PowerPoint Design Ideas Not Working? Try These 9 Fixes. (2024)

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 theDesign Ideasfeature can be extremely useful, it is frustrating when you get the following error message:

Designeris the same as theDesign Ideascommand. It can also be called the Designer Pane. I will be referring to these interchangeably throughout this article.

The Design Ideas command (orDesigner) 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 theDesign Ideaspane, 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.

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.

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.

TheDesign Ideascommand 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:

1. Right-click ​the Internet Access icon in your taskbar
2. Select Troubleshoot Problems
3. Follow the prompts to fix your internet

So, if yourDesigneris 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.

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.

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, theDesign 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.

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

1. Title Slide
2. Title and Content
3. Section Header
4. Two Content
5. Title Only
6. Picture with Caption

If you are using a custom PowerPoint layout or have tweaked one of these default layouts on your Slide Master,Design Ideaswill 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 PowerPointDesign Ideascommand does not work with custom slide layouts. Therefore, make sure you don’t add placeholders to your slide layouts if you wantDesignerto 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:

1. Be active on the slide layout you want to change
2. Navigate to the Home tab
3. Open the Layout dropdown
4. Selectone of the 6 default PowerPoint layouts

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

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 theDesign Ideascommand in one of two ways:

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

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

1. Navigate to the File tab
2. Select Options
3. Navigate to the General tab
4. In the PowerPoint Designer group, select Automatically show me design ideas
5. ClickOK

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

In addition, checking theAutomatically 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 theDesigner Panefor a specific slide ide. To do that, simply:

1. Navigate to the Design tab
2. Click theDesign Ideascommand

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.

PowerPointDesign Ideasdoes not work with the following two PowerPoint file types:

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

While you can save your presentations this way, theDesign Ideastab 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:

1. Hit Ctrl + Shift + S (or F12) on your keyboard
2. Navigate to where you want to save your file
3. Change the Save as Type to PowerPoint Presentation
4. ClickSave

If you were previously using a Macro-Enabled or 2003 to 2007 presentation, you should now find that theDesign Ideasworks again.

TheOffice Intelligence Servicesis 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.

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.

IfDesigner 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.