PowerPoint has a lot of great pre-set shapes, but sometimes what you really need is a tailor-made shape for your presentation. If you’re looking to go beyond the Freeform Tool and create more complex custom shapes, there's a feature called Combine Shapes in PowerPoint 2010 that helps you do just that!  It uses the principles of Boolean Geometry, to help you create new shapes by combining multiple shapes in one of four ways: Union, Combine, Subtract, or Intersect.

When all your slides look alike, your entire message can be blurred. At the end of your presentation, you want your audience to remember your main points most, and if they remember some of the details, that's a plus. By making key slides distinctive, you can help people follow and retain the content in your presentation.  PowerPoint MVP Ellen Finkelstein shares her PowerPoint layout tips.

Watch this Office 15-Minute Webinar to learn about using photos in PowerPoint and Word. Many of the same tools also work in Excel and Outlook. After you watched the webinar, you can learn more about the topics covered by clicking the links below. Learn about other Office Webinars and how you can join them live at http://aka.ms/offweb.

Several months ago, The New York Times published an article called "We Have Met the Enemy and He Is PowerPoint." Of course we didn't agree. And it looks like PowerPoint blogger Kit Seeborg didn't either. His post Dear PowerPoint: It's not you, it's me gathers tips from PowerPoint experts on creating presentations that go beyond snooze.

PowerPoint experts are always sharing tips with each other, including how to improve each other's presentations.Presentation designer Krzysztof Baszton contacted Bruce Gabriel to show him more elegant ways to print white lines in PowerPoint than the ones Bruce presented in his previous video.

Back in the day, clear and concise text was the key to a good presentation. But the game has changed. People expect your slides to dance. Well, not really dance, but they certainly expect some animation here and there. That's why we've added two new lessons on PowerPoint animations to our PowerPoint skills builder--a free video training series. 

We're sure you know someone who sits in front of a computer all day--your co-worker, accountant, spouse--who would appreciate being distracted for 10 seconds by an animated Valentine's Day card. We've brought you one courtesy of Sandra Johnson, a MVP PowerPoint genius. Check out theWiz website to see her wizardry for yourself.

Are you the next Mark Zuckerberg? Author and venture capitalist Guy Kawasaki has teamed up with the Office Web Apps team to offer you a step-by-step guide on creating a flawless pitch in PowerPoint, and BTW, the guide is hilarious.

Looking for a 2012 calendar that you can use in PowerPoint? You're in luck.

Just in time for the new year, 2012 calendar templates for PowerPoint are now here. And as always, they're free. Read on to find out how to download yours today.

As we wrap up 2011, we here at the PowerPoint Blog decided to reflect on the year with some of our most popular posts of the past 12 months. Lots of readers Tweeted, shared, and looked at these 5 posts, so in case you missed them the first time, here they are again. Hope you find them useful, either for the first time or once again.