Open and Close Tabs in Backstage View in PowerPoint 2016 for Windows

When you click the File menu and access Backstage view in PowerPoint 2016, several options appear. On this page, we explore two of those options (see Figure 1):

Open
Close

Figure 1: Open and Close options

Open

Follow these steps to open an existing file on your computer in PowerPoint 2016:

Access the File menu, and click the Open option. This opens various options to open a PowerPoint file, as shown in Figure 2. You can also find a list of PowerPoint files previously opened within the Recent Presentations section, as shown highlighted in red within Figure 2.
Figure 2: Recent Presentations section in Backstage view
To open a presentation that is not listed within the Recent Presentations section, click the Browse button, as shown highlighted in red within Figure 3.
Figure 3:Browse button
This brings up the Open dialog box, as shown in Figure 4. Navigate to wherever your presentation files are saved, and you can open any of them. You'll find that PowerPoint can open files of various formats (types).
Figure 4: Open dialog box
Select the presentation or file you want to open, and then click the Open button. Remember that the Open button has a down-arrow next to it. Clicking this down-arrow provides more Open options (see Figure 5). Choose any of them; an explanation of these options follows.
Figure 5: Open options
Here's a brief explanation of these options:

Open, the default option is the same as clicking the Open button.
Open Read-Only lets you open a read-only copy of the presentation. This is great if you don't want to make some changes and overwrite the original presentation.
Open as Copy lets you open a copy of the presentation, almost like creating a new presentation while leaving the original unaltered.
Open in Browser works only with certain file formats, such as MHT. See file formats PowerPoint can open.
Open in Protected View lets you open a presentation with restrictions to protect damage to your computer. You can open potentially dangerous files, such as those downloaded from an unknown source on the Internet in the Protected View.
Open and Repair allows PowerPoint to attempt repair of a file that is possibly corrupt.

Additionally, you can open files from other Places. If you sign into Microsoft Office using your Microsoft Account, then a Place for your OneDrive account will already be added to the Open tab of Backstage view.
You can also add more Places, including other OneDrive accounts and Office 365 SharePoint locations by clicking the Add a Place option, highlighted in blue within Figure 3, shown earlier on this page.

Back

Close

The Close option, highlighted in blue within Figure 6 is used to close the active presentation. PowerPoint prompts you to save any unsaved changes.

Figure 6: The Close option

Back

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Feature List 01 (Layout with Tabs)

The Feature List Layout comprises three sample PowerPoint presentations: one each to create a visual list for 4 features, 5 features, and 6 features. These work great when you have too much information to fit within one slide. This solution lets you use multiple slides, but the visual result is still that of one single slide!

Buy and Download Feature List 01 (Layout with Tabs) for $4.99+ (671 kb)

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