Closing and Reopening Presentations

You can have several presentation files open at once and switch freely between them, but this can bog down your computer's performance somewhat. Unless you are doing some cut-and-paste work, it's best to have only one presentation file open-the one you are actively working on. It's easy to close and open presentations as needed.

Closing a Presentation

When you exit PowerPoint, the open presentation file automatically closes, and you're prompted to save your changes if you have made any. If you want to close a presentation file without exiting PowerPoint, follow these steps:

1. Choose Office Close.

   If you have not made any changes to the presentation since the last time you saved, you're done.

2. If you have made any changes to the presentation, you're prompted to save them. If you don't want to save your changes, click No, and you're done.

3. If you want to save your changes, click Yes. If the presentation has already been saved once, you're done.

4. If the presentation has not been saved before, the Save As dialog box appears. Type a name in the File Name text box and click Save.

Opening a Presentation

To open a recently used presentation, select it from the right side of the Office menu. Although only one file appears in Figure 3.12, up to nine can appear by default.

Figure 3.12: Close the presentation via the Office menu.

EXPERT TIP 

To pin a certain file to the Office menu's list so that it never scrolls off, click the push-pin icon to the right of the file's name on the menu. You can increase or decrease the number of recently used files that appear on the Office menu. Choose Office PowerPoint Options, click Advanced, and in the Display section, set the Number of Documents in the Recent Documents List.

If the presentation you want to open does not appear on the Office menu, follow these steps to find and open it:

1. Choose Office Open. The Open dialog box appears.

2. Choose the file you want. If necessary, change the location to find the file.

   CROSS-REF 

   See the section "Changing Drives and Folders" earlier in this chapter if you need help.

3. Click Open. The presentation opens.

To open more than one presentation at once, hold down the Ctrl key as you click each file you want to open. Then, click the Open button and they all open in their own windows. For more information, see the "Working with Multiple Presentations" section later in this chapter.

The Open button in the Open dialog box has its own drop-down list from which you can select commands that open the file in different ways. See Figure 3.13, and refer to Table 3.4 for an explanation of the available options.

Figure 3.13: The Open button's menu contains several special options for opening a file.

Table 3.4: Open Options
Open table as spreadsheet

Open Button Setting	Purpose
Open	The default, simply opens the file for editing.
Open Read-Only	Allows changes but prevents those changes from being saved under the same name.
Open Copy	Opens a copy of the file, leaving the original untouched.
Open in Browser	Applicable only for Web-based presentations, opens it for viewing in a Web browser.
Open and Repair	Opens the file, and identifies and repairs any errors it finds in it.
Show Previous Versions	Applicable only if the presentation file is stored on an NTFS volume under Windows Vista. See the next section for details.

Opening a File from a Different Program

Just as you can save files in various program formats, you can also open files from various programs. PowerPoint can detect the type of file and convert it automatically as you open it, so you do not have to know the exact file type. (For example, if you have an old PowerPoint file with a .ppt extension, you don't have to know what version it came from.) The only problem is with files that don't have extensions that PowerPoint automatically recognizes. In that case, you must change the File Type setting in the Open dialog box to All Files so that the file to be opened becomes available on the file list. See Figure 3.14. This change is valid for only this one use of the Open dialog box; the file type reverts to All PowerPoint Presentations, the default, the next time you open it.

Figure 3.14: To open files from different programs, change the File Type setting to All Files.

Caution 

PowerPoint opens only presentation files and text-based files such as Word outlines. If you want to include graphics from another program in a PowerPoint presentation, copy- and-paste them into PowerPoint or insert them using the Picture command on the Insert tab. Do not attempt to open them with the Open dialog box.

Finding a Presentation File to Open

If you have forgotten where you saved a particular presentation file, you're not out of luck. The Open dialog box (under Windows Vista) includes a Search box that can help you locate it. See Figure 3.15.

Figure 3.15: Use the Search box in the Open dialog box (Windows Vista only) to look for a file.

To search for a file, follow these steps:

1. Choose Office Open to display the Open dialog box.

2. Navigate to a location that you know the file is in. For example, if you know it is on the C: drive, click Computer in the Favorite Links list and then double-click the C: drive.

3. Click in the Search box and type part of the filename (if you know it) or a word or phrase used in the file.

4. Press Enter. A list of files appears that match that specification.

5. Open the file as you normally would.

Note 

You can also use the Search utility from outside of PowerPoint. In Windows, click Start and choose Search. Although the Search utility in Windows Vista is different from the one in Windows XP, both can find a file by name, content, author, date, or many other properties.