Section 5.1. Viewing Multiple Slides | PowerPoint 2007 for Starters: The Missing Manual

5.1. Viewing Multiple Slides

When you're adding text and graphics to an individual slide, as described in Chapter 1, you're concerned with just one slide at a timethe slide you're working on. Not so when you want to edit your slideshow as a whole. In that case, you need a way to spread all your slides out in front of you (virtually speaking) so you can see what you've got and then decide which slides you want to delete, duplicate, move, and so on.

PowerPoint gives you two handy ways to see most (if not all) of your slides at once: the Slides pane that appears in Normal view (Figure 5-1), and Slide Sorter view (Figure 5-2).

5.1.1. Slides Pane

PowerPoint assumes you want to see the Slides pane (Figure 5-1) until you tell it otherwise . The Slides pane is mighty handy: When you right-click individual slides in the Slides pane, you can delete them, duplicate them, move them, and so on, as described in the following pages.

To get rid of the Slides pane, click the X in the upper-right corner. To bring it back again, click the Normal icon or choose View Normal. If you dont see a bunch of thumbnails, check to make sure you've selected the Slides tab.

5.1.2. Slide Sorter View

For situations where you only need to see three or four slides at a time, the Slides pane is the way to go. But if you need to work with more slides at a timefor example, if you need to move slides 15 to the end of a 25-slide presentationthen you need to switch to Slide Sorter view (Figure 5-2).

Figure 5-1. When you click to select a slide in the Slides pane, PowerPoint displays the editable version of the slide in the work area. The number of slides you see in the Slides pane depends on how many slides are in your presentation, and how big you've made the Slides pane. Make it skinny, for example, and you'll see a lot more slidesbut then PowerPoint has to make them really tiny to fit them all in. Drag the right edge of Slides pane to resize it.

To switch from one-slide-at-a-time Normal view to Slide Sorter view, either click the Slide Sorter icon or select View Presentation Views Slide Sorter.

Tip: Double-clicking a slide in Slide Sorter view pops you back to Normal view with the slide you double-clicked front and center, ready for you to edit.