Rulers in PowerPoint 365 for Windows

This page explores how to use the Rulers feature in Microsoft PowerPoint 2016 for Windows to position and align slide objects more effectively. You’ll learn how to display or hide the horizontal and vertical rulers, customize ruler-related settings, and understand how rulers work alongside other layout tools such as gridlines and guides. The tutorial also explains how measurement units affect ruler behavior and includes helpful shortcuts that can make slide design faster and more precise.

Why you Need Rulers?
Show and Hide Rulers
No Vertical Ruler?

Why you Need Rulers?

When working with multiple slide objects in PowerPoint, it is important to maintain proper alignment and positioning to ensure a clean and professional slide layout. Although PowerPoint provides precise coordinate-based positioning options, most design tasks only require a general visual reference for object placement. In such cases, the Rulers feature provides a convenient way to estimate positioning and alignment directly on the slide.

Think of Rulers as the measuring tape taped to the edges of your slide. They help you quickly judge whether objects are lined up nicely or drifting off into the presentation wilderness. By default, these Rulers may be hidden, almost like a secret tool waiting to be discovered. Once turned on, they appear along the top and left edges of the active slide, shown highlighted in red within Figure 1, below.

Figure 1: Rulers in PowerPoint 365

Rulers are not just useful for placing slide objects, but they also make other PowerPoint features like the grid and guides more useable.

Show and Hide Rulers

In this tutorial, you will learn how to show and hide Rulers in PowerPoint 365 for Windows. You will also explore some of the settings that influence the measurement units in the rulers, as explained in the following steps:

1. Launch PowerPoint and create a Blank Presentation, as shown in Figure 2, below. Notice that the Rulers are not visible by default.
2. 
   Figure 2: Rulers hidden by default
2. To display the Rulers, access the View tab of the Ribbon and enable the Ruler check-box, highlighted in red within Figure 3, below.
3. 
   Figure 3: Ruler check-box selected

   Shortcuts for Using Rulers

   To turn on the visibility of the rulers, you can use the keyboard shortcut Alt + Shift + F9. Use the same shortcut key to toggle it away.

   

   PowerPoint Keyboard Shortcuts

   Do you want more keyboard shortcuts?

   Explore our PowerPoint Keyboard Shortcuts and Sequences Ebook that is updated for all PowerPoint versions.

3. Doing so brings up the rulers placed horizontally and vertically within the Slide Area, as shown in Figure 1, previously on this page. If you want to hide them again, deselect the Ruler check-box, as shown highlighted in red within Figure 3, above.

No Vertical Ruler?

There are two rulers that show up within PowerPoint: the Horizontal ruler and the Vertical ruler. Sometimes, you may only see the horizontal ruler, as shown in Figure 4, below.

Figure 4: Horizontal Ruler visible

Follow these steps to enable the Vertical ruler in PowerPoint:

1. We need to make sure that the Vertical ruler's visibility has not been turned off.
2. To review these preferences, access the File menu and select Options, highlighted in green within Figure 5, below. You can also press the Alt + F > T keyboard sequence. This means you press the Alt + F keyboard shortcut. Then, wait a moment and click T.
3. 
   Figure 5: Options within File menu
3. This action opens the PowerPoint Options dialog box, as shown in Figure 6, below. Within the sidebar, select the Advanced option, highlighted in red within Figure 6. Doing so displays the related settings on the right side of the dialog box.
4. 
   Figure 6: PowerPoint Options dialog box
4. Now, scroll down the Display group within the PowerPoint Options dialog box, and select the Show vertical ruler check-box, as shown highlighted in green within Figure 6, above. Conversely, you can also deselect this check-box to turn off the vertical ruler. Next, click the OK button, highlighted in blue within Figure 6.
5. Now you will be able to see both the Vertical and Horizontal rulers, as shown in Figure 1, previously on this page. Sometimes, you may have to restart PowerPoint to see this change.

   Inches or Centimeters?

   Does your ruler show inches, centimeters, or points? If you want to know how to change the measurement unit from one to another in PowerPoint 2016, look at our Change the Unit of Measurement in Windows tutorial.

5. Save your presentation often unless AutoSave is enabled.