Working with Custom Groups in Ribbon Tabs in PowerPoint 2016 for Mac

All Ribbon tabs in PowerPoint may have any number of buttons. These buttons represent commands. You'll see that these buttons are not scattered all over the tab area. In fact, they are all neatly arranged together in Groups. Each of these Groups has a name that describes what the commands within that Group do.

For example, the Slide Show tab in the Ribbon has a group named Set Up, which contains all commands that help you set up your slide show, such as changing show settings, hiding slides, rehearsing, and recording slide shows, etc.

It is only sensible to imagine that you should use this Group concept while creating your own custom Ribbon tabs. In fact, PowerPoint will not let you add any command anywhere else other than within a custom Group.

Note that a Group is a part of a Ribbon tab. We have already shown you how to add a new Ribbon tab. You can see the Insert tab, as shown highlighted in blue within Figure 1, below, and its default Groups, as shown highlighted in red within Figure 1.

Figure 1: Groups within the Insert tab

These Groups can be customized. Also, when a new Ribbon tab is added, it contains a blank new group. This is because all your commands within a tab need to reside in a group. You can opt to rename the new Ribbon tab and the custom Group as well.

Now, follow these steps to learn how to work with custom groups within default and custom Ribbon tabs in PowerPoint 2016 for Mac:

1. You first need to bring up the Ribbon & Toolbar dialog box. There are two ways to access this dialog box. The easier way is to click the down-arrow on the Quick Access Toolbar and to choose the More Commands option from the resultant menu, as shown highlighted in red within Figure 2, below.
2. 
   Figure 2: More Commands option
3. Alternatively, choose the PowerPoint | Preferences menu option, as shown in Figure 3, below.
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   Figure 3: PowerPoint | Preferences menu option
5. Doing so opens the PowerPoint Preferences dialog box, as shown in Figure 4, below. Within this dialog box, select the Ribbon & Toolbar option, as shown highlighted in red within Figure 4.
6. 
   Figure 4: Ribbon & Toolbar option
2. Either way, you end up with the PowerPoint Options dialog box, as shown in Figure 5, below. Make sure that the Ribbon tab is selected, as shown in Figure 5. Note that we added a new Ribbon tab, as shown highlighted in red within Figure 5 and this tab contains a new Group named Ind-Group-1.
3. 
   Figure 5: PowerPoint Options dialog box showing Custom group within new Ribbon tab
4. Now, we will add a new group to the Draw tab. Note that this is one of the default tabs of the Ribbon, as shown in Figure 6, below. You can add groups to both default and custom Ribbon tabs in the same way.
5. 
   Figure 6: Draw tab of the Ribbon
3. To add a new group, select the tab to which you want to add a new group. For our example, we selected the Draw tab, as shown highlighted in red within Figure 7, below, and clicked the Settings button, as shown highlighted in blue within Figure 7. From the resultant menu, select the New group option, as shown in Figure 7.
4. 
   Figure 7: Add a new group within a default tab
4. Doing so adds a new group within the Draw tab, as shown in Figure 8, below.
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   Figure 8: New group added
5. Select the newly added custom Group, as shown in Figure 9, below. Then, click the Settings button to bring up a contextual menu, as shown in Figure 9. Within this menu, select the Rename option, as shown highlighted in red within Figure 9.
6. 
   Figure 9: Settings menu
6. In the resultant window, provide a name to the newly added group, as shown in Figure 10, below, and click the Save button.
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   Figure 10: Rename the Custom Group
7. Doing so changes the name of the new group, as shown in Figure 11, below.
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   Figure 11: Custom Group with a new name
8. You can also reorder the newly added group within the same tab. To do so, select the group and drag it to the new position in the same tab. In Figure 12, below, you can see that we are dragging the new group to place it above all existing groups.
9. 
   Figure 12: Reorder the Custom group
9. This action changes the position of the custom group, as shown in Figure 13, below.
10. 
    Figure 13: New group with changed position
10. Add some commands to the new group as explained in our Adding Commands to Custom Groups in PowerPoint 2016 for Mac tutorial. We added two commands to the new Shapes group that we added to the Draw default tab. You can see the result of adding and reordering the new group within the Draw tab, as shown highlighted in red within Figure 14, below. Compare Figure 6 and Figure 14 to see the difference.
11. 
    Figure 14: New group showing in the Draw tab of the Ribbon

Why Cannot I See My Group?

Can't see the new group added within the new tab, as shown in Figure 9, above? You can see the new group only after adding commands to new groups.
11. To remove a custom group, access the Ribbon & Toolbar dialog box as explained in the beginning of this tutorial, select the custom group to be deleted, and click the Minus (-) sign, as shown in highlighted in red within Figure 15, below. This action removes the custom group along with all commands added to it.
12. 
    Figure 15: Delete the custom group