KB0090: Some regular PowerPoint buttons show "thinkcell" in their tooltips

Problem

When working in PowerPoint, some regular PowerPoint buttons show "thinkcell" in their tooltips.

Explanation

thinkcell needs to hook some PowerPoint functions in order to seamlessly integrate into the regular PowerPoint behavior. For instance, thinkcell needs to update its internal information when you click the Align button on a selection of thinkcell objects. Typically, when you click a button that is hooked by thinkcell, thinkcell does its own maintenance work and then forwards the call to PowerPoint which executes the same function as it normally would.

The tooltip including the hint to the add-in that hooked the button is generated by some versions of Microsoft Office. There is no way for an add-in to change or suppress this hint. By way of the tooltip, PowerPoint informs the user that a certain function is being redirected to some add-in, which can be regarded as a security feature helping to avoid accidental execution of malicious software.

Further Problems?

If you experience problems with a certain PowerPoint function and you suspect that thinkcell may be the culprit because it has hooked that function, you can quickly find out by following the instructions in KB0091.