The 7 Best Add-Ins Available for PowerPoint
(Note: Suitable for users of PowerPoint 2016, 2019, 2021, and PowerPoint for Microsoft 365.)
Objective
Learn about the 7 best add-ins available in PowerPoint and how to install and use them.
The 7 Best Add-Ins Available for PowerPoint Explained
PowerPoint is already a feature-rich application that helps us to create visually engaging presentations. However, we can extend the capabilities of PowerPoint by installing add-ins.
So, what exactly are add-ins? Microsoft has add-ins for every application in the Office suite, and PowerPoint is no exception. They add more features to PowerPoint to make our lives easier.
For example, if we use a lot of free images when building our slide decks, we might download our images from a site like Pexels.
Related Reads:
Insert an Image into PowerPoint Slide – Including sources for free downloads and copyright information.
To do this, we need to leave PowerPoint, open a browser, navigate to the Pexels website, search for an image, download it, go back to PowerPoint, and then insert it into the slide. That’s a lot of steps. Instead, we could install the Pexels add-in and access the images without leaving PowerPoint. This makes the whole process simpler and more time efficient.
That’s just one example of an add-in. Hundreds of add-ins are available for PowerPoint, each helping us accomplish tasks quicker and easier. Add-ins are simple to install and use, and we can choose from a selection of free or paid add-ins.
Related reads:
How to Wrap Text in PowerPoint
How to Add a Watermark in PowerPoint
How to Add a Hyperlink to a PowerPoint
Accessing Add-Ins
We can access the list of add-ins available for PowerPoint through Microsoft’s dedicated Office Store (App Source). Simply expand the Products category, select Microsoft 365, and choose PowerPoint from the list.
We can also access a list of available add-ins from within PowerPoint.
- From the Insert tab, in the Add-ins group, click the drop-down arrow next to My Add-ins.
- Click See All.
Alternatively, click Get Add-ins.
- From the Office Add-ins window, click the Store tab.
Add-ins can be sorted by Popularity, Rating, Name, and Release Date.
We can also search for specific add-ins by typing a keyword into the search bar. Simply click the Add button to install the add-in.
Some add-ins require you to agree to the terms and conditions. Click Continue when ready.
Useful Add-Ins
In this article, we are going to look at a few of the most useful add-ins currently available for PowerPoint. We will focus on free add-ins that are available to users of Microsoft 365, PowerPoint 2016, 2019, and 2021.
Pexels
Pexels is a website that provides royalty-free, high-quality stock images and videos for use in PowerPoint presentations. All content from Pexels can be used without attribution in both personal and commercial PowerPoint slide decks. Pexels is available as a PowerPoint add-in.
Once installed, the Pexels add-in will appear on the Insert ribbon.
- Click Open Pexels
We can now access Pexels without leaving PowerPoint. Type in the name of the image you are looking for and press the Enter key or click the magnifying glass.
Click on an image to insert it into the PowerPoint slide.
We can even search for images by color if we need to match our companies’ branded colors or house styles. Select a color from the palette or type the HEX code directly into the box.
Suggested reads:
How to Change PowerPoint Slides to Portrait
How to Change Slide Size in PowerPoint
How to Save PowerPoint as Video
QR Code for Office
A QR Code is a nice way to add a source for more information. For example, maybe at the end of our presentation, we want the audience to connect with us on LinkedIn. Instead of showing a lengthy URL on the slide that they have to write down, we can add a QR Code instead that links to our LinkedIn page. All they need to do is scan the code with their phone.
QR Codes can also be used to link to other websites and reference materials or take a real-time poll.
There are a couple of add-ins for QR Codes, but the one we find most useful is QR4Office.
Simply type in the URL of the website and then customize how the QR Code is going to look. We can customize the color, the background, and the size.
Once finished, click the Insert button.
NOTE: Unlike Pexels, QR4Office and many other add-ins don’t always appear as an icon on the ribbon. For these add-ins, we need to access them in a different way when we want to use them.
- From the Insert tab, in the Add-ins group, click My Add-ins.
- Select the Add-In.
- Click Add to re-open.
Pixton Comic Character
Comic characters are a great way of injecting fun and personality into a presentation. We can use them to convey an emotion to our audience and better illustrate our message.
The Pixton Comic Characters add-in lets us build our own comic characters, customize them and insert them into our slides.
The installed app will appear on the Home ribbon. We can completely customize our cartoon characters. We can pick a type, hair color, skin color, hairstyle, outfit, and pose.
We can place the character on any background to make a composite scene.
ToDo List Pro
ToDo List Pro allows us to keep track of outstanding tasks when putting together a presentation. For example, maybe we need to add the company logo to the title slide, run a spell check, and send it for review. We can set these tasks up as a slide-deck-specific to-do list.
The Todo List will be saved with the PowerPoint presentation, so the next time we open it, we can see the tasks left to complete.
- Give the Todo List a name.
- Click in the Add Item to List field.
- Type the first Todo Item.
- Press Enter.
- Repeat this process to add more tasks.
Once a task has been completed, click the checkbox. The task will show with a strikethrough. To delete a task, click the X.
Breaktime (Countdown Timer)
The Breaktime add-in is particularly useful for training sessions, all-day meetings, and events. We can add a countdown timer to a slide that shows how long until the next break. It’s a great way of keeping everyone on time and on track.
The default setting is to countdown from 10 minutes. We can change this by modifying the number in the mins box. We can choose when to start and stop the timer and also reset the timer if we need to.
The default timer is pretty boring to look at. We can change this by choosing a template from the Type drop-down menu.
Each template contains different images to liven up the countdown timer. Choose the one most relevant to the type of break.
Pro Word Cloud
Word clouds are an impactful way to leave your audience with a core message at the end of the presentation. They highlight the important ideas and topics discussed.
For example, we could collect ideas from meeting participants and then visualize the most popular responses using a word cloud.
Maybe at the end of the presentation, I will ask the audience to provide me with feedback on the session. I collect their results on the slide.
I can represent this feedback in a much more visual and engaging way by generating a word cloud.
The Pro Word Cloud add-in allows us to customize the font, the color palette, the layout, the case, the max number of words to include, and the size. We can even choose to remove common words like ‘The’ and ‘Or’.
- Select the text on the slide.
- Click Create Word Cloud.
- Click on the word cloud image to copy it to the clipboard.
- Press CTRL+V to paste it into the slide.
The Noun Project (Icons)
Icons are small, simple graphics that we can use in presentations to represent ideas, topics, words, or subjects. PowerPoint already has its own icon gallery, but the selection is very limited. We can access a much wider range of icons, over 1 million, by installing The Noun Project add-in.
The Noun Project is a website that offers a huge selection of icons. Some are offered for free download; some require a subscription to The Noun Project. A subscription costs roughly $40 USD a year (at the time of writing) and gives you access to the entire icon library. We can also customize the icons by changing the color to suit our branded colors and downloading in .SVG or .PNG format.
To access the entire library of icons, we need to be subscribed and have a Noun Project account. If we don’t log in and don’t have an account, we can only see the free icons.
- Click on an icon.
We can customize free icons by changing the color and size.
- Click Insert Icon.
We can resize the icon using the resize handles, much like any other graphic. We can even add hyperlinks to icons to jump the customer/presenter to different websites or different parts of the presentation.
Also read:
How to Make a Flowchart in PowerPoint
How to Link Excel to PowerPoint
How to Add Slide Numbers in PowerPoint
Please visit our free resources center for more high-quality PowerPoint and Microsoft Suite application guides.
Ready to dive deep into PowerPoint? Click here for basic to advanced PowerPoint courses with in-depth training modules.
Simon Sez IT has been teaching PowerPoint and other business software for over ten years. You can access 160+ IT training courses for a low monthly fee.
Deborah Ashby
Deborah Ashby is a TAP Accredited IT Trainer, specializing in the design, delivery, and facilitation of Microsoft courses both online and in the classroom.She has over 11 years of IT Training Experience and 24 years in the IT Industry. To date, she's trained over 10,000 people in the UK and overseas at companies such as HMRC, the Metropolitan Police, Parliament, SKY, Microsoft, Kew Gardens, Norton Rose Fulbright LLP.She's a qualified MOS Master for 2010, 2013, and 2016 editions of Microsoft Office and is COLF and TAP Accredited and a member of The British Learning Institute.
