Microsoft Office 2016 applications work well with cloud platforms such as OneDrive. Roaming capabilities are enabled when you log into your Microsoft account within Office applications such as PowerPoint. Once logged in, all your settings, including your recent files or templates, will be synced across all your devices, including laptops, tablets, and even smartphones.
Additionally, you can link your Microsoft accounts to various services (third-party sites) to get pictures, videos, or documents immediately. Services available now include Flickr (access pictures), YouTube (online video clips), Facebook (social integration), etc. These services can be easily added to any Office application and are available in all Office programs you work within.
In this tutorial we'll learn how to add these services from within PowerPoint 2016 for Windows. But the process works the same way in Word, Excel, and other Office programs:
- Choose the File menu to bring up Backstage view, as shown in Figure 1, below. Now, select the Account option, as shown highlighted in blue within Figure 1.
Figure 1: PowerPoint Backstage view- Either way, you bring up the Accounts window within the Backstage view, as shown in Figure 2, below.
Figure 2: Account window within the Backstage view- Within the Account window, you'll find the Connected Services section, as shown highlighted in red within Figure 2, above. Here, you can see the list of services added for PowerPoint. For now, there is only one service added for this copy of PowerPoint, which is OneDrive, as shown in Figure 2. To add another service, click the Add a service button to bring up a drop-down menu, as shown highlighted in blue within Figure 2.
- Within the Add a service drop-down menu, you'll find three options:
Images & Videos
- Select this option to bring up a sub-menu, as shown in Figure 3, below. Here, you'll get options to use Flickr to add pictures from your photostream. You can also access YouTube to add videos within PowerPoint.
Figure 3: Images & Videos sub-menuStorage
- This option lets you store your documents and files in the cloud so that you can access them from anywhere. When this option is selected it brings up a sub-menu, as shown in Figure 4, below. Within in the sub-menu, you'll find two online storage sites: Office 365 SharePoint and OneDrive.
Figure 4: Storage sub-menuSharing
- Provides you with three social networking sites Facebook, Linkedln, and Twitter, as shown in Figure 5, below.
Figure 5: Sharing sub-menu
More Services
- The availability of connected services may differ. Microsoft may add more services in the future or change their availability based on your location.
- Choose any of the services you want to add. For this tutorial, we have chosen to add Flickr as a service. Once you select the Flickr option, PowerPoint brings up a window, as shown in Figure 6, below. Click the Connect button, as shown highlighted in red within Figure 6.
Figure 6: Flickr connect window- Doing so opens another window, as shown in Figure 7, below. Here, you need to enter your Yahoo ID and Password in two consecutive windows, as shown in Figure 7. Once done, click the Sign in button, as shown highlighted in red within Figure 7.
Figure 7: Sign in to your Yahoo ID- This action will bring up a message window showing that you have been connected to Flickr. Within this window, click the Done button, as shown highlighted in red within Figure 8, below.
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Figure 8: Flickr service connected
- This action will add Flickr to the Connected Services list, as shown highlighted in red within Figure 9, below.
Figure 9: Flickr service added within Connected Services list- You can similarly add other services to connect with your Microsoft account. These services will then integrate within your Office 2016 programs, including PowerPoint.
