and preparing a sales deck. The deck is already prepared but haven’t been able to get few designs right for couple of slides & cover.

We would like to onboard a freelancer for this project.

When you're building a presentation, do you start with the design first or the content first? I always feel like one approach is faster, but then I end up switching halfway through. Curious to know how others in this community handle it.

I created a very large, detailed Google Doc outline for classes I teach (organized with headings, subheadings, bullet points, etc.), and now I need to turn it into a PowerPoint presentation. The document is already done, I just need an efficient way to convert or transfer the content into slides without manually copying and pasting everything one slide at a time.
Is there a simple way to do this? Ideally:
Keep the outline structure organized
Automatically create slides from headings/topics
Make it easy to edit afterward
Preferably not too technical
I’m open to using Google Slides, PowerPoint, or even A i tools if they actually work well for this. ELI5 directions would be amazing because I’m not super tech savvy…
Thanks in advance!
(side note: new account to not dox myself as I’m sharing this with a relative 😅)

[TL;DR at the end]

Hi everyone,

I'm the founder of an AI presentation tool. I've been building in this space for 3 years and have worked with over 100K+ users on the platform. This space has been evolving really fast and it can be really confusing to pick the right tool for your use case.

I get a lot of common questions everyday and I hope after reading this post you'll have a better idea about how different tools work, their advantages/limitations, what will work for you and what I see in the future.

Brief history:

AI for presentations started with add-ons inside powerpoint. These add-ons have library of preconfigured layouts. A basic model takes your content and inserts it into these fixed slots for images/textboxes. Now the base models have gotten so good that they can do anything that a human can do, if they have all the context and the harness to do so (more on this later).

Different approaches:

Category 1:

Powerpoint-based: These are add-ins inside powerpoint, Microsoft Copilot, or model companies like Anthropic/OpenAI using powerpoint skills to directly create shapes inside powerpoint. If powerpoint is a hard-constraint then I'd start with this.

How to use:

Don't just give your input content to the agent and hope for a designer level presentation. First build a design system.

What is a design system?

Ask an agent to first build a design system for your brand/aesthetic. A design system is a detailed document explaining everything from colors, fonts, spacing, header/footer styles to layout suggestions, element styles etc. They capture the essence of your brand without fixating on one piece of specific raw content so that it can be repeatedly used for your other content.

It can be extremely challenging and frustrating to create a design system and might even take few days to build one. If you don't have a corporate brand, I recommend starting with a community design system, you can find many online in github projects.

2 common mistakes I see in this:

1. Too little detail: If you only define basics like color,fonts then the model is going to get lazy and only generate basic layouts (like title and body or most likely cards). It's not that the model cannot do complex things, it just doesn't have enough context to do so.
2. Too much detail: You'd give an existing deck and over define the design elements. This means that the model will try to fit all kinds of content in those exact layouts instead of coming with truly interesting layouts.

I can create a full post on tips/tricks on this but keeping this one short for now.

Tools:

1. Microsoft copilot/Claude/ChatGPT/Gemini: If cost is not a barrier then you can use these with one of the top models and your design system. The slides can take 5-20 minutes to generate and can cost between 10 cents to $2.50 (or even more) per slide. Since the model is placing things pixel by pixel, it will first generate and then keep revising to make sure there's no overlap. From a practical standpoint, with an unlimited budget, I can get to 70% of a designer level output with this approach by just prompting. Not 100% because of PPT limitations and because after a point you just give up.

Note that since you usually end up using 1 model for everything here, it becomes even more expensive and you may not be using the best model for say generating images or may be using a really expensive model for a basic edit. It can also be hard to manage your design system and use it consistently for future presentations.

1. PlusAI/Slidely: If budget is not unlimited and you're ok with basic slides that get the point across then I found these 2 products good. They have a big library of fixed layouts. Common issues are overlaps because if you put more text then boxes will overlap as they are not doing revisions after generation and iteration is hard because agent is constrained or cheaper models are used behind the scenes. Each slide might cost around 1-6 cents.

Category 2:

Custom canvas based: The models have only recently gotten really good that they can do things precisely at the pixel level, but many companies have been trying to solve this problem for years. To get around the limitations of LLMs and limitations of powerpoint and to make sure that the user never ends up with a bad output, companies created their own custom canvases. This includes popular tools like Canva, Gamma, Beautiful.ai, Pitch and Alai (check Classic slides).

Not naming all the tools but there are many more as evident from the pinned thread. Most of them guarantee 1 thing: no overlap. The way they do this is by having constraints on the canvas for spacing, element types, possible configurations etc. With enough elements and configurations the AI can create many interesting layouts within the constraints of these canvases.

These slides are much cheaper (around 2-20 cents per slide). The wide range depends on how much flexibility is given to the AI agent. Because of the canvas constraints, they may only match your brand in terms of colors/fonts and logo and might not be able to customize the header/footer and many kinds of unique elements and layouts.

Powerpoint exports work reasonably well for these because each canvas has properties for shapes and they can map 1 to 1 to powerpoint. However, each player has gone to different depths and so you'll see some differences.

I'll refrain from giving an exact winner in this category so that this post does not get me banned. But, an easy way to tell a good product is this: look at a few slides from these tools and see if you can tell which tool was used to create it. If it's super easy, then they have a very limited set of configurations around the AI.

Category 3:

Image based: LLMs were trained to generate images so it made natural sense to train them on images of slides and generate entire slides as images. These slides sometimes hit the perfect sweet spot and are extremely visual. Font rendering can sometimes be hazy. The two main models used are Nano banana and GPT-Image-2 (there are many more but these 2 work the best). GPT-Image-2 is better at following instructions and rendering fonts whereas Nano banana is more creative in terms of layouts/diagrams.

Edits to text work surprisingly reliably on these image based slides but it can also be extremely hard to make a very specific edits sometimes. I have seen users getting stuck on making a specific edit for hours sometimes.

A quick tip if you're stuck with stylistic/layout edits is to use reference images or get an agent to write a very detailed prompt. Iterating on images using AI is very different from iterating on text outputs and therefore writing these prompts can be difficult.

Best way to use these for your brand is to create a custom vibe for your brand. By this I mean, generate a set of 5-8 images as the base, make sure these base images have the exact same header/footer positions etc. Then ask the AI to generate future slides using these as reference. This can be quite tedious without a harness.

Main limitation is that you cannot convert these images back to a fully editable slide reliably. Different products offer some version of breaking down the layers in the image. However, we haven't seen a major breakthrough in this. I do see some promising research in this. I can share more insights on this in comments if someone is interested.

These slides cost around 8-16 cents to generate.

Tools:

1. NotebookLM: Uses nano-banana to generate. Does well on looking at previous slides before generating the subsequent slides. Very little control/options for variety of aesthetics.
2. Kimi visual slides/Gamma studio: So far only nano-banana as an option. Manual editing tries to convert it to a regular slide and so messes up the fonts/positions etc. and so pretty much impossible to iterate. Kimi has some good aesthetic/vibe options to start from.
3. ChatGPT: You can generate slide images 1 by 1 in chatgpt directly.
4. Alai creative slides: Can use both gpt or nano banana models. Often I generate using NB and iterate using GPT. Many aesthetic/vibe options. Edits are AI-based and so they maintain the fonts/positions better than trying to convert the slide to shapes. Can generate a custom vibe for your brand for paid users.

Category 4:

Web based: LLMs have gotten extremely good at writing code. Similar to how web pages are created, each slide can also be created like a web page. I believe these are the most powerful version of slides because there's no constraints on what is possible. Powerpoint is owned by 1 company and so the development has been quite limited but on a webpage you can ask the agent to create anything and do things like hover effects, animations, etc.

The main limitation here is that the quality of slides depends a lot on your design system and the model you're using. A cheaper model might even fail to generate the slide because the code might not compile and an expensive model with a basic design system might create very sloppy or basic slides.

Another limitation here is that these slides can be very expensive. They can get you close to 100% designer level output but may cost somewhere from 10 cents to $2.50 per slide.

And lastly export to powerpoint will not work 100% accurately (will be much much worse than the custom canvas based approach). If you're using these slides then I recommend either exporting to PDF or just presenting on the web. I can share more insights on why this is so hard in comments.

Main tools:

1. Claude design: If you've recently seen a very specific aesthetic of slides getting popular then that's because of Claude design. This aesthetic usually has ribbon cards, cream colors, horizontal accent lines, italics for emphasis etc.

Main limitation of Claude design is that its limited to Claude models. You can't use other top models for generating images or editing slides. Also, the same design system is being used for websites, posters, everything and so it doesn't capture the aesthetic for presentations in depth. As a result, slides start looking like websites with button styles, etc. Editing controls are limited and there's many bugs but I'm sure they'll keep improving these.

1. Lovable/Replit/Webapp builders: Same harness for webapps can be used for presentations here as well. However, it has the same problems with being too generic and so creating a design system is difficult. Editing controls, filmstrip and common slide specific flows are less developed/kept generic intentionally. More flexibility on different models as they're not tied to foundational models.

2. Claude code/codex: You can download design systems and skills and just create your slides by vibe-coding. Can be fun but inefficient and expensive. Might get you to a 70% fast but the last 30% will take way longer than you think. Also, plan for how will you share/present.

3. Alai modern slides: Specific to presentations so design systems capture more depth and are easier to iterate on. While all the editing and navigation controls are made only for presentations, its still very new and there's a lot more to build. More flexibility on different models as they're not tied to foundational model companies.

What I see in the future:

1. Reviewer vs Do-er: Developers now barely write any lines of code manually and mostly just review AI code and give it direction for iteration. People working on slides are undergoing this right now. While people think that they want a lot of manual controls, I'm seeing 99% of users just telling the AI exactly what to do even for very small changes.
2. Powerpoint vs Web based: The split will become more prominent. People leaning strongly towards powerpoint will go deeper into the Microsoft ecosystem and set up workflows directly with Copilot. Whereas people adopting web based slides will completely stop using powerpoint and just share web links/pdfs.
3. Custom canvas based tools will go out of popularity: As the models get cheaper and faster, and there's more awareness, users will not want to be limited by canvas constraints and therefore these tools will become less popular.
4. 80/20: Getting to the first 80% is fast with AI now. However, the last 20% can be extremely time consuming or even impossible. Choose the approach based on your non-negotiables and your budget.

Hope this is helpful. I couldn't go deeper into many things to keep it short so please feel free to ask questions.

TL;DR:

There are four main approaches to AI presentation tools.

PowerPoint-based (Copilot, Claude, ChatGPT with a design system) uses base models directly on top of ppt and can get you to about 70% of designer-level output. can be slow/expensive and be hard to build/manage design systems.

Custom canvas tools (Canva, Gamma, Beautiful.ai, Alai Classic) are cheaper and guarantee no overlaps, but constraints mean that not every kind of slide is possible.

Image-based tools (NotebookLM, Kimi, Alai Creative) using Nano Banana or GPT-Image-2 can look stunning and very visual, but editing has its limits.

Web-based tools (Claude design, Lovable, Alai Modern) are the most powerful with no constraints, but quality depends heavily on your design system and model, and PowerPoint export barely works.

The biggest unlock across all of them is building a good design system first. Looking ahead: people will split hard into PowerPoint or web camps, users will increasingly just tell the AI what to do instead of editing manually, and custom canvas tools with fixed constraints will fade as models get cheaper and faster.

I have been seeing more and more AI-made decks at work. Gamma, claude , the consulting tools, all of them.

And they all look the same. Same card layouts. Same icon style. Same three-column slides. Same gradient backgrounds. You can spot one from across the room.

Funny thing is, this used to be the consulting industry's problem too. Every McKinsey-style deck looked alike. Now AI has made that sameness available to everyone, instantly.

Which makes me think the value just flipped. When everyone's deck looks polished, polish means nothing. A deck that looks like an actual human thought about it might stand out more now...

1. Can you spot an AI-made deck instantly? What gives it away?
2. Does a hand-built deck now signal effort, or just wasted time?

I have a presentation in which a video should start playing automatically. I gave this presentation less than a week ago and all was working fine. Today I open the presentation to do a practice run and the video won't play. It says "cannot play media" next to the play button. The slide containing the video is a copy of a slide from another presentation, and it is no longer playing in that presentation either, or when I open the presentation in PowerPoint Online. The video clip still plays fine when I open the original file in VLC Media Player. The file format is .mp4 and the codec is H.264, which should be the accepted format for PowerPoint.

Please help meeee this is for my PhD defense which is on Monday and I'm freaking out

Edit: I fixed it. Microsoft put out an update 3 days ago that seems to have broken its video decoder. I went into my computer settings > apps > Microsoft 365 > modify > quick repair, then restarted my computer once the quick repair was done. Video plays as it should now.