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Rulers in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac are typically located on the top and left parts of the active slide, and by default they might not be visible at all. However, it is a great idea to make them visible because not only do they provide you with a visual cue about where you are placing slide objects, they also let you use other PowerPoint features like the grid and guides more usable. In this tutorial, you will learn how to show / hide these rulers in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac:

1. Launch PowerPoint 2011. Typically, the program opens with a new presentation with a blank slide as shown in Figure 1 below. As you can see, there are no rulers visible by default.
   
   
   Figure 1: Default PowerPoint 2011 interface with no Rulers visible
   
   
2. To make the rulers visible, select the View | Ruler menu option, as shown in Figure 2.
   
   
   Figure 2: Ruler option selected within View menu
   
   
3. This will turn on the visibility of both horizontal and vertical rulers in the slide area, as shown in Figure 3 below. If you want to hide them again, select the View | Ruler menu option to toogle their visibility (refer to Figure 2). If you see a check mark in front of the Ruler option, this indicates that the ruler is active -- just click it again to remove the check mark, and deactivate.
   
   
   Figure 3: Rulers made visible
   
   
4. If you see only the horizontal ruler, and no vertical ruler (see Figure 4 below), you need to make sure that the vertical ruler's visibility has not been turned off.
   
   
   Figure 4: PowerPoint interface with only horizontal Ruler visible
   
   
5. To check these preferences, select the PowerPoint | Preferences menu option, as shown in Figure 5.
   
   
   Figure 5: Preferences option selected within the PowerPoint menu
   
   
6. This opens the PowerPoint Preferences window, shown in Figure 6 -- make sure that View tab is selected. Locate the Vertical ruler that you can see highlighted in red in Figure 6 (as you can see, it is currently unchecked because of which you can't see vertical ruler).
   
   
   Figure 6: Vertical ruler check box within PowerPoint Preferences window
   
   
7. Just select the check box (see Figure 7), and click OK to get back to the slide.
   
   
   Figure 7: Vertical ruler check box selected
   
   Now you will be able to see the vertical ruler as shown in Figure 3 above.

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