Oct 14 2008
Essential PowerPoint Keyboard Shortcuts
PowerPoint ninjas need to be agile and resourceful. Microsoft provides many different shortcuts to streamline repetitive tasks within PowerPoint 2007. Rather than overwhelm you with all of the shortcut key options, I’d like to focus on a lethal subset of key strokes that can significantly impact your PowerPoint productivity. If you don’t feel you need shortcuts, remember that slow, inefficient ninjas are dead ninjas.
| Shortcuts for Building Presentations | Notes |
| Ctrl + A: Select all objects | |
| Ctrl + B: Bold | |
| Ctrl + C: Copy | |
| Ctrl + D: Duplicate | Faster than copy + paste |
| Ctrl + G: Group selected objects | Changed to more logical shortcut key in PPT 2007 |
| Ctrl + Shift + G: Ungroup selected objects | Changed to more logical shortcut key in PPT 2007 |
| Ctrl + M: Add new slide | |
| Ctrl + V: Paste | |
| Ctrl + Alt + V: Paste Special | New in PPT 2007 and a great addition |
| Ctrl + W: Close presentation | Very handy in PPT 2007 due to the removal of the “Close window” option at the top-right |
| Ctrl + Y: Repeats last action (F4 does the same thing) | |
| Ctrl + Z: Undo last change | |
| Ctrl + Mouse wheel: Zoom in and out | Great trick and not frequently listed in other shortcut key lists |
| Ctrl + ] : Increases font size | |
| Ctrl + [ : Decreases font size | |
| Ctrl + drag: Create a copy of an object | |
| Shift + Left click: Select multiple objects | |
| F5: View presentation from starting slide | |
| Shift + F5: View presentation from current slide | A recent find and a good one |
| Tab: Toggle through objects | |
Related posts:
October 15th, 2008 at 9:12 pm
Shift + F5: View presentation from current slide
October 16th, 2008 at 6:28 pm
Thanks Ben. That is actually one that I wanted but didn’t know about. It will immediately be added to my PowerPoint shortcuts arsenal.
August 7th, 2009 at 11:53 am
hold down alt when dragging objects for fine scale placement
August 7th, 2009 at 1:57 pm
Another related tip is to hold down the Shift key when you’re dragging objects and it will let you drag them in a straight line left/right or up/down.
October 25th, 2009 at 4:44 pm
For some one key shortcut, I always use F4 rather than CTRL+Y to repeat last action
October 26th, 2009 at 10:59 am
Great addition. Thanks Clement!
January 13th, 2010 at 11:56 am
My paste special shortcut (Alt E S)is not working. It goes to Slide Design instead. I have to press Alt + E+ down arrow + S, which is really annoying. Any suggestions?
January 14th, 2010 at 8:37 am
Mary,
Try Ctrl + Alt + V instead for “Paste Special” in PPT 2007.
January 31st, 2010 at 10:33 pm
Ctrl and D to duplicate an image, object or slide, depending on what is selected.
February 7th, 2010 at 9:26 am
Thanks Angela. I’ve never used that one before but I can see it could be very handy. I’ll add it to the list.