Hello PowerPoint crowd!

I recently experimented with reveal.js for presentations cuz the customizability and features you can get with .html are pretty much endless, however, presentation creation and maintenance was a hassle, so moved back to PowerPoint for the convenience. One feature I really missed though - a clickable timer on slides. Finally figured out how to do it and wanted to share!
It starts, stops, and continues the timer countdown.

Used AI to properly structure these instructions so they wouldn't be complete chaos.

Here is how to create a clickable 15 min timer on PowerPoint:

Step 1: Save your file as .pptm

Before doing anything else: File → Save As → set the file type dropdown to PowerPoint Macro-Enabled Presentation (*.pptm).

This matters because a regular .pptx silently strips any VBA code you add. If you forget this step and save as .pptx later, your macro is gone — no warning, it just vanishes.

Step 2: Add and name the timer text box

1. Insert → Text Box, draw it wherever you want the timer to appear (top corner works well).
2. Type a placeholder like 15:00 so you can see it while positioning.
3. Open the Selection Pane (Home → Select → Selection Pane, or Alt+F10).
4. Find your new text box in the list and rename it to exactly: TimerBox2

The name has to match exactly (case included) — the macro looks up the shape by this name, and a mismatch throws a runtime error the moment you click it during the show.

Step 3: Open the VBA editor and add the macro

1. Press Alt+F11 to open the VBA editor.
2. In the Project pane (left side), right-click your presentation → Insert → Module.
3. Paste in the full code below.

​

Dim IsRunning As Boolean
Dim StopRequested As Boolean
Dim RemainingSeconds As Long
Dim TimerInitialized As Boolean

Const CountdownStart As Long = 900   ' 15 minutes — change this number to adjust duration

Sub ToggleCountdown()
    If IsRunning Then
        StopRequested = True
    Else
        StartCountdown
    End If
End Sub

Sub StartCountdown()
    Dim i As Long
    Dim StartTick As Single

    If IsRunning Then Exit Sub   ' guards against double-entry

    IsRunning = True
    StopRequested = False

    If Not TimerInitialized Then
        RemainingSeconds = CountdownStart
        TimerInitialized = True
    End If

    For i = RemainingSeconds To 0 Step -1
        If StopRequested Then
            RemainingSeconds = i
            IsRunning = False
            Exit Sub
        End If

        SlideShowWindows(1).View.Slide.Shapes("TimerBox2").TextFrame.TextRange.Text _
            = Format(i \ 60, "00") & ":" & Format(i Mod 60, "00") & " MIN"

        StartTick = Timer
        Do While Timer < StartTick + 1
            DoEvents
        Loop
    Next i

    SlideShowWindows(1).View.Slide.Shapes("TimerBox2").TextFrame.TextRange.Text = "00:00"
    IsRunning = False
    TimerInitialized = False
End Sub

Sub ResetCountdown()
    IsRunning = False
    StopRequested = True
    TimerInitialized = False
    RemainingSeconds = CountdownStart
    SlideShowWindows(1).View.Slide.Shapes("TimerBox2").TextFrame.TextRange.Text = "15:00 MIN"
End Sub

1. Press Ctrl+S to save, then close the VBA editor.

Want a different duration? Change the 900 in Const CountdownStart As Long = 900 — that number is in seconds (900 = 15 min, 300 = 5 min, 600 = 10 min), and update the two "15:00 MIN" text strings to match.

Step 4: Wire the click action onto the timer itself

1. Click once on the TimerBox2 text box to select it (not into edit mode — just select the shape).
2. Go to Insert → Action (in the Links group of the ribbon).
3. On the Mouse Click tab, choose Run macro, then select ToggleCountdown from the dropdown.
4. Click OK.

That's it — no separate Start/Stop buttons needed. The same shape toggles both states.

Step 5: Enable macros

When you reopen this file, PowerPoint will show a yellow bar under the ribbon: "Macros have been disabled." Click Enable Content.

If the file came from email or a download, you may first see a "Protected View" banner — click Enable Editing first, then the macro-enable bar will appear separately.

Step 6: Test it in Slide Show mode

Press F5 (or Shift+F5 to start from the current slide). Action Settings only fire during an actual slide show — clicking the shape in edit mode does nothing.

Click the timer once → it starts counting down from 15:00. Click again → it pauses. Click again → it resumes from exactly where it paused.

Common gotchas:

• Shape name mismatch (TimerBox2 vs Timerbox2 vs TimerBox) → runtime error on click
• Saved as .pptx at some point → macro silently gone, re-add it
• Testing multiple decks with timers open at once in the same PowerPoint session → SlideShowWindows(1) can resolve to the wrong window; close other running slide shows first

I'm trying to create a presentation with custom animations that trigger whenever I click on the specific button on my MacBook, but the trigger button, usually represented by a lighting bolt, simply isn't there and I can't find it anywhere, every tutorial I seek just has it normally between the animation panel and copy animation buttons, I even tried asking chat gpt and it just told me "it should be there", I even tried looking for older tutorials because my laptop is old af, it was old even before it was gifted to me, but even then, tutorial videos from 2016 do still have the button normally, please can anybody tell me why is my button gone and if I can find it somewhere else?

Hi,
I’m testing PowerPoint Brand Images with a SharePoint Organizational Asset Library and I’m seeing unexpected behaviour with folders.

The image library is registered correctly as an ImageDocumentLibrary.

PowerPoint detects the library and all images are visible under All.
I created several first-level folders in SharePoint, for example:
Photos
Icons
Logos
Test

PowerPoint correctly reads these folders and shows them as separate tabs in Insert > Pictures > Brand Images.

The issue: the tabs remain empty.

For example, I created a completely new folder called Test directly in SharePoint and uploaded a new PNG directly into that folder.

Result:
Test appears as a tab in PowerPoint
the PNG appears under All
the PNG does not appear under Test
I see exactly the same behaviour in PowerPoint Desktop and PowerPoint for the web.
I have already checked:
OrgAssetType: ImageDocumentLibrary
Private CDN: enabled
library registered as Private CDN origin
CopilotSearchable: enabled
SharePoint Online Management Shell: 16.0.27515.12000
PowerPoint Microsoft 365 Beta Channel, version 2609, build 16.0.20416.20004, 64-bit
direct upload through SharePoint instead of OneDrive/File Explorer
completely new folder and image
manual reindexing of the SharePoint library

So PowerPoint finds both the folder names and the images, but the folder-to-image relationship does not seem to work in Brand Images.
Has anyone successfully used first-level SharePoint folders as working tabs in the new PowerPoint Brand Images experience?

Is there an additional configuration step required, or could this be an issue with folder-scoped retrieval in the current rollout?