There are three types of add-ins that Office applications support: With our feature list complete, we moved on to choosing the development platform. However, requests to change the way the alignment tools work are unlikely to be addressed by Microsoft as it would break backwards compatibility. This is something an add-in can’t do but that Microsoft themselves implemented.
For example, there were over 5,000 requests to add the ability to embed fonts on PowerPoint:Mac. It’s an excellent opportunity to see what real users want and what Microsoft is unlikely to develop. This a place where end users can post public feature requests to Microsoft. Our final resource was the PowerPoint UserVoice website. I also talked to PowerPoint MVPs (Microsoft Most Valued Professional) and other users at events such as the Presentation Summit. The excellent Presentation Podcast often raises “I wish I could…” conversations. There is a great community of presentation creation experts out there who are always looking for new ways to solve problems. Ideas from the wider presentation community boosted the feature list. Copy and paste the position of objects from one to another.Create a better UI for adding guides to projects.Design a color picker with support for RBG/HSL/HEX modes.Add objects to other animated objects without losing the animation effects.Provide tools to swap the position of objects and distribute them on a grid.
I added to this list some of the many feature requests I received during my years developing add-ins prior to joining BrightCarbon. Bridging the gap between Adobe CC and PowerPoint in respect to keyboard shortcuts.More efficient ways of selecting, hiding, showing and locking objects.Together we brainstormed the challenges faced by the designers in our own internal design studio and came up with a list of features including things like:
We put a small team together making use of the skills of two of our senior designers, Taavi Drell and Ingrid Mengdehl. These are very different users and coming up with a feature list meant talking to a sample of people from both groups to understand their needs. We decided to build something that targeted two groups of users, those who dip into PowerPoint every now and then but don’t consider themselves to be experts and those who work in design studios and know PowerPoint inside out.
#Powerpoint for mac add ins for free
It made sense to develop our first add-in along the same lines and provide it for free to the community. BrightCarbon provides lots of free resources to the presentation community, such as webinar masterclasses and downloadable tools like the Quick Access Toolbar. When I joined BrightCarbon as their Senior technical consultant at the end of 2018, one of the first projects I took on was working out how the company could integrate PowerPoint add-ins into its offering. We hear from one of its creators, Jamie Garroch. A comprehensive, completely free PowerPoint add-in set to revolutionize design workflow has just been released by presentation agency BrightCarbon.