Info Tab of Backstage View in PowerPoint 2013 for Windows

Information is power. In PowerPoint, all information that you need about your currently active presentation is available in a single, easily accessible location. This location is the Info pane of Backstage view. Using the options available within this pane, you can access information about permissions set for the active presentation, prepare your content for sharing, and possibly recover older versions of unsaved files. In addition, the Info pane also provides access to many more properties that we will discuss on this page.

Follow these steps to explore options within the Info tab of Backstage view in PowerPoint 2013 for Windows:

1. To access the Info pane, click the File tab of the Ribbon, as shown highlighted in blue within Figure 1, below.
2. 
   Figure 1: File tab of the Ribbon

3. File menu or Backstage view?

   When you click the File tab, you essentially summon PowerPoint 2013 for Windows Backstage view.

2. Doing so brings up Info pane option within the Backstage view, as shown in Figure 2, below.
3. 
   Figure 2: Info Pane of the Backstage View
3. All the options within the Info pane of Backstage view are explained below, as marked in Figure 2, above:

   A. Protect Presentation

   Provides several options to protect your presentation. You can mark your presentation as "final", apply a password, make your presentation read-only, apply a digital signature, or use Information Rights Management (IRM) to control presentation access.

   The links below provide detailed information about these features:

   1. Mark as Final
   2. Remove Mark as Final
   3. Encrypt with Password
   4. Remove and Change Passwords
   5. Get Started with a Digital Signature
   6. Creating Digital Certificates Outside PowerPoint
   7. Acquire or Create a Digital Signature
   8. Enable Trusted Certificates
   9. Removing Certificates in Internet Explorer
   10. Remove Digital Signatures

   Media Options

   If you have some media files (audio or video) contained within your presentation, then you will see additional options within the Info Pane called Optimize Media Compatibility and Compress Media. The Compress Media option lets you optimize any media files so that they take less space. More about this option is explained in our Video Compression Options in PowerPoint 2013 for Windows tutorial.

   B. Inspect Presentation

   If you are planning to share your presentation with others, you should inspect your presentation for confidential information, validate its accessibility, and check for compatibility with previous versions. You can also do a spell check, and examine the presentation for hidden data and personal information stored in comments, notes, or document properties. All these tasks can be performed within this area.

   The links below provide detailed information:

   1. Inspect Document
   2. Check Accessibility
   3. Check Compatibility

   C. Versions

   In this section, you can recover your unsaved presentations. This can be so helpful if you inadvertently closed your file without saving it, or if your computer or application crashed.

   Learn more in our Recovering Presentations Manually page.

   D. Properties

   Here, you can create and modify many of the presentation’s properties. The links below provide detailed information:

   1. Properties of a Presentation
   2. Advanced Presentation Properties

   We will explore all these options individually in subsequent tutorials of this series.

4. Save your presentation often.