Ribbon and Tabs in PowerPoint 2019 for Windows (2024)

The Ribbon
Ribbon Contents

The Ribbon

The Ribbon is the long strip comprising tabs with buttons across the top of the main window within the PowerPoint interface.The Ribbon contains almost all the commands you need to work with your slides, and is designed in a way that helps you quicklyfind the commands that you need to complete a task.

However, PowerPoint does have a single menu, called theFile Menu. There’s also a single,customizable toolbar called the QuickAccess Toolbar. All the other commands are found in the various tabs of the Ribbon withinthe interface. The Ribbonin PowerPoint 2019 for Windows has several tabs, each named as youcan see in Figure 1.

Figure 1: Ribbon and tabs within the PowerPoint 2019 for Windows interface

Ribbon Content

The Ribbon contains many interface elements that are explained below:

Tabs

The Ribbon contains fixed tabs such as Home, Insert,Design, etc. Each tab contains sets of tools to create and edit slides. Other than these visible tabs, thereis a hidden tab called the Developer tab that you can easily enable. Refer toour Customize Interface: Enable theMissing Developer Tab in the Ribbon page for more info.

Contextual Tabs

These tabs are special tabs within the Ribbon that are not visible all the time.They only make an appearance when you are working with a particular slide object which can be edited using special options.Figure 2 shows the Shape Format tab (highlighted in green)which is only activated when a shape or another drawing object is selected on the slide.

Figure 2: Drawing Tools Format tab in the Ribbon

Group

A group of related tools within a tab is known as a Group.You can see the Shape Stylesgroup within the Shape Format tab, as shown highlighted within red inFigure 3, below.

Figure 3: Shape Styles group

Gallery

A Gallery is a collection of styles or properties. Most galleries can be seen as drop-downgalleries as shown in Figure 4. To access the drop-down galleries, you click the Morebutton (explained in the next point). Figure 4 shows the Shape Styles gallery. All availablestyles can be seen as small preview thumbnails.

Figure 4: Shape Styles Gallery

More button

The More button expands to a gallery within a Ribbon tab so that all or moreoptions can be seen. Figure 5 shows you the More button for the Shape Stylesgallery (highlighted in red). The two arrow buttons above the More button are usedto scroll inside the gallery without expanding it (or even after expanding it, if the gallery has too many options).

Figure 5: More button

Down Arrow

The Down Arrow is a small downward pointing triangle that's placed next to many buttons. Whenclicked, this displays a gallery or an additional options/sub-menu related to the selected button. You can see theDown Arrow (highlighted in red) next to the Shape Fill optionin Figure 6.

Figure 6: Down Arrow

Dialog Launcher

Dialog Launcher (highlighted in red within Figure 7)is a small square with an arrow in the lower right corner of several Groups within the Ribbontabs. Figure 7 below shows the dialog launcher within the Shape Styles group. As the nameexplains, a dialog launcher, when clicked summons a dialog box with more advanced options.

Figure 7: Dialog Launcher

See Also:

01 05 03 - Interface Overview: Ribbon and Tabs in PowerPoint (Glossary Page)

Ribbon and Tabs in PowerPoint 365 for Windows
Ribbon and Tabs in PowerPoint 365 for Mac
Ribbon and Tabs in PowerPoint 2016 for Windows
Ribbon and Tabs in PowerPoint 2016 for Mac
Ribbon and Tabs in PowerPoint 2013 for Windows
Ribbon and Tabs in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac
Ribbon and Tabs in PowerPoint 2010 for Windows
Ribbon and Tabs in PowerPoint 2007 for Windows
Ribbon and Tabs in PowerPoint for iOS – iPad
Ribbon and Tabs in PowerPoint for the Web

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