{"id":15657,"date":"2020-09-23T16:27:00","date_gmt":"2020-09-23T16:27:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mauriziolacava.com\/?p=15657"},"modified":"2026-01-26T10:26:45","modified_gmt":"2026-01-26T10:26:45","slug":"design-slides-300-faster-with-mlc-powerpoint-add-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mauriziolacava.com\/en\/design-slides-300-faster-with-mlc-powerpoint-add-in\/","title":{"rendered":"Design slides +300% faster with MLC PowerPoint Add-in"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Did you know you can add additional functionality to PowerPoint using a MLC PowerPoint Add-in<\/a>? Let me illustrate why this is important and how it could save you a significant amount of time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Imagine, you must create one or more virtual presentations <\/a>for an approaching event. You do not have much time and work is pressing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The presentations always come as something more to do compared to the work.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In fact, if you have assistants, usually the dirty work will touch them because they will see the delegates presentations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nevertheless, you have resources that are allocated to making presentations, they cost and I’m sure you’re hesitating how effective they are in PowerPoint.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whether is you or one of your reporters, it does not matter, waste of time making presentations costs, and doesn\u2019t help anyone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What does the ability to be super efficient <\/strong>in making PowerPoint presentations depend on?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I remember that my first employment contract, just after graduation, was in an international consultancy company based in Paris.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first days I went into the office with my head up and ready to break the world. You feel ready and you want them to immediately assign the first tasks to prove your value, but in my case things went differently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In fact, consulting firms are known for being oriented towards maximum efficiency in the use of their resources<\/strong>, after all, it is on the time of their consultants who do business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Specifically, I remember that one day they told me: “unlike the industry, our product are the presentations we make, because they will guide our customers.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do you begin to understand the importance of these PowerPoint documents?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For this reason, I spent my first week of work doing what they had called a side-by-side. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was about sitting next to a colleague with more experience and watching him work in PowerPoint. Initially I felt it touched my pride, and I thought to myself: “do they think I don\u2019t know how to work with PowerPoint?”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After that week I realized that they really thought that I did not know how to use PowerPoint and well, they were right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That team was a slide factory and efficiency <\/strong>was<\/strong> their religion!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, after 10 years, I still use some of their teachings, although I think that efficiency effectiveness was often compromised.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What does it mean?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’ll explain it in simple words: efficiency means making slides quickly, effectiveness means making slides that work and that affect the audience.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is said that there is a trade off between effectiveness and efficiency, that is that as one grows one decreases the other. I believe that a good presentation can be obtained when it is possible to optimize the relationship between efficiency and effectiveness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

10 years ago I was probably unbalanced about efficiency. With the Lean Presentation Design I brought balance in the way of making presentations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Therefore, I aimed to be extremely fast but never to the detriment of the quality <\/strong>of my slides.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let’s get back to us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do you know what is the first thing I noticed in my colleague’s PowerPoint window?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A clearly made Quick Access Toolbar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like mine today, I show you:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

If you want to know how to set and for what reason you are under the ribbon (i.e. under the main menu bar with all the PowerPoint options) then I’ll let you read the relevant paragraph in the PowerPoint hack guide<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A little while ago I told you that my QAT <\/strong>is rigged, have you already understood why?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because there are non-standard<\/strong> PowerPoint buttons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Did you notice them?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those buttons are the result of study and analysis of long PowerPoint sessions and have the ability to completely change the way we work in PowerPoint.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is precisely those little buttons, plus some others that I have not shown yet, which allow me to be even faster than my colleague in consulting many years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First I told you that he too had the make-up QAT, so what’s the difference between mine and his?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Actually, he also had custom functions because the major consulting firms develop add-in internally, based on their specific needs to standardize and streamline presentations all over the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These add-ins are clearly reserved for employees and in fact, after getting used to a certain way of working, when I left that reality, my efficiency was affected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, over the years, I started my add-in <\/strong>that begun from some of the features we had in consulting, abandoning specifically all those that have no use for those working in other realities, adding a touch of personality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What do I mean? ?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I replicated the same process of the first week of work, I dedicated myself to observe the others who work in PowerPoint and I took notes, but this time for 4 years!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I studied the recurring activities that make people who work with PowerPoint lose more time and have developed specific functions for each of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The <\/strong>MLC PowerPoint Add-in<\/strong><\/a> is born.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In fact, since it was born, it is constantly developing, thanks to the evolution of PowerPoint<\/strong>, the way of working, the needs of operators and feedback of our users<\/a> or my team that makes presentations for customers all over the world, daily basis, as you would expect from a professional PowerPoint presentation design agency<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many of you asked me for a guide <\/strong>to use add-in. With this article, I suggest you to go beyond a simple instruction booklet and show how I use these features in real cases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I will show you how each function works<\/strong> and also the combos of functions in situations where you may find yourself in the daily life of your presentations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

<\/span>Swap Shapes with the PowerPoint Add-in<\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The historical function of the MLC PowerPoint Add-in<\/strong><\/a> has always been its battle horse!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One day working on a presentation for a client I found myself having to solve a problem as simple as it was arduous.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What am I talking about?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I had made a team slide with pictures of the names and positions within the project. I build a simplified version to make you understand the point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, I’m introducing a team of 6 people with basic information and a picture of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"powerpoint<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

As you can see team members are lined up in a 3×3 grid <\/strong>and are well distributed<\/strong>. So, once you are positioned you must be very jealous of the points where you put them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What if, however, you have exchanged the photo of the first in the upper left with the last in the lower right corner because a misunderstanding and you find yourself having to swap positions<\/strong>?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Doing it by hand would require several steps<\/strong>: you should take the first, move it on the second, make sure it is aligned with the first and with others, vertically and horizontally and then move it into the background, so you can easily take the first and repeat the operation at the last position.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You missed?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I would have lost myself too, it’s normal!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Swap Shapes<\/strong> serves exactly this, in one click it allows you to invert the position of one object with another.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the following image I have highlighted the two avatars of which we have reversed the position and left the others gray in order to make the passage comprehension immediately.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"powerpoint<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

So Swap Shapes reverses <\/strong>the position <\/strong>of two objects in PowerPoint allowing you to preserve alignments and distributions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here is a video, where you can see in action how easy and fast is to swap shapes using our Add-in:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n