Inserting a New Slide in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac

Like many other tasks you do in PowerPoint, inserting a new slide can be done in multiple ways. You just need to find a way that works best for you, the following steps show you how you can do this simple task in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac.

Launch PowerPoint 2011, typically, this brings up the PowerPoint Presentation Gallery, here you can just click the Cancel button to create a blank, new presentation containing one slide as shown in Figure 1. On the other hand, if you are not presented with the PowerPoint Presentation Gallery, you will still end up with a blank, new presentation containing one slide as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1: PowerPoint 2011 interface with blank presentation

Tip: Learn learn more about the PowerPoint 2011 for Mac interface.
To add more new slides (in a new or existing presentation), locate the Home tab of the Ribbon. Within the Slides group, click the New Slide button, as shown in Figure 2. This will insert a new slide after the active slide.

Figure 2: New Slide button

You can also click the down-arrow next the New Slide button to summon the Layout gallery as shown in Figure 3. Then click any of the layouts available to insert a new slide using the chosen layout. This way you can continue adding more slides.

Figure 3: Layout gallery
Whichever way you choose, you end up inserting new slides (see the Slides Pane on the left in Figure 4).

Figure 4: New slides inserted to the presentation
You can also insert new slides while you are in the Slides Pane. Right-click the empty area (or the empty area between two slides) in the Slide Pane to bring up the context menu as shown in Figure 5. From the context menu, choose the New Slide option to insert a new slide.

Figure 5: New Slide option
Thereafter, you can add titles, text, pictures, or any other slide objects within the new slides you just created.

Tip: Shift+Command+N keys, pressed together also inserts a new slide. So does the Insert | New Slide menu option.