Contextual Menus and Ribbons

Quick reference

• 00:04 Another important thing to understand when working in PowerPoint is
• 00:08 contextual menus and contextual ribbons.
• 00:11 So in this lesson, we're just going to explore what they are and how they work.
• 00:16 Now, as we've already mentioned in previous lessons,
• 00:19 we have a ribbon running across the top of our screen.
• 00:23 And on that ribbon, we have numerous different tabs.
• 00:26 And each of those tabs contains commands that we can use to execute certain tasks.
• 00:32 And if you take a look at my ribbons, you'll see that currently I have
• 00:35 the standard, out-of-the-box set of PowerPoint ribbons.
• 00:39 But these aren't the only ribbons that I will see in PowerPoint.
• 00:43 There's a few ribbons that I don't have turned on, because I don't use them that
• 00:48 often, but there's also something called contextual ribbons.
• 00:52 And those ribbons don't appear until they're needed, so
• 00:55 let me show you what I mean by that.
• 00:58 Currently, open on the screen I have a blank presentation.
• 01:01 And what you'll notice is that when you open a blank presentation,
• 01:05 you have some placeholders on your first slide.
• 01:08 And I'm going to get into this a little bit more when we talk about slide layouts.
• 01:12 But placeholders are there to help you position text images and
• 01:16 other graphical elements on your page.
• 01:19 And there are different types of slide layouts.
• 01:21 This one happens to be a title slide layout.
• 01:24 So what I'm going to do is I'm just going to click where it says Click to add
• 01:27 title, and I'm going to add a title for this presentation.
• 01:33 I'm going to call it My First Presentation.
• 01:36 And for the subtitle, I'm just going to put my name.
• 01:40 And you'll notice that when I click away on the background of the side,
• 01:44 those placeholders disappear.
• 01:46 But what I want you to focus on is when I click back on where it says
• 01:50 My First Presentation to select that placeholder,
• 01:53 which is essentially just a shape, look what happens to my ribbons.
• 01:59 Can you see that I now have an additional ribbon Shape Format format?
• 02:03 And this is a contextual ribbon.
• 02:07 So because I'm clicked on a shape, which in this case is a text box,
• 02:11 essentially, it's now showing me a ribbon related to formatting that shape.
• 02:17 So if I want to do things like change the background color, I can.
• 02:20 I can change the outline, I can add some shape effects, I can edit the shape,
• 02:24 change the position, all of those kinds of things.
• 02:27 The point here really is to emphasize to you that those ribbons are going to change
• 02:32 depending on what it is that you're clicked on.
• 02:35 Another example would be if I was to,
• 02:38 let's just very quickly insert a quick icon.
• 02:42 Now, don't worry too much about what I'm doing here,
• 02:45 I am going to go through icons with you.
• 02:47 And I'm just going to insert this little icon.
• 02:49 And again, you can see that because I've inserted a picture,
• 02:52 this Design Ideas pane pops up, which I'm just going to close down.
• 02:56 I'm going to move this icon down to the bottom corner of my presentation.
• 03:00 But because I'm clicked on it, now take a look at my ribbons.
• 03:04 You can see that I have a contextual ribbon called Graphics Format.
• 03:08 PowerPoint has recognized that I've inserted a graphic, and
• 03:11 it's now showing me the ribbon with all of the commands relates to formatting and
• 03:15 positioning this particular graphical element.
• 03:18 If I click away, onto the background of the slide, that ribbon disappears,
• 03:23 because it's contextual, it appears when I need it only.
• 03:28 So that's a really important point for you to understand, because you're going to see
• 03:32 these ribbons popping up and down depending on what you're doing.
• 03:35 Now, I don't need this icon, so I'm just quickly going to delete that out.
• 03:39 The second thing I want to talk to you about in this lesson is something very
• 03:43 similar, which is contextual menus.
• 03:45 And again, these are little right-click menus that are specifically related
• 03:50 to what you're currently clicked on.
• 03:53 So for example, if I just click somewhere on the background of this slide and
• 03:57 right-click my mouse, you'll see that I get a menu of different options.
• 04:02 And these are all specifically related to the background of this slide.
• 04:07 So I can do things like add grids and guidelines, I can enable or
• 04:12 disable the ruler, or I can format the background or add comments.
• 04:17 However, this menu changes depending on what you're clicked on.
• 04:21 So if I was to now click on it, let's just select this text and right-click,
• 04:26 you'll see I get a completely different contextual menu
• 04:30 because I'm now seeing options related specifically to text.
• 04:34 So I have some formatting options in here, I can add links, I can cut,
• 04:39 copy and paste, so on and so forth.
• 04:42 And even if I was to go over to the thumbnail viewer and right-click
• 04:46 on the slide, again, you can see I get a completely different contextual menu.
• 04:51 This time I get menu items that are more related to the layout of this
• 04:55 presentation.
• 04:56 So I can do things like duplicate this slide, delete it, add sections,
• 05:00 things like that.
• 05:01 So the point that I'm really trying to make here is just be aware that contextual
• 05:05 ribbons will pop up and down depending on what you're doing.
• 05:09 And also, depending on where you're clicked,
• 05:11 you're going to get different options in that right-click contextual menu.
• 05:15 That's it for this lesson, I will see you in the next one.

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