When you save your presentations to the cloud—either in a Windows Live SkyDrive folder or a Microsoft SharePoint 2010 library—you can take advantage of new coauthoring capabilities. Among other things, this feature enables you to simultaneously edit the same presentation with other people who are using PowerPoint 2010 or PowerPoint 2011.

The new Slide Sections feature is simple and can be very useful, particularly when you’re working on a presentation with others. It enables you to organize slides within a presentation into groups that you name. Use it to simplify tasks, such as assigning slides to individuals on a group project or quickly printing a set of related slides.

Note that Microsoft Word enthusiasts shouldn’t get too excited about this feature’s poorly chosen name, lest you risk being disappointed. Slide sections have no relationship to what you know as sections in Word. The sections tool in PowerPoint doesn’t manage any formatting. It is solely about helping you keep your presentations organized.

The Compare And Merge feature is back in PowerPoint for Windows in this release (after a hiatus in the previous version) and new to PowerPoint for Mac. This feature enables you to compare two presentations and review the differences to accept or reject changes.

One exciting new exclusive feature in PowerPoint 2010 is a multimedia feature, but it’s really about giving you an easy (and pretty slick) way to share your presentations, so it warrants a mention here. The new Create A Video feature quickly creates a video of your presentation that includes media playback, animations, transitions, and (if you choose) your narrations, timing, and use of the new laser pointer tool (also a PowerPoint 2010 exclusive). Just tell PowerPoint to do its thing and then get back to work while it creates the video in the background.

You might already know that you can save your slides as pictures in both PowerPoint for Windows and PowerPoint for Mac. That feature creates a folder containing an image file for each slide. But PowerPoint 2010 introduces one more nice little exclusive with Save As Picture Presentation. This feature saves a copy of your presentation with each slide as a full-slide picture in a new PowerPoint presentation file. It’s a fast and easy way to share slides that you don’t want edited.

To access this feature, click the File tab, click Save & Send, and then click Change File Type. PowerPoint Picture Presentation is available under the heading Presentation File Types.

Drag shapes and pictures on a slide, layout, or master, and see dynamic guides appear to tell you when the object is aligned to others. This feature, known as smart guides, is new to PowerPoint 2010 and still around in PowerPoint 2011.

This tool is mentioned here because it can save a lot of time when you’re editing slides or presentation designs. But keep in mind that it’s just for times when you need to create one-off slide content or design elements for layouts and masters. This feature is not designed to work with placeholders, so it’s not a tool for most of your work with customizing layouts or when you’re manually editing the position of on-slide content that resides in a placeholder.

PowerPoint 2010 introduces the single document interface (also known as SDI), which gives you a completely independent PowerPoint window for each of your open presentations. So, for example, if you work with multiple monitors, you can play back a slide show for one presentation on one monitor while editing slides for another presentation on the other.

PowerPoint 2010 also gives you an exclusive view of your presentations with the new Reading view. This view is designed for those times when you want to see exactly what your slide show will look like when you play it back, while retaining access to your other programs and open presentations.

As you see in Figure 13-1, the Status bar in Reading view gives you basic slide show tools along with access to other PowerPoint views, while playing back your slide show within the individual presentation window.

Figure 13-1. A presentation shown in the new PowerPoint 2010 Reading view.

Slide background

Graphics on the master

Size and placement of placeholders on the master

Layout of the title slide (called a title master back then)

The fonts and text formatting used in the master (such as font size and bullet style)

Color scheme (you could have more than one color scheme option for a slide master)

A slide master now includes a set of customizable layouts. The built-in layouts you customize, as well as custom layouts that you add to the master, are included when you save that master in a theme.

Each slide master can have unique sets of theme colors, fonts, graphic effects, and Background Styles gallery options.

A theme can include multiple slide masters.

Each slide master can be related to its own set of core theme elements.

Therefore, a complete theme can include multiple sets of core theme elements—one for each slide master it contains.

You need unique theme fonts for use with just specific layouts.

Keep in mind that you need a unique master for this scenario only if the fonts for the specified layouts should be theme-aware. If fonts for a specific layout should always remain the same (that is, there isn’t a reason for those fonts to change when a new theme is applied), you can directly apply unique fonts to specific layouts without them being part of the theme.

You need unique theme colors for use with just specific layouts.

Just as with fonts, if colors that you need to apply to specific layouts won’t benefit from being theme-aware, just directly apply them to content on the layout; you don’t need to create a separate master to get a separate set of theme colors. But with colors, this concept goes a step further.

You actually can have multiple sets of theme colors attached to the same master, and included in the same set of core theme elements. The feature is called Extra Color Schemes, but the catch is that the only way to add them is through the XML.

For example, if you’ve opened a legacy presentation in a version of PowerPoint that contains themes, you might have noticed that each color scheme that was included in the legacy presentation appears in the Theme Colors gallery. PowerPoint imports them using the Extra Color Schemes feature.

However, if you need unique theme colors for specific layouts and either you don’t want to venture under the hood and into the XML, or you want the unique colors to be the defaults on specific layouts (so that users don’t have to apply the correct set of colors), then a separate master with its own set of theme colors is the way to go.

You need unique theme effects or a unique gallery of slide background options for specific layouts.

Are you sure about this? If you need more variations of graphic effects in a single presentation than you can fit in a theme effects set, consider consulting a designer or a presentation coach. Unless there is a darn good reason for using a completely different set of theme effect styles for different slide types, it’s probably not a good idea. Graphic effects can be very cool, but unless you want your presentation to be about graphic effects, use them consistently and sparingly.

You need a unique design and overall layout for multiple slide layouts.

Not necessarily. If a single layout needs a unique design, that’s what customizable layouts are for. And even if a handful of layouts need the same background graphics, for example, or title placeholder positioning, customizing the layouts is likely to make your theme much more usable than asking the user to contend with multiple masters.

In PowerPoint 2010, on the Home tab, in the Slides group, find both the Reset option and the Layout gallery. These options are also available when you right-click a slide or a slide thumbnail in the Slides pane.

In PowerPoint 2011, on the Home tab, in the Slides group, click Layout to access the Layout gallery. Find the option Reset Layout To Default Settings at the bottom of the gallery.

When you insert a text box (either a traditional text box or a WordArt text box) from the Ribbon, rather than using an existing text or content placeholder, you get a custom object that isn’t affected by changes in slide layout. Keep in mind, however, that custom text boxes don’t have the formatting that’s preset in placeholders (such as several levels of bulleted text), so you’re on your own in terms of formatting your custom text.

You can, however, customize default text box formatting for a presentation, template, or theme. To do this, select a text box that contains the formatting you want to use as your default (text formatting is included in the settings), right-click, and then click Set As Default Text Box.

In PowerPoint 2010, insert a text box from the Insert tab. Or, on the Home tab, in the Drawing group, text box is the first available option in the Shapes gallery.

In PowerPoint 2011, insert a text box from the Home tab.

When you place other object types (such as a picture, table, diagram, or chart) from the Insert tab onto a slide that has an empty placeholder designed for that content type, your new object is automatically placed in that empty placeholder and sized accordingly. If the slide contains similar placeholders, but they already have content, using the Insert tab to insert an object will insert the custom object you need without attaching it to a placeholder.

Of course, when you need a custom object, the goal is to avoid attaching it to a placeholder so that it isn’t affected by changing, reapplying, or resetting the layout. So, when you need objects to be independent of placeholders, the easiest thing to do is usually to use the Blank or Title Only layout, as mentioned earlier. However, if you need a custom object on a slide that has empty placeholders, there are easy workarounds, as follows:

Slides have footer, date, and slide number areas available from the Header And Footer dialog box (accessible from the Insert tab in PowerPoint 2010 and the View menu in PowerPoint 2011). Notes and handouts have a separate set of footer, date, and page number settings available from the same dialog box, and they also have an available header.

You can, potentially, have a separate footer on every slide in the presentation, or on each master and each slide layout.

Although it appears that you can have only one set of header and footer options for all notes and handouts in the presentation, it is possible in PowerPoint 2010 to have one header and footer for your notes pages and another for your handouts. In PowerPoint 2011, notes pages and handouts always share the same header and footer.

Be careful applying footers to slide layouts. Though existing slides that use that layout update automatically to take on the new footer, when you apply that layout to new slides or change the layout of existing slides, the footer will not update automatically. But have no fear: there is a workaround.

If you turn off a footer but don’t delete the content from the footer text box, that content might still reside in your presentation. So, if you share that document, and your recipients open the Header And Footer dialog box, they would still see the content even if it’s set to not appear on the slide.

If you have a footer that is applied only to an individual slide, when you turn off that footer and apply the new setting to the slide, the footer content is deleted from the dialog box. However, if you apply a footer to a slide master or slide layout, the footer is retained in the Header And Footer dialog box, whether you turn it off on an individual slide or on the master or layout where you applied it. This is an important consideration when you’re sharing files electronically. It’s a good idea to ensure that no private or otherwise inappropriate information remains in the Header And Footer dialog box, even if it doesn’t appear on slides. To remove this content, just delete the content in the footer text box before disabling it, and then click Apply To All.

However, when you click Apply To All, note that any unique footer information on individual slides will also be removed.

(To avoid sharing unwanted content, remember to check the Notes Master and Handouts Master as well, if they might have been edited in your presentation.)

If you use the Fixed option under Date And Time in the Header And Footer dialog box, the privacy issues discussed for footers in preceding paragraphs hold true as well, because you can type anything into the Fixed box that you can type into the Footer box. In fact, if you’re not showing the date and time on your slides but you do need both a header and a footer, using the Fixed option under Date And Time for your header text is an easy workaround, as it works exactly the same as the footer.

Remember that the footer, date, and slide number text boxes are just placeholder text boxes that you can format and move as needed. For example, if you need a header but no footer, place the footer text box at the top of the appropriate layout or master. However, if you edit the text of the footer directly in the placeholder, the results might not be what you expect.

Editing the placeholder won’t turn on the footer, and the text may not update on your slides as expected if you edit the placeholder on a master. For the most consistent results, format and position the placeholder as needed, but edit its content in the Header And Footer dialog box.

To create a footer for all slides that use a given layout or master in a presentation, create that footer when the desired master or layout is active and use the Apply setting in the Header And Footer dialog box to apply it, just as you would when applying a footer to individual slides. Use Apply To All only if you want all slides, regardless of layout or master, to take on those settings.

You can apply Header And Footer dialog box settings to multiple selected slides, regardless of their layout or master. To do this, select the slides in Slide Sorter view in the Slides pane before opening the Header And Footer dialog box. Then, after you change the information in that dialog box as needed, click Apply.

You can access the footer, date, and slide number placeholder text boxes directly on any slide once that content is enabled. So, you can delete them from just one slide without having to go through the Header And Footer dialog box. Note that, if you use the Header And Footer dialog box to reapply the footer, date, or slide number to a slide for which you deleted the applicable placeholder, the placeholder is automatically returned.

Each master appears in the Themes gallery as a separate theme in the current presentation, as shown in Figure 13-6.

Figure 13-6. The “This Presentation” category is visible at the top of the Themes gallery when the gallery is expanded.

The layouts attached to each master appear in succession in the Slide Layout gallery, as shown in Figure 13-7.

Figure 13-7. The Slide Layout gallery in PowerPoint 2010.

You can copy, duplicate, or rename any master or layout from the options available when you right-click the thumbnail for that master or layout in the Slides pane. Once you copy a layout or master, you can paste it into the Slides pane in the same or another PowerPoint presentation or template.

When you add a new master to a presentation or template, it contains the default set of 11 built-in slide layouts, regardless of which layouts are attached to other masters in the file.

Think carefully about whether you need to edit the master or a layout. Changes made to the master will affect all of its layouts until an element on a layout is customized. Once you customize any element on a given layout, that element will no longer update when the same element on the master is changed. For example, if you change the format of bulleted text on an individual layout and then change the format for all bulleted text in the presentation from the master, the text levels you edited on the customized layout will not change to reflect those changes from the master.

In PowerPoint 2010, the Page Setup group that appears on the Design tab also appears on the Slide Master tab. But don’t be fooled. Paper size, orientation, and slide number Start At value can be set only once for the presentation.

You can rename any layout and delete layouts that are not in use. If you apply a layout to any slide in the presentation, you can’t delete it. However, if you’re creating a presentation, template, or theme for others to use, it’s usually a good idea to retain all built-in layouts.

If you copy a slide from another presentation, and a layout with the same name and the same type and number of placeholders doesn’t exist in your destination file, the original layout will be added to your presentation with elements of its original theme left behind. So, for example, you might not see a use for the Two Content layout in your presentation. But if you delete it and then someone pastes a slide that uses the Two Content layout from a different theme, that layout will be added to your presentation (usually with much of its original formatting) rather than the slide updating automatically to take on the formatting of your theme (as it would do if the Two Content layout still resided in your theme).

If you delete a built-in layout that you later need, there are a few ways to replace it. As with most tasks for managing slide masters and layouts, the first two options that follow use the Slides pane in Slide Master view:

For either of the preceding options, if you select an existing layout before pasting, the pasted layout will appear immediately after the selected thumbnail, as already noted. Or, you can click between thumbnails before pasting to indicate the exact paste location you want.

In PowerPoint 2010, the Preserve Master setting makes an important difference in behavior when multiple masters exist in your presentation.

To enable the Preserve setting for any master, right-click the master in the Slides pane and then click Preserve Master. Or, on the Slide Master tab, in the Edit Master group, click Preserve. When this setting is enabled, you see a pushpin icon to the left of the slide master thumbnail in the Slides pane, directly below the number of the master.

In PowerPoint 2011, the Preserve Master setting is not available. All masters use the default preservation behavior as described under this bullet point.

New layouts that you add to the master, whether you create a new layout or paste it from another master or presentation, take on the current formatting of the master layout by default for background graphics and any applicable placeholders.

In versions of PowerPoint prior to 2007 for Windows and 2008 for Mac, the main text placeholder on the master layout was the object area for all layouts. This is no longer the case. Customizing the size of the text placeholder in the master layout will only affect slides formatted with a single text and content area (such as the Title And Content layout).

If you’re coming to PowerPoint 2010 or PowerPoint 2011 from a version earlier than 2007 for Windows or 2008 for Mac, notice that text and content layouts are now combined. For example, a Title And Content layout can contain either text or objects, such as a table, chart, or diagram. When a content layout is applied to the active slide, either start typing text and the placeholder will behave like a typical text placeholder, or click the appropriate icon in the center of the content placeholder to add the type of content you want. Content type options in addition to text include tables, charts, SmartArt diagrams, pictures, clip art, and media clips (such as video). Point to an icon on the layout for a ScreenTip that indicates the type of content that option will insert.

Note that, if you delete all content from a content placeholder, it again becomes accessible for text or any of the six available object types.

Also note that when you have an empty content placeholder on a slide, you can insert one of the available content types from the Ribbon and it will automatically be added to the placeholder.

Eleven built-in slide layouts appear in a new, default presentation. All of them can be customized. In PowerPoint 2010, however, you may notice that only nine of the layouts appear in the Layouts gallery. The two layouts that contain vertical text are intended for use when you’re editing in Japanese. If Japanese is not an enabled Microsoft Office editing language on your computer, these layouts won’t appear in the gallery. (This is not the case in PowerPoint 2011, where all 11 built-in layouts appear in the Layout gallery by default.)

Each slide master contains five placeholders, including the title, text, date, footer, and slide number. These are known as the master layout elements. If you delete any of these placeholders, they become available to reapply from the Master Layout command (called Master Elements in PowerPoint 2011) on the Slide Master tab.

Note that if you delete a master layout element from the slide master, the corresponding placeholder is not deleted from existing individual slide layouts. However, custom formatting you applied to that master layout element will be removed from the corresponding placeholder on individual layouts. (In fact, formatting may revert to an undesirable default of 18-point, left-aligned text, so take care when you do this to make adjustments as needed.)

However, if you delete a master layout element, new slide layouts that you add to that master will not contain a placeholder for the deleted element.

(Note that the master element known as the text placeholder in PowerPoint 2010 is known as the body placeholder in PowerPoint 2011.)

As mentioned earlier, the main text (body) placeholder defines the main content area for the Title And Content layout (as well as the Title And Vertical Text layout), but it no longer defines the content area for all layouts.

Though five levels of bulleted text appear in the text placeholder of the master layout, you can have up to nine levels. So, if you’re creating a presentation, template, or theme for others to use, it’s a good idea to define formatting for all nine levels.

Remember that placeholders are not text boxes, even though they look like them. If you add text to the placeholders on the slide master, that text will be ignored.

When you apply a background to the master from the Background Styles gallery on the Slide Master tab, it’s applied to all layouts attached to that master—even overwriting custom backgrounds applied to individual layouts. However, any existing slides in the presentation that have individual background settings will retain those settings.

With the slide master active, if you select the Format Background option from the Background Styles gallery and customize the background through the Format Background dialog box instead of selecting a theme Background Style gallery entry, the new background is applied to all layouts attached to the master except those that have customized backgrounds.

To apply a background that you customize in the Format Background dialog box to all layouts, including overwriting any custom backgrounds, click Apply To All. Note, however, that this action won’t override custom backgrounds applied to individual slides. To reset individual slides in PowerPoint 2010 so that they take on the master background, with the slide active, on the Design tab, click Background Styles, and then click Reset Slide Background.

To customize a layout, you must be in Slide Master view. To customize any individual layout, just select that layout from the Slides pane in Slide Master view and then customize the layout as you would customize a slide master.

You can move, resize, or delete any placeholder on any layout. You can also add your own placeholders to any layout. However, for ease of sharing layouts with others and sharing content between presentations, avoid deleting placeholders from or adding them to a built-in layout. When you need a different complement of placeholders on a layout than a built-in layout provides, create a custom layout.

The reason for this is that when you copy slides between presentations that use different themes, built-in layouts with added or removed placeholders are not recognized as the built-in layout.

To insert a new placeholder on a layout, on the Slide Master tab, click Insert Placeholder and then click the placeholder type you want from the options you see in Figure 13-10.

Figure 13-10. Insert custom placeholders from the Slide Master tab.

Your insertion point will change to a crosshair. You can then drag to insert the new placeholder at the exact size and position you want.

New text and content placeholders are created with five levels of default-formatted bulleted text—so don’t be concerned if you insert one of those placeholder types and get what looks like much more text than you bargained for. Just delete whatever text you don’t want and format the text as appropriate for your new placeholder. All other types of placeholders come with a title that indicates their type, such as the chart placeholder shown in Figure 13-11.

Figure 13-11. A chart placeholder on a slide layout.

Note that you can delete the text in a text or content placeholder, but you’ll still be able to add text (up to nine levels) in that placeholder on slides using that layout. And, if you customize the formatting of that text before deleting it, your customizations are retained when you use that placeholder on a slide.

You can also edit or format the text in other placeholder types. For example, you can change the bulleted title “Chart” shown in Figure 13-11 to “Click icon to add a chart” and format it in small, red font. You’ll see the edited text appear with the new formatting in the placeholder on slides that use that layout. However, that text won’t appear in print or in a slide show (just like master layout placeholder text), and it can’t be edited from a slide.

As mentioned earlier, notice that you don’t have a title master for each slide master (as you did in versions earlier than 2007 for Windows and 2008 for Mac) because you have access to the Title Slide layout (which is essentially the same thing).

It’s also worth noting that one of the other built-in layouts is called Section Header. This is a nice addition and worth pointing out because title masters in earlier versions of PowerPoint were often used for both title and section divider slides, even when the two slide types required different formatting.

If a layout needs different graphic elements than the master, you can hide all of the master graphics (such as accent shapes or logos) and add your own to the specific layout. To do this, select the layout to customize and then, on the Slide Master tab, in the Background group, click Hide Background Graphics (Hide Graphics in PowerPoint 2011). You’re probably already familiar with using this feature to hide background graphics on individual slides. Having it available to layouts as well often comes in handy.

Note, however, that using Hide Background Graphics on a slide layout applies to the graphics the layout inherits from the slide master. When you use this command on a slide, it refers to the graphics on that slide’s layout.

When you apply this setting to a layout, any objects inherited from the slide master (other than the five master layout placeholders) will be hidden on that layout. However, if the layout shares a background style with the master, that will be retained. To hide only certain graphics from the master layout on an individual layout, apply Hide Background Graphics and then copy the graphics you want from the master onto the applicable layout.

If you hide background graphics, and part or all of the slide background disappears, that background was added to the slide master as a graphic sitting on the slide rather than using a background style. This behavior is desired in some cases—for example, where you might want to use a graphic as an overlay and use the background style to change the background color only.

By default, new layouts that you add will be named Custom Layout, then 1_Custom Layout, 2_Custom Layout, and so on. You can change the name of any layout—and it’s a good idea for ease of use, particularly if others will be using the presentation or template. To rename a layout, right-click the layout thumbnail and then click Rename. Or, on the Slide Master tab, in the Edit Master group (Slide Master group in PowerPoint 2011), click Rename.

Custom layouts that you add become available automatically in the Layout gallery for the presentation or template in which you create them. If you save a custom theme from the active presentation, your custom layouts will also be available as part of that theme. See the section Understanding the Themes–PowerPoint Connection, earlier in this chapter, for more details on saving custom themes in PowerPoint.

As mentioned earlier, layouts appear in the Layout gallery in the order that they appear in the Slides pane while in Slide Master view. You can reorder layouts as desired, but if you are creating a theme or a template, keep one important detail in mind.

When a new presentation is created based on your theme, the first slide in the Layout order is the initial slide that appears in the presentation by default. If you then click New Slide on the Home tab (or use the Ctrl+M shortcut) to add a second slide, the layout for the new slide will automatically be the second slide in the gallery. The automatic layout selection does not continue past the first two slides. It is designed with the idea that the first slide a user typically wants is the title slide, followed by a title and content slide.

So, for example, say that you save your theme to the Themes gallery and then apply it to a new presentation that contains just a title slide. If the Title Slide layout is not the first slide in the Layout gallery for your theme, when you insert a second slide, you will get another title slide. The layout will advance automatically only from the first to the second layout in the Layout gallery, and only for the first and second slides in the presentation.

If you’re delivering the slide in person or adding a voice-over, you should display only key points on the slide.

Avoid having slides that repeat the same text you’ll be saying or that will be included in any voice-over. The audience doesn’t need you to read the slides to them, and doing so will usually lose their attention. Instead, use the slides to guide the audience, provide a framework for your presentation, and highlight important points that you want to emphasize.

Keep slides clean and accessible, with text or graphics that are large enough to be seen clearly. Crowded slides are hard to read, and lose the audience’s attention.

For example, if you think you need eight charts on a slide, stop and think about it. Is the audience really going to look at those eight charts? If they do, how much are they going to absorb from all that information? Similarly, if you have so much text on a slide that you have to reduce font size, consider splitting the content onto multiple slides or displaying some of the text content in graphics.

Bullets are boring and don’t grab attention. So, should you avoid them completely? Maybe not, but you can often do better than bullets without extra work.

Figure 13-12. Compare plain, bulleted text to the same information conveyed in a simple SmartArt diagram.

With all of the great design elements at your disposal in Office 2010 and Office 2011, be careful not to let design overwhelm content. As discussed in several chapters throughout this book, when you use formatting effects, use them consistently and sparingly (such as using the same type of gradient across all shapes in a diagram, even if colors in each shape are different).

This also applies to the slide master and layout. For example, just because 10 colors (and several shades of each) are available in your active theme doesn’t mean that you need to use all of them in the presentation (and certainly not all together on one slide). Use clean designs for on-screen presentations to make it easy for the audience to see the slide content clearly.

If your Excel chart is a PivotChart, it will become a regular chart when pasted into PowerPoint. PivotChart functionality is not supported in PowerPoint. However, the chart will retain all other formatting and layout settings and remain fully functional.

When you paste a chart from Excel into PowerPoint, you get a linked chart by default. So, if you don’t save the source workbook or it becomes unavailable, the source data will be inaccessible.

When you first paste the chart from Excel into PowerPoint using Ctrl+V, you’ll see a paste SmartTag at the bottom-right corner of the chart. You can click that SmartTag for the option to embed the data in the chart, so that you don’t need the source workbook. However, if you choose to embed the data, just be sure that you know what the source workbook contains, because the entire workbook will be embedded. That means that anyone viewing your presentation electronically will have access to the workbook data.

If you want to embed the information only for the specific chart, choose the embed option. Then, edit the source data for the chart and delete any content you don’t want to be saved with your presentation. Or you can make a copy of the workbook and deleted unwanted elements before pasting your chart into PowerPoint. (Note that this guidance also applies to charts that originate in Excel that you paste into Word.)

Alternately, if you paste the chart as a linked chart and accidentally lose the data, you can paste the chart back into Excel to retrieve that data.

Default paste behavior when you’re copying objects from Word (or, for Office 2010, from Visio) differs by program and platform:

To paste content as embedded objects instead so that you can continue to edit them as needed in their source program (and without needing access to the original source file, as you do with a link), use Paste Special.

In PowerPoint 2010, you can access the Paste Special dialog box from the Paste options on the Home tab, or with the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Alt+V. In PowerPoint 2011, access Paste Special on the Edit menu or with the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Command+V.

When the object you’ve copied is text or a table from Word, in the Paste Special dialog box, select Microsoft Office Word Document Object. When the object originated in Visio, the Paste Special option to select is Microsoft Visio Drawing Object.

Editing embedded objects is much easier than it has been in the past. Notice that you have the same blue border on embedded Word and Visio objects as you get for Office Art graphics. You can resize embedded objects from within PowerPoint (remember to use the Shift key and size from the corners to retain aspect ratio—as with any graphic object—if dragging to resize) and just double-click to edit the object in its source program.

Of course, as with embedding content in almost any software program, the source program must be installed on your machine for you to edit the embedded object.

The Slides pane is open by default in Normal view. If you don’t see this pane, place your insertion point over the left edge of the screen until you see a double-backed black arrow and then drag to the right to expand the pane. This pane includes a tab for slide thumbnails, and a tab for an outline of slide titles and any text in text placeholder outline levels. In addition, as addressed earlier in this chapter, when you work in Slide Master view, this pane shows thumbnails for slide masters and layouts.

To open Slide Sorter view, on the View tab (View menu in PowerPoint 2011), click Slide Sorter. Or, click the Slide Sorter view shortcut on the Status bar.

To move to any slide in the presentation, just click that slide in the Slides pane or double-click the slide in Slide Sorter view.

To delete a slide from the presentation, just select the slide in either the Slides pane or Slide Sorter view, and then press Delete.

To add a slide at a specific location, in either Slide Sorter view or the Slides pane, click between slides where you want the new slide to appear, and then press Ctrl+M, or right-click and then click New Slide. If you select a slide before inserting a new slide, the new slide will appear after the selected slide.

To copy or move a slide from one presentation to another, select the slide in either the Slides pane or Slide Sorter view and then copy. In the new presentation, click in the Slides pane or Slide Sorter view at the location where you want the new slide to appear and then paste.

By default, slides take on the destination formatting. If you intentionally want to add the master from your source presentation to the destination presentation, expand the Paste Options that appear immediately after pasting (the paste SmartTag in PowerPoint 2011) and then click Keep Source Formatting.

However, using the Keep Source Formatting feature is by far the most common source of size and stability problems in presentations in my experience, especially when you’re copying content from legacy presentations. This is because Keep Source Formatting adds a master and a full set of layouts every time you use it. So, be very certain that this is your intent before you use it.

Notice that you can perform several actions from the options available when you right-click a slide in either the Slides pane or the Slide Sorter, such as adding a slide, deleting or copying a slide, or changing the slide background. In PowerPoint 2010, on the Slides pane, you also have access to the Layout gallery when you right-click a slide.

For most actions in either the Slides pane or the Slide Sorter view, you can select multiple slides at once. As with most selection actions, hold the Shift key to select multiple neighboring items, and the Ctrl key (Command key in PowerPoint 2011) to select non-contiguous items.

Because you can have multiple themes in a PowerPoint presentation (as discussed earlier in this chapter), you can apply a theme to any slide or group of slides. When you have multiple slides selected in the Slides pane or in Slide Sorter view, just click the theme that you want to apply from the gallery. You can right-click a theme in the gallery for the option to apply it just to selected slides, but a regular click will apply it by default when you have multiple slides selected.

If the selected theme isn’t already active in your presentation, a new slide master and accompanying set of layouts will be added to accommodate this theme—so use this capability sparingly.