Basic Outline Pane Options PowerPoint 2011 for Mac
Author: Geetesh Bajaj
Product/Version: Microsoft PowerPoint 2011
OS: Mac OS X
Date Created: June 27th 2011
Last Updated: June 27th 2011
Excerpt/Capsule: Learn about the basic Outline Pane options in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac.
Introducing the Slides/Outline Pane
Outline Pane Options
Introducing the Slides/Outline Pane
The Slides/Outline
pane in PowerPoint 2011 has already been introduced in a previous tutorial -- this page builds on it, and explores the
various outline options available in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac. This pane looks and works almost the same
as it does in previous versions of PowerPoint for Mac. As shown in Figure 1, the Slides/Outline pane is normally
placed on the left side of the interface. In Figure 1, the
Slides pane is visible -- but to get to the Outline pane, all you need
to do is click the Outline tab.
Figure 1: Slide/Outline pane
Tip: Is the Slides/Outline pane not visible even in Normal view? Choose View | Normal menu option.
Office 2011 for Mac All-in-One For Dummies
If you liked this tutorial, do look at this book, authored by Geetesh Bajaj and James Gordon . This book is the single most comprehensive content for Microsoft's latest Office suite offering for Mac users. Check the book on Amazon.com...
Outline Pane Options
The Outline tab typically displays the title and text content of the slides, as shown in Figure 2 (all content that's part of your text placeholders).
Figure 2: Outline tab selected
Tip: You can differentiate a text placeholder from other text boxes very easily:
- Delete all the text in a text placeholder, and you'll see boilerplate text like "Click here to add text" or similar.
- Delete all the text in a text box that is not a placeholder, and you'll see no boilerplate text at all.
Remember: The text delete tip that I mention above should be followed with an immediate Undo command so that all your existing text is back in the placeholder or the text box! Also, do look at our Text Placeholders vs. Text Boxes in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac tutorial.
Getting back to the outline, you can use the Outline pane to:
- Cut, copy, and paste text
- Insert, duplicate, and delete slides
- Collapse and expand slides
- Activate the Outlining Toolbar
Whatever you might need to do, the first thing you have to do is to select
the text for which you want to effect a change. Thereafter, with the
text still selected, right click anywhere in the Outline
pane to bring up the options in the context menu, as shown in Figure
3.
Figure 3: Context menu in the Outline pane
These options are explained below:
Cut / Copy / Paste: Any selected text in the outline can be cut or copied, and thereafter pasted in another segment of the outline -- in the same presentation, or even in another open presentation. The shortcut keys (also shown in Figure 3) are Command+X, Command+C, and Command+V, and they work for Cut, Copy, and Paste respectively.
New Slide: Inserts a new slide in the Outline pane at the point where you right-click to activate the context menu shown in Figure 3. If you select slide 2, and choose this option, PowerPoint will insert a new slide after slide 2 in the slide 3 position.
Duplicate Slide: This option is used to insert a duplicate of the slide. If you select slide 2, and choose this option, PowerPoint will insert a duplicate of slide 2 at the slide 3 position.
Delete Slide: Use this option to delete the selected slide. PowerPoint doesn't warn you that the selected slide will be deleted -- so use this option with caution.
Collapse / Collapse All: This option hides the bulleted text -- so that only the titles of individual
slides are visible -- choosing this option opens a submenu (see Figure 4) with two options: Collapse hides the bulleted text relevant
to the selected slide (or active slide) whereas Collapse
All hides the bulleted
text for the outline of the entire presentation (see Figure 5).
Figure 4: Collapse All
Figure 5: Collapsed view of all the slides in the Outline
pane
Expand / Expand All: This is the reverse option for Collapse / Collapse All explained in the preceding
section -- it displays all the hidden bulleted text. Clicking this option reveals a submenu (see Figure 6) with two options: Expand reveals the
bulleted text relevant to the selected slide (or active slide) whereas Expand All reveals the bulleted text for the outline of the entire presentation
(see Figure 7).
Figure 6: Expand All
Figure 7: Expanded view of all the slides in the Outline
pane
Hyperlink: This option allows you to add a hyperlink to any selected text in outline tab. Personally, I prefer doing this sort of stuff on the slide itself rather than the outline -- but that's just my opinion.
The rest of the options are accessed through the Outline Toolbar. These are Increase Indent, Decrease Indent, Move Up, and Move Down, and are covered in a subsequent tutorial.