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
- 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.