Media Browser in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac

There are two floating palettes available in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac, the Toolbox and the Media Browser. We have already explored the Toolbox, and its various tabs. The Media Browser is new for PowerPoint 2011, and is a central repository of all sorts of media content that you can insert in your slides, since the Media Browser works in the same way in Office 2011 versions of Excel and Word, the content in these set of tutorials is relevant for those applications too.

In this tutorial you will explore the Media Browser, its various tabs are explained in separate tutorials. To launch the Media Browser in PowerPoint 2011, follow these steps:

1. Click the Media Browser button on the Standard toolbar (highlighted in red in Figure 1) to bring up the Media Browser. You can click the same button to hide the Media Browser, since this is a toggle button.
2. 
   Figure 1: Media Browser button on the Standard toolbar
2. Alternatively, choose the View | Media Browser menu option (highlighted in red in Figure 2).
3. 
   Figure 2: View menu option to enable the Media Browser
Tip: Learn more about PowerPoint 2011 for Mac interface.
3. This brings up the Media Browser that you can see in Figure 3.
4. 
   Figure 3: Media Browser
5. The Media Browser in PowerPoint (see Figure 3) has six tabs:
6. Photos
7. Audio
8. Movies
9. Clip Art
10. Symbols
11. Shapes
12. Each of these tabs is filled with options that let you perform important tasks within PowerPoint, and you can learn more about these individual tabs by clicking links to individual pages. Let us now explore those parts of the Media Browser that are visible within all tabs, as numbered in Figure 3 above:
13. Interface buttons: These buttons are located at the upper-left corner of the Media Browser. There are three buttons, but only two buttons are enabled (the middle button is grayed). These are:
14. The Close button (red button with a cross sign) that closes the Media Browser altogether, you already learned how to access the Media Browser if it is not visible.
15. The Expand button (green button with a plus sign) that expands the Media Browser dialog box to full screen (see Figure 4). Click the same green button to restore the actual size of the dialog box again.
16. 
    Figure 4: Expanded Media Browser
17. Title bar: This displays the name of the dialog box, in this case, it reads Media.
18. Tabs: The six tabs from left to right are: Photos, Audio, Movies, Clip Art, Symbols, and Shapes.
19. Resize handle: Just drag the lower-right corner of the Media Browser dialog box to resize.