A presentation can be as simple as it can be by just adding the slides and content, or it can be more visually appealing and engaging. PowerPoint add-ins allow you to use advanced features to improve the design and capabilities of your presentation.
What are PowerPoint Add-ins and Plugins
PowerPoint add-ins and plugins are extra tools to get additional advanced features while creating your PowerPoint presentations. They make presentations simple, appealing, and interactive. They are available to download from Microsoft Appstore and third-party websites.
Benefits of PowerPoint Add-ins and Plugins
The following are some advantages of using the add-ins:
They help create engaging and highly-visual presentations easily.They provide professional images, graphics, and symbols to add to your presentations.They offer advanced data presentation features with easy-to-use controls.They increase productivity by saving time in making complex presentations.They help you create charts, diagrams, and graphs for business and academic purposes.
How to install add-ins using Office Store or a third-party website
Following are two simple ways to find and download the PowerPoint add-in you want:
Office Store (AppSource)
Microsoft has its Office Store – AppSource, which has a list of all the add-ins available to use for office applications. Follow these steps to download them from the AppSource:
Go to AppSource by clicking here.Sign in using your Microsoft account.Search and find the add-ins you want to download.Click the Get It Now button.Give Microsoft permission to install the add-in.Select the application for which you want the add-in.
Third-Party Websites
There are various third-party websites available on the internet from where you can also download the add-ins. These add-ins are primarily for business use and are mostly not free.
Powerpoint Add-ins and Plugins
Following are some of the best PowerPoint add-ins that will help you create great presentations:
Lucidchart
Lucidchart is an excellent tool to boost productivity. It offers powerful features to accelerate business progress and drive innovation. Following are some important features of Lucidchart:
Enable linking data to diagrams or visualsAllow transforming diagrams or visuals into seamless slide deck presentationHelp you create an Account Map or Org Map salesAllow connecting with Salesforce and LinkedIn Sales NavigatorAllow integration with multiple Apps like ZapierReusable custom shape feature to avoid creating specific diagrams, shapes, or visuals again and again
Lucidchart has over 15 million users worldwide who use the application to combine diagramming, data visualization, and collaboration features.
Power-user
Power-user is an intelligent tool for PowerPoint, Excel, and Word to help you quickly create business presentations and spreadsheet reports. The app helps in boosting productivity by up to 40%. Following are some important features of Power-user:
Offers to customize or convert templates and themes to match your business themeUnpivot table feature turns the database into a table within secondsAllow setting up corporate style for charts, tables, and cells.Offers training and adoption support as per your team’s experience and prioritiesProvides technical support
The app has various templates and other visual elements like maps, pictures, charts, icons, and diagrams. It allows formatting presentation using the available template and graphic elements to give your slide a professional, polished, uniform look.
ToDo List Pro
ToDo List Pro is an Office tool for maintaining To-Do lists in your presentation or excel. Following are some important features of ToDo List Pro:
The Add-in can read and make changes to the contentIt creates a To-Do list and automatically saves it with the document.
ToDo List Pro is an excellent application to increase productivity. You can download and use the tool for free.
QR4Office
QR4Office is a tool to generate custom QR codes and insert them into your PowerPoint presentation with just a few clicks. Following are some important features of QR4Office:
Embedding QR codes provide additional information such as downloadable resources, reports, whitepapers, etc.It is a clean, easy-to-use application.It helps make PowerPoint presentations more accessible to the audience.
QR4Office provides a stylish way to add additional material or information to your slides using QR codes. You can also use it to collect feedback or take a quick poll.
Pickit
Pickit tool makes it effortless to add spectacular visuals to your PowerPoint presentations. It offers free high-quality images and icons. Following are some important features of Pickit:
It offers a vast images collectionHas multiple images categories to meet all your requirements for presentations, online courses, business agendas, etcProvides Abracadabra tool for easy text look-up feature allowing to search a text by just right-clicking itAllow asking for custom pictures from its user community.
This PowerPoint add-in is a great application to add your creativity to your presentations.
Pro Word Cloud
Pro Word Cloud helps users create a word cloud from the text and add it to their presentation. Following are some important features of Pro World Cloud:
It creates beautiful word clouds from the textIt can be read from the documentIt can end data over the internet
Pro Word Cloud allows customizing the word cloud with different sizes, fonts, layouts, and color schemes.
Emoji Keyboard
Emoji Keyboard allows the styling of your complex and dull presentation to make it more lively and appealing, mainly for a younger audience. Following are some important features of the Emoji Keyboard:
Offer library of over 1,300 variants of emojiIt saves time searching for relevant emoji over and over onlineIt helps to grab the audience’s attention by adding excellent visual appeal
Emoji Keyboard requires minimal permission for using the emojis.
Pexels
Pexels is an excellent tool for adding relevant images to your PowerPoint presentations. It has a collection of 100% copyright-free images. Following are some important features of Pexels:
Allow seamless and convenient search for imagesOffer easy-to-navigate image search engineProvide access to free stock images Allow highlighting or saving images
One of the unique features of Pexels is that it allows search-by-color options to match the theme of your presentation.
Symbols and Characters
The Symbols and Characters allow searching and using special symbols and characters in your presentations. By typing a letter or short phrase, look up your relevant diacritics, special characters, or symbols. Following are some important features of Symbols and Characters:
Offer an auto-lookup feature to suggest relevant and suitable symbols for your presentationAllow searching by single letters like a,b,c, etcAllow searching in a specific language table or subset
Just click the selected symbol to insert the symbols, and it will be added to your presentation at the desired location.
Scan&Paste for Office 365
Scan&Paste for Office 365 is great too to save time in adding images to presentations, documents or OneNote. It enhances PowerPoint presentations. Following are some important features of Scan&Paste for Office 365:
Allow adding images quicklyOffer portable photo scannerNo need to create an account to download imagesStores your scanned images anonymously for up to seven days
It is a very easy-to-use application. All you have to do is download the tool, scan images, pair it with your Office program and start adding the images into your presentations.
PowerPointLabs
PowerPointLabs increases productivity by saving time in creating complex animated presentations. Following are some important features of PowerPointLabs
Allow highlighting bullets and lighting up slidesOffer in-slide animationsEnable adding audio narration from your speakerQuickly build or update roadmaps in your presentationJust with a single click, add subtitles or captions
It was created by the National University of Singapore and had various collections of well-designed and easy-to-use effects.
PhET Sims
PhET Sims, created by PhET Interactive Simulations at the University of Colorado, is a collection of interactive simulations for science. It provides simulations that are built on education research. Following are some important features of PhET Sims:
It has models and representationsPhET Sims support instructional uses like labs, lecture, academic tasks, etc.It is ideal for Grades K-12 and university classesProvides a library of instructional slides on Science and Maths
The app best allows academic course authors to translate their ideas into simulations without distortion.
Office Timeline
Office Timeline is a timeline maker and Gantt chart powerpoint-based tool. This app allows users to produce timelines, Swimlanes, and Gantt charts and customize them to make them more visually appealing. Following are some important features of Office Timeline:
Create professional and elegant timelines, roadmaps, Gantt Charts, etc.Project management toolCustomize charts and timelines – change/edit color, data format, text position, etcCreate Swimlanes and add milestones inside SwimlanesAllow importing data from Excel and ProjectDrag and Drop tasks and milestones
Office Timeline offers excellent technical support and unlimited free updates.
Mentimeter
Mentimeter is a fantastic PowerPoint tool to provide an interactive experience to audiences. Following are some important features of Mentimeter:
Turn workshops, meetings, training, and conferences into interactive sessionsAllow asking the audience multiple choice questions or voting through their smartphonesEnable adding images, gifs, word clouds, etc., in your presentations.
You can get the basic feature free, but you must use the paid premium plan to get the advanced part.
Final Words
PowerPoint add-ins and plugins are a great way to access PowerPoint features not available to level up your presentations. You can go through all the add-ins mentioned in the article to find which will be best for your next presentation. Make sure you don’t overuse those tools responsibly and efficiently. You can also explore the best professional PowerPoint templates for creating stunning presentations for every client meeting.
