PowerPoint keyboard shortcuts
Keyboard shortcuts are always handy if you use an application regularly. If you’ve ever watched an experienced designer operating Photoshop - you’ll know what I mean - it’s a blur of fingers. If you are a serious Business PowerPoint user, you will appreciate how useful it is to know the right shortcuts.
With PowerPoint 2007, you can learn the shorcuts as you go - just by pressing the “ALT” key. Try it - your screen will look like this:
The power of the ALT key
As an example, if you wanted to insert a text box: Click “ALT” and you will see N under the title ‘Insert’ in the menu bar. Press “N” and you will be taken to the ribbon options for Insert and there you will see again all the keyboard shortcuts for different features. “X” is used to insert a text box.
Some cool shortcuts
Whilst I could give you a huge long list of keyboard shortcuts for you to memorise for PowerPoint 2007 and earlier versions, I thought I’d just give you some ‘cool’ ones… well I think they are anyway.
When editing…
It’s annoying when things ’snap to grid’ when you don’t want them to. Next time that happens when you are dragging or resizing things - press “ALT” at the same time - and you will find you have then got complete control over what you are moving.
To resize an object but retain its proportions, hold down “SHIFT” at the same time as dragging.
Watch a presentation from the slide you are on in slide show mode when editing CTRL F5
Whilst actually presenting…
Go to Slide <number> <number> ENTER
Black/Unblack Screen B or .
White/Unwhite Screen W or ,
Show/Hide Pointer A or =
Erase Screen Annotations E
