powerpoint online design ideas not working

Why Does PowerPoint Design Ideas Not Work? [And How to Fix it!]

By: Author Shrot Katewa

So, PowerPoint launched this amazing feature a few years ago called “Design Ideas” or “PowerPoint Designer” that automatically creates slide designs based on the content present on the slide.

The goal of this tool is to help you create a visually appealing slide design within a matter of a few seconds! While it is still quite far away from achieving that goal completely, the design ideas in PowerPoint is still effective in quite a few instances!

But, the real problem that a lot of PowerPoint users are facing is that for many people, the design ideas either doesn’t show, or is greyed out, or simply doesn’t provide any recommendations!

So, in this article, I’ll provide you with all the detailed information that you need to know in case you need to fix or troubleshoot the issue.

So, without further delay, let’s get started!

1. What are Design Ideas in PowerPoint?

First, let’s start with the basics once again (for those of you who don’t know much about the “Design Ideas” feature in PowerPoint).

Design Ideas is a feature in Microsoft PowerPoint that provides multiple design options for a slide and allows you to choose from different designs for a particular slide. The “Design Ideas” feature analyzes the different contents and elements in a selected slide and suggests several designs that you can apply to the slide immediately.

You can find the Design Ideas feature in the “Designer” section of the “Design” tab on the ribbon of your PowerPoint presentation.

Simply select a slide and click on the “Design Ideas” button to get suggestions to improve the aesthetics of that slide.

To learn more about the “Design Ideas” feature and the different ways you can use them, check out my other in-depth article on the “Design Ideas” feature in PowerPoint .

2. What Version of PowerPoint has Design Ideas? 

The “Design Ideas” feature is fairly new in Microsoft PowerPoint. Due to this, it is not yet available in all versions of the software.

If you want to use the design ideas feature in your presentation, you will have to install Microsoft Office 365 or Microsoft PowerPoint 2019 .

Design Ideas is only available in these two versions of Microsoft PowerPoint and no other previous versions such as the Microsoft PowerPoint 2016 or Microsoft PowerPoint 2013 have this feature.

3. Why Does Your PowerPoint Not Have Design Ideas/Design Ideas Missing? 

There may be 3 reasons why your Microsoft PowerPoint does not have the Design Ideas feature.

Your Microsoft PowerPoint can be an older version of the software, or the Design Ideas is not enabled, or finally, you may be using an unauthorized or an illegal version of the Microsoft PowerPoint software. The three reasons and possible ways to get around them are explained in the following section.

3.1 You’re Using an Incorrect Version  

As we have already discussed in the previous section, the design ideas feature is a new addition to the arsenal of tools provided by Microsoft PowerPoint. Due to this, it is only available in Microsoft Office 2019 and Microsoft Office 365.

One of the reasons why you’re not being able to use the Design Ideas feature or can’t find it in your PowerPoint at all is because you may be using an older version.

So, all you have to do is to download and install Microsoft PowerPoint 2019 or Microsoft Office 365 and you will be able to use the design ideas feature to make your slides look better and more professional.

3.2 Design Ideas is Not Enabled 

Another reason why you can’t find the Design Ideas feature in your PowerPoint may be because the Design Ideas feature is turned off in your Microsoft PowerPoint 2019.

To make the “Design Ideas” button visible in the “Design” tab, you have to turn it on manually. The process of turning on your “Design Ideas ” button is explained in the simple steps below.

Step-1: Go to the “File” tab

The first step of the process is to click on the “File” tab. It is the first tab in the ribbon of your PowerPoint. Upon clicking on the “File” tab, you will be taken to a new page in Microsoft PowerPoint.

Step-2: Click on the “Option” menu

After you have accessed the “File” tab, click on the “Options” menu. It is located at the bottom left of the “File” tab. By clicking on the “Options” menu, you will be taken back to the “Home” tab view and a pop-up window will appear on your screen.

Step-3: Enable the designer options

After you click on the “Options” menu, the PowerPoint Options pop-up window will appear on your screen.

From that window, scroll down to the “PowerPoint Designer” section and click on the “Automatically show me design ideas” check box and the “Automatically show me suggestions when I create a new presentation” check box.

After that hit, the “OK” button located at the bottom right of your screen, and the Design Ideas feature will be enabled in your Microsoft PowerPoint 2019.

3.3 Installed PowerPoint is not legitimate 

One of the reasons why you are not being able to use the “Design Ideas” feature in your Microsoft PowerPoint may be because you are using a pirated or unauthorized version of Microsoft PowerPoint.

The Design Ideas feature uses the internet and pirated, or unauthorized versions of the software are not programmed to be able to access the internet. For this reason, you can’t use Design Ideas in such versions of the software.

And, it may not be your fault! Perhaps the computer that you purchase came with such a version of PowerPoint installed!

To get around this issue, you have to install an authorized version of the Microsoft PowerPoint 2019 or Microsoft PowerPoint 365, by downloading it from the Microsoft store and activating it using a product activation key.

This way you will have no problems using the Design Ideas feature and making your slides stand out.

4. Why are PowerPoint Design Ideas Greyed Out? 

There may be several reasons why Design Ideas is greyed out in your Microsoft PowerPoint. The possible reasons why your Design Ideas feature is greyed out are explained elaborately in the following section.

4.1 No Internet Connection

The Design Ideas feature analyses your slide and then suggests you certain improvements or ideas that can make your slide look better and more professional.

To do this, the feature uses the internet for resources. One of the possible reasons why the Design Ideas feature in your Microsoft PowerPoint is greyed out may be because you are not currently connected to the internet.

To solve this issue, close the window of your presentation, simply connect to the internet, and open the Microsoft PowerPoint file again. After connecting to the internet the issue should be resolved.

4.2 Multiple Slides Selected

The design ideas feature works on a single slide at a time. It can suggest ideas for various designs and multiple types of slides, but it can do so only for one slide at a time!

When multiple slides are selected together, the design ideas feature in your Microsoft PowerPoint is unable to analyze them and so, it fails to suggest to you the ideas for a new or more refined design.

Thus, a possible reason why your Design Ideas feature may be greyed out is because you have multiple slides selected on the “Slide Navigation” bar to the left of your Microsoft PowerPoint window.

To solve this issue, make sure only one slide is selected in the “Slide Navigation” bar, and then try to use the design ideas feature again. Assuming there are no further issues, the design ideas should now work, and you can use them to improve your slides.

4.3 Your PowerPoint version is Not Activated 

When Microsoft PowerPoint is not activated, all the editing features of that PowerPoint are frozen and cannot be used. In this mode, you can only view the Microsoft PowerPoint file, but you cannot make any changes to it.

If this happens to your Microsoft PowerPoint, then a “Product activation failed” warning will be displayed on the upper middle part of your Microsoft PowerPoint window. This mode also freezes your option to use the Design Feature and it will be greyed out.

To fix this problem, all you have to do is to activate your Microsoft PowerPoint.

To learn how to activate your Microsoft PowerPoint, and also resolve the “Product activation failed” warning or other errors, you can read my other article that provides a complete guide to resolve this issue.

5. PowerPoint Doesn’t Show Design Ideas? Here’s Why! 

Even after you have enabled the design ideas feature in PowerPoint and addressed the issues that I’ve highlighted earlier in the article, there are times when the design ideas will not show any design suggestions!

There can be multiple reasons why the design ideas is not showing you any suggestions even when there is only one slide selected.

The reasons may vary from having multiple shapes in the slide, or the slide layout may be incorrect, or perhaps you are using a custom theme! There are several other reasons that may be at play.

Let’s take a look at some of the most common reasons behind why the design ideas feature fails to suggest new slide designs.

5.1 Using more than 2 shapes (mixed shapes)

The design ideas feature in Microsoft PowerPoint is designed to analyze the placeholders and shapes that exist in the master slide of your Microsoft PowerPoint presentation. And so, if there is more than one shape present in the slide that you have selected for design ideas, it will not be able to analyze them.

If the feature can’t analyze an element present in your slide, then it won’t be able to suggest you any ideas.

So, try and remove mixed shapes from the slide that you are trying to design and then use the design features again, this time it should work fine.

Also, check for point 4 in this section for additional clarity on using the type of shapes and elements.

5.2 Using Incorrect Slide Layout

The design ideas feature can only suggest ideas as long as the selected slide contains specific types of objects and elements.

For example, the design ideas feature cannot suggest you any new ideas for a design if the slide contains comparison tables or contents with captions in the layout.

Moreover, as described in the previous section of this article, design ideas also doesn’t work when you have a mix of more than one element in the selected slide.

So, to fix this issue, make sure the slide that you have selected does not contain any element other than the one present in the placeholder of the master slide. The best thing to do is go with a “ blank ” slide layout option .

If the slide layout is compliant with the specific layout allowed by the design feature, then you will be able to get suggestions from the feature.

5.3 Using a Custom Theme 

The design Ideas feature only works when the selected slide has one of the 6 default layouts provided by Microsoft PowerPoint.

The design ideas feature is fairly new, and so its capabilities are not as high-end as all the other features provided by Microsoft PowerPoint. The limitation to this feature is that the Design Ideas feature can only analyze the slide if it is using one of the 6 layouts provided in the software.

5.4 Using More Elements than Acceptable 

The Design feature only allows a certain number of elements of certain types.

To elaborate, the Design Ideas feature only works when there is a maximum of 10 images, 6 icons, 1 table, 1 SmartArt, and 1 chart. Any number of elements exceeding this maximum count will result in the design ideas feature in your Microsoft PowerPoint failing to work.

So, make sure that the number of elements in the slide that you have selected for designing does not exceed the number of elements allowed by the Design ideas feature. Also, make sure that the elements present in the selected slide are of the right type or the Design Ideas feature will not work.

5.5 Using an Incorrect PowerPoint File Type 

Another reason why the Design Ideas feature is not suggesting ideas for your selected slide may be because you are using the incorrect PowerPoint file type.

If your design ideas feature is not working, then make sure that it is the right type of Microsoft PowerPoint file. The design ideas feature does not work if there is any Macro element present in the Microsoft PowerPoint file.

Moreover, it also doesn’t work on any versions of Microsoft PowerPoint launched before Microsoft Office 2019 or Microsoft PowerPoint 365

5.6 Check for Objects Outside the Slide

One of the reasons why you are not getting any suggestions from the design ideas features may be because there are elements in the selected slide that are outside the slide canvas.

If there are any elements present outside the slide, the feature will not be able to analyze them and suggest ideas.

So, make sure there aren’t any objects or elements outside the slide and try the feature again. This time you will be able to get suggestions to make the design of your slide stand out.

5.7 Multiple People Editing Same Presentation 

If you are working on a presentation that is being edited by multiple users at once, then the design ideas feature will not work.

This can happen when you are using the online version of PowerPoint as part of Office 365 which offers real-time collaboration features.

As mentioned in this article, the feature only works with one slide at a time, so if multiple users are working on the presentation, the design ideas feature sometimes fails to suggest ideas for your selected slide.

5.8 Design Ideas is Disabled by Your Company

If you are using a Microsoft PowerPoint 365 product provided by the company where you work, then it is possible that your organization has disabled certain features that either require an internet connection or are considered a possible security threat to the system.

In such a scenario, you may not be able to use the design ideas feature in Microsoft PowerPoint even when you have Office 2019 or Office 365 installed on your computer.

If this is the case, reach out to the IT department of your company and request them to enable this for your device. Be sure to go through any company-specific approvals or policies that may be in place to enable this feature.

6. PowerPoint Design Ideas Doesn’t Show Suggestions Automatically

If the Design Ideas feature doesn’t show you suggestions automatically, then you have to enable it from the “PowerPoint Options” menu located in the “File” tab.

We have explained the process in detail earlier in this article. So simply follow the steps described in the section of this article that discusses the process of enabling design ideas in your Microsoft PowerPoint and you will be able to get a suggestion for ideas automatically.

Credit to wayhomestudio (on Freepik) for the featured image of this article (further edited).

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PowerPoint Design Ideas Not Working? Try These 9 Fixes.

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The Design Ideas command (also known as Designer ) is a new feature of PowerPoint inside the Microsoft 365 subscription that gives you layout ideas for your slide, based on your content. The problem is, in many situations you will find that the PowerPoint Design ideas command is not working, denoted by being greyed-out.

A greyed-out command or feature in PowerPoint simply means that you have not selected something that that command can be used on. This is confusing when you simply want Designer to crank out some layout inspiration for you. To help you out with this, I’ve pulled together nine ways to fix the PowerPoint design ideas when it is not working, so you don’t pull your hair out the next time you get the following error message.

If you have the latest version of PowerPoint and want to see what kinds of layouts Designer can produce you, you will need to understand how the command works so you can fix it when it is broken.

I personally don’t find the Design Idea layouts to be useful, but this could change as Microsoft continues to integrate AI features into the Microsoft Office Suite.

But before you get lost in how to fix Designer, let’s first make sure you understand what Designer is, and how it is supposed to work.

What PowerPoint Designer?

Designer  is the same as the  Design Ideas  command. It can also be called the Designer Pane. I will be referring to these interchangeably throughout this article.

The Design Ideas command (or  Designer ) is a new PowerPoint feature that generates slide layout ideas for you. The coolest thing about this feature is that it uses the content currently on your slide to create fast PowerPoint backgrounds. 

Designing slide layouts is one of the biggest challenges in PowerPoint, so hats off to Microsoft for creating this handy tool!

As you can see in the picture above, the command gives you a variety of layout ideas based on the content of your slide. If you then click on a layout in the  Design Ideas  pane, it is immediately applied to your slide as a slide background.

When it works, it’s great. When it doesn’t work, it sucks (big time).  So, let’s look at how to quickly fix it if it is not working for you.

[Watch] PowerPoint Design Ideas NOT working

In addition to the six fixes discussed in the video above, I’ve included three additional fixes in the article below. I will continue adding to this article, so I recommend bookmarking this page.

To get access to all our best PowerPoint speed training courses and resources, check out our  PowerPoint Pro Membership here .

1. Microsoft Office 365 Subscription Only

If you do not have an annual Microsoft 365 subscription, you do not have access to the PowerPoint Design Ideas command.

That means that unless you purchase (or have access to) the latest version of Microsoft Office, you will not be given the automatic layout ideas for your slides. This is one reason why I highly recommend getting a subscription.

To learn more about the Microsoft 365 subscription, see Microsoft’s website here .

2. Design Ideas Requires Internet Access

The  Design Ideas  command is powered by what is called Office Intelligence Services . That means that to generate layout ideas for you based on the content of your slides, PowerPoint requires internet access.

If you are working offline or have a spotty internet connection, try troubleshooting your internet connection or finding a better wifi zone.

• Right-click ​the Internet Access icon in your taskbar
• Select Troubleshoot Problems
• Follow the prompts to fix your internet

3. Remove Mixed Shapes on Your Slide

So, if your  Designer  is not working, double-check that you don’t have any of these objects on your slide.

Alternatively, you can try copying and pasting your content on a blank slide to see if Design Ideas works there.

Microsoft is pushing out monthly updates as part of the Office 365 subscription, so hopefully they fix this issue in one of their future updates.

4. The 10-6-1-1-1 Content Rule

Designer only works for up to 10 pictures, 6 icons, 1 SmartArt graphic, 1 table or 1 chart on a slide. I call this the 10-6-1-1-1 rule for PowerPoint Designer.

Additionally, you cannot mix and match any of these shapes on a slide for Designer to work.

The picture below shows the variety of layout ideas that Designer provides with 10 images.

Depending on the size of your picture, sometimes you can only get 6 pictures on a slide before Designer stops working.

So that’s another reason why your Design Ideas might not be working: You’re either not using the right type of content, or you’re using too many objects.

On another picture note, if you are using lots of pictures in your presentation, you might need to compress them to reduce your PowerPoint file size. To learn how to compress images in PowerPoint, read our guide here .

Note: If you use SmartArt to crop your images, or fill a shape with a picture to make it transparent, the  Design Ideas command will also not work. That is because PowerPoint considers your image a shape, rather than a picture.

To learn how to make an image transparent in PowerPoint, read our guide here .

5. Change Your PowerPoint Layout

• Title Slide
• Title and Content
• Section Header
• Two Content
• Picture with Caption

Note: If you add an extra placeholder to one of the default 6 PowerPoint layouts on the Slide Master, that is the same as creating your own custom slide layout.

The PowerPoint  Design Ideas  command does not work with custom slide layouts. Therefore, make sure you don’t add placeholders to your slide layouts if you want  Designer  to work for that type of slide.

If you think you are using the right type of content, you can always copy and paste it into a blank presentation to see if that fixes the issue.

To change your PowerPoint layout to one of the 6 layouts that work, simply:

• Be active on the slide layout you want to change
• Navigate to the Home tab
• Open the Layout dropdown
• Select one of the 6 default PowerPoint layouts

If you select one of the 6 default PowerPoint layouts and  Designer still doesn’t work for you, you’ll want to double-check your content. See  Fix #3  and  Fix #4 .

6. Set Design Ideas to Automatically Pop Up

• Have it automatically pop up whenever it has layout ideas for you
• Only open when you select it in your Ribbon

To have Design Ideas automatically pop up for you in PowerPoint, simply:

• Navigate to the File tab
• Select Options
• Navigate to the General tab
• In the PowerPoint Designer group, select Automatically show me design ideas

With this feature active, any time that  Designer  can give you layout ideas based on the content on your slide, it will pop open.

In addition, checking the  Automatically show me design ideas gives you a second option to show you suggestions for the entire presentation.

With this option selected, when you start a brand-new presentation, Design Ideas will give you the usual layout ideas for your one slide.

However, when you choose one of those layouts, Designer will then apply an entire theme to your presentation. Furthermore, that same style will be applied to all your slide layout options.

The theme includes slide layouts in the Slide Master, a font combination and a color palette. To expand your knowledge and learn about how PowerPoint themes work, read our guide here .

At any time you can open the  Designer Pane  for a specific slide ide. To do that, simply:

• Navigate to the Design tab
• Click the  Design Ideas  command

Whether or not your see layout ideas for your slide will again depend on your content, your layout, and other factors as discussed in this article.

7. Check Your PowerPoint File Type

PowerPoint  Design Ideas  does not work with the following two PowerPoint file types:

• PowerPoint Macro-Enabled Presentation (.pptm)
• PowerPoint 2003 to 2007 Presentation (.ppt)

While you can save your presentations this way, the  Design Ideas  tab will not work in those types of presentations. It will simply appear grayed out.

To fix this, all you need to do is save your presentation in the regular .pptx file format.

• Hit Ctrl + Shift + S (or F12) on your keyboard
• Navigate to where you want to save your file
• Change the Save as Type to PowerPoint Presentation
• Click  Save

8. Look out for Multiple PowerPoint Collaborators

9. Have Your Company Turn Design Ideas on

The  Office Intelligence Services  is something that an IT administrator can turn off within your company. Therefore, if nothing else in this post works double-check with the IT department in your company.

Final Thoughts on Designer

So those are nine different ways to fix the PowerPoint Design Ideas command if yours is not working.

Assuming you have a Microsoft Office 365 subscription and your company has NOT turned this feature off, the main thing to remember is to check your content and your layouts.

If  Designer is not working, it can almost always be traced back to one of these two things.  However, as you can see above, there are several other issues you might face. That’s why it’s good to know how to troubleshoot Designer when it’s not working.

If you enjoyed this article, you can learn more about our PowerPoint training courses and other presentation resources by visiting us here .

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This Post Has 23 Comments

Another reason I just discovered hat design ideas will not generate: your proofing language for any of the text boxes on your slide is not set to English. I make bilingual presentations, and my fix is to set my proofing language to (French) while I’m working, and then to get the design ideas, I re-set all text boxes to English (US).

Oh wow, we hadn’t thought of this, but it makes sense, since PPT is using the content of your presentation to generate related ideas. Thanks for sharing!

thanks for your information, it helped me a lot…!!!

You’re most welcome, Thejashree!

This was amazing! Thanks a ton – saved me many hours today.

So happy to hear it, Akhila!

OMG THANK YOU!!! My computer had re-started overnight and I didn’t realize my powerpoint was still open and I had to do a save from back up. But then my design ideas was grayed out and I’ve been pulling my hair out trying to figure it out and yours is the only article that mentioned the required format, which for some reason it did not save as. Can save a few more hairs and not stick hot pokers in my eyes now. I am no powerpoint wizard and design ideas is a huge help. MANY THANKS!

OH yay! So happy to hear it could help you out. We’re definitely anti-hot pokers in the eyes 🙂

There was one reason you didn’t discuss: you have converted your presentation from Google Slides to PowerPoint (.pptx) and now the Designer is not working. Help please!

Ah yes, that will likely cause problems with Designer too. You’ll need to pick a default layout and copy/paste your content into the placeholder to trigger Designer again.

I had an issue where it showed the options for Design Ideas but when trying to select one it wouldnt do anything

later i found that this was as a result of me adding some animations to the slide. After removing the animation it allowed me to change this

That’s really interesting, thanks for the heads up, Fauzan!

I have issue with changing some features in the design and save it and when I open the file again it come back again

Hi Fatma. Are you saying that when you select something suggested by Designer and then save your presentation… when you come back later it’s gone? That shouldn’t be happening so if it’s the case, I’d consider reaching out to the Microsoft support people to see what might be happaning.

Hi, why my powerpoint didn’t have this “designer ideas”? even in option also don’t have powerpoint designer to tick it

Hi Don – do you have the Microsoft Office 365 subscription (recurring payments, as opposed to paying just one time)? That’s the most common reason that Design Ideas isn’t available.

I find Designer really helpful if I want to change the pixel size in a photo. No need to calculate height and width, Designer will maximize the dimensions to the size of the slide. (e.g. 16:9)

Yes indeed!

my desighner icon is gray

Hi Aisha. Have you tried any of the fixes listed above (#2-#9)? There are many reasons the icon could be grayed out (no internet connection, custom layouts, shapes on the slide, etc.) so you will want to go through this article and check each thing.

THANK YOU! My issue was that somehow my presentation was saved as macro-enabled. Don’t know how that happened, but now I can use designer!

Oh, great to hear that you solved it. Yes, saving as different file types can affect some of the PowerPoint features. Now I know too. Thanks for the update, Jenn!

Comments are closed.

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Create professional slide layouts with Designer

Designer improves slides for Microsoft 365 subscribers by automatically generating design ideas to choose from.

While you're putting content on a slide, Designer works in the background to match that content to professionally designed layouts.

Get design ideas

The first time you try out Designer, it may ask your permission to get design ideas for you. If you want to use Designer, select Turn on .

To learn more, see the Microsoft Privacy Statement .

Once you've turned on "connected experiences," PowerPoint automatically shows you design ideas when you're creating your slides. Over time PowerPoint learns from your experience using design ideas and shows you design ideas at the appropriate time. 

Scroll through the suggestions in the Designer pane on the right side of the window.

Click to select the design you want, or else close the window. If you select one of the ideas, your slide is changed accordingly.

You can also select another idea from the pane or go back to your original slide design: Press Ctrl+Z to undo a design change you've just selected.

What Designer gives you:

A title-slide photo and a design scheme

When you start a blank presentation and enter words on the slide, Designer recommends high-quality photos that reflect the slide text, plus a design scheme with colors that complement the photograph you choose. All the slides in the presentation will fit together visually.

Professional layouts

Designer detects pictures, charts, or tables on a slide and gives you several suggestions for arranging them in a cohesive, attractive layout.

More visuals, less text

Too much text on your slide? Designer can turn text such as lists, processes, or timelines into an easily readable graphic.

Bulleted lists get suggestions for an icon to accompany each bullet item. If you don't like a suggested icon, just select it and use our on-the-spot replacement button:

Illustrations

Designer watches for key terms and concepts that it has illustrations for, and it shows you those illustrations in various layouts. The Illustrations are from the Microsoft 365 icons library.

Designer and "ink"

(Only for Microsoft 365 subscribers) Designer recognizes when you draw or write with ink, and it incorporates that content into the design ideas it shows you.

Turn off Designer

If you don't want Designer to automatically offer suggestions:

On the File menu, click Options .

In the PowerPoint Options dialog box, click the General tab on the left, then scroll toward the bottom and clear the Automatically show me design ideas check box.

Requirements

Requirements for designer on windows.

Ask for design ideas any time by choosing Design > Designer on the ribbon.

The first time you try out Designer, it asks your permission to get design ideas for you. If you want to use Designer, select Turn on or Let's go .

Once you've turned on intelligent services, PowerPoint automatically shows you design ideas when you add photos to your slides.

You can also select another idea from the pane or go back to your original slide design: Press ⌘+Z to undo a design change you've just selected.

SmartArt graphics

Designer can turn text such as lists, processes, or timelines into an easily readable SmartArt graphic.

If you don't want Designer to offer suggestions:

On the PowerPoint menu, select Preferences .

Under Authoring and Proofing Tools , select General .

In the General dialog box, under PowerPoint Designer , clear the Automatically show me design ideas check box.

• The Designer button is grayed out

If you can see the Designer button in PowerPoint but it's grayed out, it means:

You aren't connected to the internet, or

A slide isn't selected. (This can be the case when multiple slides are selected in the slide thumbnail pane in Normal view, or when the focus in the thumbnail pane is between two slides. It also is the case when the focus is in the Notes pane or you are in Slide Show view rather than Normal view.)

The Designer button isn't there

Designer is a feature for Microsoft 365 subscribers. If you don't see the Designer button, you're using an older version of PowerPoint for Mac, rather than PowerPoint for Microsoft 365 for Mac.

Requirements for Designer on the Mac

PowerPoint shows design ideas for your slide.

If you can see the Designer button in PowerPoint but it's grayed out, it means that someone else is currently also editing the slide:

If you're co-authoring a presentation with someone else and more than one person is actively editing a single slide at one time, Designer won't give design suggestions on that slide.

However, as soon as there's only person editing the slide, Designer will begin offering design suggestions again once that person does an action (such as adding a photo) that Designer can respond to.

Requirements for Designer on PowerPoint for the web

Ask for design ideas any time by choosing Design > Design Ideas on the ribbon.

Scroll through the suggestions in the Design Ideas pane on the right side of the window.

The Design Ideas button is grayed out

If you can see the Design Ideas button in PowerPoint but it's grayed out, it means you aren't connected to the internet.

Requirements for Designer on iOS

Requirements for Designer on Android

Requirements for Designer on Windows Mobile

Troubleshooting.

• Which problem are you having?
• I don't see the Designer button
• I clicked the Designer button, but no suggestions are offered

Design ideas are only available to Microsoft 365 subscribers

On desktop versions of PowerPoint, only subscribers get design ideas. You can try or buy a subscription here .

On PowerPoint for the web, design ideas are available to everyone.

One Microsoft 365 subscription package doesn't include design ideas: Office 365 Germany Germany .

Turn on the Office connected experiences

To use Designer, make sure that Office "connected experiences" are turned on:

Go to File > Account , and under Account Privacy select Manage Settings .

See Enabling and disabling intelligent services for more information.

An administrator may have turned off Designer

Designer is a feature for Microsoft 365 subscribers, but some organizations turn off the feature. If you have an Microsoft 365 subscription but don't see the Designer button, ask your IT department.

Reinstall Office to get subscriber features

If you've upgraded from Microsoft 365 to an Microsoft 365 subscription, you need to uninstall Microsoft 365 and then reinstall in order to get the subscriber features. See the instructions in these articles:

Uninstall Office from a PC or Uninstall Office 2016 for Mac

Reinstall Microsoft 365

Restart the app to get Designer

Sometimes users find that the first time they start PowerPoint after installing Microsoft 365, the Designer button isn't available. Restarting the app fixes this problem.

If there are no design ideas available for you, a few things might be the cause. First of all:

Make sure you're connected to the Internet. Designer goes online to get its design ideas.

Use a theme that comes with PowerPoint (not a custom theme or one that you've downloaded from elsewhere).

Following are other problems and how to solve them:

No design ideas for slides with pictures

Make sure your slide has either the Title or Title + Content slide layout applied.

Don't use any additional objects or shapes on the same slide as your photo.

Use a maximum of four photos (.jpg, .png, .gif, or .bmp) per slide, and make sure they're larger than 200 x 200 pixels in size.

No design ideas for process-based slides

Make sure your slide has the Title + Content slide layout applied.

Don't use any additional photos, objects, or shapes on the same slide as your process text.

Because Designer is a relatively new service, it is still learning new tricks. If Designer can’t generate high-quality options for you, it won’t show any options at all. We're working hard to be able to generate great design ideas for more varieties of your content.

And of course, if you don’t find Designer useful, you can turn it off by going to File > Options > General , and then clearing the box that says Automatically show me design ideas .

Someone else is editing

No design ideas for slides that have shapes or text boxes.

Designer isn't able to suggest design ideas when a slide has a shape or text box drawn on it. You can have photos and you can have text in a placeholder.

You aren't connected to the internet , or

A single slide isn't selected . This can be the case when multiple slides are selected in the slide thumbnail pane in Normal view, or when the focus in the thumbnail pane is between two slides. It also is the case when the focus is in the Notes pane or you are in Slide Show view rather than Normal view.

Combining colors in PowerPoint: Mistakes to avoid

Format the background color of slides

Start with a presentation template

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How to Get Slide Design Ideas Using PowerPoint Designer

Get Slide Design Ideas with PowerPoint Designer

by Avantix Learning Team | Updated April 5, 2021

Applies to: Microsoft ® PowerPoint ® 365 (Windows)

If you are a Microsoft 365 subscriber, you can use PowerPoint Designer to get design ideas for slides. Designer takes advantage of Microsoft's Intelligent Services for suggesting layouts for images. It can also help with the design for slides containing other types of content.

Since PowerPoint 365 is using artificial intelligence (AI), features are constantly changing so PowerPoint Designer and its capabilities will change as well.

Recommended article: How to Make a Picture Transparent in PowerPoint (3 Ways)

Do you want to learn more about PowerPoint? Check out our virtual classroom or in-person PowerPoint courses >

Enabling PowerPoint Designer

The first time you launch PowerPoint, it will ask for your permission to provide you with design ideas. If you want to use PowerPoint Designer, click Let's go or Turn on. You need to turn on Intelligent Services so that Designer can provide you with design ideas when you add images to your slides.

In order to use PowerPoint Designer, you must:

• be a Microsoft 365 subscriber
• have enabled Microsoft Intelligent Services
• be connected to the Internet

If Design Ideas are not displaying in a task pane, you may need to turn on PowerPoint Designer or Intelligent Services.

To turn on PowerPoint Designer and Intelligence Services:

• Click the File tab in the Ribbon and then click Options. A dialog box appears.
• Select the General category in the categories on the left.
• Ensure that Intelligent Services and Automatically show me design ideas are selected or checked in the pane on the right.

Below is the Options dialog box in PowerPoint 365 where you can turn Intelligent Services and PowerPoint Designer off and on:

To get design suggestions for pictures, you should use images in one of the following formats: JPG, BMP, GIF or PNG. You should also make sure that the size of the image is larger than 200 x 200 pixels. Otherwise, you may not see design ideas.

Also, PowerPoint Designer can be turned off through the Design tab in the Ribbon.

To use PowerPoint Designer with pictures:

• Insert a picture or pictures onto a slide. The Design Ideas task pane should appear.
• Scroll through the suggestions in the Design Ideas pane.
• Click to select the design you want or close the task pane. If you click on one of the ideas, your slide will change.
• If you change your mind, press Ctrl + Z or select another idea.

If you are not seeing the Design Ideas task pane, ensure a single slide is selected and you are in Normal view.

Below are some designs suggested by PowerPoint Designer when 3 images were inserted on a slide in Normal view:

Different design ideas for different objects

PowerPoint Designer is able to detect charts and tables on a slide. It will provide you with suggestions to arrange these types of objects. For charts and tables, there should only be one chart or table on the slide.

The Designer is also able to convert text like timelines, lists or processes into SmartArt. If you have bulleted lists, you may  receive suggestions for an icon to be used for each bulleted item. If you don't want to use the suggested icon, you can keep the original icon. Designer also looks for concepts and key terms. If it detects the term, it will display icons in different layouts. These icons are stored in the icons library in Office 365.

Why is PowerPoint Designer not working?

Because PowerPoint Designer is using AI, it keeps changing. If it doesn't seem to be working, that may change in the future as the tool develops.

If design ideas are not appearing, the following may be the cause:

• You're not connected to the Internet. PowerPoint Designer needs to go online to generate design ideas.
• You haven't enabled Intelligent Services or design ideas through PowerPoint Options.
• You are using a theme that doesn't work with the Designer (PowerPoint's default themes will work with the Designer but other themes may not).
• Your slide is not using a layout that works with Designer (you can apply layouts using the Layout drop-down menu on the Home tab in the Ribbon).
• You are not in Normal View and have not selected one slide.
• You may have too many photos (in JPG, PNG, GIF or BMP format) per slide (PowerPoint Designer should be able to handle 6-10 images on a slide).
• Your photos are smaller than 200 x 200 pixels in size.
• The slide has a shape or text box on it.
• You are using more than one chart or table on the slide.
• More than one person is editing the same slide at the same time.

PowerPoint Designer can be very helpful if you need ideas to help lay out your slides. Since it uses AI, watch for new features rolling out.

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More resources

How to Highlight Text with Emphasis Animation

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PowerPoint Design Ideas Not Working? Try These 9 Fixes. (2023)

In this article, you’ll learn nine different ways to fix the new Designer feature in PowerPoint, if your Design Ideas command is not working (or is greyed out).

While the Design Ideas feature can be extremely useful, it is frustrating when you get the following error message:

That’s why understanding how to troubleshoot the Design Ideas command is a big step forward in learning how to best use it.But before you get lost in how to fix this new PowerPoint feature, let’s first make sure you fully understand what the new feature is.

FREE ICON GIVEAWAY: Click here to get 886 free PowerPoint icons you can immediately use to improve your PowerPoint presentations.

What is the Design Ideas command (or Designer) in PowerPoint?

Designer is the same as the Design Ideas command. It can also be called the Designer Pane. I will be referring to these interchangeably throughout this article.

The Design Ideas command (or Designer ) is a new PowerPoint feature that generates slide layout ideas for you. The coolest thing about this feature is that it uses the content currently on your slide to create fast PowerPoint backgrounds.

Designing slide layouts is one of the biggest challenges in PowerPoint, so hats off to Microsoft for creating this handy tool!

As you can see in the picture above, the command gives you a variety of layout ideas based on the content of your slide. If you then click on a layout in the Design Ideas pane, it is immediately applied to your slide as a slide background.

When it works, it’s great. When it doesn’t work, it sucks (big time). So, let’s look at how to quickly fix it if it is not working for you.

[Watch] PowerPoint Designer NOT working

PowerPoint Designer NOT Working (6 ...

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In addition to the six fixes discussed in the video above, I’ve included three additional fixes in the article below. I will continue adding to this article, so I recommend bookmarking this page.

To get access to all our best PowerPoint speed training courses and resources, check out our PowerPoint Pro Membership here .

1. Microsoft Office 365 SubscriptionOnly

If you do not have an annual Microsoft 365 subscription, you do not have access to the PowerPoint Design Ideas command.

That means that unless you purchase (or have access to) the latest version of Microsoft Office, you will not be given the automatic layout ideas for your slides. This is one reason why I highly recommend getting a subscription.

To learn more about the Microsoft 365 subscription, see Microsoft’s website here .

2. Design Ideas Requires Internet Access

The Design Ideas command is powered by what is called Office Intelligence Services .That means that to generate layout ideas for you based on the content of your slides, PowerPoint requires internet access.

If you are working offline or have a spotty internet connection, try troubleshooting your internet connection or finding a better wifi zone.

To troubleshoot your internet connection in Windows 10, simply:

• Right-click ​the Internet Access icon in your taskbar
• Select Troubleshoot Problems
• Follow the prompts to fix your internet

Warning: Using aVirtual Private Network (VPN) to access the internet will also disable the Design Ideas tab. As of right now, the Office Intelligent Services do not work with VPN connections.So that is something else to check if Designer is not working for you.

3. Remove Mixed Shapes on Your Slide

PowerPointDesigner does not work with mixed shapes or other objects on your slide. Ifyou add a shape, line, text box, ink or video to your slide, the Design Ideas command will likely not work. That’s because it’s designed to work with placeholders (editable elements set on the Slide Master) only.

So, if your Designer is not working, double-check that you don’t have any of these objects on your slide.

Alternatively, you can try copying and pasting your content on a blank slide to see if Design Ideas works there.

Microsoft is pushing out monthly updates as part of the Office 365 subscription, so hopefully they fix this issue in one of their future updates.

4.The 10-6-1-1-1 Content Rule

ThePowerPoint Design Ideas command can only generate slide layout ideas for certain types of PowerPoint objects and only a certain number of each of those objects.

Designer only works for up to 10 pictures, 6 icons, 1 SmartArt graphic, 1 table or 1 chart on a slide. I call this the 10-6-1-1-1 rule for PowerPoint Designer.

Additionally, you cannot mix and match any of these shapes on a slide forDesignerto work.

The picture below shows the variety of layout ideas that Designer provides with 10 images.

But as soon as you add an 11th picture, Designer doesn’t work anymore. Hopefully, this is something that Microsoft fixes with a future update.

Depending on the size of your picture, sometimes you can only get 6 pictures on a slide before Designer stops working.

So that’s another reason why your Design Ideas might not be working: You’re either not using the right type of content, or you’re using too many objects.

On another picture note, if you are using lots of pictures in your presentation, you might need to compress them to reduce your PowerPoint file size. To learn how to compress images in PowerPoint, read our guide here .

Note: If you use SmartArt to crop your images, or fill a shape with a picture to make it transparent, the Design Ideas command will also not work. That is because PowerPoint considers your image a shape, rather than a picture.

To learn how to make an image transparent in PowerPoint, read our guide here .

5. Change Your PowerPoint Layout

Designer only generates design ideas for the 6 default slide layouts that come with PowerPoint. These 6 slide layouts include:

• Title Slide
• Title and Content
• Section Header
• Two Content
• Picture with Caption

If you are using a custom PowerPoint layout or have tweaked one of these default layouts on your Slide Master, Design Ideas will not work.To expand your knowledge and learn how to set up (and design) new slide layouts for your templates without Designer, read our guide here .

Note: If you add an extra placeholder to one of the default 6 PowerPoint layouts on the Slide Master, that is the same as creating your own custom slide layout.

The PowerPoint Design Ideas command does not work with custom slide layouts. Therefore, make sure you don’t add placeholders to your slide layouts if you want Designer to work for that type of slide.

If you think you are using the right type of content, you can always copy and paste it into a blank presentation to see if that fixes the issue.

To change your PowerPoint layout to one of the 6 layouts that work, simply:

• Be active on the slide layout you want to change
• Navigate to the Home tab
• Open the Layout dropdown
• Selectone of the 6 default PowerPoint layouts

If you select one of the 6 default PowerPoint layouts and Designer still doesn’t work for you, you’ll want to double-check your content. See Fix #3 and Fix #4 .

6. Set Design Ideas to Automatically Pop Up

If the Design Ideas command is working for your colleague but not for you, it’s probably related to this setting.That’s because you can choose to use the Design Ideas command in one of two ways:

• Have it automatically pop up whenever it has layout ideas for you
• Only open when you select it in your Ribbon

To have Design Ideas automatically pop up for you in PowerPoint, simply:

• Navigate to the File tab
• Select Options
• Navigate to the General tab
• In the PowerPoint Designer group, select Automatically show me design ideas

With this feature active, any time that Designer can give you layout ideas based on the content on your slide, it will pop open.

In addition, checking the Automatically show me design ideas gives you a second option to show you suggestions for the entire presentation.

With this option selected, when you start a brand-new presentation, Design Ideas will give you the usual layout ideas for your one slide.

However, when you choose one of those layouts, Designer will then apply an entire theme to your presentation. Furthermore, that same style will be applied to all your slide layout options.

The theme includes slide layouts in the Slide Master, a font combination and a color palette. To expand your knowledge and learn about how PowerPoint themes work, read our guide here .

Note: You don’t have to have Design Ideas set to automatically show up to useDesignerin PowerPoint.

At any time you can open the Designer Pane for a specific slide ide. To do that, simply:

• Navigate to the Design tab
• Click the Design Ideas command

Whether or not your see layout ideas for your slide will again depend on your content, your layout, and other factors as discussed in this article.

7. Check Your PowerPoint File Type

PowerPoint Design Ideas does not work with the following two PowerPoint file types:

• PowerPoint Macro-Enabled Presentation (.pptm)
• PowerPoint 2003 to 2007 Presentation (.ppt)

While you can save your presentations this way, the Design Ideas tab will not work in those types of presentations. It will simply appear grayed out.

To fix this, all you need to do is save your presentation in the regular .pptx file format.

To save your presentation in thePowerPoint Presentationfile format, simply:

• Hit Ctrl + Shift + S (or F12) on your keyboard
• Navigate to where you want to save your file
• Change the Save as Type to PowerPoint Presentation

If you were previously using a Macro-Enabled or 2003 to 2007 presentation, you should now find that the Design Ideas works again.

8. Look out for Multiple PowerPoint Collaborators

If you are collaborating on the same slide with one or more people, Designer will not display Design Ideas . This is true for you and any of the other collaborators.

As soon as you are the only person working on your slide again, the Design Ideas commandwill open itself back up.

9.Have Your Company Turn Design Ideas on

If you have the latest Microsoft 365 subscription at your office and you don’t see the Designer group in your Design tab, it’s likely that your company has turned the feature off.

The Office Intelligence Services is something that an IT administrator can turn off within your company. Therefore, if nothing else in this post works double-check with the IT department in your company.

Final Thoughts on Designer

So those are nine different ways to fix the PowerPointDesign Ideas command if yours is not working.

Assuming you have a Microsoft Office 365 subscription and your company has NOT turned this feature off, the main thing to remember is to check your content and your layouts.

If Designer is not working, it can almost always be traced back to one of these two things. However, as you can see above, there are several other issues you might face. That’s why it’s good to know how to troubleshoot Designer when it’s not working.

If you enjoyed this article, you can learn more about our PowerPoint training courses and other presentation resources by visiting us here .

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Why won't my design ideas work on PowerPoint? ›

If you can see the Design Ideas button in PowerPoint but it's grayed out, it means: You aren't connected to the internet, or . A single slide isn't selected . This can be the case when multiple slides are selected in the slide thumbnail pane in Normal view, or when the focus in the thumbnail pane is between two slides.

Get design ideas Ask for design ideas any time by choosing Design > Design Ideas on the ribbon . PowerPoint shows design ideas for your slide. Scroll through the suggestions in the Design Ideas pane on the right side of the window. Click to select the design you want, or else close the window.

Notice on the right side of the Home tab the button labeled Design Ideas. Click it, and PowerPoint opens the Design Ideas sidebar . You'll see a series of thumbnails appear on it. These are design ideas that PPT has generated based on the content you've placed on the slide.

PowerPoint Design Ideas MISSING - What Can I Do? - YouTube

If you can't find or select the PowerPoint designer, you will need to turn the “design ideas button” on. To do this you will need to select File > Options, and in General, select Automatically show me design ideas in the PowerPoint designer section and check the box.

The design ideas option is not available with the PowerPoint Office 2021 I just purchased.

• Open PowerPoint.
• In the task pane, under Open a presentation, click the presentation you want.
• Click the down-pointing arrow in the New Presentation pane and choose Slide Design - Design Templates.
• A list of templates appears.

PowerPoint 2016 - Using the Design Ideas Feature - YouTube

Design Ideas is a Office 365 only feature. Please read my answer again. I specifically stated, Office 2019 does not get, featured ideas which is specifically a feature of Office 365.

Enable Design Ideas on Mac You can use the menu bar on top of your screen or press the Command and comma keys (command +,) at the same time . In the Authoring and Proofing Tools section, click on General. Make sure you have both of these options turned on: Automatically show me design ideas.

What is PowerPoint design tab? ›

The next tab in the Ribbon is the Design tab. This contains the basic slide formatting tools . Page Setup. If you click on the Tables button, this menu will appear:.

When you want to fully customize the design of a presentation, use the slide master to make global design changes and create exactly the look and layouts you need.

Design templates contain color schemes, slide and title masters with custom formatting, and styled fonts designed for a particular "look." When you apply a design template to your presentation, the slide master and color scheme of the new template replace the slide master and color scheme of the original presentation.

Go to File > Options > General > PowerPoint Designer and check the Enable PowerPoint ...

The Design Idea feature in PowerPoint 2016 is quite amazing. Saving us alot of time in order for us to concentrate more on what we want in our Presentation. Below you can check out the video describing the Design Ideas feature in PowerPoint 2016.

Open PowerPoint, and select Home > New Slide. Select Slides from Outline. In the Insert Outline dialog box, find and select your Word outline and select Insert.

• A. Create layouts for slides, handouts and notes using the Master Layout dialog box in slide master view.
• For each new slide, select a layout from the Slide Layout task pane.
• Apply templates from the Slide Design task pane.
• None of above.

Design Ideas is a Office 365 only feature .

After opening PowerPoint, go to the File menu and select Options. Switch to the General tab, where you can see a section dedicated to PowerPoint Designer . Make sure you have both of these options turned on: Automatically show me design ideas.

How to enable design ideas in PowerPoint 2019, 365 , 2016

How do I enable PowerPoint 2016 Designer? ›

In the PowerPoint desktop app, click "File," and then click "Options." In the "PowerPoint Options" dialog box, make sure you're on the "General" tab and then find PowerPoint Designer. Click both checkboxes to enable the feature's ability to make suggestions. Click "OK" to close the "Options" window.

HOW TO ENABLE DESIGNER TAB POWERPOINT 2016 - YouTube

Design templates contain color schemes, slide and title masters with custom formatting, and styled fonts designed for a particular "look." When you apply a design template to your presentation, the slide master and color scheme of the new template replace the slide master and color scheme of the original presentation .

• Consider the purpose of your presentation. When creating a presentation outline, determine your goal. ...
• Create a structure. Next, build your presentation's structure. ...
• Use an attention grabber. ...
• Consider visual content. ...
• Include a call to action.

Title Slide is the default slide layout in a PowerPoint Presentation. It includes text placeholders for a title and a subtitle.

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November 13, 2023

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Powerpoint Design Ideas not working

I've been searching for answers as to why design ideas just randomly stopped working for PowerPoint and I cant seem to find an answer nor a solution to my issue.. What should I do?

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Replies (2) .

• Microsoft Agent |

Hi Felicia69,

Thank you for querying in this forum.

From your description, it seems that you are using Design ideas in PowerPoint, however, it randomly stopped working.

If my understanding is right, for the situation you encountered, we do understand the inconvenience caused and apologize for it.

And we have tested it with the latest version of PowerPoint in Windows and PowerPoint for Mac, and we can use it without any problem.

To better understand your situation and focus on your specific scenario and provide specific suggestions, could you provide the information below?

We noticed that you posted this thread under Other category, may I know if you are using PowerPoint for Mac or PowerPoint for Windows? If you are using PowerPoint for Windows, could you provide the product information and version of PowerPoint? You can go to PowerPoint > File > Account and provide the screenshot of Account page. If you are using PowerPoint for Mac, please go to PowerPoint > About PowerPoint and provide the screenshot of it.

You mentioned “design ideas just randomly stopped working”, does it mean that Design ideas cannot display randomly?

May I know if all PowerPoint files have the same problem?

Your understanding and patience will be highly appreciated. I hope that you are keeping safe and well!

Best Regards,

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Design ideas on powerpoint not working: Here are some quick fixes

• Author PitchWorx
• Published October 18, 2023

It’s no secret that the PowerPoint Designer is the perfect toolset to design compelling presentations, but if design ideas on powerpoint not working for you, this blog is for you to troubleshoot your way out of this issue.

The PowerPoint Designer or Design Ideas is a super convenient feature Microsoft PowerPoint rolled out a couple of years back; this command essentially generates slide layout ideas based on the content of the slide selected. The PowerPoint Design Ideas button can be found in the “Designer” section of the “Design” tab. Simply select a slide and click on the “Design Ideas” tab to choose from the multiple design options that pop up.

What To Do When PowerPoint Design Ideas Not Working 

Using incorrect version of microsoft.

If powerpoint design ideas not working for you, the first thing to consider is: Do you have access to the latest version of Microsoft Office? To incorporate visually appealing presentation templates, you must install Microsoft Office 365 or Microsoft PowerPoint 2019 version of the software.

Design idea feature not enabled

Another reason most people find powerpoint design ideas not working for them is if the Design Idea feature is turned off. You have to manually turn on the “Design Ideas” button to make it visible in the Design tab. You can also choose to activate the Design Ideas feature to automatically suggest layout design ideas based on the content of the current slide.

To get Design Ideas to automatically pop up for you in PowerPoint:

Navigate to the File tab —> Select Options —> Navigate to the General tab —> Under PowerPoint Designer group, Click On automatically show me design ideas —> Select OK

No internet access

One of the most likely reasons behind design ideas on powerpoint not working is lack of internet access. This feature of PowerPoint uses something called “Office Intelligent Services.” Hence, if you’re working offline or have a patchy internet connection, the Designer feature in your screen may appear grayed out. To fix this, simply, close the window of your powerpoint presentation, connect to the internet and reopen the file again.

To troubleshoot your internet connection in Windows 10:

Right-click the Internet Access icon in taskbar—> Click On Troubleshoot Problems—> Follow the prompts to fix your internet

Using too many mixed shapes

Even after fixing the issues highlighted above, if design ideas on powerpoint not working , a common reason can be the presence of multiple mixed shapes in your slide. The Designer command will not work if you add a shape, line, or text box; the reason being that feature is designed to analyse placeholders and shapes that exist in the Master Slide of the Presentation. Proceed to remove any mixed shapes from the slide and then reapply the Design feature. Alternatively, you can copy paste your content on a blank slide to see if Design Ideas is suggesting new slide designs.

The 10-6-1-1 Content rule of thumb

The Designer feature only works when there is a maximum of 10 images, 6 icons, 1 table, 1 SmartArt, and 1 chart. In other words, make sure that the number of elements in the slide does not exceed the number of elements allowed by the feature. And ensure that you do not mix and match any of these shapes on the slide.

Incorrect Layout Usage

In our experience another rule of thumb to keep in mind to avoid powerpoint design ideas not working is the usage of incorrect slide layout. The Designer can only suggest slide layouts as long as the chosen slide contains specific types of objects and elements. To fix this, ensure the selected slide does not contain any element other than the ones present in the master slide. Alternatively, to change your PowerPoint layout to one of the 6 layouts that work, simply: be active on the slide layout you want to change —> Navigate to Home tab—> Open the Layout dropdown—> Select one of the 6 default PowerPoint layouts

Multiple collaborators

The Design feature can also sometimes fail to suggest ideas if multiple users are editing the presentation at the same time. Since this particular feature works with one slide at a time, the Designer will not suggest ideas even if you are using the online version of Office 365’s PowerPoint which allows real-time collaborations. As soon as one person starts working on the slide again, the design feature will restart.

Follow one or all of the above mentioned steps to create visually appealing slides in a matter of seconds. Alternatively, you can also hire a presentation design agency to get your hands on professionally crafted powerpoint presentations or get in touch with PitchWorx, one of India’s leading presentation design agency .

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Powerpoint Design Ideas Not Working: 10 Quick Fixes [2023]

PowerPoint Designer (aka Design Ideas) is a great feature that uses AI to suggest slide designs based on the content.

It is greatly useful if you are having a hard time figuring out how to start designing the slide.

This post guides you through the different methods to fix the issue of PowerPoint Designer not working.

You will also learn to enable Design Ideas to suggest your design automatically.

So keep reading the post till the end.

How Do I Enable Design Ideas In Powerpoint?

1. check if you are connected to the internet, 2. ensure you are subscribed to microsoft 365, 3. use a built-in powerpoint theme, 4. ensure you are using the correct format on the slide, 5. select a single slide, 6. enable the connected experiences option, 7. check if the administrator disabled designer, 8. check the powerpoint file type, 9. reinstall microsoft office, 10. ensure only you are editing the slide, final thoughts.

Design ideas or the Designer in PowerPoint is a new feature that suggests designs for your slide based on the content present in the slide.

The feature is available for Microsoft 365 subscribers and uses AI to generate Design Ideas. If you have a Microsoft 365 subscription and use the compatible slide layout and objects, Design Ideas will be enabled.

Additionally, you can make PowerPoint automatically pop out Design Ideas for you. Setting it up this way to use Design Ideas is not mandatory.

Here are the steps to automatically pop out Design Ideas in PowerPoint:

• Go to the General menu.
• Scroll to the PowerPoint Designer section.
• Check the box next to Automatically show me Design Ideas .

Now the Designer pane on the right will suggest your Design Ideas based on the content of the slide.

Here’s a complete guide on how to  fix PowerPoint not recording audio .

How To Fix Powerpoint Design Ideas Not Working

If you are completely blank on how to start designing the slide, the Design Ideas feature is a great help. So when it does not work as expected, you can try a handful of methods to try to fix the issue.

Follow the methods below to fix PowerPoint Design Ideas not working:

You must connect to the internet to use PowerPoint Design Ideas. Design ideas or the Designer needs to connect to the internet to fetch Design Ideas based on your slide content.

Design Ideas will not work without an internet connection, and the button will be grayed out. So your first step is to ensure you are connected to the internet.

Design ideas is a new feature available on PowerPoint desktop for Microsoft 365 subscribers. So if you do not have an active Microsoft 365 subscription, you will not see the Design Ideas button on the PowerPoint desktop.

However, Design Ideas is free on the PowerPoint web . So if you can access PowerPoint web, then Design Ideas is free for usage.

Also, check out our separate post on how to  fix Powerpoint not saving error .

Design ideas do not work with third-party themes downloaded from the internet or other custom themes. You must use a theme available on the PowerPoint to generate Design Ideas.

Therefore, check if you are using any custom or third-party themes.

The Design Ideas does not work with all types of PowerPoint slide layouts, objects or shapes. It only works with some specific objects (and for a fixed number of them) in the slide.

The Designer is a new feature of Microsoft, and it cannot handle all types of objects and information. The Designer refuses to suggest your designs if they cannot generate a high-quality design.

Here is a list of the compatible slide layout and objects that work with Design Ideas:

• Slide layout: title, title+content
• Pictures: maximum 4 pictures (larger than 200×200 pixels)
• SmartArt graphic: 1

Mixing and using more than one object together also does not work. So you cannot use shapes and objects with pictures.

The Designer does not work on slides having text boxes or shapes drawn on them. Other objects like ink, videos, line, etc., also prevent Design Ideas from working.

Ensure your slide does not have these objects before clicking on the Design Ideas button.

The Design Ideas button is also grayed out if the focus is between the two slides in the thumbnail pane (as Design Ideas cannot figure out which slide to generate design suggestions for), if the focus is in the Notes pane or if the current view is the slide show view.

You must enable the Office Connected Experiences option to use Design Ideas in PowerPoint.

Here are the steps to enable Connected Experiences:

• Click on Account from the left.

Now re-launch the software and check if Design Ideas is available for you.

Check out our separate post on  Delete a Conversation in Microsoft Teams .

Microsoft 365 administrator can disable the PowerPoint Designer if you are under an organization. Then you will not be able to see the Design Ideas option even if you have a Microsoft 365 subscription.

Therefore, get in touch with the IT administrator of your organization to check if they disabled the feature.

You must save the presentation file in the PowerPoint Presentation (.pptx) format. Otherwise, the Design Ideas button will be grayed out.

Hence, if you have saved the presentation file in another format (.pptm or .ppt), then you need to change it to (.pptx) format.

Here are the steps to save the presentation file in (.pptx) format:

• Open the presentation file in PowerPoint.

• Choose the location where you want to save the file.
• Select “ PowerPoint Presentation ” as the Save as type .

Now the presentation will be saved with the appropriate (.pptx) file format.

If you have subscribed to the Microsoft 365 subscription after installing Microsoft Office, it is possible that the Designer option does not appear or remains inactive.

In such a case, you need to reinstall Microsoft Office to get the Design Ideas to feature and other Microsoft 365 perks.

Here are the steps to reinstall Microsoft Office:

• Go to Control Panel . If you cannot find it, use Windows Search.

• Scroll and find Microsoft Office .

• Follow the on-screen instructions to uninstall Microsoft Office.
• Go to ( www.office.com ) and sign in to your Microsoft 365 account.

• Run the installer and follow the on-screen instructions to install Microsoft Office on your computer.

Now launch Microsoft PowerPoint, and you should see the Design Ideas feature work.

If you are working on a shared presentation file, it is possible that someone else is also working on the slide that you want to generate Design Ideas.

But Design Ideas will not generate new designs unless only one user is editing the slide. So ensure no one else is editing the slide before clicking on the Design Ideas button.

Here’s a complete guide on how to  Merge Microsoft Accounts .

PowerPoint Design Ideas is a powerful AI feature suggesting designs for your slides based on the content. You need an active Microsoft 365 subscription to use the feature.

Since PowerPoint Design Ideas is a new feature, it does not support all types of slide layouts, objects and shapes. So the slide needs to be in the correct format and contain the compatible objects, and only then can you use Design Ideas.

Steven Arends

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• Main content

How to use PowerPoint Designer to create professionally designed slideshow presentations

• You can use PowerPoint Designer to create presentations that look professionally designed. 
• PowerPoint Designer uses artificial intelligence to suggest layouts, images, and designs to improve your deck.
• You need to have a Microsoft 365 subscription to use PowerPoint Designer in the desktop app.

PowerPoint Designer, also called PowerPoint Design Ideas, is a feature found in the latest version of Microsoft PowerPoint . It uses artificial intelligence to help you choose attractive and relevant layouts, images, and designs. It appears in a pane on the right side of the screen and constantly makes suggestions about the appearance of your slides.

Here's everything you need to know about using PowerPoint Designer on your Mac , PC , iPad , Android , or Windows tablet, or on the PowerPoint Online website. 

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No Design Ideas icon in powerpoint, already tried all fixes

My previous computer crashed, so I got a new laptop. I installed Office 2019 on it, no problem since I have a MS Office 365 subscription. In powerpoint, there is no option for Design Ideas.

I have an active subscription. I am connected to the internet. When I go to Privacy Settings, everything is checked (although no option specifically for "enable intelligent services". Or Office Insider, as it happens). When I go to General Options, no section entitled Powerpoint Designer where I can give permission for it to give me ideas automatically.

I have repaired and reset the app. I don't know what else to do.

PowerPoint Management PowerPoint: A family of Microsoft presentation graphics products that offer tools for creating presentations and adding graphic effects like multimedia objects and special effects with text. Management: The act or process of organizing, handling, directing or controlling something. 207 questions Sign in to follow

Hi @Estelle555

Welcome to Q&A forum ~

> I installed Office 2019 on it, no problem since I have a MS Office 365 subscription. In powerpoint, there is no option for Design Ideas.

Actually, Office 2019 does not include this feature, this is a subscriber-only, Microsoft 365 feature .

If the answer is helpful, please click "Accept Answer" and kindly upvote it. If you have extra questions about this answer, please click "Comment". Note: Please follow the steps in our documentation to enable e-mail notifications if you want to receive the related email notification for this thread.

As I said twice in my post, I AM a subscriber. And I just transferred to a new device, didn't change any account details. I was able to use this feature 3 days ago on my previous pc which crashed. @

Thanks for your kindly sharing and reply. In my previous reply, I want to confirm and collect more information for a better analysis to help you, so I need you to take a screenshot of Product Information. Sorry for any misunderstandings that my previous reply gave you.

As your image above shown, the Office on your machine becomes Office Professional Plus 2019, I need your help to run commands to check the activation information of Office, this action could check whether there is any Office 2019 registration information that may cause this issue.

• Search CMD, right-click the Command Prompt and run as administrator. Then copy and paste the command in it, click Enter at last: cscript.exe "%ProgramFiles%\Microsoft Office\Office16\ospp.vbs" /dstatus (If you are running 32-bit Office on a 64-bit operating system) cscript.exe "%ProgramFiles(x86)%\Microsoft Office\Office16\ospp.vbs" /dstatus
• Please also take a screenshot or copy the results of the command, I would check it and continue to update my reply. Thanks for your understanding.

Hi @Estelle555 ,

I will convert your reply above as comment as you have extra questions about one answer. You are welcome to post an answer if you have suggestions/solutions to share here. More information about Answer and Comment in Microsoft Q&A .

Thanks for your understanding!

Hi there. Here are the results:

Hi @Estelle555 , Thanks for your quick sharing.

Your second image shows that there 2 versions of Office activation information on your machine. One is Office Mondo which uses KMS technology that is not suitable for Microsoft 365 apps activation. Another one is Microsoft 365 subscription which is not activated now.

It's recommended to uninstall the key for Office Mondo, we need to avoid its interference with the activation of Microsoft 365 apps. If you need the some apps included in Office Mondo but do not include in your Microsoft 365 subscription, it's better install Office Mondo in a virtual machine. Please continue to enter following command in Command Prompt which is run as Administrator. cscript.exe "%ProgramFiles%\Microsoft Office\Office16\ospp.vbs" /unpkey:XQBR2

Then, please close the Command Prompt, reboot your machine, open one Microsoft app to have a check. If it needs to be activated, please log your licensed account for Microsoft 365 apps.

@Estelle555

All we need to do is to make sure that there is only the Microsoft 365 app, and also make sure it is activated. Then the Design Ideas icon could be back.