Time-Saving Tips for PowerPoint 2010
As with any Microsoft Office product, and indeed any Microsoft Windows product, you should use a combination of the keyboard and the mouse to make full use of the graphical user interface (GUI). Here are some shortcuts that will save you time when working with PowerPoint 2010.
Selecting objects
You can click, hold and drag a selection box in PowerPoint 2010 to select several elements at once. The highlighted area will be marked by a light blue box with dark blue outline. Only objects that you have covered completely with the highlighted box will be selected. E.g. below only the two text elements will be selected, not the picture.
Just make sure that your cursor doesn’t have a crosshair style symbol with arrows moving away at the compass points. This will mean your cursor is in ‘move’ mode and you’ll move your object/objects instead of selecting them.
If you’ve accidentally highlighted an item by mistake amongst several items you can hold down SHIFT and highlight the erroneous item to remove it from the selection. Again only items you select in their entirety will be removed from the selection. Alternatively you can move your cursor over the erroneous item until you see the crosshair style ‘move’ icon and then hold down SHIFT and click the left mouse button to remove the object from the selection.
Quick duplication
If you hold down CTRL when your cursor is in the ‘move’ style on an object you can create a duplicate by moving the mouse. You will see the cursor change to a small + symbol to let you know that a duplicate will be created.
You can also use this tip for entire slides if you’re in viewer mode.
Grouping items
Sometimes you’ll want to make changes to several elements at once. When multiple elements are selected, simply press CTRL + G to group them together into one element. You will notice that the surrounding selection box changes to include all elements as one. You can undo this grouping by pressing CTRL + SHIFT + G.
Getting used to gridlines and drawing guides
Gridlines can be a godsend to tired eyes if you have to spend hours arranging elements on a PowerPoint slide. As elements can snap to gridlines, you will find it much easier to move items into alignment quickly and accurately.
Turn gridlines on using the Gridlines checkbox located within the View tab (and don’t forget to try using the access keys to navigate to the View tab).
You can then use the Gridlines options to select how you want elements to behave with the gridlines. You get to this menu by right-clicking anywhere in some blank space on your slide.
You will probably want to have the ‘Snap objects to grid’ checkbox ticked as it speeds up the alignment process. However, if you need to temporarily bypass the object snapping to the gridlines you can hold down ALT before you move it. This is great if you need to make very small, incremental changes of position.
Drawing guides can be just as useful. You can turn them on by ticking the checkbox ‘Display drawing guides on screen’ shown in the menu above. Furthermore, you can duplicate and move them just like any other PowerPoint element. A good tip is to grab them from outside your visible slide area otherwise you may find yourself moving pictures or texts around the slide by mistake.
Simon Calder
Chris “Simon” Calder was working as a Project Manager in IT for one of Los Angeles’ most prestigious cultural institutions, LACMA.He taught himself to use Microsoft Project from a giant textbook and hated every moment of it. Online learning was in its infancy then, but he spotted an opportunity and made an online MS Project course - the rest, as they say, is history!
