Two new utilities are now available for Microsoft’s Office Suite, expanding the capabilities that users were previously able to enjoy with them, namely pptPlex and Search Commands.

Just as its name suggests, the former is aimed at bringing enhancements to PowerPoint, mainly through enabling users zoom in and out of slides so that they could easily jump from one of them to another.

This plug-in is an Office Labs experiment through which one could easily jump from a slide to another in a presentation, even if these slides are not sequential. pptPlex is based on Plex technology.

Available for download as version 1.1.3.4, pptPlex is not in active development at the moment, and is not expected to receive support any further.

“pptPlex is a research prototype developed as an exploration of an alternative method of presenting Microsoft Office PowerPoint slides. This plug-in allows you to arrange slides on a canvas then zoom between the slides during the presentation,” Microsoft explains.

“You can move around the canvas and show groups of slides, individual slides, or even zoom in to show a particular section of a slide. You can use pptPlex can help you organize and present information in a non-linear fashion.”

As for Search Commands, it is an Office Labs experiment aimed at providing users with the option to find various commands they need in Microsoft Office 2007 and 2010 Word, Excel and PowerPoint.

All that users will have to do when this add-in is installed is to search with their own words for the needed command, and then click on it.

“The add-in that helps you find commands, options, wizards and galleries in Word, Excel and PowerPoint. It also includes Guided Help, which acts as a tour guide for specific tasks. Give it a try, we hope you enjoy it,” Microsoft notes.

Development and support for this utility have been halted as well. The latest version of Search Commands made available for download is 1.5.0.6.

Download pptPlex from Softpedia via this link.

Search Commands is available for download here.