Rearranging Your PowerPoint Slides

Adapted From: PowerPoint 2003 for Dummies:

Normal View is the view that you normally work in to edit your PowerPoint slides, move things around, add text or graphics, and so on. However, Normal View has one serious limitation: It doesn't give you a big picture of your presentation. You can see the details of only one slide at a time, and the Slide Preview Pane lets you see snapshots of only a few slides. To see an overall view of your presentation, you need to work in Slide Sorter View.

You can switch to Slide Sorter View in two easy ways:

• Click the Slide Sorter View button in the bottom-left corner of the screen.

• Choose the View --> Slide Sorter command.

The PowerPoint Slide Sorter View is shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1: See all your marvelous work using Slide Sorter View.

The following list shows you how to rearrange, add, or delete slides from Slide Sorter View:

• Move a slide: To move a slide, click and drag it to a new location. Point to the slide and then press and hold down the left mouse button. Drag the slide to its new location and release the button. PowerPoint adjusts the display to show the new arrangement of slides.

• Delete a slide: To delete a slide, click the slide to select it and then press the Delete key or the Backspace key. This works only in Slide Sorter View. You also can use the Edit --> Delete Slide command.

• Add a new slide: To add a new slide, click the slide that you want the new slide to follow and then click the New Slide button. The Slide Layout task pane appears so that you can choose the layout for the new slide. To edit the contents of the slide, return to Slide or Outline View by using the view buttons (located at the bottom-left corner of the screen) or the View command.

If your presentation contains more slides than can fit on-screen at one time, you can use the scroll bars to scroll through the display. Or you can change the zoom factor to make the slides smaller. Click the down arrow next to the zoom size in the Standard toolbar and choose a smaller zoom percentage, or just type a new zoom size into the toolbar's Zoom Control box.

Slide Sorter View may seem a bit dull, but it's also the place where you can add jazzy transitions, build effects, or add cool animation effects to your slides. For example, you can make your bullets fall from the top of the screen like bombs and switch from slide to slide by using strips, wipes, or blinds. Let your imagination run wild!