The 48 best PowerPoint keyboard shortcuts for making great presentations quickly and easily

• There are many PowerPoint keyboard shortcuts that you can use to work faster and more efficiently on the platform.
• You can use a long list of keyboard shortcuts for common tasks, along with PowerPoint's Access Key shortcuts.

Microsoft PowerPoint is a complex program with a vast number of features, so it's worth your time to learn all its secrets. Some of these secrets include keyboard shortcuts, which can seriously speed up your workflow.

Not only can keyboard shortcuts save you a lot of time, but knowing important shortcuts when delivering a presentation can help everything run more smoothly.

Here's a guide to the most useful keyboard shortcuts in the Windows 10 version of Microsoft PowerPoint.

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How to use PowerPoint's Access Key shortcuts

The ribbon at the top of PowerPoint gives you access to virtually all the program's countless features, and you don't need to use your mouse to use it – every ribbon command has its own keyboard shortcut.

To use the ribbon entirely using your keyboard, do this:

1. Press and release Alt. You should see an overlay called Access Keys appear.

2. Press the Access Key indicated to switch to the Ribbon tab you want to use.

3. Press the Access Key for the command you want to use. Some Access Keys are more than one key press – just press the keys in sequence. If there is yet another layer of choices, continue to press the appropriate keys. For example, if you wanted to rehearse the timing of a presentation, you would press Alt and release it, then press S, and then press T.

Every PowerPoint keyboard shortcut you need to know

You can use the ribbon shortcuts to perform virtually any task in PowerPoint, but you might often find the more traditional keyboard shortcuts more convenient to use.

Here are the most important keyboard shortcuts in PowerPoint.

Delivering a presentation

Start a presentation from the beginning: Press F5 to start playing a presentation from the first slide.

Start a presentation from the current slide: Press Shift + F5 to start playing a presentation from whatever slide is currently on screen.

Start a presentation in Presenter View: Press Alt + F5 to start a presentation in Presenter View, which lets you see your notes on the main computer screen while the audience sees only the slides on a separate screen.

Go to the next slide or start the next animation: To advance to the next slide, you have several options. You can press any of these keys: N, Enter, Spacebar, Right Arrow, or Down Arrow.

Go back to the previous slide or animation: To go back to the previous slide, you also have several options. You can press any of these keys: P, Page Up, Left Arrow, or Up Arrow.

Go to the first slide: Press Home to restart the presentation at the first slide.

Go to the last slide: Press End to go directly to the final slide.

Stop or start an automatic presentation: Press S to toggle an automatic, timed presentation between start and stop.

Go to a specific slide: To go to a specific slide within the presentation, enter the slide number followed by Enter, such as 15 + Enter to go to slide number 15.

Open the All Slides dialog box: To see a list of all the slides in your presentation, press Ctrl + S.

End a presentation: Press Esc to exit a presentation.

Toggle between presentation and a blank screen: To temporarily display a blank screen in the middle of a presentation, press B to see a black screen or W to see a white screen.

Start the laser pointer: Press Ctrl + L to change the pointer into a virtual laser dot.

Draw on the presentation with a pen: Press Ctrl + P to change the pointer into a pen that you can use to annotate the screen.

Hide the pointer and navigation controls: Press Ctrl + H to hide the pointer (or laser dot or pen) and the navigation controls.

Erase annotations: Press E to erase any annotations you've made with the pen.

Creating a presentation

Open a presentation: Press Ctrl + O to open an existing PowerPoint presentation.

Create a new presentation: Press Ctrl + N to create a new presentation.

Add a new slide: Press Ctrl + M to add a new slide to a presentation in progress.

Save the presentation: Press Ctrl + S to immediately save a presentation with its current file name.

Save a presentation with a new filename: Press F12 to open the Save As dialog box and save your presentation.

Close a presentation: Press Ctrl + W to close the current presentation. If it hasn't been saved, PowerPoint will give you the opportunity to save it first.

Editing slides

Copy a slide, text, or other object: Press Ctrl + C to copy the selected item, which can be text, a graphic, or even an entire slide.

Cut a slide, text, or other object: Press Ctrl + X to cut the selected item, which can be text, a graphic, or even an entire slide.

Paste a slide, text, or other object: Press Ctrl + V to paste the content of the clipboard at the cursor location.

Delete a selected slide, text, or other object: Select the item you want to remove and then press Delete.

Insert a hyperlink: Select text or object in a slide and then press Ctrl + K to open the Insert Hyperlink dialog box to turn it into a link. If you press Ctrl + K without selecting anything first, then you will need to specify the link text as well.

Go to the next or previous slide: Press Page Down to advance to the next slide; press Page Up to go back to the previous slide.

Change the order of a slide: Press Ctrl + Up Arrow to move the selected slide one position earlier in the presentation; press Ctrl + Down Arrow to move it one later in the presentation.

Move a slide to the start of the presentation: Press Ctrl + Shift + Up Arrow to move the selected slide to the start of the presentation.

Move a slide to the end of the presentation: Press Ctrl + Shift + Down Arrow to move the selected slide to the end of the presentation.

Editing text

Bold: Press Ctrl + B to bold the selected text.

Italics: Press Ctrl + I to italics the selected text.

Underline: Press Ctrl + U to underline the selected text.

Make the font bigger: Press Ctrl + Shift + Right Arrow to increase the size of the selected text a little at a time.

Make the font smaller: Press Ctrl + Shift + Left Arrow to decrease the size of the selected text a little at a time.

Center text: Press Ctrl + E to center the selected paragraph.

Left align text: Press Ctrl + L to left-align the selected paragraph.

Right align text: Press Ctrl + R to right-align the selected paragraph.

Justify text: Press Ctrl + J to justify the selected paragraph. This causes the text to auto-fit to the left and right margins of the slide.

Superscript: Press Ctrl and the Plus sign to turn the selected text into superscript.

Subscript: Press Ctrl + = to turn the selected text into subscript.

Check spelling: Press F7 to run PowerPoint's built-in spell checker.

General tasks

Search within a presentation: Press Ctrl + F to open the Find dialog box, where you can search for specific text within the presentation. You can also search and replace text using this dialog box.

Undo: Press Ctrl + Z to undo your last action.

Redo: Press Ctrl + Y to redo the last action, if possible. If it's not possible for PowerPoint to redo the action, nothing will happen.

Help: Press F1 to open the Help and Support pane.

Cancel: Press Esc to abort any task you don't want to complete. In some cases, you may also need to click "Cancel."

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