8 PowerPoint and Word Template Hacks To Make Your Life Easier

Microsoft Word and Microsoft PowerPoint are powerful tools that many of us use every day. Both platforms have built-in tricks to save you as much time, effort and energy as possible when going about your daily tasks (much like Timplates does with our Word templates and PowerPoint templates!)

Not all of these tricks are obvious at first — but once you’ve mastered them, you’ll never go without them. Read on for our favourite Word and PowerPoint tips, tricks, and hacks.

Microsoft Word Hacks

Make Use of Keyboard Shortcuts

One of the simplest Microsoft Word hacks lies within the program’s abundance of keyboard shortcuts. Learning some of the most useful shortcuts is a quick way to keep your workflow smooth and efficient while reducing time-wastage and common causes for headaches.

Below are some of the most useful:

Move to the end of a document — CTRL + END
Move to the beginning of a document — CTRL + HOME
Select the entire document — CTRL + A
Copy and paste with formatting — CTRL + SHIFT + C and CTRL + SHIFT + V
Insert line break — SHIFT + RETURN
Insert hyperlink — CTRL + K
Delete by word — CTRL + BACKSPACE

Save Custom Formatting

Many of us have go-to font styles and sizes that we use across many documents — for example; you may always format your document titles with bold type, and size 16 font. Luckily, Word has a built-in format saving function to keep you from manually formatting every time, with the ability to create your own custom style.

You will find this feature within the “Styles Pane” menu in the Home ribbon. With your formatted text highlighted, simply click “New Style” and name your style. Your chosen formatting will then be saved for future use — ready to be applied at the click of a button.

Find and Replace

Have you ever completed a long and tedious document, only to find out you've made the same error multiple times? Maybe you've spelt someone's last name wrong or written the incorrect date. If you discover a mistake, Microsoft Word makes it easy with the "Find and Replace" feature.

In the Edit menu, choose Find, and then select Replace. Enter the incorrect text in the Find field and the corrected text in the Replace field. You can then select between "Replace" to replace one occurrence of the error or "Replace All" to fix the entire document within seconds. Too easy.

Use a Word Template

This is our ultimate Microsoft Word hack: use a custom Word template built for you or your organisation.

The best time-saving Word hack out there, as it reduces all need for adjusting formatting. No more spending valuable hours trying to get your document to look the way you want it to; a Word template ensures all formatting is ready to go with the click of a button.

Suppose Microsoft Word design skills aren't your strong suit; no need to worry. A Word template creator like Timplates is available to create custom-branded Word templates, making for an impeccable piece of work that impresses clients, colleagues, and peers — every time.

To see if Timplates Word templates are suitable for your business or organisation, find out who we work with here.

Powerpoint Hacks

Copy and Paste Formatting

With so many elements, images, and text boxes existing within one PowerPoint presentation, it is important to keep everything consistent. PowerPoint offers the ability to copy and paste the formatting of a specific element to another, saving time while ensuring each object stays cohesive.

To do so, select the object that is formatted correctly, and press CTRL + SHIFT + C. Select the object you wish to format, and press CTRL + SHIFT + V. Done!

Use SmartArt for Lists

Presentation drowning in lists and bullet points? Use SmartArt to create a quick, PowerPoint infographic to stand out among a sea of text, and make it easy for your audience to follow along.

Highlight your list of bullet points. On the Home tab, click Convert to SmartArt. Next, simply select the layout you want, or click More SmartArt Graphics to see a complete list of options. No more plain bullets.

Build Transitions in Seconds

Did you know you can apply transitions to your entire PowerPoint presentation at once? Simply select all slide thumbnails from the right-hand pane, and apply a transition as you usually would. This feature instantly applies the same transition to all slides, leaving you with a beautifully formatted presentation in just seconds. Take care with your choice though: we recommend using a subtle ‘Fade’ transition for best effect.

Use a PowerPoint Template

Our most helpful PowerPoint hack is to use a PowerPoint template for a presentation. With a custom branded PowerPoint template, creating cohesive presentations is easy — no formatting necessary.

Our focus is creating impeccable work for your business or organisation, so you can save hundreds of hours while building custom presentations that genuinely impress.

Who should use Timplates pixel-perfect PowerPoint templates? Click here to see who we work with.