Add-in Articles

ToolsToo 12.1: Conversation with Gil Segal

Geetesh Bajaj — Wed, 25 Mar 2026 04:30:59 +0000

Gil Segal is the creator of ToolsToo Pro for PowerPoint and an expert technologist with a deep understanding of a wide range of architectures, tools, and technologies and their impact. Gil is always on the lookout for ways to automate manual tasks in any software he uses and has been a PowerPoint power-user since the mid 90’s.

In this conversation, Gil discusses the new version 12.1 of ToolsToo Pro for PowerPoint.

Geetesh: Gil, ToolsToo 12.1.0 introduces smaller but very practical tools such as the new Chain tool for Select All, and the Flip Shape Direction and Flip Slide Direction options. Can you explain these options?

Gil: The new tools in ToolsToo Pro for PowerPoint V12.1.0 are primarily intended to tackle flipping shapes and slides from left-to-right orientation to right-to-left orientation or vice versa. There are a lot of adjustments needed when performing these flips, so we’ll delve into the details of what the tools do.

Flip Shape Direction: This tool does the following for each selected shape:

Changes text direction from left-to-right to right-to-left or vice versa
If the shape is a chart:

Changes plot order of x-axis
Changes series order
Changes text direction
Changes legend location

If the shape is SmartArt, reverses direction
If the shape is a table:

Changes column order
Changes cell text direction

Changes animation wipe direction
Flips gradient direction

Flip Slide Direction: This tool flips slides by calling the Flip Shape Direction tool for each shape on each selected slide. However, instead of changing gradient direction, the Flip Slide Direction tool mirrors the position of each shape on the slide, adjusting motion paths for the new location, and then flips the shapes themselves.

Before Flip Slide Direction

After Flip Slide Direction

Select All: This tool selects all the shapes on the current slide. It can only be used a part of a tool chain – a series of tools invoked with a single click. You can easily build chains by selecting tools in a simple dialog – no programming required – and can run the chain at any time with your current shape selection or iteratively on all selected slides. The Select All chain tool works particularly well with Flip Shape Direction tool, essentially adding a tool that can flip shape direction for all shapes on all selected slides.

Geetesh: Were these additions driven by specific user requests or by patterns you noticed in how people build diagrams and templates in PowerPoint?

Gil: These additions were driven primarily by nearly identical requests from multiple users and the observation that a sizable portion of the ToolsToo Pro for PowerPoint customer base is in countries with right-to-left languages.

Geetesh: ToolsToo has steadily evolved over many versions, with each release addressing small but meaningful PowerPoint workflow challenges. As you continue to refine the add-in beyond version 12.1.0, are there particular areas of the PowerPoint experience where you still see significant opportunities for ToolsToo to improve productivity?

Gil: There are many significant opportunities for ToolsToo to further improve PowerPoint productivity. For example, two areas that could use significant improvement are slide reusability and ease of changing designs.

Everybody is talking about AI these days. It is yet unclear what impact AI will have on the kinds of things ToolsToo does but I can imagine a “fix my slide” feature that will just automatically do alignments, resizing, spacing, make lines horizontal/vertical, make same rounded corners, etc. to just make a slide look good with a single click. As to how much of that Microsoft does vs what is left to tools like ToolsToo Pro for PowerPoint, that is yet to be seen.

Another expansion area for ToolsToo would be a Mac version. ToolsToo has always run on Windows-based PCs only, but I do get a large number of requests for a Mac version.

Lastly but perhaps most importantly, there’s always customer requests. Keep them coming!

The views and opinions expressed in this blog post or content are those of the authors or the interviewees and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any other agency, organization, employer, or company.

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pptXTREME Photoshop Import: Conversation with Keith Tromer

Geetesh Bajaj — Thu, 12 Feb 2026 04:00:09 +0000

Keith Tromer has been Founder and President of Corporate Imaging, Inc. since 1989. His strategic vision focuses on three fundamental aspects: generating the best creative content possible, fostering innovation, and utilizing the latest technologies.

In this interview, Keith discusses pptXTREME and its Photoshop Import feature.

Geetesh: For readers who may be new to pptXTREME and the Photoshop Import feature, how would you describe the product and the problem it was originally designed to solve for PowerPoint users?

Keith: pptXTREME is a professional PowerPoint add-in designed to remove the friction between high-end design workflows and real-world presentation delivery. It was originally built for designers and show producers who rely on PowerPoint for playback but quickly outgrow PowerPoint’s native design tools.

The Photoshop Import feature specifically solves a long-standing problem: PowerPoint is excellent at presenting and animating content, but far more limited as a design environment. With Photoshop Import, users can design complex slides—or entire sections—in Photoshop, then bring individual layers into PowerPoint as perfectly sized, editable objects that are immediately ready for animation. This preserves creative freedom without sacrificing PowerPoint’s strengths as a presentation and playback platform.

Geetesh: Photoshop and PowerPoint have coexisted in presentation workflows for years, yet the handoff between them has remained challenging. What originally motivated you to develop the Photoshop Import feature in pptXTREME?

Keith: The motivation came directly from production reality. Designers were already using Photoshop to create layouts, typography, and visual effects that PowerPoint simply couldn’t handle well—but the handoff was painful. Layers had to be flattened, animations recreated manually, and any late design changes meant starting over.

Photoshop Import was built to eliminate that break in the workflow. Instead of treating Photoshop as a dead-end design step, pptXTREME treats it as an active, connected part of the process. Layers come into PowerPoint as trimmed, correctly scaled elements, and—critically—the link back to the original Photoshop file is retained. That means designers can revise artwork in Photoshop and update it in PowerPoint without losing positioning, timing, or animation. It turns what used to be a one-way export into a true round-trip workflow.

Geetesh: How is pptXTREME priced, and do you offer a trial for users who want to explore it before purchasing?

Keith: Yes—pptXTREME is available with a fully functional 30-day free trial, and no payment information is required to start. This is intentional, as many users want to test the tools on real client work before committing.

The product is offered as a subscription with three editions, each tailored to different levels of use and feature needs—from core productivity tools to advanced animation, Photoshop integration, and show-control features. Full pricing and feature comparisons are available here.

pptXTREME Photoshop Import – Full Tutorial.
pptXTREME Photoshop Import – Full Tutorial

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Create a Gantt Chart in empower for PowerPoint

Geetesh Bajaj — Fri, 23 Jan 2026 03:45:34 +0000

empower Charts is a PowerPoint add-in that simplifies the creation of a broad range of chart types, including bar charts, pie charts, and line graphs, while ensuring alignment with brand guidelines. In addition to standard charting capabilities, the tool supports project management visualizations such as Gantt charts. This feature allows users to build timeline-based graphics directly within PowerPoint, offering a practical alternative to external applications or manual formatting.

Learn how to create Gantt charts using empower in PowerPoint.

The post Create a Gantt Chart in empower for PowerPoint appeared first on PowerPoint and Presenting Stuff.

StreamAlive: Conversation with Lux Narayan

Geetesh Bajaj — Mon, 12 Jan 2026 04:00:10 +0000

Lux Narayan is a co-founder and the CEO at StreamAlive, the audience engagement platform that makes live sessions come alive, especially on PowerPoint in Zoom and Teams. A serial tech entrepreneur, he previously co-founded Unmetric, a company that was acquired by Cision.

Lux enjoys presenting and his talk at the TED main stage on “lessons from 2,000 obituaries” has been watched by millions. A lifelong comedy fan, he has performed at the Comedy Cellar, NYC. He also enjoys writing and is the author of Name Place Animal Thing, an inspiring fable for grown-ups about hope, positivity, and living one’s best life.

In this interview, Lux talks about StreamAlive.

Geetesh: What problem did StreamAlive set out to solve for presenters that traditional slide decks struggle with?

Lux: Thanks very much, Geetesh, for this opportunity and for everything you continue to do for the presenting fraternity.

Most presentations are monologues that go talk-talk-talk-talk as the presenter goes slide-slide-slide-slide-slide. StreamAlive aims to transform presentations into dialogues. That way, a presenter’s slides can go listen-talk-listen-talk—exactly like a conversation. In short, StreamAlive is an audience engagement platform designed for presentations made to ten or more people.

There are two things that make StreamAlive one of its kind:

It transforms chat on platforms like Zoom, Teams, and Google Meet into real-time visual interactions that give a voice to the audience. Examples include world maps, polls, word clouds, and a lot more. Hence, participation is zero friction for the audience, and does not require a second device, scanning a QR code, alternate tabs, etc.
StreamAlive is now zero friction for presenters using PowerPoint. Everything we’ve built in StreamAlive over the years is now available as a PowerPoint add-in. This give presenters the ability to have their audience type in meeting chat and have that chat author their presentation slides in PowerPoint in real time.

PowerPoint AppSource Demo Video.
PowerPoint AppSource Demo Video

Geetesh: Do you believe every presentation needs interactivity—or only certain types? Also, how can presenters avoid “interaction overload” while still keeping audiences involved?

Lux: No, I don’t but I would argue that most presentations need interactivity, and even more so when delivered virtually over a platform like Zoom or Teams. If a presenter is only going to talk through the entire session, they might as well have shared a video.

My grandfather was one of the first public speaking teachers in South India. I remember how he would encourage speakers to ask their audience a question of some kind at least once every five minutes. That rule holds true even more now with dwindling attention spans and therefore dwindling retention spans in training scenarios.

People learn and lean-in better when they are engaged and when they are involved. Hence, for any presentation to be engaging, it would be good to have some forms of interactivity at various points.

For virtual instructor-led training, absolutely, and every time.

Geetesh: What excites you most right now about how people present—and what worries you?

Lux: I am excited about the fact that more people are beginning to think of presentations as conversations, as dialogues and not just monologues. What worries me is a possible lazy interpretation of what constitutes dialogue and engagement. Very often you see people claiming an interactive webinar when all that makes it interactive is one or two clunky polls and a Q&A at the end. It’s not a true conversation by any means.

Geetesh: Also, if PowerPoint were invented today, what’s one engagement feature you think it would include by default?

Lux: I love PowerPoint. It helped me get my first job. It’s been around since 1987, one of the most enduring software of all time. How many other software do we know that have lasted under almost unchanged for so many years?

PowerPoint was invented for classrooms, boardrooms, courtrooms, and other physical rooms. The world has changed since 1987. However, once we moved to virtual meetings on Zoom, Teams, Google Meet and WebEx, we continued to use PowerPoint in the same way as it was before. Monologues that occasionally ask people for a binary yes/no or a poll answer.

That’s not a true conversation.

If PowerPoint was invented today, I think it would incorporate features like what we have in StreamAlive. A slide would be a canvas for conversation – one that encourages the audience to participate in a frictionless way and with open-ended responses too, not just closed-ended polls.

Geetesh: Is a trial version of StreamAlive available for users to play with it? If yes, can you share more details?

Lux: Absolutely anyone can get started for free. They can use our web application, our awarded Zoom application, and our PowerPoint add-in- all for free. The only limitation is the audience size. You can only have a single-digit number of audience members participating in the free version. To get started, simply visit the StreamAlive site, and click Sign Up.

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ToolsToo Pro v12: Conversation with Gil Segal

Geetesh Bajaj — Mon, 05 Jan 2026 04:00:36 +0000

In this conversation, Gil talks about the new ToolsToo Pro v12.

Geetesh: Gil, ToolsToo 12 introduces several new tools, including Make Same Shape, Swap Formatting, Extract Comments, and new chain tools. Which of these additions best reflects how ToolsToo is evolving, and why did you feel this was the right time to introduce them?

Gil: The ToolsToo add-in has always been about productivity, about getting things done quicker and/or more precisely than doing the same action(s) manually. All the new tools in v12 fall under that same core vision.

These are the new tools:

Extract Comments – one-click extract of all comments from all slides to a Word document
Split Text to Two Columns – easily split the current shape to create two columns of text
Make Same Shape – easily change shapes to match another shape
Swap Formatting – easily swap the formatting among two or more shapes

ToolsToo v12 also features 2 new chain tools (Select Body and Select Title) to further enrich the automations possible via ability to build custom tools chains. For example, with the new Select Title chain tool, you can easily build a chain to auto-fit the titles on all selected slides.

Productivity improvements can be found in the v12 changes as well, most notably, many of the tools will now operate on the selected shape even if text input is active. So, you no longer need to stop what you’re doing and make sure to select the shape, rather than the text.

Most of the above features (as has been in the case in recent ToolsToo versions) originated in customer suggestions. Accepted suggestions are implemented as soon as feasible.

Geetesh: ToolsToo began as a personal productivity toolkit and has steadily grown over two decades. With version 12 adding new chain tools and automation features, how do you decide when a capability belongs in ToolsToo rather than remaining a manual PowerPoint task?

Gil: First and foremost, the capability has to be something that is generic and applicable to many users. Any generic and repetitive task that can be automated (meaning that the required action is supported in the object model that Microsoft exposes for add-in developers to use) and fits within the existing ToolsToo framework is a candidate for inclusion.

ToolsToo hooks into PowerPoint in a non-intrusive way. It is passive – waiting to be invoked. Presentations edited with the assistance of ToolsToo are normal PowerPoint files that do not require ToolsToo to be present to be opened or further edited. Capabilities that require a more intrusive approach, such as monitoring keystrokes or requiring ToolsToo to open the presentation, are not accepted.

Geetesh: Does ToolsToo have a trial version available? If yes, where can we get access?

Gil: Yes, a free 30-day fully-featured trial version of ToolsToo Pro for PowerPoint is available for download.

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Social Media Canvas Add-in: Conversation with Jamie Garroch

Geetesh Bajaj — Fri, 17 Oct 2025 04:00:21 +0000

Jamie Garroch is a Technical Consultant at BrightCarbon, the specialist presentation and eLearning agency. He develops PowerPoint automation solutions and add-ins that enable presentation authors to work smarter. He also trains people to present more effectively using visuals and animated scenes that explain and reinforce key messages, which is supported by free resources and tips at their site.

In this conversation, Jamie talks about the new Social Media Canvas add-in for PowerPoint.

Geetesh: Jamie, what inspired you to create the Social Media Canvas add-in. Was there a specific “pain point” you wanted to solve for PowerPoint users? Also, you’ve built several add-ins over the years.

Jamie: A lot of what I do at work stems from listening to people express their pain points when creating presentations. I’ve heard the request many times over the years for the PowerPoint Slide Size dialog below (found in the Design tab) to be revisited:

It’s fine for setting up standard sizes for projecting a presentation, creating a video or even printing a document (even that requires some fiddling due to Microsoft automatically-added margins for printer reasons).

But it’s very difficult to use it to create custom sizes for digital social media content, which need to be defined in pixels, without margins. Canva does a great job in this respect, and I quite often hear “Why can’t PowerPoint make this task easier?”.

Separately, Microsoft Designer includes canvas sizes for social media:

One of the most recent requests came about as a result of a discussion between Microsoft MVPs (Most Valuable Professionals) in which Echo Swinford suggested one way to improve PowerPoint could be “… as simple as providing standard sizes for social media posts.” And that lead Nick Visscher and Ellen Finkelstein to chime in with supporting shouts of “Yes please!” plus additional use cases and suggestions. And that got me thinking…

Last but not least, we have a team of talented designers in our own marketing department at BrightCarbon and they wanted to use PowerPoint to create our LinkedIn posts because it’s super-familiar to them and ultra-fast to design compelling content.

Putting all these together made it a no-brainer to do something to help everybody achieve a common goal. The result is the Social Media Canvas add-in which creates a new tab in the backstage of PowerPoint for Windows (there’s no backstage view for macOS, hence this is a Windows-only solution for now). This new tab provides an easy way for content creators to select a canvas size for popular social media formats and then export graphics and videos at exactly the right dimensions in pixels:

Geetesh: How does this one reflect your philosophy of extending PowerPoint rather than replacing it?

Jamie: My philosophy for over two decades has always been to try and address a particular PowerPoint challenge by extending its functionality to solve a specific need. Millions of people use PowerPoint across the planet every day and many are very familiar with using it. It’s much easier to give these users new capabilities in their favourite presentation design app than try to get them to change to a different app.

Geetesh: Many people use Canva or Adobe Express for social media graphics. How does your add-in complement or differ from those tools?

Jamie: Both of those tools are excellent choices for creating social media graphics. If a designer is already using those tools to create other content types then it makes perfect sense for them to also use these apps to create their social media content. Where my add-in comes into play is for designers who are already confident in PowerPoint and are used to its capabilities in designing static graphics, animated stories or even full-on studio quality video.

To quote Microsoft, PowerPoint’s raison d’être (mission) is to “empower people and organisations to tell the world’s most compelling stories to anyone, anywhere, at an time”. This starts with a great story and a great presentation, but story telling isn’t restricted to just that medium. We’re exposed to great stories all around us, every day, in so many different media and formats. So why not use the first-created presentation design app to create your stories, in whatever format and media you want?

Geetesh: BrightCarbon has a reputation for sharing powerful free tools like BrightSlide and now Social Media Canvas. Why does the team invest time and energy into creating and giving away these add-ins — is this a kind of ‘good karma’ philosophy, or part of a bigger vision for empowering PowerPoint users?

Jamie: I may be a tad biased but I can honestly say that the culture at BrightCarbon is the best I have ever experienced in my entire career, which stretches over more than three decades. At its heart, BrightCarbon has four core values and the first of them is to “Share our knowledge and our time”. This is a quote from our employee handbook expanding on that value: “We want to rid the world of boring presentations and eLearning. We are happy to share our knowledge and our expertise – it raises our profile, hones our craft, and is the right thing to do.” The last five words of that is the reason why we decide way back in 2019 to give BrightSlide away for free.

The same philosophy remains true today and in addition to that, BrightCarbon has two Microsoft-awarded MVPs (Most Valuable Professionals). This program has a strong focus on communities and one aspect is freely providing contributions to those communities. That ambition aligns very nicely with our first core value and is another reason why BrightCarbon is happy to support me in my endeavours to bring new value to the presentation design community, at no cost to them.

You can get BrightSlide and the Social Media Canvas add-ins free from BrightCarbon. If you’re collaborating with colleagues on creating on-brand content in PowerPoint and/or Word, you may also be interested in the new BrandIn app, which is also free for up to four users. You can get that directly from within PowerPoint or Word via the Add-ins button in the Home tab or from the Microsoft Store.

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Slidewise 3: Conversation with Mike Power

Geetesh Bajaj — Thu, 17 Apr 2025 04:00:30 +0000

Mike Power owns and runs Neuxpower, the company behind the popular file compressor NXPowerLite and the amazing PowerPoint add-in, Slidewise. He has been running Neuxpower for more than 25 years, which makes him feel a tiny bit old. When at work he enjoys designing useful software, and is really loving the challenge of making Slidewise powerful, yet easy to use.

In this conversation, Mike talks about Slidewise’ new version 3. Slidewise is a PowerPoint add-in that helps users to find, edit, and control their presentation content more efficiently.

Geetesh: Mike, Slidewise 3 introduces several smart enhancements—what was the biggest user pain point or feedback that drove this update?

Mike: We always intended that this next release would be headlined by the Replace Colors feature. It’s been in demand for a long time – and it’s just taken us a while to be able to design and build a feature that was up to our standards.

However, in terms of the biggest user pain point – I think the change language feature must be near the top of the list. When we first investigated proofing languages it quickly became clear how frustrating this could be for people collaborating across different geographies. We wrote a blog post at the time to try and describe how languages worked in PowerPoint and how to control them.

Thankfully, now we’ve built this feature – I think this pain point is well and truly dealt with.

Geetesh: What was the most rewarding (or surprising) moment for you and the team while building Slidewise 3?

Mike: The most rewarding moment was finally getting the user interface for Replace Colors working. There is so much color information inside PowerPoint, and it can be bewilderingly complicated – so it took an extraordinary amount of effort get to the point where we could present it in a simple way that felt easy to understand and use. I think it was one of our hardest design and implementation challenges to date. It was super-satisfying to use it ourselves for the first time, and we’re also excited to see how helpful it becomes for customers.

Geetesh: Looking ahead, how do you envision Slidewise evolving beyond version 3—are there any long-term goals or big ideas on your roadmap?

Mike: We have one or two big ideas that we are musing on, however, before we tackle any more big ideas our medium-term goal for Slidewise, is to consolidate and refine its existing features. Slidewise offers a wide array of tools, but some are not fully developed and require further improvement to reach their full potential.

The Replace Image feature is a great example: It can quickly replace every instance of a JPEG image in your presentation without affecting any applied effects. However, it cannot replace only selected instances of an image, and it also cannot yet replace one image format with another, e.g. a JPEG image with a PNG image.

The External links information feature in Slidewise is another example. Currently, Slidewise collects all the links in your presentation but still requires you to check each one manually. Adding an automated link checker will be a huge time-saver!

Moving forward our focus is on enhancing these existing features to make them truly game changing.

Geetesh: For those curious about Slidewise 3, what’s the best way for users to try it out—and are there any trial options or resources to help them get started?

Mike: Slidewise is available with a fully functional 30-day trial. It’s $79 per year with volume discounts from 10 users and we also offer a non-profit discount on our website.

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PowerTools: Conversation with Luca Gianni

Geetesh Bajaj — Mon, 14 Apr 2025 04:00:45 +0000

Luca Gianni is not your typical tech founder. An Italian-American with an understated demeanor, Luca prefers letting his work speak for itself rather than seeking the spotlight. Despite his strong background in software engineering, Luca began his professional journey in strategy consulting—a deliberate choice to develop his business acumen and interpersonal skills beyond his technical expertise. It was during his consulting years that Luca encountered the pain point that would eventually inspire PowerTools (link removed).

In this interview, Luca discusses PowerTools (link removed), a PowerPoint add-in.

Geetesh: Luca, what inspired the creation of PowerTools, and how does your experience as a former consultant shape the development of new features?

Luca: PowerTools was created out of a very real need – we were consultants spending way too much time on formatting slides. Repetitive PowerPoint tasks were eating into time that could’ve been spent thinking creatively, solving problems, or working with clients. So, we built a tool to speed things up.

After using it ourselves and improving it for years, we realized that other professionals could benefit too. Our experience in consulting directly informs the features we build: every tool is designed to eliminate time-wasting work and help users produce high-quality slides, fast. If it doesn’t save time or improve output, it doesn’t make it into the tool. Our mission is to help professionals avoid late nights spent adjusting boxes and aligning shapes — because your time should go toward the stuff that really matters.

Demo of the PowerPoint PowerTools 2.0 add-in.
Demo of the PowerPoint PowerTools 2.0 add-in

Geetesh: With so many PowerPoint add-ins available, what makes PowerTools unique, and how do you differentiate it from competitors?

Luca: What sets PowerTools apart is its combination of speed and practicality. It includes over 140 productivity tools that are purpose-built for people in high-output roles – consultants, finance professionals. Basically, anyone who lives in PowerPoint.

Our slide library lets users save, organize, and insert slides instantly – no more starting from scratch. The add-in also includes a suite of features to automate formatting. It’s trusted by professionals at firms like BCG, Deloitte, and Accenture because it works the way they work: fast, precise, and professional.

Geetesh: Does PowerTools offer a free trial? What limitations (if any) exist, and how do you encourage users to convert to a paid plan?

Luca: Yes, PowerTools offers a free 7-day trial on annual licenses (link removed). This trial gives users access to all PowerTools features, allowing them to try the add-in risk-free.

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Highlight+ for PowerPoint: Conversation with Zafer Mustafa

Geetesh Bajaj — Fri, 11 Apr 2025 04:00:46 +0000

Zafer “Zafe” Mustafa is a visual advocate with over 20 years of experience helping legal teams present clear, compelling case themes. He specializes in complex IP, pharmaceutical disputes, and his background spans both litigation and media. He’s consulted on hundreds of legal matters and is the creator of Final Exhibits, a popular PDF stamping tool. He’s also served as a creative consultant on film and television projects, most recently producing visual concepts for a Hulu miniseries. Zafe’s approach blends precision and creativity—he also continues to pretend he can play the guitar.

In this conversation, Zafe discusses his new Highlight+ add-in for PowerPoint.

Geetesh: Zafe, what was the inspiration for Highlight+? What drove you to develop this specialized PowerPoint add-in for litigators?

Zafe: There’s never enough time when creating trial presentations. And while they’re important, they’re just one of many tasks on a trial team’s plate. Those of us in the graphics support space have developed shortcuts and systems to move quickly—but litigators don’t have time for all that. They need something that just works—and works simply. Highlight+ came from that need.

Highlight Plus add-in for PowerPoint.
Highlight Plus add-in for PowerPoint

Geetesh: In your view, what distinguishes Highlight+ from the native highlighting tools available in PowerPoint 365? Are there specific features that elevate its value for legal professionals? Also, is this add-in only limited to litigators, or can other PowerPoint users benefit from it?

Zafe: Legal presentations tend to follow a consistent format—especially when it comes to presenting documents in court. You’ll often see what’s called a document call-out, where a portion of a larger document—like a paragraph of text or even a photograph—is pulled out from the page and shown full-screen. To guide the viewer, attorneys then highlight key items—specific phrases, a sentence, or sometimes entire sections of an image or exhibit.

The problem is, PowerPoint’s native highlighter wasn’t built for that. It’s awkward to work with—especially when you’re trying to quickly mark up large blocks of text. The casual PowerPoint user expects the highlighter to behave like any other shape—click, drag, resize—but instead, they’re stuck with something that doesn’t work the way they’re used to.

Highlight+ addresses that. It takes PowerPoint’s built-in highlighter and makes it work the way people expect. The Block Highlight in Highlight+ is actually a shape—just like the default rectangle or text box—so it moves, resizes, and aligns exactly the way users are used to.

And because it’s built on the native highlighter, anyone can view the highlights—no add-in required. Full editing is only available to Highlight+ users, but the presentation displays properly for anyone using PowerPoint 2016 or newer.

Beyond highlighting, Highlight+ also helps users create polished document call-outs quickly, using presets that speed up one of the other time-consuming parts of presentation prep. Whether you’re pulling a paragraph from a deposition or a clause from a contract, Highlight+ gives you tools to turn them into clean, consistent call-outs.

And polish matters. These presentations are a reflection on the attorney, their firm and more importantly, the client. That client might be a major company with an established identity. Highlight+ helps the presentation look clean, intentional, and on-brand.

PowerPoint also has a well-known issue when exporting to PDF or printing: native highlights are replaced with faint or faded versions of the original. Highlight+ fixes that too, with a custom “Save to PDF” feature that ensures what you see on screen is exactly what gets delivered.

While Highlight+ was built with litigators in mind, I’ve found it can be helpful to others as well. If you’re someone who presents or annotates documents in PowerPoint—whether you’re in consulting, teaching, or research—I invite you to give it a try.

Geetesh: Is there a trial version of Highlight+ available for evaluation? Additionally, could you walk us through the pricing structure?

Zafe: Yes—there’s a fully functional 14-day trial, so you can explore everything Highlight+ offers and see how it fits into your workflow.

If you decide to continue using it, Highlight+ is available as an annual subscription, licensed for individual use. I am currently offering an introductory price of $65 for the first year, available through September 1, 2025. After that, the standard subscription will be $95 per year.

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Shufflrr for Office 365: Conversation with James Ontra

Geetesh Bajaj — Wed, 19 Mar 2025 04:00:50 +0000

James Ontra is the CEO of Shufflrr and a trailblazer in the emerging field of Presentation Management, helping companies save millions by transforming presentations into profitable assets. An early entrepreneur in college, James combined business with academics and was recognized with Houston’s Small Business Administration’s Young Entrepreneur of the Year.

His vision and strategy have been driving Presentation Management to become a recognized communication discipline. James combined this passion with technical development to build Shufflrr.

In this conversation, James talks about the new Shufflrr for Office 365 add-in for PowerPoint.

Geetesh: Your Shufflrr for Office 365 add-in integrates with multiple cloud storage solutions and third-party content providers like Getty Images. How did you approach the challenge of introducing new functionality without disrupting the user’s existing experience?

Shufflrr Ad Landscape.
Shufflrr Ad Landscape

James: We designed the Shufflrr for Office 365 add-in to enhance—not disrupt—the PowerPoint user experience.

Traditionally, when users need to add images, tables or even entire slides from other PowerPoints, the user has to leave PowerPoint, search in multiple locations, and copy/paste the content. Shufflrr makes that part easy.

With Shufflrr for Office, users can access files from OneDrive, SharePoint, and soon Google Drive and Canva, and even pull licensed images from GettyImages—all without ever leaving their presentation. This keeps you on point, on message, and ensures a smoother, more productive presentation experience.

Geetesh: Many organizations struggle to get employees to adopt new productivity tools, especially when they extend an already familiar application like PowerPoint. What specific strategies did your team implement to ensure widespread adoption of the Shufflrr for Office 365 add-in?

James: We focused on three key aspects to drive adoption – Efficiency, Automation & Microsoft AppSource

1. Efficiency

Get all your files, from all your drives – OneDrive, SharePoint, Shufflrr and, coming soon, Google and Canva, right inside PowerPoint. You never leave your workspace.

2. Automation

Shufflrr not only makes content easier, but also integrates data from sources like Microsoft Dynamics 365, allowing users to update presentations dynamically. This automation saves significant time—when 100 people each save 30 minutes updating a presentation, the value is clear. Large sales teams, in particular, quickly see the benefit of reducing time spent on repetitive tasks.

3. Microsoft App Source

Adoption is easier when there’s no friction. Users and enterprises can get it directly from Microsoft AppSource, with free connections to their OneDrive, SharePoint, (coming soon) Google and Canva. They can find it right from the Add-ins button on their PowerPoint Ribbon. It is a natural extension of their PowerPoint workflow. By keeping the experience within PowerPoint, streamlining updates through AppSource, and minimizing onboarding friction, we’ve made Shufflrr a tool that organizations adopt quickly, deploy easily and make PowerPoint more efficient.

Geetesh: How can I sign up and use the add-in? Is there a trial version available?

James: Shufflrr for Office 365 is available on Microsoft AppSource and can be installed directly from PowerPoint’s navigation ribbon “Get Add-ins” menu. Simply search for Shufflrr, install it, and connect it to OneDrive, SharePoint, Google Drive, or Canva.

Basic functionality, including content access, is free for individual users.
Advanced data features (e.g. enterprise accounts, MS Dynamic updates from CRM systems or accessing other data) require a monthly subscription after a 30-day free trial, starting at $10 per month.
Getty Images stock photo licenses and Getty Images AI imagery have costs associated.

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