Working in Different Views

PowerPoint provides several different ways to edit, deliver, and print a presentation. These views are listed under the View tab on the Ribbon:

There are also shortcut buttons available for some of these views on the far right side of the status bar at the bottom of the screen:

NOTE for MacOS Users: The Reading view does not exist in PowerPoint 2016 for Mac.

The following table lists all of the available views and provides information about each:

Working in Outline View

The Outline view displays the text of a presentation in the slide thumbnail list without graphics, tables, or design templates. This allows us to focus on the content. Working in Outline view can also help us create a more accessible presentation. Within this view we can see the structure of the presentation, including subtitles and lists. This structure is usually how a screen reader will read through the presentation.

Let's take a moment to look at Outline view.

Step 1. To move to the View tab, on the Ribbon,

Click the View tab

Step 2. To switch to Outline view, in the Presentation Views group,

Click

We see the text from our slides listed in outline form. We could edit any of the text in this pane using the tools from the Ribbon or the Mini toolbar. Today we will not make any changes.

Step 3. To move back to Normal view, in the Presentation Views group,

Click

Working in Slide Sorter View

In Slide Sorter view, we can see all slides in our presentation in thumbnail form. This makes it very easy to delete and reorder the slides. In addition, we can preview transition and animation effects.

We will view the entire presentation in Slide Sorter view now.

Step 1. To view all the slides in the presentation at one time, in the Presentation Views group,

Click

We are now in Slide Sorter view.

Deleting a Slide

Since our class periods are only 40 minutes long, we must condense our presentation as much as possible. Therefore, we will delete slide 9.

Step 1. To select the slide to delete,

Click slide 9

Step 2. To delete the slide, press:

Delete key

The slide disappears, and you now see a vertical line that shows where the deleted slide was previously located.

NOTE: Slides may also be deleted from the slide thumbnail list when you are in Normal view. Just select the slide(s) and then press Delete key.

Reordering Slides

Next we will reorder slides in Slide Sorter view by moving the "Working with Tabs" slide to the end of the presentation.

Step 1. To position the cursor,

Point to the slide 8 thumbnail

Step 2. To move the slide,

Press & Drag the thumbnail to the end of the slide list

When you release the mouse button the slide is repositioned.

NOTE: You can also reorder slides in the slide thumbnail list by dragging the slide icon(s) to a new location.

Slide Sorter view is nice for arranging and previewing slides, it is not the view we need to use to add content or elements. To do this, we need to return to Normal view.

Step 3. To return to Normal view,

Double-Click slide 2

We are returned to slide 2 in Normal view.