New Tab of Backstage View in PowerPoint 365 for Windows

When you first launch PowerPoint, you don’t dive straight into slides. Nope—you land in something called Backstage view. Think of it like the lobby of a swanky hotel. You’re not in your room (aka your presentation) yet, but you’ve got access to all the important stuff: check-in, room service, concierge, and even the gift shop.

Backstage view is packed with tabs—each one a doorway to a different function. Want to open an old presentation? There’s a tab for that. Need to print your slides? Another tab’s got your back. If you are already working on an open presentation, and want to create a new presentation at that point, you can do so using the New tab.

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Follow these steps to explore options with the New tab of Backstage view in PowerPoint 365 for Windows:

1. Launch PowerPoint and open an existing presentation.
2. Click the File menu, as shown highlighted in red within Figure 1, below.
3. 
   Figure 1: File menu
3. This action opens Backstage view. Select the New tab, as shown in Figure 2, below.
4. 
   Figure 2: New tab selected within Backstage view
5. Options within the New tab are explained below, as marked in Figure 2, above:

   A. New

   Here, you'll find templates and Themes that you have used recently, or have pinned. You can also bring up a clean slide using the Blank Presentation option. Click the Show More option, as shown highlighted in red within Figure 2, above, to bring up more templates and Themes.

   You can pin any template or Theme within the New area by hovering over the thumbnail preview until you see the Pin icon, as shown in Figure 3, below. Now, click this Pin icon to see the template or Theme within the New area permanently until you unpin.

   
   Figure 3: Pin template or Theme

   B. Office Tab

   Here, within the Office tab, you'll find templates and Themes installed as part of Microsoft Office.

   C. Custom Tabs

   The Custom tab (and you may see more than one Custom tab) shows a list of templates and Themes created by the active user or placed by your system administrator in a designated folder. It can also include your custom-made themes and templates. If you haven’t created or placed any custom templates or Themes, you will not see this list.

   D. Search

   Here, enter any keyword(s) and click the Search button to search for Online templates and Themes. You can see the results in another window, as shown in Figure 4, below. Click on any of the thumbnails to open a new presentation based on the template.

   
   Figure 4: Search result

   E. Suggested Searches

   Here, you'll find some suggested searches based on keywords and categories. These include Presentations, Themes, Education, Charts, Diagrams, Business, and Infographics. Click on any of these keywords to get relevant results.