Your next PowerPoint presentation might be a lot more exciting thanks to a new feature that also draws in Microsoft Teams.
The company has announced it is bringing two separate tools together to make your meetings more engaging and interactive using its popular video conferencing platform.
The upgrade now means you'll be able to bring your Microsoft Teams camera feed into a PowerPoint presentation, hopefully meaning an end to death by slides.
Microsoft Teams and PowerPoint
The change has been made possible by integrating Cameo and Recording Studio, two existing tools announced by Microsoft in 2021 that looked to help improve the PowerPoint experience.
Cameo let users bring their live or recorded Teams camera feed into a PowerPoint presentation, giving users the chance to customize where on a slide they'd like to appear. Recording Studio allows users to record a presentation in PowerPoint and deliver on-demand video, so your co-workers or colleagues can watch whenever they like.
The two tools will now be combined in PowerPoint, meaning that when a user is done creating a presentation, they can use Cameo to decide how and where they appear on the slides, and then carry out the actual pre-recorded speaking with recording studio just by clicking the new "record" button within PowerPoint, all without having to switch between multiple platforms.
When the presentation is taking place, PowerPoint Live will then deliver the recorded video.
Microsoft says the tool can be useful for speakers who may be unable to attend a “live” meeting in-person, but still want to be a part of it, as Cameo with Recording Studio means, "you’ll still show up in the meeting as if you are “live.”"
Recording studio is generally available now for use in PowerPoint, and Cameo is set to be released within the next few months.
The news is only the latest in a series of partnerships between Teams and PowerPoint as Microsoft looks to make its Office suite more useful for workers everywhere.
The company recently revealed PowerPoint Live is getting support for live slide translation, meaning slides can be instantly translated during a Microsoft Teams call. Both presenters and attendees can translate presentation content privately by right-clicking on the presentation, which will bring up a "Translate Slides" option.
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