When creating a PowerPoint presentation in a perfect world the text and files you upload would be quickly approved and saved so you are free to bring it to your audience. However, this is rarely the case in today's collaborative workplace.

Sometimes you will be tasked with designing simple pages that can be presented, to those concerned, in minutes. In this example, the job of writing and editing files is likely to be quite straightforward. But if you were in charge of a more comprehensive document, you will probably find that there may be a team of people that require consulting on the work at hand.

Because PowerPoint documents are multi-media they are used by people looking to get over a large amount of information in an interesting way. This means that there could be lots of complex data that is created by several experts in the field. Potentially this means that designing PowerPoint slides is a time-consuming business as you gather this information, edit it, embed it in pages then send it for a final glance over by your legal team.

Thankfully, PowerPoint has several in-built functions that reduce the time spent on all this tasks and bring a strong element of collaboration to your initiative. Words form the backbone of many a presentation, but audience members now have great expectations when it comes to workplace meetings of this type. Many employees have viewed PowerPoint slides and have seen many of the effects that make them interesting and readable.

Text has taken a backseat compared with the traditional whiteboard presentations, with images, animations and video files taking pride of place on slides. Text is still a very important medium, and tests have shown that viewers appreciate words in bulleted form, in order to back up talks and other kinds of files. Choosing images and videos to complement your meeting is essential to keeping it consistent, although at times there will need to be some tweaking of the information so it reliably reflects your brand.

Rather than using separate editing software to get slides looking great, PowerPoint has handy in-built tools that allow you to make the required changes within the application. In regard to images, this means that you are free to crop them, in addition to adding artistic effects to give them the wow factor. Once you have put the finishing touches to these files you may want to get a second opinion from your colleagues.

As slides have the potential to contain lots of data they can be quite large, which may slow some systems down. Fellow workers may be stretched for time and get impatient waiting for them to open, while viewers do not tend to appreciate waiting longer than necessary to watch the slides. To get round these issues, files can be compressed so they are easier to share and watch.

If you need more solid feedback - such as comprehensive editing from team members/experts - or if parts of the presentation are being submitted from other workers you will find SharePoint Server a helpful product. In conjunction with PowerPoint, you are free to create one location for all the employees that are assisting the development of the presentation.

This means that they do not have to enter information locally on your computer, but have access on the appropriate server from any location. Also called co-authoring, this collaborative way of working means that you immediately get to see changes made to the slides and the presentation is put together in good time.