Views in PowerPoint 2016 for Windows

Your slides are the same, yet various views in PowerPoint allow you to see those same slides with a different viewpoint. This approach makes sense because viewing slides in Slide Show view gives an entirely different perspective than editing them in Normal view. Further, it's easier to reorder and work with multiple slides in Slide Sorter view, and make changes to individual slides in Normal view.

All put together, PowerPoint 2016 for Windows provides you with ten different views. Eight of these views can be accessed from the View tab of the Ribbon, as shown in Figure 1, below. You then click on any of the buttons in the Presentation Views and Master Views groups. All views are explained in more detail in separate, linked pages.

Figure 1: View tab of the Ribbon

PowerPoint 2016 views, accessible from the View tab of the Ribbon are:

1. Normal view
2. Outline view
3. Slide Sorter view
3. Notes Page view
4. Reading view
5. Slide Master view
6. Handout Master view
7. Notes Master view

We also explore two other views, which are accessible from other tabs of the Ribbon, or elsewhere within the PowerPoint 2016 interface:

9. Slide Show view
10. Presenter view

Other than the View tab of the Ribbon, you can also access most of these views by clicking the four small buttons towards the right side of the Status Bar, as shown in Figure 2, below.

Figure 2: View buttons

These four buttons (explained from left to right) allow quick access to the same views. In addition to just clicking these four buttons, you can also click them along with the Shift, Ctrl, and Alt keys. The table below provides these key combinations:

PowerPoint Keyboard Shortcuts

Do you want more keyboard shortcuts?

Explore our PowerPoint Keyboard Shortcuts and Sequences Ebook that is updated for all PowerPoint versions.