11. Work in PowerPoint more efficiently

After you become accustomed to using PowerPoint 2016, you might notice certain default behaviors that don’t fit the way you work. For example, you might always select a non-default paste option. The default PowerPoint functionality is based on the way that most people work with presentations, or in some cases, because one option had to be selected as the default. You can modify the default behavior of many functions so that you can work more efficiently. You can also change aspects of the program to make it more suitable for the kinds of presentations you create.

When working in PowerPoint, you interact with commands (in the form of buttons, lists, and galleries) on the various tabs of the ribbon. Most people use a few commands from each tab often, and others not at all. You can centralize and streamline your interactions with the ribbon by adding the commands (from ribbon tabs other than Home) that you use most often to the Quick Access Toolbar, and positioning the Quick Access Toolbar below the ribbon so it’s closer to the presentation content. You can also hide or display specific ribbon tabs and modify the content that appears on the ribbon.

This chapter guides you through procedures related to changing the default PowerPoint options, customizing the Quick Access Toolbar and the ribbon, and managing add-ins and security options.

All the options I discuss in this topic are available in the PowerPoint Options dialog box, which you open from the Backstage view. Each Office app has its own Options dialog box. Because so many options are available for each app and for Office, they are divided among pages (and in some cases, additional dialog boxes that you open from the pages). The pages are represented by page tabs in the left pane of the PowerPoint Options dialog box.

The left pane of the PowerPoint Options dialog box is divided into three sections:

The first section contains the General, Proofing, Save, Language, and Advanced page tabs. These are the pages of options that standard PowerPoint users will most commonly make changes to when customizing the app functionality.

The second section contains the Customize Ribbon and Quick Access Toolbar page tabs. These are the pages on which you customize the presentation of commands in the user interface.

The third section contains the Add-ins and Trust Center page tabs. These pages are access points for higher-level customizations that can affect the security of your computer, are not often necessary to modify.

A brief description of the page content appears at the top of each page. Each page is further divided into sections of related options. The General page contains information that is shared among the Office apps. Other pages contain options that are specific to the app or to the file you’re working in.

The images in this topic depict the default selections for each option. Many options have only on/off settings as indicated by a selected or cleared check box. Options that have settings other than on or off are described in the content that follows the image.

The options in the User Interface Options and Personalize sections of the General page are shared among all the Office apps installed on the computer you’re working on, and include the following:

You can turn off the Mini Toolbar, which hosts common formatting commands and appears by default when you select content.

You can turn off the Live Preview feature if you find it distracting to have content formatting change when the pointer passes over a formatting command.

You can minimize or turn off the display of ScreenTips when you point to buttons.

You can specify the user name and initials you want to accompany your comments and tracked changes, and override the display of information from the account associated with your installation of Office.

You can choose the background graphics and color scheme (Office theme) that you want to use for all the Office apps. You can also set these on the Account page of the Backstage view.

In addition to these shared options, you can turn off the Start screen that appears when you start PowerPoint without opening a specific file. When the Start screen is turned off, starting the app without opening a specific file automatically creates a new, blank file.

To open the PowerPoint Options dialog box

1. Click the File tab to display the Backstage view.

2. In the left pane, click Options.

To display a specific page of the PowerPoint Options dialog box

1. Open the PowerPoint Options dialog box.

2. In the left pane, click the tab of the page that you want to display.

To close the PowerPoint Options dialog box

1. Do either of the following:

• To commit to any changes, click OK.

• To cancel any changes, click Cancel or click the Close button (X) in the upper-right corner of the dialog box.

To enable or disable the Mini Toolbar

1. Open the PowerPoint Options dialog box, and display the General page.

2. In the User Interface options section, select or clear the Show Mini Toolbar on selection check box.

To enable or disable the Live Preview feature

1. Display the General page of the PowerPoint Options dialog box.

2. In the User Interface options section, select or clear the Enable Live Preview check box.

To control the display of ScreenTips

1. Display the General page of the PowerPoint Options dialog box.

2. In the User Interface options section, display the ScreenTip style list, and then click any of the following:

• Show feature descriptions in ScreenTips

• Don’t show feature descriptions in ScreenTips

• Don’t show ScreenTips

To change the user identification that appears in comments and tracked changes

1. Display the General page of the PowerPoint Options dialog box.

2. In the Personalize your copy of Microsoft Office section, do the following:

• In the User name and Initials boxes, enter the information you want to use.

• Select the Always use these values regardless of sign in to Office check box.

To enable or disable the PowerPoint Start screen

1. Display the General page of the PowerPoint Options dialog box.

2. In the Start up options section, select or clear the Show the Start screen when this application starts check box.

The options on this page are more relevant when you’re working with large amounts of closely spaced text in Microsoft Word documents than with short sections of text on PowerPoint slides. One set of options that you might find useful on this page are the spelling and grammar correction options in the When Correcting Spelling In PowerPoint section of the page. These options control whether PowerPoint displays squiggly red and blue lines under words that don’t meet its spelling and grammar guidelines while you’re developing a presentation. If you find those lines to be distracting, you can turn them off here.

When reviewing spelling in a presentation, you have options to ignore one or all instances of suspected spelling errors. If you choose to ignore all instances of a flagged spelling error in a presentation, either from the shortcut menu or from the Spelling pane, PowerPoint remembers your selection and removes the squiggly underlines from all instances of that word. If you want PowerPoint to forget those settings and conduct a fresh spelling check, you can do that from this page.

The AutoCorrect settings affect the way PowerPoint processes specific text and character combinations that you enter, so it’s good to be familiar with them.

Reasons to modify the AutoCorrect settings include:

If you find that PowerPoint is consistently changing text that you enter, in a way that you don’t want it to.

If you consistently make a spelling mistake that you would like PowerPoint to correct for you.

If you want to create a shortcut for entering longer text segments. (For example, if you want PowerPoint to enter Wide World Importers whenever you type WW.)

To turn off the automatic spelling checking function

1. Display the Proofing page of the PowerPoint Options dialog box.

2. In the When correcting spelling in PowerPoint section, clear the Check spelling as you type check box.

To hide squiggly underlines that indicate spelling or grammar errors

1. Display the Proofing page of the PowerPoint Options dialog box.

2. In the When correcting spelling in PowerPoint section, select the Hide spelling and grammar errors check box.

To clear the results of a previous spelling check

1. Display the Proofing page of the PowerPoint Options dialog box.

2. In the When correcting spelling in PowerPoint section, click the Recheck Document button.

To stop PowerPoint from automatically correcting a specific type of text entry

1. Display the Proofing page of the PowerPoint Options dialog box.

2. In the AutoCorrect options section, click the AutoCorrect Options button.

3. In the AutoCorrect dialog box, on the AutoCorrect or AutoFormat As You Type tab, locate the correction that you want to turn off, and clear the check box. Then click OK.

To automatically change a specific text entry to another

1. Display the Proofing page of the PowerPoint Options dialog box.

2. In the AutoCorrect options section, click the AutoCorrect Options button.

3. In the AutoCorrect dialog box, on the AutoCorrect tab, do the following, and then click OK:

• In the Replace box, enter the misspelling or abbreviated text. The list scrolls to display the closest entries.

• In the With box, enter the corrected spelling or full-length text you want PowerPoint to replace the original entry with.

Options that affect where and when PowerPoint saves and looks for presentations and templates are available in the Save Presentations and Offline Editing Options sections. These options can be rather important—not necessarily to change them, but to know where PowerPoint stores files so that you can browse to them if necessary.

Two options that you might find useful are these:

If you’re making a lot of changes that you don’t want to lose, or feel that your system might run into trouble (for example, if you’re in a location that is experiencing frequent power outages and you don’t have battery backup) you can automatically save drafts more frequently than the default of every 10 minutes.

You can specify the folder that PowerPoint displays in the Save As dialog box when you select This PC in the Places list. The default is your Documents folder, but if you routinely save in another location, you can save yourself a few clicks by choosing that instead. (Or you can pin the location to the top of the location list.)

The location specified in the Offline Editing section is where PowerPoint stores local copies of online files it’s working with. It’s best to not change anything in this section.

Options for saving fonts with the current presentation are available in the Preserve Fidelity section. When you distribute a PowerPoint presentation electronically (as a .pptx file), the fonts in the presentation render correctly on-screen only if they are installed on the computer that’s displaying the presentation. If you use fonts in your presentation other than those that come with Office, or if you have reason to believe that the fonts you use won’t be available on a computer or device that displays the presentation, you can embed the fonts in the presentation.

Embedding fonts in a presentation increases the size of the file. You can minimize the increase by embedding only the characters that are used in the presentation. Letters, numbers, and symbols that aren’t in the presentation when you embed the fonts will not be available. Embedding all the characters of a font requires more storage space, especially if you use multiple fonts in the presentation, but makes the characters available on other systems so the presentation content can be gracefully edited.

To change the automatic draft saving frequency

1. Display the Save page of the PowerPoint Options dialog box.

2. In the Save presentations section, set the saving frequency in the Save AutoRecover information every box.

To change the default local folder

1. Start File Explorer and browse to the folder you want to set as the default.

2. Do either of the following to copy the folder path to the Clipboard:

• Click the folder icon at the left end of the Address box to display the folder path. Then press Ctrl+C.

• Right-click the Address box, and then click Copy address as text.

3. Display the Save page of the PowerPoint Options dialog box.

4. In the Save presentations section, select the content of the Default local file location box.

5. Do either of the following to paste the folder path into the box:

• Press Ctrl+V.

• Right-click the selection, and then click Paste.

To embed fonts in a presentation

1. Display the Save page of the PowerPoint Options dialog box.

2. In the Preserve fidelity when sharing this presentation section, select the Embed fonts in the file check box.

3. If you want to embed the entire character set of all fonts used in the presentation, click Embed all characters.

You can configure two types of language options on the Language page:

Editing languages, which control the keyboard and proofing settings

Display languages, which control the language of user interface labels (such as ribbon tab names and button names) and built-in user assistance features (such as ScreenTips)

The keyboard languages are installed through Windows, but you can start the process from this page. If you’ve already installed a language on your computer through Windows, that language is automatically available to you in Office as a keyboard language. The Office proofing tools and display languages are specific to Office and aren’t provided by Windows.

To add an editing language to Office

1. Display the Language page of the PowerPoint Options dialog box.

2. In the Choose Editing Languages section, in the Add additional editing languages list, click the language you want to add. Then click the Add button adjacent to the list.

To enable the keyboard layout for a language

1. In the Editing Language pane, click the Not enabled link to open the Language window of the Windows Control Panel.

2. On the Language page, click Add a language.

3. On the Add a language page, locate the language that you want to enable the keyboard for. Click the language, and then click Add.

To install the proofing tools for a language or to install a display language

1. In the Editing Language pane, click the Not installed link to display the Language Accessory Pack For Office 2016 page of the Office website.

2. On the Language Accessory Pack page, locate the language that you want to install the proofing tools for.

3. Click the Download link for the language.

4. In the prompt that appears, click Run to begin the installation of the selected language accessory pack. An Office message box informs you that you must close all Office apps and Internet Explorer to install the language pack.

To set a default editing language

1. In the Editing Language pane, click the language that you want to set as the default.

2. To the right of the pane, click the Set as Default button.

To remove an editing language

1. In the Editing Language pane, click the language that you want to remove.

2. To the right of the pane, click the Remove button.

To prioritize a display language or Help language

1. In the Display Language or Help Language pane, click the language you want to prioritize.

2. Click the Move Up button adjacent to the pane.

The Advanced page is divided into nine sections.

The options in the Editing Options and Cut, Copy, And Paste sections are self-explanatory, other than the Use Smart Cut And Paste option. This option is very useful when working with text in a Word document because it controls whether the app tries to merge content into adjacent lists when you cut it from one location and paste it in another.

Most of the options in the Image Size And Quality and Chart sections are specific to the current presentation. These options can frequently be useful:

Discard editing data When you insert images in a presentation and then edit them by using the tools on the Format tool tab for pictures, PowerPoint saves the editing data so you can undo your changes. You can decrease the file size of a presentation by discarding the editing data.

Do not compress images in file When you’re finalizing a presentation for distribution, you have the option to compress the media within the file. This results in a smaller file size, but also a lower quality. You also have the option to exclude images from the media compression.

The options in the Chart section control whether custom data labels and formatting stay with data points in charts. It seems likely that this would always be the better option, but if you find that it presents a problem, you can turn it off here.

Options in the Display section are among those that you might want to configure for the way you work. You can change the number of presentations that appear in the Recent file list in the right pane of the Open page of the Backstage view. You can also display your most recently edited presentations directly in the left pane of the Backstage view, below the Options button, for easy access. This can be very convenient, but the option is not turned on by default.

You configure the display of ScreenTips and whether they include feature descriptions on the General page of the PowerPoint Options dialog box. However, the option to display keyboard shortcuts within ScreenTips is here in the Display section of the Advanced page. If you’re a person who likes to work from the keyboard and you don’t have the full list of keyboard shortcuts memorized, you can learn them by including them in ScreenTips.

Another option in the Display section that can be useful is specifying the view that PowerPoint opens all presentations in. The default is to open a presentation in the view it was saved in; if the person who edited a presentation before you closed it in Outline view, the presentation will open in Outline view.

You can configure this option so that you have a consistent experience when opening files. One situation in which this can be useful is if you’re processing a series of presentations that you need to apply transitions to or reset layouts in, and you want to do this in Slide Sorter view. You can set this option to open all presentations in Slide Sorter view, and then you don’t have to switch to that view in each presentation.

In the Slide Show section, you can turn off any of the standard Slide Show view options—for example, if you don’t want to display a black slide at the end of a presentation.

There are two sections of printing options; the first are general printing options and the second are specific to the presentation you’re working in. You can configure the same options for printing the current presentation on the Print page of the Backstage view. The advantage to configuring the document-specific options here is that they travel with the presentation.

You can add commands to the Quick Access Toolbar directly from the ribbon, or from the Quick Access Toolbar page of the PowerPoint Options dialog box.

You can customize the Quick Access Toolbar in the following ways:

You can define a custom Quick Access Toolbar for all presentations (referred to in the PowerPoint Options dialog box as documents), or you can define a custom Quick Access Toolbar for a specific document.

You can add any command from any group of any tab, including tool tabs, to the toolbar.

You can display a separator between different types of buttons.

You can move commands around on the toolbar until they are in the order you want.

You can reset everything back to the default Quick Access Toolbar configuration.

After you add commands to the Quick Access Toolbar, you can reorganize them and divide them into groups to simplify the process of locating the command you want.

As you add commands to the Quick Access Toolbar, it expands to accommodate them. If you add a lot of commands, it might become difficult to view the text in the title bar, or all the commands on the Quick Access Toolbar might not be visible, defeating the purpose of adding them. To resolve this problem and also position the Quick Access Toolbar closer to the file content, you can move the Quick Access Toolbar below the ribbon.

To add a command to the Quick Access Toolbar from the ribbon

1. Do either of the following:

• Right-click a command on the ribbon, and then click Add to Quick Access Toolbar. You can add any type of command this way; you can even add a drop-down list of options or gallery of thumbnails.

• At the right end of the Quick Access Toolbar, click the Customize Quick Access Toolbar button. On the menu of commonly used commands, click a command you want to add.

To display the Quick Access Toolbar page of the PowerPoint Options dialog box

1. Do any of the following:

• At the right end of the Quick Access Toolbar, click the Customize Quick Access Toolbar button, and then click More Commands.

• Click the File tab and then, in the left pane of the Backstage view, click Options. In the left pane of the PowerPoint Options dialog box, click Quick Access Toolbar.

• Right-click any ribbon tab or empty area of the ribbon, and then click Customize Quick Access Toolbar.

To add a command to the Quick Access Toolbar from the PowerPoint Options dialog box

1. Display the Quick Access Toolbar page of the PowerPoint Options dialog box.

2. In the Choose commands from list, click the tab the command appears on, or click Popular Commands, Commands Not in the Ribbon, All Commands, or Macros.

3. In the left list, locate and click the command you want to add to the Quick Access Toolbar. Then click the Add button.

To move the Quick Access Toolbar

1. Do either of the following:

• At the right end of the Quick Access Toolbar, click the Customize Quick Access Toolbar button, and then click Show Below the Ribbon or Show Above the Ribbon.

• Display the Quick Access Toolbar page of the PowerPoint Options dialog box. In the area below the Choose commands from list, select or clear the Show Quick Access Toolbar below the Ribbon check box.

To define a custom Quick Access Toolbar for a specific presentation

1. Display the Quick Access Toolbar page of the PowerPoint Options dialog box.

2. In the Customize Quick Access Toolbar list (above the right pane) click For file name.

3. Add the commands to the toolbar that you want to make available to anyone who edits the file, and then click OK. The app displays the file-specific Quick Access Toolbar to the right of the user’s own Quick Access Toolbar.

To display a separator on the Quick Access Toolbar

1. Display the Quick Access Toolbar page of the PowerPoint Options dialog box.

2. In the right pane, click the command after which you want to insert the separator.

3. Do either of the following:

• In the left pane, double-click <Separator>.

• Click <Separator> in the left pane, and then click the Add button.

To move buttons on the Quick Access Toolbar

1. Display the Quick Access Toolbar page of the PowerPoint Options dialog box.

2. In the right pane, click the button you want to move. Then click the Move Up or Move Down arrow until it reaches the position you want.

To reset the Quick Access Toolbar to its default configuration

1. Display the Quick Access Toolbar page of the PowerPoint Options dialog box.

2. In the lower-right corner, click Reset, and then click either of the following:

• Reset only Quick Access Toolbar

• Reset all customizations

3. In the Microsoft Office message box verifying the change, click Yes.

If you don’t want to entirely hide the ribbon, you can modify its content. From the Customize Ribbon page of the PowerPoint Options dialog box, you can control the tabs that appear on the ribbon, and the groups that appear on the tabs.

On this page, you can customize the ribbon in the following ways:

You can hide an entire tab.

You can remove a group of commands from a tab. (The group is not removed from the app, only from the tab.)

You can move or copy a group of commands to another tab.

You can create a custom group on any tab and then add commands to it. (You cannot add commands to a predefined group.)

You can create a custom tab. For example, you might want to do this if you use only a few commands from each tab and you find it inefficient to flip between them.

Don’t be afraid to experiment with the ribbon to come up with the configuration that best suits the way you work. If at any point you find that your new ribbon is harder to work with rather than easier, you can easily reset everything back to the default configuration.

To display the Customize Ribbon page of the PowerPoint Options dialog box

1. Do either of the following:

• Display the PowerPoint Options dialog box. In the left pane, click Customize Ribbon.

• Right-click any ribbon tab or empty area of the ribbon, and then click Customize the Ribbon.

To permit or prevent the display of a tab

1. Display the Customize Ribbon page of the PowerPoint Options dialog box.

2. In the Customize the Ribbon list, click the tab set you want to manage:

• All Tabs

• Tool Tabs

• Main Tabs

3. In the right pane, select or clear the check box of any tab other than the File tab. (You can’t hide the File tab.)

To remove a group of commands from a tab

1. Display the Customize Ribbon page of the PowerPoint Options dialog box.

2. In the Customize the Ribbon list, click the tab set you want to manage.

3. In the Customize the Ribbon pane, click the Expand button (+) to the left of the tab you want to modify.

4. Click the group you want to remove, and then in the center pane, click the Remove button.

To create a custom tab

1. Display the Customize Ribbon page of the PowerPoint Options dialog box.

2. On the Customize Ribbon page, click the New Tab button to insert a new custom tab below the active tab in the Customize The Ribbon pane. The new tab includes an empty custom group.

To rename a custom tab

1. Display the Customize Ribbon page of the PowerPoint Options dialog box.

2. In the Customize the Ribbon pane, click the custom tab. Then click the Rename button.

3. In the Rename dialog box, replace the existing tab name with the tab name you want, and then click OK.

To rename a custom group

1. Click the custom group, and then click the Rename button to open the Rename dialog box in which you can specify an icon and display name for the group.

2. In the Rename dialog box, do the following, and then click OK:

• In the Display name box, replace the current name with the group name that you want to display.

• In the Symbol pane, click an icon that you want to display when the ribbon is too narrow to display the group’s commands.

To create a custom group

1. Display the Customize Ribbon page of the PowerPoint Options dialog box.

2. On the Customize Ribbon page, in the right pane, click the tab you want to add the group to. Then click the New Group button to add an empty custom group.

To add commands to a custom group

1. Display the Customize Ribbon page of the PowerPoint Options dialog box.

2. In the Customize the Ribbon list, expand the tab set you want to manage, and then click the group you want to add the commands to.

3. In the Choose commands from list, click the tab the command appears on, or click Popular Commands, Commands Not in the Ribbon, All Commands, or Macros.

4. In the left list, locate and click the command you want to add to the group. Then click the Add button.

To reset the ribbon to its default configuration

1. Display the Customize Ribbon page of the PowerPoint Options dialog box.

2. In the lower-right corner, click Reset, and then click either of the following:

• Reset only selected Ribbon Tab

• Reset all customizations

There are several sources of add-ins:

You can purchase add-ins from third-party vendors; for example, you can purchase an add-in that allows you to assign keyboard shortcuts to PowerPoint commands that don’t already have them.

You can download free add-ins from the Microsoft website or other websites.

When installing a third-party program, you might install an add-in to allow it to interact with Microsoft Office 2016 programs.

Information about the add-ins that are installed on your computer, and access to manage them, is available from the Add-ins page of the PowerPoint Options dialog box.

Each type of add-in has its own management interface. You can add and remove add-ins, turn off installed add-ins, and enable add-ins that have been disabled.

Many add-ins install themselves, but to use some add-ins, you must first install them on your computer and then load them into your computer’s memory.

To display management options for a type of add-in

1. Display the Add-Ins page of the PowerPoint Options dialog box.

2. In the Manage list at the bottom of the page, click the type of add-in you want to manage. Then click the adjacent Go button.

To install an add-in

1. Display the dialog box for the type of add-in you want to manage.

2. In the dialog box, click Add or Add New.

3. In the Add Add-In dialog box, navigate to the folder where the add-in you want to install is stored, and double-click its name.

4. In the list of available add-ins in the Add-In dialog box, select the check box of the new add-in, and then click OK or Load to make the add-in available for use in PowerPoint.

The Trust Center settings aren’t exposed directly on the page; you must click a button next to a warning informing you that you shouldn’t change any of the settings. It’s certainly true that if you don’t take care when modifying the Trust Center settings, you could expose PowerPoint, your computer, and your network to malicious software. It’s more common to modify these settings in Word than in PowerPoint, but review the available settings so you can evaluate whether any of them would be appropriate to change in your specific situation.

The Trust Center has the following 11 pages of options that you can configure:

Trusted Publishers

Trusted Locations

Trusted Documents

Trusted Add-in Catalogs

Add-ins

ActiveX Settings

Macro Settings

Protected View

Message Bar

File Block Settings

Privacy Options (Trust Center)

When you first open the Trust Center from the Backstage view, the Macro Settings page is active. As in the PowerPoint Options dialog box, you click a page tab name in the left pane to display that page in the right pane.

Most pages display options that are very specific to the page name. When you’re working in PowerPoint, some circumstances will send you directly to this dialog box—for example, if you open a presentation that contains macros, and then click the info bar to enable them, PowerPoint takes you to this page.

Many of the Trust Center options are beyond the scope of any needs that you’d usually have when creating presentations. Some of those that might be of interest are those that make it easier to work in presentations that you trust, but that PowerPoint might not know are safe.

When you open a presentation from an online location (such as a cloud storage location or email message) or from a location that has been deemed unsafe, PowerPoint opens the file in Protected view, with most editing functions disabled. The purpose of this is to prevent any malicious code that is embedded in the file from gaining access to your computer. If you’re uncertain about the origin of a file that you’re opening, you can choose to open the file in Protected view.

In Protected view, the title bar displays Read-Only in brackets to the right of the file name, and a yellow banner at the top of the content pane provides information about why the file has been opened in Protected view. If you know that the presentation is from a safe location or sender, and you want to edit the file content, you can choose to enable editing.

If you find that you frequently need to edit presentations that open in Protected view, you can modify options on three pages of the Trust Center to affect this:

If you want to open any presentation that is stored in a specific location without going into Protected view, you can add that folder (and its subfolders, if you want) to your Trusted Locations list.

If you want to trust folders on other computers on your network, you must first specifically choose that option. Otherwise, when you try to add a network folder as a trusted location, the Trust Center displays a message that it is not permitted by your current security settings. Before selecting the option to allow network locations, consider what people or computers have access to the network locations you intend to allow, and whether the locations are secure or could host malicious content.

If you want to be able to edit all files of a specific type (based on the file extension) you can modify the File Block settings.

You can exclude an entire class of files (files originating from the Internet, stored in unsafe locations, or received as email attachments) from Protected view.

Before doing any of these things, you should carefully consider whether the “rule” you’re making will always yield the results you want.

If you frequently work with a specific PowerPoint presentation that contains active content, and you feel that the security prompts are unnecessarily slowing you down, you can choose to trust the presentation. When you do so, it is added to the Trusted Documents list. You can manage the Trusted Documents list from the Trusted Documents page of the Trust Center. You can stipulate whether to trust presentations that aren’t stored locally, turn off the Trusted Documents function completely (to stop trusting all presentations), or clear the Trusted Documents list to start over.

Some, but not all, of the Trust Center pages include buttons that you can click to reset that set of options to the defaults, so take care when making changes; if you’re uncertain whether you should invoke a change, click Cancel to close the Trust Center without committing to the changes.

As with options in the PowerPoint Options dialog box, you should take the time to familiarize yourself with the Trust Center settings so you know what changes it is possible to make, in the event that it is appropriate to do so in your computing environment.

To open the Trust Center

1. In the left pane of the Backstage view, click the Trust Center page tab.

2. On the Trust Center page, click the Trust Center Settings button.

Change default PowerPoint options

Customize the Quick Access Toolbar

Customize the ribbon

Manage add-in and security options

1. Open the PowerPoint Options dialog box.

2. Explore each page of the dialog box.

3. On the General, Proofing, Save, Language, and Advanced pages, do the following:

• Notice the sections and the options in each section.

• Note the options that apply only to the current file.

• Modify the options on the page as necessary to fit the way you work.

4. Close the PowerPoint Options dialog box.

1. Move the Quick Access Toolbar below the ribbon. Consider the merits of this location versus the original location.

2. From the Customize Quick Access Toolbar menu, add the Sort Ascending command to the Quick Access Toolbar.

3. From the Insert tab of the ribbon, add the following commands to the Quick Access Toolbar:

• From the Slides group, add the New Slide command (the arrow half, not the default button half).

• From the Text group, add the WordArt command.

Notice that each of the commands is represented on the Quick Access Toolbar exactly as it is on the ribbon. Clicking the New Slide arrow displays a list, and clicking WordArt displays a gallery.

4. From the Show group on the View tab, add the Ruler command and the Gridlines command to the Quick Access Toolbar. Notice that the commands are represented on the Quick Access Toolbar as check boxes.

5. Point to the commands you added to the Quick Access Toolbar and then to the same commands on the View tab. Notice that ScreenTips for commands on the Quick Access Toolbar are identical to those for commands on the ribbon.

6. Display the Quick Access Toolbar page of the PowerPoint Options dialog box, and then do the following:

• In the left pane, display the commands that appear on the Slide Show tab.

• Add the Hide Slide button from the Slide Show tab to the Quick Access Toolbar.

• In the right pane, move the New Slide button to the bottom of the list so that it will be the rightmost button on the Quick Access Toolbar (immediately to the left of the Customize Quick Access Toolbar button).

• Insert a separator between the original commands and the commands you added in this task set.

• Insert two separators between the WordArt and Ruler commands.

7. Close the PowerPoint Options dialog box and observe your customized Quick Access Toolbar. Note the way that a single separator sets off commands, and the way that a double separator sets off commands.

8. Redisplay the Quick Access Toolbar page of the PowerPoint Options dialog box.

9. Reset the Quick Access Toolbar to its default configuration, and then close the dialog box. Notice that resetting the Quick Access Toolbar does not change its location.

10. Close the presentation without saving it.

1. Display the Customize Ribbon page of the PowerPoint Options dialog box.

2. Remove the Review tab from the ribbon, and add the Developer tab (if it isn’t already shown).

3. Create a custom tab and name it MyShapes.

4. Move the MyShapes tab to the top of the right pane so that it will be the leftmost optional ribbon tab (immediately to the right of the File tab).

5. Change the name of the custom group on the MyShapes tab to Curved Shapes, and select a curved or circular icon to represent the group.

6. Create another custom group on the MyShapes tab. Name the group Angular Shapes, and select a square or triangular icon to represent the group.

7. In the Choose commands from list, click Commands Not in the Ribbon. From the list, add the Arc and Oval commands to the Curved Shapes group. Then add the Isosceles Triangle and Rectangle commands to the Angular Shapes group.

8. Close the PowerPoint Options dialog box and display your custom tab. Click the Arc command, and then drag on the page to draw an arc.

9. Change the width of the app window to collapse at least one custom group, and verify that the group button displays the icon you selected.

10. Restore the app window to its original width and redisplay the Customize Ribbon page of the PowerPoint Options dialog box.

11. Reset the ribbon to its default configuration, and then close the dialog box.

12. Close the presentation without saving it.

1. Open the PowerPoint Options dialog box.

2. Display the Add-ins page, and then do the following:

• Review the add-ins that are installed on your computer.

• Notice the types of add-ins that are active, and display the dialog box for that type of add-in.

• Notice add-ins that are turned on or off, and modify the setting if you want to.

• Close the dialog box.

3. Display the Trust Center page, and then do the following:

• Open the Trust Center.

• Review the settings therein, but don’t make any changes.

• Close the Trust Center.

4. Close the PowerPoint Options dialog box.