These commands work just as they do in Excel.

These commands work just as they do in Excel (Repeat/Redo).

Opens the Paste Special window, which you can use to paste the contents of the clipboard into the presentation as a linked or embedded file. It also gives you some formatting options when pasting such a file.

Pastes the clipboard contents (if you’ve copied an Internet address or some material from Word) into the frontmost PowerPoint presentation as a hyperlink.

Clears the selected item from the frontmost presentation document.

Selects all objects on the screen. If the cursor is currently in an active text object, selects all of the text inside that object. Keyboard shortcut: ⌘-A.

Duplicates the selected object, placing the copy slightly below and to the right of the original. Duplicating an item doesn’t put it on the clipboard. Keyboard shortcut: ⌘-D.

Deletes the current slide (Normal or Notes view) or the selected slides (in Slide Sorter view).

Opens PowerPoint’s Find window, which you can use to search for certain keywords or formatting in Office files on your hard drive. Keyboard shortcut: ⌘-F.

Searches for specific text or formatting and replaces it with other text or formatting that you specify.

Although few living souls have ever tried it, PowerPoint has a unique feature that lets you flag certain blobs of text as having been proofread, approved by the client, and so on. To flag a piece of text in this way, drag through it; choose File → Properties → Custom tab; choose from the list of properties (Disposition, Department, and so on); turn on “Link to content”; click Add; and then click OK.

After having marked up dozens of text swatches in a slide show this way, the Edit → Go To Property command is your ticket to finding those characteristics again. When you choose this command, a tiny dialog box appears, listing all of the flags you’d set up in this way; by double-clicking one, you jump directly to the corresponding blob of text, making it easy to (for example) round up all the text blobs that have yet to be approved before going live with the presentation.

If you’ve been editing the text inside a text box or table, it’s a darned nuisance to have to switch to the arrow tool just to adjust, say, the placement, formatting, or size of that text box or table. This command neatly toggles back and forth between (a) placing the insertion point inside the selected text box or table and (b) selecting the text box or table itself. It saves you a couple of mouse clicks when doing frantic alternation between editing and tweaking.

Opens the Mac OS X Characters Palette, giving you access to every possible special character on your system.