Ribbon and Tabs in PowerPoint 365 for Mac

The Ribbon
Ribbon Contents

The Ribbon

The Ribbon made its debut in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac. Unlike the PowerPoint versions on Windows though, the Ribbon did not replace all the menus and toolbars that were found in PowerPoint 2008 and older Mac versions.

The Ribbon is essentially a long strip that's fixed in size (see Figure 1) so that you cannot change its width or height. The Ribbon in PowerPoint 365 for Mac includes several tabs and each tab is named as you can see in Figure 1.

Figure 1: Ribbon in PowerPoint 365 for Mac

PowerPoint Keyboard Shortcuts

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Ribbon Content

The Ribbon contains many interface elements:

1. Tabs: The Ribbon consists of fixed tabs such as Home, Desing, Animations, etc. Each tab contains sets of tools to create and edit presentations.
The Developer tab is no longer available in PowerPoint 2016 for Mac. But what about all the options within this tab? Learn more in our Where is the Developer tab in PowerPoint 2016 for Mac tutorial.
2. Contextual Tabs are special tabs on the Ribbon that are not visible all the time. They only make an appearance when you are working with a particular slide object which can be edited using special options. Figure 2 shows the Shape Format contextual tab (highlighted in blue) which is only activated when a Shape is selected on the slide.
3. 
   Figure 2: Shape Format contextual tab on the Ribbon
3. Group: A bunch of related tools placed within a tab is known as a Group. Figure 3 shows the Shape Styles group (highlighted in red) within the Shape Format contextual tab.
4. 
   Figure 3: Shapes Styles group
4. A Gallery is collection of styles or properties. Most galleries can be seen as drop-down galleries as shown in Figure 4. To access the drop-down galleries, click the More button (explained next). The figure below shows the Shape Styles drop-down gallery, all available styles can be seen as small preview thumbnails.
5. 
   Figure 4: Shape Styles drop-down gallery
5. The More button expands a gallery within a tab so that all or more options can be seen. Figure 5 shows you the More button (highlighted in red) for the Shape Styles. The More button only appears when you place your cursor over the row of thumbnails repersenting various Shape Styles (or Themes, Animations etc, depending on the Ribbon tab you selected). Just click the More button to open the related drop-down gallery. The two arrow buttons at the right and left end of the Shape Styles thumbnails row are used to scroll inside the Shape Styles drop-down gallery without expanding it.
6. 
   Figure 5: More button
6. The Down Arrow is a small downward pointing triangle that's placed next to many buttons within various Ribbon tabs. When clicked, this displays a drop-down gallery or an additional option/submenu related to the button it is associated with. In Figure 6 you can see the Down Arrow (highlighted in red) next to the Shape Fill button.
7. 
   Figure 6: Down Arrow