Working with the Ribbon in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac

The Ribbon made its debut in Office 2011 versions of PowerPoint, and other programs such as Word and Excel, as such, it is a new interface component that replaces the Elements Gallery in Office 2008 for Mac. Although the Ribbon in its default state is sophisticated and easy to use, you can make it work for you even better by learning some cool options, and by also customizing it to some extent, as explained in the following steps:

Minimize/Maximize the Ribbon

To minimize/maximize the Ribbon, choose any of the following options:

1. When the Ribbon is in maximized status, you will see an upward pointing arrow on the extreme right edge of the Ribbon, as shown highlighted in red within Figure 1.
   
   
   Figure 1: Maximized Ribbon
2. Click on this up-arrow to minimize the Ribbon. When your Ribbon is in minimized status, you can see the same arrow pointing downwards, as shown highlighted in red within Figure 2, below. Notice that you only see the Ribbon tab headers now, and the commands within the Ribbon tabs are now hidden. Clicking this arrow at this point will show the actual tabs, and also maximize the Ribbon.
   
   
   Figure 2: Minimized Ribbon
   
   
   Note: Alternatively, follow any of the following three methods to minimize/maximize the Ribbon:
   
   i. Click on any active tab header of the Ribbon once to minimize the entire Ribbon. Click again on a tab header to maximize it.
   
   ii. Use the shortcut key combination Command+Option+R to minimize and/or maximize the Ribbon. Want more keyboard shortcuts for PowerPoint 2011? Explore our Keyboard Shortcuts: PowerPoint 2011 for Mac page.
   
   iii. Select or deselect the View | Ribbon menu option.

Reordering Ribbon tabs

To change the order of the tabs within the Ribbon, follow these steps:

1. Click the Ribbon dialog launcher (highlighted in red within Figure 3) that you can see on the extreme right edge of the Ribbon. From the resultant menu, select the Customize Ribbon Tab Order option, as shown in Figure 3.
   
   
   Figure 3: Select the Customize Ribbon Tab Order option
2. This will change the appearance of the Ribbon tabs as shown in Figure 4. Note that all Ribbon tabs except Home tab have a Close button (the x sign within the grey circle) and three vertical lines on them. Clicking the Close button hides the tab, and the three vertical lines indicate that you can alter the position of a tab. Do remember that you can neither hide nor reorder the Home tab.
   
   
   Figure 4: Ribbon tabs ready to be reordered
3. Click on the tab that you want to change the position of. We chose the Charts tab, as shown highlighted in red within Figure 5.
   
   
   Figure 5: Select the tab to be reordered
4. Drag and drop the selected tab in to the new position where you want it placed. In Figure 6 you can see that we have relocated the Charts tab (highlighted in red) to place it next to the Home tab.
   
   
   Figure 6: Selected tab reordered
   
   
   Note: If you want to hide any Ribbon tab, just click the Close button on it (the x sign within the grey circle on all tabs except the Home tab). If you want to learn how to make an individual hidden tab visible, refer to our Ribbon Preferences tutorial. To reset the Ribbon to restore all default tabs, follow the process explained in the next step.
5. When you are done with customizing the Ribbon, click the Done button (highlighted in red within Figure 7) to apply the changes. On the other hand, if you want to cancel all the changes made and get back the default Ribbon status, click on the Reset button (highlighted in blue within Figure 7).
   
   
   Figure 7: Reset and Done buttons on the Ribbon