You can quickly make a copy of any objects easily by holding down the CTRL key while you drag on the object. Holding CTRL and Shift at the same time can make duplicate object align with the original one as well.

To manually adjust size of text box instead of Auto-fit:

For PowerPoint 2007 user:

Right click on text box and select “Format Shape”,  go to “Text Box” tab and check “Do not Autofit”

For PowerPoint 2003 user:

Double click on text box and go to “Text Box” tab, uncheck “Resize AutoShape to fit text”

By pressing Alt key with Unicode you can quickly insert different kinds of special characters. For example:

You can also use windows character map tool to look for symbol you need:

1. From the Start menu, select Run (or press Windows Key+R then enter).

2. In the Run dialog box, type charmap.

3. Click OK.

After downloading PowerPoint templates, you should save the file as .pot format and keep them where PowerPoint can find them:

For Windows Vista and PowerPoint 2007 user:

C:\Users\[User Name]\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Templates

For Windows XP and PowerPoint 2003 user:

C:\Documents and Settings\[User Name]\Application Data\Microsoft\Templates