Presentation Gallery in PowerPoint 365 for Mac

When launched, PowerPoint 365 for Mac typically opens the Backstage view that contains the Presentation Gallery that you can see in Figure 1, below. The Presentation Gallery provides different ways to start your new presentation using a Theme, a recent presentation, a not-so-recent presentation, or even a blank presentation. These and other choices are explained in this tutorial.

Figure 1: Presentation Gallery

Options within the Presentation Gallery are explained below, as marked in Figure 1 above:

A. Account

Launches a window as shown in Figure 2 below that shows your User Information. It also provides details of services connected to PowerPoint. These services show up as Places to open and save files, as explained in our Add Places in PowerPoint 2016 for Mac tutorial.

At the bottom of this window, you will also find Sign Out option (refer to Figure 2).

Figure 2: Account window

You can learn more in our Account Option in Backstage View in PowerPoint 2016 for Mac tutorial.

B. Home

This section provides quick access to the Themes and recently opened PowerPoint files, as shown in Figure 1, shown earlier on this page. Here are some guidelines:

• Click on the Blank Presentation thumbnail (the top-left thumbnail) and click the Create button (highlighted in green within Figure 1) to create a blank presentation. Alternatively, you can also double-click the Blank Presentation thumbnail to achieve the same result.
• You can click on any of the recently opened PowerPoint files and click the Open button (the same Create button turns in to Open button when you opt to open a recent presentation), or double-click to open the selected presentation.
• To access more Themes, click the More Themes button below the Search bar.
• To access more recent presentations, use the scrollbar on the right.
• You can also use the Search box (highlighted in red within Figure 1) to locate a particular topic for your new presentation. Type keywords in the Search box, and opt whether you want to search in Themes, Recent, Shared with me, or OneDrive.

C. New

This section provides quick access to only the Themes as shown in Figure 3, shown earlier on this page. To create a new presentation based on a Theme, click on the name of any Theme and click the Create button. You can also use the Search box (highlighted in red within Figure 3) to locate a particular Theme. To access more Themes, use the scrollbar on the right.

Figure 3: New

D. Recent

Here, you will see the list of recent presentations as shown in Figure 4. To open, click on the name of any recent presentation and click the Open button (highlighted in red within Figure 4). You can also use the Search box at the top-right corner to locate a particular recent presentation.

Figure 4: Recent

E. Shared

Here, you will see the list of files others have shared with you, as shown in Figure 5. When someone shares a PowerPoint file with you that file automatically appears in this section. Just double-click to download and and open the file.

Figure 5: Shared

F. Open

This option, when selected brings up the Open pane as shown in Figure 6. Here, you need to choose a Place in the first column. A Place is a location from where you can open and save files. Places include OneDrive, SharePoint, or even your Mac. After you choose a Place, you can navigate folders to see available presentations.

Figure 6: Open