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

All Ribbon tabs in PowerPoint 2016 may have any number of buttons that represent commands but they 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. In Figure 1 below you can see the Slide Show tab (highlighted in red) and its three default Groups (highlighted in blue).

Figure 1: Groups within the Slide Show 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.

Note: You can customize both the default and custom Groups by renaming them, reordering them, or removing them altogether. But you cannot add or remove any commands within the default Groups. Commands within custom groups on the other hand can be added and removed. We explain this in our Adding Commands to Custom Groups tutorial.

Now, follow these steps to learn how to work with custom groups within default and custom Ribbon tabs:

You first need to bring up the PowerPoint Options dialog box. There are several ways to access these options. The easiest way is to right-click anywhere on the Ribbon, and to select the Customize the Ribbon option from the resultant menu, as shown highlighted in red within 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 aficionado, 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 a new Ribbon tab. This contains a new Group (highlighted in red within Figure 4, below). Now we will similarly add a new group to the Slide Show tab. Note that this is one of the default tabs of the Ribbon. You can add groups to both default and custom Ribbon tabs in the same way.

Figure 4: PowerPoint Options dialog box showing Custom group within new Ribbon tab
To add a new group, select the tab to which you want to add a new group. For our example, we selected the Slide Show tab (highlighted in red within Figure 5), and clicked the New Group button (highlighted in blue within Figure 5).

Figure 5: Add a new group within a default tab
This adds a new group, as you can see highlighted in red within Figure 6, below.

Figure 6: New group added
Select and right-click the custom Group highlighted in red within Figure 6, above. This will bring up a contextual menu, as shown in Figure 7.

Figure 7: Right-click the Custom Group to get a contextual menu

There are seven options within the contextual menu (refer to Figure 7, above). These options are explained below:

Add New Tab

Add and Rename Ribbon Tabs

Add New Group

Rename

Add and Rename Ribbon Tabs

Remove

Hide Command Labels

Move Up

Move Down

Note that the same options such as New Tab, New Group, Rename, and Move Up/ Move Down can also be found outside the right-click menu within the PowerPoint Options dialog box, as shown highlighted in red within Figure 8.

Figure 8: Options to edit Custom Group

Select the options as required. When done, click the OK button within the PowerPoint Options dialog box to get back to PowerPoint 2016 interface. Figure 9, below shows a new custom group added within the Slide Show tab (compare Figures 9 and 1). Earlier it contained just three default groups (see Figure 1).

Figure 9: Custom group added

Note: 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.

We'll explore adding commands in our Adding Commands to Custom Groups tutorial.