Yesterday, Microsoft rolled out a welcome feature to Excel for Mac users, finally letting people view and edit multiple worksheets side-by-side, a capability Windows users already had. Now, another program in the 365 suite is getting a polish that you might appreciate.
Microsoft is updating the look and feel of placeholders in PowerPoint on both Windows and Mac. If you’re not familiar, placeholders are the dotted boxes on slides that hold content like text, images, or charts. They help keep everything organized and ensure consistent formatting across your presentation.
According to Microsoft's announcement, these placeholders are not just getting a refreshed, more modern look. They are also designed to provide clearer guidance on the specific object you can insert. This seems aimed at making it even more intuitive to build out your slides using the standard layouts.
A notable improvement is how image placeholders work. They now allow you to pick from a variety of sources directly within the placeholder itself, making it easier to find and insert images without extra steps or navigating separate menus initially.
Here is how it works:
Open an existing presentation in PowerPoint for Windows or PowerPoint for Mac.
To add an image, select Insert > New Slide, and then select a slide layout that includes an image placeholder.
Click the Insert Picture button, and then select an image source in the dropdown menu.
Insert the image you want.
To add SmartArt, select Insert > New Slide, and then select a slide layout to which you can add SmartArt.
Select the Insert SmartArt button, and then select the SmartArt you want.
If you rely on brand templates, Microsoft suggests reviewing them to ensure they look as expected with these refreshed placeholders. There is a known difference that users might encounter right now:
Because this feature is not yet available in PowerPoint for the web, expect some differences when opening and viewing templates created using the new placeholders on the web.
This means presentations created with these updated placeholders on the desktop applications might not render perfectly or show the full functionality when viewed in the browser version of PowerPoint.
These new placeholders are available now for all Microsoft 365 users running PowerPoint on Windows Version 2503 (Build 18623.20178) or later, and on Mac Version 16.96 (Build 25040711) or later. This update appears to be generally available to regular users, not just Insiders.
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