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Microsoft's Office 2013 preview may be getting all the press these days, but many of us are still getting used to the Office 2010 applications, including PowerPoint 2010. Depending on which version of Office you're upgrading from, your PowerPoint 2010 experience will be very different.
If you've been using PowerPoint 2007, you'll find a few small interface tweaks and a number of useful new features in PowerPoint 2010, especially for dealing with multimedia content. If you're upgrading from PowerPoint 2003 or earlier, you'll find an overhauled interface that radically changes how you interact with common features and functions.
Either way, we've got you covered. This cheat sheet shows newcomers how to get around; it also explores features that are brand new in PowerPoint 2010. We've noted which sections of the story former PowerPoint 2007 users can skip over.
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5. Use keyboard shortcuts
If you've been using keyboard shortcuts in PowerPoint 2007, PowerPoint 2003 or earlier versions, take heart -- most of the same ones work in PowerPoint 2010. Any shortcuts that use the Ctrl key, such as Ctrl-C for copying to the clipboard and Ctrl-V for pasting, still work.
Most of the old Alt-key shortcuts work as well, although not every one of them. See the table at the bottom of the page for the most useful shortcuts in PowerPoint.
You can also use a clever set of keyboard shortcuts for working with the Ribbon. (These are unchanged from PowerPoint 2007.) Press the Alt key, and then a tiny letter or number icon will appear on the menu for each tab -- for example, the letter H for the Home tab. Now press that letter on your keyboard, and you'll display that tab or menu item. When the tab appears, there will be letters and numbers for most options on the tab as well.
Once you've started to learn these shortcuts, you'll naturally begin using key combinations. So instead of pressing Alt then H to display the home tab, you can press Alt-H together.
For more nifty keyboard shortcuts, see the table below. And even more shortcuts for creating and giving presentations in PowerPoint 2010 are listed on Microsoft's Office 2010 site.
Next: PowerPoint 2010 quick reference charts
More useful shortcuts for PowerPoint 2010
| Key combination |
Task |
| When creating presentations |
|
| Ctrl-End |
Move to the end of a text box. |
| Ctrl-Home |
Move to the beginning of a text box. |
| Ctrl-Enter |
Move to the next title or body text placeholder. (If this is the last placeholder on a slide, it will insert a new slide with the same slide layout as the original slide.) |
| Ctrl-F6 |
Switch to the next PowerPoint window (when more than one PowerPoint window is open). |
| Ctrl-Shift-F6 |
Switch to the previous PowerPoint window (when more than one PowerPoint window is open). |
| Ctrl-Shift-F |
Change the font. |
| Ctrl-Shift-P |
Change the font size. |
| Ctrl-Shift-> |
Increase the font size. |
| Ctrl-Shift-< |
Decrease the font size. |
| F6 |
Move clockwise among panes in Normal view. |
| Shift-F6 |
Move counterclockwise among the panes in Normal view. |
| Ctrl-Shift-Tab |
Toggle between the Slides and Outline tabs in the Slides/Outline pane in Normal view. |
| Esc |
Select an object (when the text inside the object is selected). |
| Tab or Shift-Tab until the object you want is selected |
Select another object on the slide (when an object is already selected). |
| Enter |
Select text within an object (with an object already elected). |
| Ctrl-A (on the Slides tab) |
Select all objects on the slide. |
| Ctrl-A (in Slide Sorter view) |
Select all slides. |
| Ctrl-A (on the Outline tab) |
Select all text on all slides. |
| Shift-click Normal button in View toolbar |
Switch from Normal view to Master view |
| Ctrl-F5 |
Broadcast the presentation remotely with the PowerPoint Web application. |
| Ctrl-N |
Create a new presentation. |
| Ctrl-O or Ctrl-F12 |
Open a presentation. |
| Ctrl-S or F12 |
Save |
| Ctrl-P |
Print |
| Ctrl-F |
Find |
| Ctrl-H |
Replace |
| Ctrl-Q or Alt-F4 |
Exit/Quit PowerPoint |
| When giving presentations |
|
| F5 |
Start a presentation (from the beginning). |
| Esc or - (hyphen) |
End a presentation. |
| S |
Stop or restart an automatic presentation. |
| Number-Enter |
Go to a specific slide number. |
| N, Enter, Page Down, right arrow, down arrow or spacebar |
Run the next animation or go to the next slide. |
| P, Page Up, left arrow, up arrow or Backspace |
Run the previous animation or return to the previous slide. |
| Press and hold the left and right mouse buttons for 2 seconds |
Return to the first slide. |
| A or = |
Show or hide the arrow pointer. |
| Ctrl-P |
Change the pointer to a pen. (Press and hold the mouse to draw on the presentation.) |
| Ctrl-E |
Change the pointer to an eraser. (Click an on-screen annotation to erase it). |
| Ctrl-A |
Change the pointer to an arrow. |
| Ctrl-M |
Show/hide on-screen annotations. |
| E |
Erase all on-screen annotations. |
| B or . (period) |
Display a blank black slide or return to the presentation from a blank black slide. |
| W or , (comma) |
Display a blank white slide or return to the presentation from a blank white slide. |
| Ctrl-S |
View the All Slides dialog box. |
| Alt-Q |
Stop media playback. |
| Alt-P |
Toggle between play and pause when playing media. |
| Alt-up arrow |
Increase the sound volume. |
| Alt-down arrow |
Decrease the sound volume. |
| Alt-U |
Mute the sound. |
Source: Microsoft
Preston Gralla is a contributing editor for Computerworld.com and the author of more than 35 books, including How the Internet Works (Que, 2006).
See more by Preston Gralla on Computerworld.com.
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