Toolbox - Reference Tools Tab in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac

You have already explored both the Custom Animation and Scrapbook tabs of the Toolbox in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac. In this tutorial, you will learn more about Reference Tools, the third tab in the Toolbox. This area provides quick access reference resources such as the thesaurus, dictionary, language translations, and web searches. Some of these options require that you are connected online.

The Reference Tools tab within the Toolbox is divided into five sections, as shown in Figure 1, below. You can expand or collapse each section by clicking the disclosure triangles to the left of the section labels. These sections are:

1. Thesaurus
2. Dictionary
3. Bilingual Dictionary
4. Translation
5. Web Search

Figure 1: Reference Tools tab within Toolbox

Using Reference Tools

Follow these steps to use the Reference Tools of Toolbox in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac:

1. Select the Reference Tools tab (3rd tab) of the Toolbox. Type a word or phrase into the search field located just below the array of tabs, as shown highlighted in red within Figure 1, above, and press the Return key on your keyboard.
2. To see the results, click on any of the individual reference tools sections to expand it.

Note

Some of the sections access information that's continuously updated and require a live internet connection to get results. These include the Bilingual Dictionary, Translation, and Web Search.
3. Alternatively, you can select a word or phrase in your presentation slide, and right-click to bring up the contextual menu, as shown in Figure 2, below.
4. 
   Figure 2: Contextual menu brought up by right clicking a word
4. From the resultant menu, choose any reference option such as Look Up or Translate, as shown highlighted in red within Figure 2, above. The Look Up option has a submenu with more options to choose from Figure 3, below.
5. 
   Figure 3: Look Up option submenu
5. Choose any of the options from the menu or submenu, and the results can be seen within the Reference Tools tab of the Toolbox by clicking the disclosure triangles to expand the desired reference tools section, as shown in Figure 4, below.
6. 
   Figure 4: Results shown for the selected word
7. In some cases, you can then click the Insert button, as shown highlighted in red within Figure 4, above, to insert the results at the cursor position, or to replace the selected word on your slide.