Views in PowerPoint 2010 for Windows

In PowerPoint 2010, many of the views remain unchanged from PowerPoint 2007, or are very slightly changed. In this article, we will explore all these view options.

PowerPoint 2010 continues to provide the seven different views available in PowerPoint 2007, and adds a new Reading view to make a total of eight views. The Outline view from PowerPoint 2003 and earlier is still not accessible through a menu option or button, but we'll explore that later in this article. For the rest of the views, you can switch between all of them with a single click or a keyboard shortcut.

To access any of these views, you'll need to select the View tab of the Ribbon, as shown in Figure 1. You then click on any of the buttons in the Presentation Views group.

Figure 1: View tab of the Ribbon

The list below shows seven views within the Presentation Views group. Click on each of them for more detailed explanation on the linked page:

1. Normal
2. Slide Sorter
3. Notes Page
4. Reading View
5. Slide Master
6. Handout Master
7. Notes Master

We also explore three other views which are accessible from other tabs of the Ribbon, or the PowerPoint interface:

8. Slide Show
9. Presenter
10. Outline

Other than the View tab of the Ribbon, you can also access most of these views by clicking the four small buttons towards the right side of the Status Bar (see Figure 2).

Figure 2: View buttons

These four buttons (explained left to right) allow quick access to the same views:

1. Normal
2. Slide Sorter
3. Reading
4. Slide Show (F5 shortcut key also works)

If you Shift-click any of these four buttons, the view options change:

1. Slide Master
2. Handout Master
3. Does not bring up any view, instead it brings up the Set Up Show dialog box.
4. Also brings up the Set Up Show dialog box.