Basic PowerPoint shortcut keys

First of all, let us take a quick look at some of the most basic or general keyboard shortcuts that are used for opening, closing, and switching between multiple presentations documents, including navigating through the Ribbon.

• Ctrl + N – Create a new presentation document

• Ctrl + O – Open an existing presentation document

• Ctrl + S: Save a presentation

• Alt + F2 or F12 – Open the Save As dialog box

• Ctrl + W or Ctrl + F4 – Close a presentation

• Ctrl + Q – Save and close a presentation

• Ctrl + Z – Undo an action

• Ctrl + Y – Redo an action

• Ctrl + F2 – Print Preview View

• F1 – Open the Help pane

• Alt + Q – Directs to the “Tell me what you want to do” box

• F7 – Check for spellings

• Alt or F10 – Turn the key tips to ‘on’ or ‘off’

• Ctrl + F1 – Show or hide the ribbon

• Ctrl + F – Search in a presentation or use Find and Replace

• Alt + F – Open the File tab menu

• Alt + H – Go to the Home tab

• Alt + N – Open the Insert tab

• Alt + G – Open the Design tab

• Alt + K – Go to the Transitions tab

• Alt + A – Go to the Animations tab

• Alt + S – Go to the Slide Show tab

• Alt + R – Go to the Review tab

• Alt + W – Go to View tab

• Alt + X – Go to the Add-ins tab

• Alt + Y – Go to the Help tab

• Ctrl + Tab – Switch between open presentations

PowerPoint shortcut keys for selecting, navigating texts and objects

There are tons of helpful keyboard shortcuts that can be used for navigating throughout a PowerPoint document easily. You can try out these Powerpoint shortcut keys which will enable you to select a text within text boxes and different objects on a slide with much ease.

• Ctrl + A – Select all the objects on an active slide

• Tab – Select or move on to the next object on a slide

• Shift + Tab – Select or move to a previous object on a slide

• Home – Go back to the beginning of the slide

• End – Go to the end of the slide

• PgDn – Go to the next slide

• PgUp – Go the previous slide

• Ctrl + Up / Down Arrow – Move a slide up or down in the presentation document (you will need to click on a slide thumbnail before performing this shortcut)

• Ctrl + Shift + Up / Down Arrow – Move a slide to the beginning or end of your presentation document (click on a slide thumbnail first)

PowerPoint shortcut keys for editing and formatting

The following keyboard shortcuts will save you time so you can edit and format in a snap!

• Ctrl + X – Cut the selected text, object, or slide

• Ctrl + C or Ctrl + Insert – Copy the selected text, object, or selected slide

• Ctrl + V or Shift + Insert – Paste the selected text, object, or slide

• Ctrl + Alt + V – Open the Paste Special dialog box

• Delete – Delete the selected text, object, or slide

• Ctrl + B – Toggle bold on the selected text

• Ctrl + I – Toggle italics on the selected text

• Ctrl + U – Add or remove underline to selected text

• Ctrl + E – Center align the selected text

• Ctrl + J – Justify the selected text

• Ctrl + L – Left align the selected text

• Ctrl + R – Right align the selected text

• Ctrl + T – Display the Font dialog box after text or object is selected

• Ctrl + K – Insert a hyperlink

• Ctrl + M – Insert a new slide

• Ctrl + D – Duplicate the selected object or a slide (for selecting a slide, you will first need to click on a slide thumbnail)

Useful PowerPoint shortcut keys for Slideshows

Once you are done compiling your PowerPoint document and ready to view the presentation, these keyboard combinations should come in handy.

• F5 – Play the presentation from the start

• Shift + F5 – Play the presentation from the current slide

• Ctrl + P – Annotate using a Pen tool while playing the slideshow

• N or Page Down – Move to the next slide while playing the slideshow

• P or Page Up – Return to the previous slide while playing the slideshow

• B – Change the screen to black during a slideshow (Press B again to return to the slideshow)

• Esc – End the slideshow