Often when I visit a client and we do some on-site slide edits together, I am surprised to see how people suffer from working in PowerPoint because of things that can easily be prevented:
- Make sure you actually see what you do. Make your work area as big as possible, reduce the size of the slide note box to the minimum. If you have a docking station for your laptop, use it to hook up to the big monitor. Ask IT to help sort out a 2-screen configuration, where you can have presentation inputs (an older version with comments) can be on the small screen while you do your edits on the big screen (I went further and work on two 27" monitors, plus the 3rd small screen of my laptop, one of the best investments I have ever made).
- Write down actions that you use all the time (aligning objects, [un]grouping items, switch to slide sorter view and back, etc.) and spend 20 minutes Googling how to do them using short cuts. Read this old post about how to create the essential PowerPoint toolbar.
- Use a proper mouse and not the IBM/Lenovo red dot
- If your computer is slow, close down windows, applications, de-clutter your machine until you have only the files open that you actually need
- Ask someone in IT to sort out the default settings in your PowerPoint template so that you do not have to look for fonts, colours, etc.