Reordering and Removing Ribbon Tabs in PowerPoint 2016 for Windows

Geetesh Bajaj

October 19, 2015

Learn how to reorder Ribbon tabs and remove the custom tabs in PowerPoint 2016 for Windows.

The PowerPoint 2016 interface sports the Ribbon, which is tabbed. Each of these tabs contains a set of commands. By default, PowerPoint contains several such tabs, as shown highlighted in red within Figure 1, below.

Figure 1: Default Ribbon tabs with PowerPoint 2016 interface

These Ribbon tabs can be customized, and you can indeed add a new Ribbon tab as well. In fact, you may have more tabs in your PowerPoint 2016 interface due to several reasons:

You may have turned on the Developer tab. This tab is not displayed by default.
You may have installed some PowerPoint add-ins, and these may show in an Add-Ins tab.
You many have installed a PowerPoint add-in that created its own Ribbon tab.
You may have selected a slide object that brings up a contextual tab. For example, you see extra Ribbon tabs when you select a chart on your slide.
You may have created your own custom Ribbon tab.

All tabs can be reordered as required. However, the default Ribbon tabs that you see in Figure 1 can only be reordered or hidden, but not removed. Also the Developer tab cannot be removed although it can also be hidden. Follow these steps to explore more:

You first need to bring up the PowerPoint Options dialog box. There are two ways to access this dialog box. The easier way is to right-click anywhere on the Ribbon, and choose the Customize the Ribbon option, as shown highlighted in red with Figure 2.
Figure 2: Customize the Ribbon option
Alternatively, choose the File menu to bring up Backstage view, as shown in Figure 3. Now, select Options (highlighted in blue within Figure 3).
Figure 3: Options within File menu

Note: Also if you are a keyboard afficiando, you can quickly press the Alt + F keys together, and then press T. Want more keyboard shortcuts? Explore our PowerPoint Keyboard Shortcuts and Sequences ebook.

Either way, this opens the PowerPoint Options dialog box, as shown in Figure 4. Make sure you choose the Customize Ribbon option within the sidebar. This shows the relevant options on the right side of the PowerPoint Options dialog box (see Figure 4 again). Note that we added new Ribbon tab (highlighted in red within Figure 4, above, also visible in Figure 2).
Figure 4: PowerPoint Options dialog box
Select the tab which you want to reorder within the PowerPoint Options dialog box (we selected our custom tab, as shown highlighted in red within Figure 5). Then click the Move Up (to move the selected tab upwards) or Move Down (to move the selected tab downwards) buttons, as shown highlighted in blue within Figure 5.
Figure 5: Select and reorder the Ribbon tab
In Figure 6, below you can see that the Indezine (Custom) tab is moved down to the 7th position from its original 2nd position.
Figure 6: Ribbon tab moved down
Figure 7, below shows the reordered Ribbon tab is now placed after the Slide Show Ribbon tab, as 7th tab. Similarly, you can reorder any of the Ribbon tabs.
Figure 7: Ribbon tab reordered
To remove a custom tab, just select and right-click it to bring up a contextual menu, as shown in Figure 8, below. Then select the Remove option, as shown highlighted in red within Figure 8.
Figure 8: Remove the selected tab

Note: The right-click menu also contains the Move Up and Move Down options, as shown highlighted in blue within Figure 8.

When done, click the OK button within the PowerPoint Options dialog box to get back to PowerPoint 2016 interface.