Let me get out of the office, stretch my legs, and date a very large touchscreen monitor.

Here are three excerpts from our first episode of The Office Show that focused on Design in PowerPoint. A few of these tips are for the latest version of PowerPoint; others can be used in PowerPoint 2007, too.

The design tab

Changing your design to a new look and color is as easy as it looks in the video. In PowerPoint 2007 and later, you can preview changes as you mouse over the icons. You can change them quickly if you are caught in Tina and Laura’s scenario, but often the formatting will be off on some styles. However, you can change the theme color very quickly with no side effects, so no two presentations ever have to look the same. There are at least 20 color changes for each theme design.

See this introduction of themes for PowerPoint.

Remove image backgrounds

When you work with images (and we have over 100,000 free images at Office.com), note that the Remove Background feature is new this year. These instructions go into the specifics, but the most fun you can have fun in PowerPoint 2010 is letting your inner child go and just play around with process.

Cropping to a shape has been around for a while. What I did was just use cropping a picture to a shape.

Combine and edit shapes

How to Combine Shapes, a “hidden” feature--another fun thing to play around with and figure out the possibilities—is described in detail in the PowerPoint blog.To discover the command, you need to add it to your Quick Access Toolbar (a great place to add your most-used commands). You can watch a short video on the Quick Access Toolbar or click these commands: File >PowerPoint Options > Customize Ribbon > Commands Not in the Ribbon  > Shape Combine. ”

--Doug Thomas