How do PPT keyboard shortcuts come in handy?

It’s a scenario you may have bad dreams about… You are midway through your presentation when the clicker or the mouse stop working leaving you stranded on one slide. Everyone’s waiting and you want to keep their attention… Luckily, you are smart! You already know these PPT keyboard shortcuts in PowerPoint Slide Show mode which you use to keep things moving seamlessly.

Go!

To kick things off, you can access Slide Show mode by clicking F5 (or Fn F5 on some keyboards) to start the Slide Show from slide 1.
Click Shift F5 to launch from the slide you are on.

Next!

There are several ways to move on to the next slide: press Enter, the N key (for next), the down arrow or the spacebar. All will take your presentation to the next slide. (Similarly if you want to move backwards, press the P key (for previous), or the up arrow.)

Take me there.

Whilst in slideshow mode you can navigate to a particular slide in the deck and by typing the slide number and pressing Enter. This takes you directly to that slide.

Where was I?

If you want to go to a particular slide but don’t know the slide number, clicking Ctrl S within a Slide Show will bring up a list of slides in the presentation. If your titles are set up correctly using title placeholders in the masters, then you’ll see the slide headings appear in that list. You can then use the keyboard arrows to reach your chosen slide. And simply press return when it is highlighted in the list and you’ll be taken straight there.

Give me a sec.

Should you want to pause the presentation briefly for any reason, this is a great tip. Perfect for those times when you need to ensure your audience is listening to you and not distracted by what’s onscreen. You can temporarily blank out your slide: type ‘B’ for a black out screen, or ‘W’ for a white out screen. Press any key to return to the presentation.

You’re just showing off now.

If you want to draw the audience’s attention to something specific on your slide but, as we know, your mouse has abandoned you. Try Ctrl P – this will turn your cursor into a pen on the screen. You can then use your finger on the mouse pad to move the pen to where you want it on the screen, and then click and hold on the mouse pad to draw on the slide with your finger. To get out of pen mode, Ctrl P again and you can carry on through your presentation.

PPT keyboard shortcuts are useful when building and when presenting slides. Remember: Don’t have nightmares, you don’t need a mouse when you have the nous!

View some interactive PowerPoint options on our vimeo page.
And our own PowerPoint portfolio of course.