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PowerPoint Keyboard Shortcuts

Mark George edited this page on 26 Sep

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I don't use PowerPoint very often (usually only when I am giving lectures created by other people - I use Sumatra PDF for my own lectures), so I can never remember the keyboard shortcuts. Here are the useful ones:

General Usage

  • Show keyboard shortcuts in slide show mode - F1
  • Start slide show from current slide - Shift + F5
  • Show task bar without cancelling slide show - Ctrl + T
  • Show all slides - Ctrl + Mouse Wheel Down or g
  • Black screen - b
  • Jump to slide - type slide number and hit enter

Annotations

  • Pen (toggle) - Ctrl + p
  • Highlighter (toggle) - Ctrl + i
  • Laser pointer (toggle) - Ctrl + l (that is a lowercase L). Can also use Ctrl + click and hold to temporally turn arrow into a pointer.
  • Eraser (toggle) - Ctrl + e
  • Arrow (normal) mode - Ctrl + a
  • Erase all annotations on current slide - e
  • Hide, but don't erase annotations (toggle) Ctrl + m

Be careful when practicing a lecture and using annotations - you will be prompted to save the annotations when closing PowerPoint. You probably want to say no so that the annotations aren't included in your slides and appear during your presentation. You might want to save them at the end of the lecture if you want the students to see a version that includes the annotations.