|
The user interface changes that Microsoft made in PowerPoint 2000 and 2002
are a great illustration of the old adage "One man's meat is another man's
poison." Like Clippie (the obnoxious Office assistant), who first reared
his head in Office 97, some folks love 'em, others hate 'em.
If you're one of the former, stop reading. Leave everything set at the defaults.
Go see if Clippie wants to play in the street or something.
<swivels eyes left...swivels eyes right...spins around and looks behind.>
Good. They're gone. Now we can talk.
Slide View in PowerPoint 2000 and later isn't the same as it was in
earlier versions of PowerPoint. It can be handy to have the Slide, the Outline
and Notes all visible at once, but not if you're stuck working on a computer
with a low-rez small screen. Or you may just prefer the old uncluttered look
of PowerPoint 97's Slide view.
Whatever the reason, you can get it back easily. If you use PowerPoint 2000,
hold down the Control key while you click the Slide View icon
at the lower left of your screen. In PowerPoint 2002, hold down Control+Alt+Shift
instead of just Control. Start growing another hand now; as you may need
it in 2004.
To return to the new multi-pane style Slide View, simply click the same icon
again (with no modifier keys held down) or choose View/Normal from
the main menu bar.
You can also customize the View menu to include the old-style
Slide View:
- Right click any toolbar and click Customize on the
pop-up menu that appears (or choose Tools/Customize from the menu bar)
- Click the Commands tab of the Customize dialog box
- Click View in the Categories list
- Locate Slide in the Commands list
- Click Slide and hold down the mouse button while you drag
it to the View menu. The cursor changes to an arrow with a plus
sign
- When you reach the View menu, the View menu drops down. Drop the Slide
item where you'd like it to appear on the View menu
- Click the Close button in the Customize dialog box
- You can now choose View/Slide ( or press Alt/V + S ) to put
PowerPoint into the old-style Slide view.
Speaking of menus, PowerPoint now tries to simplify your life by showing you
an abbreviated set of menu items that features only the items most often used
by most people. You're not most people. Chances are that something you need
is hidden from you.
If you want to see all the menu options, click the bottom-most item on the
opened up menu (it looks a little like a down-pointing arrowhead). The other
hidden items will appear.
As you work with PowerPoint, it tracks the menu options you choose and rearranges
the menus on the fly so that your most-used menu choices are at the top of the
drop-down menus. To some people, this is convenient. To others, it's downright
disconcerting. If you'd rather your menu options stayed put, here's what you
can do:
- Right click any toolbar and click Customize on the
pop-up menu that appears (or choose Tools/Customize from the menu bar)
- Click the Options tab of the Customize dialog box
- Remove the checkmark next to Menus show recently used commands first
- Click the Close button
PowerPoint will now show all menu items all of the time and will
never rearrange them on you!
Note! If you'd prefer not to reset the menu, but occasionally would like to have the full view, know that you can double click the top menu to force the full menu to display.
|
