Ribbon and Tabs in PowerPoint for iOS – iPad

One of the most important parts of the interface within PowerPoint for iPad is the Ribbon – a typically orange area that sports Tabs with options and commands. Now this Ribbon works almost the same in PowerPoint for iPad as it does in desktop versions of PowerPoint. The main difference here is that you will have to tap to make something happen rather than click! Of course, since the options available on the iPad are fewer, you end up with a thinner, more compact Ribbon as well, as shown in Figure 1, below.

Figure 1: The Ribbon is the area in orange

The Ribbon contains many options that are explained below, as they are marked within Figure 3, below, from left to right:

Figure 3: Options on the Ribbon

1. Back: This button takes you back to the opening PowerPoint for iPad screen, as shown in our Running PowerPoint for iPad tutorial. Do note that this is as good as closing your existing presentation. If you have AutoSave turned on, then PowerPoint will save any changes you have made to the open presentation. If you do not have AutoSave turned on, then you will be prompted to save your presentation.
2. File Options: This opens a drop-down menu that’s similar to the File menu in desktop versions of PowerPoint (see Figure 4, below). Tap once on this button to open this menu, and tap again to close.
3. 
   Figure 4: File Option
3. Undo and Redo: These buttons undo and redo your last steps – if these are grayed out, that means no Undo or Redo is possible.
4. Tabs: These are the actual Tabs, and comprise the most important part of the Ribbon. Tab names describe the options available within that Tab – thus you will find names such as Home, Insert, Design, etc. The best part is that these same tab names show up in all instances of PowerPoint – on the desktop versions, the Online version, the Android versions, etc.
5. Share: This button opens up the Share Gallery, as shown in Figure 5, below. We explore more in our Share Options in PowerPoint for iPad tutorial.
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   Figure 5: Options to share
6. Play: This last button on the Ribbon plays your presentation. Do note that the presentation is played from the active slide. So if you are on slide 2, and you tap the Play button – then the Slide Show will play from slide 2 onwards.
7. Gallery: A Gallery is a collection of content, styles or properties, most Galleries can be seen as drop-down galleries as shown in Figure 6. To access these Galleries, you tap the button that represents that Gallery, that’s the reason you won’t see it in Figure 3, above, as a Ribbon option. For example, in Figure 6, you can see that we tapped on the Shapes button to open the Shapes Gallery.
8. 
   Figure 6: Galleries in PowerPoint for iPad