Gradient Fills for Slide Backgrounds
Gradient fills are typically blended fills between two or more colors that graduate and merge from one color to another -- they are sometimes also called fountain fills or blended fills in other programs. Other than applying gradients as shape fill, you can also apply Gradient fills to your Slide Background. However, make sure that the two or more colors that you use for your Gradient work well with text and other foreground elements on all your slides.

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Merge Shape Commands
For many users, the Merge Shape commands may be assumed as a new feature in PowerPoint 2013. However these were available in PowerPoint 2010 through the Combine Shapes commands. Yes, these were not available by default from any of the Ribbon tabs in PowerPoint 2010, but you could customize the QAT to get these commands. In PowerPoint 2013, Microsoft gave the new Merge Shapes name to these commands and also gave them a place right within the Ribbon. And now, these commands are no longer limited to shapes as they also work with text and pictures.

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Shape Union
Shape Union is part of the Merge Shapes commands in PowerPoint 2013 -- this lets you unite two or more shapes with each other. The benefit of the Shape Union option is that you can quickly create complex shapes that may have not been easy to accomplish within PowerPoint. Selecting multiple shapes and applying this command results in a single, unified shape.

Use Excel Content as Tables
It's easy to insert a new table on your PowerPoint slide and then enter content within this table as required. However, as it happens in most offices or other work places, the table content may already be populated in a bunch of contiguous Excel cells. Whether you have a ready-made table, or just a group of in contiguous cells in Excel, it is very easy to use it in PowerPoint as a table.

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Use Word Table Content
We all use tables in our slides to present numeric data in an organized way so that the audience can easily comprehend or compare values, trends, or even messages. Inserting a new table on your PowerPoint slide and then entering content within this table is an easy task. You can also import an Excel table into PowerPoint just by copying and pasting. However, what if you need to take a Word table into PowerPoint? Unfortunately, that's not an easy task to accomplish -- but there are still two ways you can go with.

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Add and Remove Table Rows/Columns
Once you insert a table in PowerPoint, you will certainly want to fill it with some content. However that does not mean your table is done and may never require any more changes to be made. Like anything else in life, tables need to grow and accommodate more content -- or they may even need to shed some of it. Adding or removing content within a table usually entails adding and removing table rows and columns, as required. You can add or remove these from the edges of the table, or even somewhere right in middle of the existing rows and columns.