FAQ

Without an add-in like PPT Productivity, creating slides in PowerPoint is time consuming.  Most PowerPoint users spend a lot of time aligning and formatting. Standard PowerPoint doesn’t offer a streamlined way to harvest and reuse previous work without opening previous presentations to find slides and standard PowerPoint doesn’t offer as many shortcut keys as Excel.

PowerPoint addin PPT Productivity embeds a new ribbon tab and four new toolbars seamlessly into PowerPoint. The ribbon and toolbars create efficiencies for users through shortcuts, new features and customizable shortcut keys.  We describe the benefits of PPT Productivity as saving time and improving 'polish' and brand alignment/ consistency:

• Save time creating, refining and reusing PowerPoint presentations 
  • Creating: Features and shortcuts help you to create new slides, faster.  Make it easy to align objects, make shapes the same size, selectively recolor shapes based on attributes, add custom shapes like PowerPoint Harvey Balls and more
  • Refining: PPT Productivity's features make reviews easier.  Sticky notes for collaboration/ logging items to fix or update, status stamps, slide tagging, set PowerPoint proofing language, single click to email or print selected slides and more
  • Reusing:  PPT Productivity's PowerPoint Slide Library makes it easy to save, name and reuse slides or slide elements.  Save and reuse your own work or great slides sent to you by co-workers.  Team using PPT Productivity?  Lift the time saving up a level with Team Slide Library. Your team can create a shared library of "best of" slides so all team members can quickly create polished presentations
• Improve Brand alignment/ consistency
  • Slide Library, Color Toolbar and Template Manager features make it easy for all users in your organization to deliver brand aligned presentations

If you need to prepare a business case or benefits summary for PPT Productivity in your organization, please contact us.  We can provide a benefits overview presentation.

If a user on your license key no longer requires the software (for example if they have left the company or moved to another team), you can block access that user in order to activate their 'seat' on the license key for another user. Simply login to your account and click on the 'Activations' link to reveal a list of all activations on the license key. Find the windows username associated with previous user and click on the 'Block Access' button. 

It can take up to 24 hours to be blocked from the users computer.  However the seat on the license key will be free to use again immediately for the new user. 

To activate on your new computer, simply install the latest version from https://pptproductivity.com/install (same link can be found on the home page as well) and then after installing activate with the same email address or license key as you previously used to register.

We understand many of our customers are working from home rather than the office. If you're a current PPT Productivity customer and need an extra activation on your Power Tools license in order to work from a personal computer, we're happy to help you out. Please contact us and we'll take care of it. 

Yes. Licenses are sold on a per user basis so if a user changes computers, the software will work on the new computer. 

If you want to change the user of a license, you will first need to block access to the original user.  

At PPT Productivity, we love user feedback. One of our advantages is that we are very responsive to our users. In fact, many of our current functions are a result of a user starting an email with: 'Wouldn't it be great if ...'. If you have an idea for a new feature, just contact us with your request

The PPT Productivity PowerPoint add-in provides access to an extensive help document that shows you the capability of each feature. If you have already downloaded the trial or purchased a license, navigate to the PPT Productivity Ribbon in PowerPoint. From the Help menu on the top right of the PPT Productivity Ribbon, select the 'Help' button to access our comprehensive user guide.  You can also view feature summaries and short overview videos for each feature on our website. 

When you sign up for an individual free trial or purchase a license, a series of 'Essentials' training emails are typically sent out to you over the first few weeks.  However if you selected to unsubscribe from marketing communications or if your company's email system auto unsubscribes, you will not automatically receive the training emails. 

If you have an individual license but have not received the training emails and but would like to, please contact us.  If you are a user on a team or enterprise license, you do not automatically receive the training emails as your email address is not separately captured.  However if you would like to sign up for the 'Essentials' training emails, please create an account on our Website to subscribe to the mailing list.

We want to make sure you are getting the most out of your PPT Productivity toolset, so we are happy to offer free personal online demonstrations with one of our experts. Simply book a time that works for you or your team.  We typically run the free demonstrations via Zoom, but we can use alternate platforms if needed.

The free trial is for PPT Productivity Power Tools for PowerPoint - our premium product, which contains the full set of features.  PPT Productivity's free trial is available to anyone wanting to try the software before purchasing. We do not require credit card details to access the trial.  We want to earn your trust and show you how valuable our tools are. We also believe you will love the time saving features once you start using them! Download and install your free trial today.  

PPT Productivity PowerPoint add-in licenses are sold on a subscription basis per user/ machine for either 1, 2 or 3 year duration. We offer discounts for Multi year licenses. There is no minimum license order - we service all customers, whether you are seeking 1 or 10,000 licenses and if purchasing direct or via a reseller. 

Please visit our Pricing page to get a quote. 

Our prices are fixed in USD, and we offer sales in other currencies by keeping a floating exchange rate.  The exchange rates are updated weekly.  As a result, prices in each currencies may fluctuate slightly depending on exchange rate.

Go to the pricing page and select the product you wish to purchase. Login to your account (or create a new login), then select the license period you require and add the number of licenses needed to the cart. As you change each value, the page will update with the new total in your requested currency. Print or save this page to use as a quote or for your purchase order system at any time.

If you are seeking to purchase team or enterprise licensing for more than 20 users, please contact us and we can provide a quote.  

Yes! You can purchase individual / single licenses as well as team and enterprise licenses of PPT Productivity PowerPoint plugin. There are no minimum purchase restrictions on any of our products.  You can purchase licensing for up to 20 seats via our website.  For enterprise or large teams please contact our friendly team who will provide a quote and support you with any business case or similar inputs you need to help get through the procurement process.

We also offer flexibility via our pro-rata seat purchasing option.  If you purchase a license for one or more seats and then want to add more seats over time, our portal enables you to add seats during the year for a pro-rated amount (e.g. if you add one new seat half way through your license, we can add a new seat to the existing key and you will pay only for the 6 months remaining for the extra seat).  And if you have a team member leave, you have access on our portal to review team activations /deactivate seats who no longer require the software and allocate their ‘seat’ to another team member!   

If you haven’t already done so – you can download a free 30 day trial version of PPT Productivity Power Tools from our homepage.  Head over to our pricing page to purchase online or contact us for more details.

PPT Productivity PowerPoint addon saves you hours of time, so NFPs can spend more time helping the community. 

Registered non-profit charities save an additional 15% on your PPT Productivity subscription. That's on top of any other discounts, which means you can more than double your discount with a large team of users or a multi-year subscription.

This offer is only available to registered non-profit organizations. After signup on the free trial, please contact us with your proof of status and charity number to receive the discount.

Yes, PPT Productivity offers bulk discounts for more than 10 licenses and/ or purchases for more than one year. Amounts are calculated immediately with quantity and time discounts shown on the purchase page. If you're ready to purchase, start by selecting your Product

Yes, it can be used on both. Our installer automatically determines your current version and installed the right files for your Office environment.

If you are unsure as to whether you are running Office 32 or 64 bit:

1. Click the File tab
2. Select Account
3. Click the About PowerPoint button
   
4. The version number is listed at the top of the About dialog. 
   
   It shows whether you are using the 32- or 64-bit version of Office:
   

The PPT Productivity PowerPoint add-in team are working on a new Google Slides add-on.  If you're keen to get your name on the beta list for the Google slides productivity add-on when available, please contact us.  Also let us know which features you would most like to see included and we will see what we can do! 

Currently PPT Productivity PowerPoint addin is not Mac compatible.  We are working on a PowerPoint Mac addin, so if you're keen to get your name on the beta list for the Mac version, please contact us. Also let us know which features you would most like to see included and we will see what we can do! 

In the meanwhile, Mac users can use PPT Productivity by installing Windows and Office onto their machines using Bootcamp, or through a Virtual Machine. Our team have tested and can highly recommend Parallels for Desktop, a virtual machine solution for Macs which lets you run a virtual PC on your Mac.   We have found the user experience of both Parallels in general and using PPT Productivity on Parallels is great.  The speed performance is excellent (no lag and super easy to switch between Mac and PC applications) and you can get all your favorite features on the Mac including PPT Productivity custom PowerPoint shortcut keys.  

We've written a step by step guide to installing PPT Productivity on a Mac using Parallels Desktop solution on our blog.

Yes, PPT Productivity PowerPoint addin software has been designed to be compatible with Mekko because we know many of our Bain consulting alumni customers choose to use both PPT Productivity for the formatting, alignment and review features along with mekko for marimekko charts in particular. Also, due to popular demand, PPT Productivity is working to deliver additional charting features. To be added to the free beta list for these features, please contact us and ask to be added to the notifications list.  Note that PPT Productivity has some features we specifically created with Bain alumni in mind.

Yes, PPT Productivity PowerPoint addin software has been designed to be compatible with think-cell as we know many of our customers choose to use both PPT Productivity for the formatting, alignment and review features along with thinkcell for excel integration for charts and chart formatting. 

PPT Productivity PowerPoint add-in has been tested for Office 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016 and 365 for Windows 7, 8, 10 and 11. PPT Productivity is also compatible with Surface 7 and Surface Pro 8 machines and machines running on ARM.

Unfortunately, It is not compatible with Office 2003 for Windows (note that if you're still running Office 2003, we recommend that you upgrade!). 

For users on Office 365, you will need to desktop version of Office rather than the cloud-only version (to work out which version you are on - if you can open PowerPoint in the app on your machine, you have the desktop version. If you only have access to PowerPoint via an internet browser, then you have the cloud version).

PPT Productivity does not yet have a Mac compatible version, however you can use it on a Mac if you have installed a Windows partition and use Office for Windows, or if you use a virtual machine solution such as Parallels desktop for Mac (find out more about that here). 

Our software does not typically require admin rights to install so most customers can download and install the software themselves. However users in some large organizations with more restrictive IT environments may require the assistance of their IT team.

Yes, PPT Productivity PowerPoint add-in can be deployed for end users by IT teams via solutions including Microsoft Intune (end users with admin rights can also self install the software).

If you would like guidance on how to deploy via Intune, please please contact us and request a copy of the Admin guide. The Admin guide provides the information about how to distribute the package centrally, use silent deployment arguments and more.

When using PPT Productivity, the buttons are enabled when they are valid for the current selection (i.e. text, shape or slide). In other words, buttons that change text only work when text is selected. This prevents issues from a user trying to use buttons that are not valid for the current selection. 

Yes, though we would be sad to know you aren't finding our full suite of tools useful.  To downgrade, just let us know and we will help you out.

Download a free trial and you can start using all features straight away. For IT departments, we have alternate versions that allow you to install for All Users on a computer using remote deployment software. Please contact us and we will provide assistance directly via our CTO.

If you can't install PPT Productivity on your Windows desktop, you can still test an use our product using an Amazon Workspace (a virtual machine in the cloud).

This software give access to a demonstration Windows desktop, but from an iPad, Android tablet, Mac, or another Windows desktop. Just follow these steps:
1. Go to https://clients.amazonworkspaces.com/ to download the software.
2. Run the Amazon Workspaces installer to add the virtual desktop software for your machine (requires Admin permissions on Windows).
3. Start the Amazon Workspace software.
4. Email us at [email protected] (if you haven't already) to receive our demonstration workstation's login credentials.
5. Enter the registration code, username and password as provided to you and start running PowerPoint with PPT Productivity.

Your licence entitles you to the most up to date version of PPT Productivity, so you'll always have access to our new features that we are constantly developing. The software will automatically check for any new versions and let you know. You can also check for upgrades from the "Help" drop down box in your PPT Productivity ribbon. The upgrade mechanism will then manage any upgrades required. You don't need to do anything else!

When you purchase a PPT Productivity PowerPoint add-in license, you are purchasing the software with all future updates for the duration of the license (most customers purchase 12 month licenses but we also have 2 and 3 year license options). There is no additional charge when we release updates for the product you have purchased while you have an active license. We are always working on new features, and when new versions come out, your software will automatically prompt you to update. Software updates are simple 'one-click' process.

If you have purchased the wrong PPT Productivity product (for example if you purchased Plus tools but want to upgrade to Power Tools), please contact us. We can issue you an invoice for the price difference and upgrade your license.

License keys are sold on a per user-machine basis, and are only intended to be shared where you have purchased multiple licenses. Our verification software will only unlock one set of tools per verification key. If you need to transfer your license to another user or another machine, contact us and we can help you out. 

Yes. Licenses are sold on a per user basis so if a user changes computers, the software will work on the new computer. 

If you want to change the user of a license, you will first need to block access to the original user.  

Support for all PPT Productivity PowerPoint addin products (including free trials) is primarily via email, with live demonstrations, training and technical support via Zoom or Teams for screensharing. 

Our CTO is also available to talk to your IT Department should you wish to understand how our software can be configured and deployed centrally. If your question is not answered in our FAQ's simply contact us and we will be happy to assist you with your specific inquiry.

We understand security is important. Our software has been deployed in many high security organizations including banks, financial institutions, management consulting companies, private equity, pension funds, sovereign wealth funds and governments.  There are many security mechanisms built into PPT Productivity.  Key mechanisms include:

1. Secure Payment Processing: All payments are processed by Stripe using their highly secure credit card processing features, so no payment details are held by us. That way, you can be sure that your details will not be compromised when paying for goods from this website.

2. Digital Shrink Wrapping: To ensure you download and install the correct file, the installation program is 'digitally shrink-wrapped' using a signature. Before your computer downloads a file, it first must check that file hasn't been tampered with since it was originally uploaded, and it does that by checking it's been signed by a trusted third-party. PPT Productivity uses a signature to ensure the installation program you run is the one intended for you by the software developer.

3. Encrypted Communications: All communications are encrypted, and data communication to your computer are secured via https connection.

This Privacy Policy describes how your personal information is collected, used, and shared when you visit https://pptproductivity.com (the “Site”), download our free trial, purchase a license or use a license key purchased on your behalf.

PPT Productivity is serious about the privacy of the information you share with us. Privacy includes, but is not limited to the following:

• Your personal details will not be shared with any external party unless we are required to in order to comply with applicable laws and regulations, to respond to a subpoena, a search warrant or other lawful request for information we receive
• All information is stored securely; all site passwords are encrypted before storing.
• No payment information is stored on this site as all processing is performed and managed externally by Stripe.
• You can use your account settings to opt in/out of emails or product notifications

Personal Information we collect - Software Use

When you sign up for a free trial or purchase a license, we request your name, a contact email address and your country (country is requested for tax purposes). When a license is purchased for multiple users, only a single contact name and address is captured as a contact for the license key.

When you purchase a license key you will either provide payment via credit card in which case our Payments Processors Stripe or PayPal will capture your credit card details to process the transaction. They will provide us with your name and country location when making the payment but they will not share the credit card details with us - we never receive nor see actual credit card details. If you make payment via bank transfer, we will provide you with bank account details for the payment to be sent.

When you activate a free trial or purchased license key, we capture additional information to enable activation of the license key on a computer and to support our customers IT administrators in knowing how many license seats are being used:

• Username (typically email address for individuals)
• Activation date
• Username/ domain on the local computer
• Version of Microsoft PowerPoint run on the computer where the license is installed (to enable troubleshooting support if there are issues activating the license key)

PPT Productivity is a client side COM add-in. We do not host anything in the cloud and we do not capture nor store any of your presentation files. You can download and run the PPT Productivity add-in, and once installed it works without the need of an internet connection. 

Your personal Slide Library gallery files are stored on your computer or on a cloud location of your choosing (e.g. you might nominate your organization's OneDrive).  The PPT Productivity add-in facilitates the creation of the file and stores it on your computer.  If you choose to relocate the file, the PPT Productivity add-in can then be pointed to the file to access it.  PPT Productivity does not access nor keep copies of your slides or work.

Personal Information we collect - Website Visits

We do collect some information about your visits to our site. Via Google Analytics we have access to the domain names and I.P. addresses of site visitors. We compile statistics that show number of visitors and number of requests we receive, for specific pages or videos on the site. These statistics are used internally, to review and improve the site. The statistics contain no personally identifiable information (or email addresses) and they cannot be used to gather such information.

In addition, as you browse the Site, we collect information about the individual pages or features that you view, what websites, search terms or online advertising or links referred you to the Site, and information about how you interact with the Site. We refer to this automatically-collected information as “Device Information”.

We collect Device Information via the following:

• “Cookies” are data files which are placed on your device or computer and often include an anonymous unique identifier. You can choose to disable cookies. For more information about cookies, and how to disable them, we suggest visiting http://www.allaboutcookies.org.
• “Log files” track actions occurring on the Site. They collect data including your IP address, browser type, Internet service provider, referring/ exit pages, and date/ time stamps.
• “Web beacons”, “tags”, and “pixels” are electronic files that are used to record information about how you browse the Site.

How do we use your Device Information?

We use the Device Information that we collect to help us improve and optimize our Site (for example, by generating analytics about how our visitors browse and interact with the Site, to assess the success of our marketing activities, to identify new features to introduce or features that need to be better explained).

Sharing your Device Information

We share your Device Information with Google Analytics, as this is the tool that we use. You can read about how Google uses your Personal Information here: https://www.google.com/intl/en/policies/privacy/. You also have the option to opt-out of Google Analytics here: https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.

We may also share your Personal Information to comply with applicable laws and regulations.

Data Retention

When you sign up for a free trial, to purchase a license or for training emails, we will maintain your Contact Information for our records unless and until you ask us to delete this information. To request deletion of information please contact us.

Controller and Data Protection Officer

Sconey Pty Ltd trading as PPT Productivity is responsible for the pptproductivity.com website. Sconey Pty Ltd is an Australian business. You can contact us at any time. Sconey Pty Ltd is the Controller.

Please contact us with any queries regarding data protection at PPT Productivity. You can reach the data protection officer via the same email address by noting for attention of the Data Protection Officer. Should you have any questions or suggestions regarding data protection, please contact our data protection officer.

If you would like to know more, please contact us

Yes, PPT Productivity PowerPoint add-in is safe to download. PPT Productivity is not a .ppam. 

There has been some concern raised recently regarding PowerPoint macros or PowerPoint .ppam files being used for malicious purposes.   PPAM files are a more rudimentary type of add-in for PowerPoint and many organizations have blocked .ppam files due to this security risk.  

PPT Productivity is a COM Add-in and it installs via a DDL, not a PPAM PowerPoint file.  Further - to ensure you download and install the correct file, the installation program is 'digitally shrink-wrapped' using a signature. Before your computer downloads a file, it first checks the file hasn't been tampered with since it was originally uploaded.  It does this by checking that the file has been signed by a trusted third-party. PPT Productivity uses a signature to ensure the installation program you run is the one intended for you by the software developer.

For more information on the technical and security details, please refer to our PPT Productivity Technology Overview.  You can also contact us and book a time to speak with one of our Technical team if you would like further information about PPT Productivity's security features.