PowerPoint Tips & Shortcuts Cheat Sheet (Free PDF)

Build slides faster and present with confidence. This free PowerPoint cheat sheet combines the most useful keyboard shortcuts with simple design tips and power features, on two printable pages.

Download the free PowerPoint cheat sheet (PDF, 2 pages)

What’s inside

Section Examples
Building slides New slide, duplicate, group, copy formatting, Selection Pane
Text Font size, alignment, change case, clear formatting
Presenting Start show, Presenter View, jump to slide, black/white screen, laser pointer
Design tips One idea per slide, big text, contrast, Slide Master, alignment
Power features Designer, Morph, Speaker Coach, Reuse Slides, Compress Pictures, Export to PDF

Presenting shortcuts everyone should know

Key Action
F5 Start from the beginning
Shift + F5 Start from the current slide
Alt + F5 Presenter View (see notes and next slide)
Number + Enter Jump to a slide, e.g. 7 + Enter
B / W Black / white screen, great for pausing to discuss
Esc End the show

3 design rules that work

  1. One idea per slide, with a headline that says the point.
  2. Big, short text: 6 lines or fewer and at least 24 pt.
  3. Show, don’t list: replace bullet points with a chart, photo or diagram.

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Notes

Shortcuts are for PowerPoint on Windows. On a Mac, most use Cmd instead of Ctrl. Feature names can vary slightly between versions and PowerPoint for the web.

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