File Menu and Backstage View in PowerPoint 2013 for Windows

How people use PowerPoint is entirely dependent on how intuitive and easy-to-discover the interface elements are. In this respect, Microsoft has fine-tuned and improved the interface further in PowerPoint 2013 for Windows. Introduced in PowerPoint 2010, the Backstage view has had its own share of improvements in PowerPoint 2013. We will explore the new and existing features in this series of tutorials.

You access Backstage view from the File menu, which is placed towards the extreme left of the Ribbon, as shown highlighted in red within Figure 1, below.

Figure 1: File Menu in PowerPoint 2013

Although it looks like a tab, the File tab brings up a menu on the left side of Backstage view that it spawns, as shown in Figure 2, below. Notice that there are no other menus in the PowerPoint 2013 interface.

Within Backstage view, you'll find frequently used features for managing your PowerPoint presentation files. This view is also used to manage files and the data about the files, such as creating and saving files, inspecting for hidden metadata or personal information, printing slides, and setting file options.

Figure 2: PowerPoint 2013 Backstage view

When Backstage view is open, you can find at least thirteen options on the left side. (these also work as tabs). By default, you'll see the Open tab selected, as shown in Figure 2, above. Here is a list of all eleven tabs:

1. Info
2. New
3. Open
4. Save
5. Save As
6. Print
7. Share
8. Export
9. Close
10. Account
11. Options

To go back from Backstage view to Normal view, you click the Back arrow option placed on the top left of Backstage view, as shown highlighted in red within Figure 3, below.

Figure 3: Back arrow within Backstage view