Rearranging Slides

---

Rearranging slides is important when it comes to organizing the overall presentation flow. While it is vital that you get the right content in every slide, it is equally important that you are able to present them in a format that makes it easier for the audience to understand the content too; most times this will require rearranging the slides.

You can rearrange slides from two views in PowerPoint - Normal View and Slide Sorter View. Given below are the steps to rearrange slides from different views.

Normal View

Step 1 − Select the slide to be moved.

Step 2 − Left click on the slide and drag it to the position in the sequence where you want to place it. PowerPoint will indicate the insert position with a line in-between existing slides.

Step 3 − When you get to the right position release the left click button to insert the slide. Alternately you can also cut the selected slide and paste it back in the sequence as shown below.

 

Slide Sorter View

Let us now understand how the Slide Sorter View works.

Step 1 − Select the slide to be moved.

Step 2 − Left click on the slide and drag it to the position in the sequence where you want to place it. PowerPoint will indicate the insert position with a line in-between existing slides.

Step 3 − When you get to the right position release the left click button to insert the slide. Alternately you can also cut the selected slide and paste it back in the sequence as shown below.

 

Deleting Existing Slide

---

There are times while building a slide deck, you may need to delete some slides. This can be done easily from PowerPoint. You can delete the slides from the Normal view as well as the Slide Sorter view. In each view, you can delete the slides in two ways.

Deleting from Normal View

Step 1 − Go to the Normal view.

Step 2 − Right-click on the slide to be deleted and select the Delete Slideoption.

Alternately, you can select the slide and press the Delete button on your key board.

Deleting from Slide Sorter View

Let us now understand how to deleted slides from the Slide Sorter View.

Step 1 − Go to the Slide Sorter view.

Step 2 − Right-click on the slide to be deleted and select the Delete Slideoption.

Alternately, you can select the slide and press the Delete button on your key board.

Adding Text in Boxes

---

PowerPoint allows users to add text to the slide in a well-defined manner to ensure the content is well distributed and easy to read. The procedure to add the text in a PowerPoint slide is always the same - just click in the text box and start typing. The text will follow the default formatting set for the text box, although this formatting can be changed later as required. What changes is the different kinds of content boxes that support text in a PowerPoint slide.

Given below are some of the most common content blocks you will see in PowerPoint.

Title Box

This is typically found on slides with the title layout and in all the slides that have a title box in them. This box is indicated by "Click to add title".

Subtitle Box

This is found only in slides with the Title layout. This is indicated by "Click to add subtitle"

Content Box

This is found in most of the slides that have a placeholder for adding content. This is indicated by "Click to add text". As you can see, this box allows you to add text as well as non-text content. To add text to such a box, click anywhere on the box, except on one of the content icons in the center and start typing.

Text Only Box

This is not a default content box available in PowerPoint, but you can create it using Slide Master, if required. This is also indicated by "Click to add text". The only difference between the Text Only Box and the Content Box is that the former only supports text in the content area.

Add New Slides

---

In this chapter, we will understand how to add new slides in an existing presentation. Here are the steps that allow you to insert a new slide in the deck −

Step 1 − Right-click in the Navigation Pane under any existing slide and click on the New Slide option.

Step 2 − The new slide is inserted. You can now change the layout of this slide to suit your design requirements.

Step 3 − To change the slide layout, right-click on the newly inserted slide and go to the Layout option where you can choose from the existing layout styles available to you.

You can follow the same steps to insert a new slide in between existing slides or at the end on the slide list.

When we insert a new slide, it inherits the layout of its previous slide with one exception. If you are inserting a new slide after the first slide (Title slide), the subsequent slide will have the Title and Content layout.

You will also notice that if you right-click in the first step without selecting any slide the menu options you get are different, although you can insert a new slide from this menu too.

Create Presentation

---

PowerPoint offers a host of tools that will aid you in creating a presentation. These tools are organized logically into various ribbons in PowerPoint. The table below describes the various commands you can access from the different menus.

Menu Category	Ribbon Commands
Home	Clipboard functions, manipulating slides, fonts, paragraph settings, drawing objects and editing functions.
Insert	Insert tables, pictures, images, shapes, charts, special texts, multimedia and symbols.
Design	Slide setup, slide orientation, presentation themes and background.
Transitions	Commands related to slide transitions.
Animations	Commands related to animation within the individual slides.
Slide Show	Commands related to slideshow set up and previews.
Review	Proofing content, language selection, comments and comparing presentations.
View	Commands related to presentation views, Master slides, color settings and window arrangements.

Besides these depending on the objects selected in the slide, there are other menu tabs that get enabled.

Backstage View

---

In Office 2010, Microsoft replaced the traditional file menu with the new Backstage view. This view not only offers all the menu items under the file menu, but additional details which makes management of your files a lot easier.

Accessing Backstage View

You can access the Backstage view simply by clicking on the File tab. You can exit this view by clicking on any tab (including the File tab again). You can also press the 'Esc' button on the keyboard.

Organization of Backstage View

The backstage view has three sections or panes.

• First Pane − This is the commands pane which consists of all the commands you would typically find in the file menu of older versions. You also have the Options menu which lets you edit the options on the program like customizing the ribbon.

Various commands under the first pane are described in the table below −

S.No	Command & Description
1	Save This allows you to save a new file or an existing file in standard format. If you are working on a previously saved file this will save the new changes in the same file format. If you are working on a new file, this command would be similar to the Save As command.
2	Save As Allows you to specify the file name and the file type before saving the file.
3	Open Allows you to open new PowerPoint files.
4	Close Allows you to close an existing file.
5	Info Displays the information about the current file.
6	Recent Lists series of recently viewed or edited PowerPoint files.
7	New Allows you to create a new file using blank or pre-defined templates.
8	Print Allows you to select the printer settings and print the presentation.
9	Save & Send Allows you to share your presentation with larger audience via emails, web, cloud services, etc.
10	Help Provides access to PowerPoint Help.
11	Options Allows you to set various options related to PowerPoint program.
12	Exit Closes the presentation and exits the program.

• Second Pane − This is the subcommands pane. This will list all the commands related to the main command you choose in the first pane. For example, if you select Print in the first pane, you get to choose the printer and adjust the print settings in the second pane.

• Third Pane − This is the preview or file information page. Depending on the command and the subcommand you select, this pane will either display the properties of the file or give you a preview of the file.

Explore Windows

---

The following screenshot shows the various areas in a standard PowerPoint file. It is important to familiarize yourself with these areas as it makes learning and using PowerPoint easier.

File Tab

This tab opens the Backstage view which basically allows you to manage the file and settings in PowerPoint. You can save presentations, open existing ones and create new presentations based on blank or predefined templates. The other file related operations can also be executed from this view.

Ribbon

The ribbon contains three components −

• Tabs − They appear across the top of the Ribbon and contain groups of related commands. Home, Insert, Page Layout are examples of ribbon tabs.

• Groups − They organize related commands; each group name appears below the group on the Ribbon. For example, a group of commands related to fonts or a group of commands related to alignment, etc.

• Commands − Commands appear within each group as mentioned above.

Title Bar

This is the top section of the window. It shows the name of the file followed by the name of the program which in this case is Microsoft PowerPoint.

Slide Area

This is the area where the actual slide is created and edited. You can add, edit and delete text, images, shapes and multimedia in this section.

Help

The Help Icon can be used to get PowerPoint related help anytime you need. Clicking on the "?" opens the PowerPoint Help window where you have a list of common topics to browse from. You can also search for specific topics from the search bar at the top.

Zoom Options

The zoom control lets you zoom in for a closer look at your text. The zoom control consists of a slider that you can slide left or right to zoom in or out, you can click on the - and + buttons to increase or decrease the zoom factor. The maximum zoom supported by PowerPoint is 400% and the 100% is indicated by the mark in the middle.

Slide Views

The group of four buttons located to the left of the Zoom control, near the bottom of the screen, lets you switch between PowerPoint views.

• Normal Layout view − This displays page in normal view with the slide on the right and a list of thumbnails to the left. This view allows you to edit individual slides and also rearrange them.

• Slide Sorter view − This displays all the slides as a matrix. This view only allows you to rearrange the slides but not edit the contents of each slide.

• Reading View − This view is like a slideshow with access to the Windows task bar in case you need to switch windows. However, like the slideshow you cannot edit anything in this view.

Notes Section

This sections allows you to add notes for the presentation. These notes will not be displayed on the screen during the presentation; these are just quick reference for the presenter.

Quick Access Toolbar

The Quick Access Toolbar is located just under the ribbon. This toolbar offers a convenient place to group the most commonly used commands in PowerPoint. You can customize this toolbar to suit your needs.

Slide Tab

This section is available only in the Normal view. It displays all the slides in sequence. You can add, delete and reorder slides from this section.