Jumpstart your presentations with the think-cell Library

Banner captioned think-cell Library, showing a preview of the think-cell Library search, offering slides, templates and images.

11 min read — by Stephen Bench-Capon

The first step after opening PowerPoint can sometimes be the most challenging. How often have you stared at an empty slide without knowing where to begin? With the library, now available as part of the think-cell Suite, you can skip the painful start and jump straight into building a world-class presentation.

The library isn’t just a collection of templates. It gives you access to a wealth of internal and external assets, replete with powerful search and filter options. As the library is a fully integrated part of think-cell, it combines with our other tools to further increase productivity.

In this article, we’ll explain how you and your teams can get the most out of the think-cell Library to improve and accelerate your PowerPoint workflows:


You can try out the library with a free 30-day trial. It’s easy to set up, and gives you unlimited access to the library, as well as all other features within the think-cell Suite.


Start quickly from the think-cell tab

To get started, you can access the library from its prominent position next to the Charts menu in the think-cell tab. For convenience, you’ll also find the library on the far left of the Insert tab. If that’s where you naturally go to add a new slide to your presentation, this gives you the easy option of using the library rather than starting with a default slide.

Screenshots side-by-side showing where to access the think-cell Library in PowerPoint, either from the think-cell tab or the Insert tab.

The library is your gateway to templates and slides that will jumpstart your presentation creation. To take full advantage of the resources at your disposal, you’ll want to structure them in a way that works for you. Let’s dive into the different ways you can do this.

Stop staring at blank slides

Whether you’re building a new presentation or adding to an existing one, the first thing you need is a slide. Nobody likes starting from scratch so you’ll often duplicate an old presentation or look around for slides you can copy.

There’s no reason to reinvent the wheel every time and there are several advantages to working from an existing presentation. However, trying to reuse old work can come with its pitfalls:

  • You can’t find the slides you need.
  • You haven’t got access to the right version of a slide.
  • You don’t know how a file has been edited, which can mean that slide layouts or fonts might be inconsistent.

One solution is to provide a master deck to ensure that all presentations are on-brand and use pre-approved slide layouts. However, as master decks are implemented top-down, it’s near-impossible to cover the needs of every employee with a single file.

The library solves this. It gives you valuable resources and the freedom to structure them how you need. By combining consistency and flexibility, the library helps you cut the time you spend staring at blank slides.

To see what the think-cell library is capable of, check out our features page or watch the video below for a quick demo:

Build structures that save time and strengthen collaboration

Teams can lose a lot of time—and create a lot of extra work for themselves—simply because files are spread across different folders, local machines, and even that group chat from four months ago. A common strategy is to use a team folder that everyone has access to, but maintaining order and structure can be difficult because people naturally work in different ways.

People brought up on hierarchical directories and subdirectories tend to feel comfortable when there is a certain logic to their file systems. If this is you, you can achieve this with the library by having three main folders for company, team, and personal presentations. You can then drill down into any of these and their subfolders, depending on what exactly you’re looking for.

Screenshot showing a user's folder structure in the think-cell Library, with directories for personal, team and company assets.

The team directory can be a shared repository that serves as a bottom-up pool of resources. If someone has created a new slide worth sharing, they can quickly put a copy in the team directory with the Save Slides tool. Because the library automatically recognizes new files, you can add slides for everyone to access, without causing any interruptions.

Sharing best practices strengthens collaboration and saves the whole team valuable hours the next time they need to create something similar. And because each individual slide is shown in the library as a hi-res vector image, you can easily browse by zooming in and out (CTRL + mouse wheel) to see what your colleagues have added. You can read the entire slide content—even the smallest footnotes—directly in the library view. This beats the old way of opening presentations based on names that sound vaguely relevant and hoping for the best.

Use a setup that fits your personal approach

If you prefer not to concern yourself with directory structures and just access everything via global search then firstly, you’re not alone, and secondly, the library has you sorted. Instead of choosing specific folders, you can simply add all your existing files.

The library search is smart enough to only show images and PowerPoint-compatible formats, so you don’t need to worry about Word or Excel files cluttering up your results. However, there will still be times when you’ll want to use filters to find exactly the right slide for your current presentation.

Filters are particularly valuable for identifying the specific version of a slide when there are several to choose from. Say you frequently work with different aspect ratios, such as one for print and one for live presentations. You don’t have to waste time going through presentations and double-checking sizes, or even rejigging layouts after realizing you’ve been working on the wrong one. With the aspect ratio filter, you know you’re adding the slide you need.

Search effectively to find what you need faster

The library’s search function doesn’t just look at file names. It also queries the text within presentations, so you can search based on content and the right slides will show up. This is great if you know what the topic is. Type in ‘market analysis’ or ‘budget forecast’ and you’ll see all the slides that include those terms.

But what if you don’t know the name of a presentation or what text is on the slide? One idea is to add keywords to your slides when saving them. If you think you might want to use a slide again as a template—like a waterfall chart showing profit and loss for your business unit—then it probably won’t have the word ‘waterfall’ in the title. In this case, you can easily add a text box containing waterfall chart outside the slide area, ensuring that this slide will appear in the library for this search term.

If it’s a specific chart type you’re looking for, rather than an old slide, you can also search the 250 slide templates that think-cell provides. These are easy to navigate, as they are both structured into folders by slide type and tagged with relevant keywords.

Understanding how the library’s search works will help you find what you need reliably and quickly. To learn more tips and tricks, you can watch this short tutorial on think-cell Library search:

Uphold consistency with central content

Giving individuals the flexibility to create their own folder structures doesn’t mean the end of corporate templates and a return to the Wild West of presentation creation. Everyone can add a central asset folder to their library, which your brand team can keep up-to-date with master files, visual identity guidelines and relevant logos.

Adding folders works without copies or uploads. Because the library picks up on any new or updated files and respects existing permissions, you can manage the central folder as normal. Anyone who can access it from their machine will always be able to find the latest brand assets they need for their presentations.

Elevate your resources to maintain brand compliance

Brand consistency across internal and external presentations is a key part of maintaining professionalism. While details vary, most companies will provide some kind of brand PowerPoint file that includes slide layouts, fonts and color palettes. Many invest heavily in building multiple themes for different purposes, as well as fully-fledged corporate presentation templates, style guides, and slide collections.

Whatever you already have on this front, the library elevates your resources, rather than replacing them. You can filter by PowerPoint theme and, if you are using our slide templates, these will automatically adapt to the theme of your current presentation. This means you can use our best-practice layouts and be confident that colors, fonts and other visual elements will conform to your brand’s corporate identity.

Don’t Google images you can’t even use

As well as slides and slide templates, the library also covers images. Any image files in specified directories will be included, so if your company has an icon collection, team photos or other visual assets, you can add the relevant folders and you’ll be able to use the library’s powerful search to find what you need for your presentation.

For new images or icons, a lot of people will turn to Google. But if you’ve ever tried using Google image search for your presentations, you’ve almost certainly encountered some or all of the following issues:

  • You find an image but it has a watermark or unwanted logo.
  • You have an image that looks transparent but isn’t.
  • You can download an image but you don’t have the rights to use it.
  • You have to pay for the image.

The library lets you search external image databases that don’t have these restrictions. You have access to Pexels, Unsplash and Freepik out of the box, and there are others you can integrate if your company has an account. This gives you images and icons that you can use freely without copyright issues, and that you can easily add to your presentations without leaving PowerPoint.

Library images, whether taken from your own folders or from online sources, are added as think-cell elements, so they maintain their proportions when cropped or resized. Nothing will be squished or stretched, and your presentation will stay clean, attractive and professional.

The think-cell Library: laying the foundations for a successful presentation

It has always been think-cell’s mission to save you time and help you create PowerPoint presentations more efficiently. The library is no different. It boosts efficiency by helping you start every presentation quickly and take full advantage of the resources available to your team. You can be confident you have the strongest possible foundation, letting you focus on crafting the content that will make your presentation a success.


To try the library yourself, you can download a free 30-day trial. It’s easy to set up and you’ll have access to the library’s full feature set, as well as the entire think-cell Suite.

think-cell Library FAQ

Here we answer some of the most frequently-asked questions about the think-cell Library.

The think-cell Library is a centralized interface to search for presentation content, including assets from your computer or network, slide templates, images, and icons. It helps users discover existing and brand-compliant content quickly and get started with slide content and visuals.

Yes, you can connect folders to the think-cell Library which contain your own PowerPoint and/or image files.

When you add content to the think-cell Library, your content remains in its original location. think-cell neither uploads user files to a cloud service nor copies them to another location.


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