For the last 12 months, Microsoft has focused on getting its flagship Office suite on screens where it's never been before—iPhones, iPads, and Android tablets. Chromatics night drive zippy. The Office for OS X apps were left behind, though. Microsoft released a new version of Outlook and an official OneNote client, but the core Word, Excel, and PowerPoint apps were stuck back in 2010.
That changes today. Microsoft has just released a preview of Office 2016 for Mac, a suite which will include the current versions of Outlook and OneNote alongside newly updated versions of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. The preview runs on OS X Yosemite, it's free to use, and it includes a tool for providing feedback to Microsoft. Once the final versions of the apps ship 'in the second half of 2015,' users with Office 365 subscriptions will get the new apps immediately. There may be some kind of standalone version available for those who want it, but Microsoft hasn't said.
Keynote for Mac allows you to play a slideshow within a window, instead of full screen, so you can access other apps and files while you present. Captions and titles stick with objects. Easily add text to images, videos, and shapes. The PowerPoint app gives you access to the familiar slideshow maker tool you already know. Create, edit, view, present, or share presentations quickly and easily from anywhere. Need to access your PowerPoint files quickly while on the go? PowerPoint provides a quick view of your recent slides and presentations for easy access on any device. For PowerPoint for Mac, the keyboard shortcut is the same; you don’t need to substitute CMD. Press and hold the Ctrl key while using the mouse wheel to zoom in and out in the editor. On a touch device, you can pinch to zoom. For PowerPoint for Mac, this is another one where you don’t have to substitute CMD. Center or align text. If you're interfacing with TFS 2013 or TFS 2015, you must have Office PowerPoint 2007 or later version installed. If you haven't installed a version of Visual Studio (2013 or later) or the Team Foundation Server Standalone Office Integration (free), you'll need to install one of these versions to create and modify storyboards.
The new apps take the styling introduced in OneNote and Outlook for OS X and apply it to the other apps in the suite. The ribbon interface now more closely resembles the one in Office 2013 for Windows—Office for Mac 2011 was closer to its Windows counterpart than older versions, but it still looked like a product from another company. The apps integrate much better with OneDrive than the previous versions did, and they support the standard collaborative editing features present on other platforms. All apps also play nice with OS X-specific features, including Full Screen mode, sandboxes for apps, and Retina display support.
Interested users can download the beta here, and it can be installed alongside Office 2011 if you're not comfortable doing all your work in beta software. Microsoft's auto-updater will patch the apps as new versions are available. Microsoft says that each build will expire after 60 days, so don't expect free software in perpetuity.
If you use PowerPoint at work or at home, keyboard shortcuts can be a great time saver. Here are some little-known keyboard shortcuts I’ve discovered over the last few years while working on the PowerPoint team. These keyboard shortcuts are designed for PowerPoint for Windows. If you are using PowerPoint for Mac, you can still use them if you replace Ctrl with CMD (⌘) unless stated otherwise. I hope you find these keyboard shortcuts as useful as I have!
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Present like a pro. Adobe elements 12 mac.
Get PowerPointDraw horizontal or vertical lines
Press and hold the Shift key while inserting lines to make sure they are perfectly horizontal, vertical or at a 45-degree angle.
Keep objects in proportion
Press and hold the Shift key while resizing shapes and other objects to keep their proportions consistent. This is handy if you want to resize a circle without accidentally turning it into an oval.
Duplicate an object
Adding a bunch of identical objects? Just select your object and press Ctrl+D to duplicate it. This also works on slides.
Copy and paste formatting
If you want to format an object to look just like another object without reapplying all of the formatting by hand, use the formatting clipboard. Select the object whose formatting you want to copy and press Ctrl+Shift+C. Then, select the objects that you want to have the same formatting and press Ctrl+Shift+V to paste the formatting. This also works on the slide thumbnails if you have a slide background or theme that you want to copy from slide to slide.
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This keyboard shortcut makes use of the Format Painter feature, which also allows you to copy formatting from one shape to another. The keyboard shortcut is a good one to remember since it packs even more power—once you’ve copied the formatting, you can paste the formatting onto as many shapes as you like without having to copy it again.
Group and ungroup
To group objects together, just select the objects and press Ctrl+G. To ungroup, select the object and press Ctrl+Shift+G. If you’re a Mac user, press CMD+Option+G to group and CMD+Option+Shift+G to ungroup.
Insert a new slide
Press Ctrl+M to insert a new slide after the currently selected slide. For PowerPoint for Mac, the keyboard shortcut is the same; you don’t need to substitute CMD.
Zoom
Press and hold the Ctrl key while using the mouse wheel to zoom in and out in the editor. On a touch device, you can pinch to zoom. For PowerPoint for Mac, this is another one where you don’t have to substitute CMD.
Center or align text
To quickly center text, press Ctrl+E. Not happy with your centered text? To go back to left alignment, press Ctrl+L, or press Ctrl+R to right align the text.
Clear formatting
To remove all formatting from selected text, press Ctrl+Spacebar. This will reset the text back to the default formatting.
PowerPoint content placeholders have logic built in to make sure your text has the right size and formatting to match the rest of your presentation. If you’ve changed the formatting for some text or you have pasted in text that already had formatting on it, you can use the clear formatting shortcut to make the text match the design of the rest of your presentation again.
To clear formatting on PowerPoint for Mac, simply click the Clear Formatting button on the Home tab.
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Start Slideshow
Done editing and ready to present? To start a Slideshow from the first slide, just press F5. If you want to start from the current slide, press Shift+F5 instead.
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As a bonus, here are a few more keyboard shortcuts you might have forgotten about. Happy editing!
Action | Windows | Mac |
Select all | Ctrl+A | ⌘+A |
Bold | Ctrl+B | ⌘+B |
Copy | Ctrl+C | ⌘+C |
Paste | Ctrl+V | ⌘+V |
Undo | Ctrl+Z | ⌘+Z |
Redo | Ctrl+Y | ⌘+Y |
Save | Ctrl+S | ⌘+S |
New presentation | Ctrl+N | ⌘+N |
Find text | Ctrl+F | ⌘+F |
Check spelling | F7 | F7 |
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—Lauren Janas, program manager for the PowerPoint team