Working with the Outlining Tools
The Outline pane is a great place to edit text, especially when you want to peruse the text from multiple slides at once and move text around. You might want to make the Outline pane larger in Normal view by dragging the line between the panes, so you have more space for the outline.
You may also wish to set the Zoom higher for the Outline pane, so that the text appears larger on-screen for easier viewing. The default is 33%, but 50% might be better, especially if you have a small monitor or are running Windows at a high display -resolution.
One final thing: you will probably want to turn on the Outlining toolbar, which contains buttons for manipulating the outline more easily. To do so, choose View⇨Toolbars⇨Outlining.
Figure 4-8 shows Normal view adjusted for optimal outline viewing with the Outline pane's zoom set to 50% and the Outlining toolbar displayed.
| Tip |
Drag the Outlining toolbar by its handle (the dots at the top) into the center of the screen to make it a floating toolbar, which may perhaps be more handy depending on your work style.
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Selecting Text in the Outline Pane
Drag across text to select it, just like anywhere else. In addition, use the selection shortcuts in Table 4-1.
Table 4-1: SELECTING TEXT IN THE OUTLINE PANE
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To select this:
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Do this:
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Word
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Double-click
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A paragraph and any subordinate text
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Triple-click
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Entire slide and all its text
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Click the slide icon to the left of the text
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All text on all slides
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Press Ctrl+A
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From insertion point to end of line
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Shift+End
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From insertion point to beginning of line
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Shift+Home
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From insertion point to end of presentation
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Ctrl+Shift+End
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From insertion point to beginning of presentation
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Ctrl+Shift+Home
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Slide's icon (to the left of its text) but not the text itself
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Shift+Page Down or Shift+Page Up, or double-click the slide icon
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From insertion point to beginning of slide
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Ctrl+Shift+up arrow. Repeat the up arrow to select entire additional slides above
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From insertion point to end of slide
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Ctrl+Shift+down arrow. Repeat the up arrow to select entire additional slides below
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| Note |
By default when you drag across a few characters of a word, the entire word becomes selected. To change this behavior, choose Tools⇨Options, and on the Edit tab, deselect the When selecting, automatically select entire word checkbox.
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| Tip |
To move the insertion point to the beginning or end of the outline without selecting anything, try these shortcuts: Ctrl+Home to beginning, Ctrl+End to the end.
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Expanding and Collapsing the Outline
By default the entire outline is expanded, so all text is visible. Collapsing the outline can help you see the big picture better, especially in a long presentation with many slides. When you collapse the outline, only the top-level headings show; the others are hidden. You can specify exactly which levels should be expanded and which should be collapsed.
There are two ways to collapse and expand outlines: one item at a time or everything at once. For example, you can collapse all the bullet points beneath a certain slide title, or you can collapse all bullet points beneath all slide titles.
To collapse all levels on the current slide, click the Collapse button on the Outlining toolbar, press Alt+Shift+minus sign, or double-click the slide's icon.
To collapse the entire outline except level 1 (the slide titles), click the Collapse All button or press Alt+Shift+1.
To expand everything on the current slide, click the Expand button or press Alt+Shift+plus sign or double-click its icon. (Double-clicking the icon toggles between collapsed and expanded views.)
To expand the entire outline, click the Expand All button or press Alt+Shift+9.
Promoting and Demoting Outline Text
Promoting and demoting on a PowerPoint outline is the same as in Word: press Tab to demote (or Alt+Shift+right arrow) and Shift+Tab (or Alt+Shift+left arrow) to promote.
You can also use the buttons on the Outlining toolbar to promote and demote. The Demote button is the right-pointing arrow; the Promote button is the left-pointing arrow.
Rearranging Outline Text
Each icon to the left of a slide in the Outline pane represents the slide itself and everything on it. One way to rearrange slides is to drag a slide's icon up or down. As you drag, a horizontal line appears showing where it is going, as shown in Figure 4-9.
You can also drag individual paragraphs up or down within a slide, or from one slide to another. Simply select the paragraph and then position the mouse pointer over it so the pointer becomes an arrow with a small box and drag up or down. 
The Move Up and Move Down buttons on the Outlining toolbar can also be used. First, select the text to be moved and then click one of those buttons.
One last method: the keyboard. Press Alt+Shift+up arrow to move the selection up, or Alt+Shift+down arrow to move it down.
Other Outlining Options
The Outlining toolbar has two other buttons we haven't looked at yet: Summary Slide and Show Formatting. Neither is an integral part of outlining in PowerPoint, but some may find them useful.
The Summary Slide button creates a summary slide that contains the titles of the slides that follow it, or if you select a group of contiguous slides, it creates a summary slide with their titles on it. This is useful for creating transition slides in a long or complex show. Selected slides must use a layout containing a title placeholder in order for the Summary Slide feature to be available.
Show Formatting toggles between showing and hiding text formatting in the Outline pane. It is off by default. For presentations that use plain Arial font anyway, there won't be much difference. Turning on the display of formatting may be helpful in proofreading for inconsistent formatting, especially in a presentation where the content has been assembled from multiple sources.
