This is the first in my series on nifty Microsoft Office features that teachers may not know about, like using PowerPoint to create a website banner.

With students and colleagues, especially during the multi-day SEALS Conference via Zoom, it occurred to me that most of us never dig deep into application menus. If we muster some courage and explore, we can make our work much more efficient and ensure accessibility – for visually impaired students and to approach universal design. Seriously, just click around. You can’t break it. If you could break an Office app, they wouldn’t let you have access to the menu item.

I could post screen shots, and there may be points in the Nifty Office Features series at which screen shots offer a better explanation. However, as we tell legal writing students, “why reinvent the wheel?” Microsoft has very helpful tutorials. YouTube seems to have a tutorial video for anything under the sun.

Today, real-time closed captions for your PowerPoint presentation.

For Windows: Requires Windows 10, and PowerPoint for Microsoft 365 version 16.0.11601.20178 or higher on Current Channel

OR

For Mac: PowerPoint for Microsoft 365 for Mac version 16.22.127.0 or higher.). The feature isn’t supported if you’re using an earlier version of Windows

OR

Web: Microsoft Edge, Google Chrome 34+, Mozilla Firefox 25+

This screen shot is from the web-based version.

For a video, see here. Or here.

I hope you found this helpful. More Nifty Office Features to come!