Accessing Help and Search Features

Locked lesson.

Upgrade

About this lesson

In this lesson, we will learn how to access help on demand whilst working in PowerPoint using the F1 key and the search bar. We will also learn how to turn the Help ribbon on through PowerPoint options to access training, community forums and blogs.

Exercise files

Download the ‘before’ and ‘after’ PowerPoint presentations from the video tutorial and try the lesson yourself.

3.05 accessing-help-and-search-features - Exercise.docx
416.6 KB 3.05 accessing-help-and-search-features - Exercise solution.docx
295.7 KB 03-05-Accessing Help and Search Features.pptx
2.6 MB

Quick reference

Accessing Help and Search Features

When working in PowerPoint, it's important to understand where we can go to get help on demand. 

When to use

Reference screentips and the help files whenever you are looking for further guidance on a process, command or task. 

Instructions

Screentips

PowerPoint contains so many commands, it's sometimes hard to remember what each command does especially if we don't use the command frequently. We can see a description including the keyboard shortcut assigned to the command by enabling ScreenTips. 

ScreenTips show when we hover our mouse over any command on the ribbon. In general, these are enabled by default in PowerPoint. However, if we can't see the ScreenTip or can only see limited information we may need to adjust our settings. 

  1. Click the File tab. 
  2. Click Options. 
  3. On the General page, in the User Interface options group, click the drop-down arrow next to ScreenTip style. 
  4. To show the description and the keyboard shortcut in the ScreenTip, select Show feature descriptions in ScreenTips. 

Search Bar/Tell Me Feature

Another way to get help when working in PowerPoint is to use the Search bar/Tell Me Feature located in the title bar. This feature can be used to help you find commands on the ribbon, search for specific keywords or search the help files.

We can also search on tasks. For example, we can type 'insert a table' into the search bar and PowerPoint will return the table command along with associated information and a link to instructions to perform this task. 

  1. Click in the search bar or press ALT+Q. 
  2. Type a keyword or search term into the search bar. 

The search is dynamic so we do not need to press the Enter key to run the search. 

Search results are grouped by category: Best Action, Actions, Find in Document, Get Help on, and Quick Answer. 

Best Action links us directly to the command PowerPoint has determined we want to execute. This means we don't have to search through the ribbons looking for the command. 

Actions links us to related commands. For example, if we are looking for guidance on inserting a table, actions might display links to associated relevent commands like inserting a row or column. 

Find in Document searches through the PowerPoint presentation and highlights the search term. This is the same as performing a Find to look for specific text. 

Get Help on links us to the official Microsoft PowerPoint help files. 

Quick Answer is a new feature in PowerPoint. It provides a quick, text-based answer and simple instructions based on our search term. 

Accessing the Help Files

Microsoft provides a comprehensive library of Help files. We can access these at any time by pressing the F1 key. 

The Help files open in a docked pane on the right-hand side of the screen. Help is organised into categories and we can use the search bar to find help on a specific topic. Use the icons at the top to navigate around the Help files. 

The Help Ribbon

PowerPoint contains a specific ribbon dedicated solely to Help. By default, this ribbon is disabled so we need to enable it through PowerPoint Options. 

  1. Click the File tab. 
  2. Click Options. 
  3. On the Customize Ribbon page, place a tick in the box next to the Help ribbon in the pane titled Main tabs. 
  4. Click OK. 

The Help ribbon consists of 5 commands: Help, Contact Support, Feedback, Show Training and What's New. 

Help opens the Microsoft Help files. This is the same as pressing the F1 key. 

Contact Support gives us the option of contacting an agent at Microsoft. It's worth noting that this feature is not available in many countries. 

Feedback allows us to send comments and suggestions to Microsoft. We can communicate what we like, what we don't like and even offer suggestions for future improvements. 

Show Training opens the training files. These files contain training videos, demonstrations and instructional text. 

What's New let's us know about the latest updates made to PowerPoint. If a new feature is released, we will see it listed here. This helps us keep on top of new functionality ensuring our skills are always up to date. 

Hints & tips

  • The docked help pane can be undocked and resized. Simply click in the title bar of the help pane and drag it away from the right-hand side of the screen to undock. 
Login to download
  • 00:04 When you're new to working with PowerPoint,
  • 00:06 it's always good to know where to go to access, help on demand.
  • 00:10 And fortunately, PowerPoint contains lots of different ways that you can
  • 00:15 get some guidance tips and also find where commands are located on the ribbon.
  • 00:20 So let's start exploring some of those options.
  • 00:23 Now when you first look at the PowerPoint ribbon and you see
  • 00:26 this whole host of different commands, it can feel a little bit overwhelming.
  • 00:31 You're not going to know immediately what all of those commands do if you were to
  • 00:35 click on them.
  • 00:36 And that is why it's always really useful to make sure that you have screen tips
  • 00:40 turned on.
  • 00:42 Now, if you're not sure what I mean by a screen tip, let me show you.
  • 00:45 If I hover my mouse over the paste command on the home tab,
  • 00:49 you'll see the screen tip.
  • 00:51 I want the screen to be telling me, it gives me the name of the command.
  • 00:54 It also tells me what the keyboard shortcut is in racket.
  • 00:58 So if I want to execute this command really quickly, I could press Ctrl V, and
  • 01:02 it's going to paste whatever I've copied to the clipboard.
  • 01:06 I then get a short description of what this command actually does.
  • 01:11 So for this one it says add content on the clipboard to your document.
  • 01:15 So get a high level overview as to what that command is going to do,
  • 01:19 which can be super useful.
  • 01:21 If I hover over the layout command again,
  • 01:24 it's just telling me that this one is going to change the layout of my slide.
  • 01:29 What about If I go to another ribbon, so let's click on insert.
  • 01:32 And if I hover my mouse over the pictures command, you can see it's telling me that,
  • 01:36 from here I can insert a picture from my computer, from a stock image library or
  • 01:41 from online sources.
  • 01:42 So when it comes to the very basic task of simply knowing what a command does,
  • 01:47 this is a great little option for you to use.
  • 01:50 Now, if when you hover over your commands, you don't see this screen tab or
  • 01:54 you don't see as much information in the screens tab,
  • 01:56 then you need to make sure you have this set correctly in your PowerPoint options.
  • 02:01 So if we jump up to file all the way down at the bottom, we have options.
  • 02:06 And to customize your screen tips,
  • 02:08 you want to make sure you're clicked on the general page.
  • 02:10 At the bottom of this first user interface options group,
  • 02:14 you'll see we have screen tips style.
  • 02:16 And currently mine is set show feature descriptions in the screen tips.
  • 02:21 But you could if you wanted to customize this to not show the descriptions or
  • 02:25 to not show those screen tips at all.
  • 02:27 So if when you hover over you're not seeing them come in here and
  • 02:31 make sure you have either the first or the second option selected.
  • 02:35 I would recommend the first option as that means you're going to get everything.
  • 02:39 You're going to see the name of the command, the keyboard shortcuts and
  • 02:42 also the description.
  • 02:43 The second way that you can get help on demand is by accessing the search or
  • 02:48 the tell me feature.
  • 02:49 And the search is pretty easy to see it's right here at the top of the screen.
  • 02:54 As I hover over that search bar, you can see that there is a keyboard shortcut for
  • 02:59 this Alt Q.
  • 03:00 So if I was clicked somewhere else in my presentation, if I press Alt Q,
  • 03:04 it's going to jump my cursor up into that search box.
  • 03:07 And from here I can type in what it is that I want to do or
  • 03:11 what it is that I want to find help on.
  • 03:14 So let's pretend that I don't know how to insert a shape.
  • 03:20 Now when I type that in, you can see I get a number of different categories.
  • 03:24 The first category is actions.
  • 03:26 And underneath actions is going to show me where on the ribbon I need to click
  • 03:30 in order to insert a shape.
  • 03:33 So if I hover over where it says shapes,
  • 03:35 is then going to pull up my shapes gallery and I can insert a shape from here.
  • 03:40 So it really negates the need for me having to go to the specific ribbon and
  • 03:44 insert a shape from that.
  • 03:46 The next group I have is finding documents.
  • 03:48 So this is if I'm looking for
  • 03:50 the words in such shape within my PowerPoint presentation.
  • 03:55 And then, at the bottom here we have get help on, and
  • 03:58 this will jump me into the PowerPoint help files.
  • 04:02 And finally, at the bottom I have quick answer.
  • 04:04 And this is a fairly new feature in PowerPoint.
  • 04:07 So if you don't see quick answer at the bottom,
  • 04:10 it might be that you just need to wait until the latest update of PowerPoint.
  • 04:14 An this really talks you through the process of inserting shapes and
  • 04:17 also doing things like adding text to shapes.
  • 04:20 Now I'm going to go back just to this section here,
  • 04:23 it says get help on insert shape.
  • 04:25 I can see that I've got 10 results, and if I click it's going to open up those help
  • 04:30 files and displayed them in a pane on the right hand side of the screen.
  • 04:34 And you can see underneath here, I have lots of different links to information,
  • 04:39 videos, instructional texts on how to carry out that task.
  • 04:43 So really, it's a case of just looking through these different headings
  • 04:46 seeing which one matches what you want to do.
  • 04:48 So, for example, if I click on add shapes.
  • 04:53 And it's going to walk me through that process step by step.
  • 04:57 And as I scroll down,
  • 04:58 you'll see I have other headings down here that are related to inserting shapes.
  • 05:03 So this is a super useful resource.
  • 05:06 When it comes to these help files,
  • 05:08 if you find this a little bit restricted having it over in a task pane, if
  • 05:12 you hover your mouse at the top until your cursor changes to that four headed arrow.
  • 05:17 If you click and drag, you can actually pop out this task pane and then drag
  • 05:22 the size just to resize it, to give yourself a little bit more room to read.
  • 05:27 When you're done, you can either close this window down in tiny, or if you click
  • 05:31 the back button, it's going to take you back to your search results and
  • 05:35 you can dive in and explore a different topic.
  • 05:38 And you'll see that some of these topics, even contain useful tutorial videos.
  • 05:43 And the final thing you might want to do in order to access
  • 05:46 different types of help is turn on the help ribbon.
  • 05:50 So let's jump up to file and go down to options.
  • 05:53 So when you want to turn on different ribbons or even turn off different
  • 05:58 ribbons, you want to go to the customize ribbon page of options.
  • 06:02 And on the right hand side you'll see a big long list.
  • 06:04 And these are all of the ribbons that you currently have turned on.
  • 06:08 So everything with a tick, I can see as a tab at the top of my ribbon.
  • 06:12 But you'll see right at the bottom I have a tab called help that doesn't
  • 06:17 have a tick in the box.
  • 06:19 So if I click this and then say, ok,
  • 06:21 you'll now see that I get a dedicated help tab up here in PowerPoint.
  • 06:27 Now once again, this first button here,
  • 06:29 this is just going to jump you into those help files.
  • 06:32 And you can see that there is a keyboard shortcut, so
  • 06:35 you can quickly access help wherever you are in your presentation.
  • 06:38 And that keyboard shortcut is F1.
  • 06:40 So if I press the F1 key, again,
  • 06:42 it's simply going to open up that same help file.
  • 06:46 And you'll notice that it opens up in that pop out window.
  • 06:49 And if I want to make that pane again, I can just pick it up,
  • 06:52 drag it all the way over to the right hand side and pop it back into place.
  • 06:56 The second button allows me to contact support.
  • 06:59 So ask a question to Microsoft.
  • 07:01 I can give feedback to Microsoft.
  • 07:03 So I can tell them if I like something, if I don't or if I have a question.
  • 07:08 I can take a look at some training videos, and
  • 07:11 I can type in search terms at the top here.
  • 07:13 And then finally, if I want to see what is new in PowerPoint.
  • 07:17 What's the latest thing that I might want to use.
  • 07:19 I can click on the whats new button and I can see that recently they've added
  • 07:24 a feature that allows you to type hands free.
  • 07:26 So lots of different ways of getting on demand help when you're working in
  • 07:30 PowerPoint.
  • 07:31 If you don't have that help tab, turned on then I suggest you jump into options and
  • 07:35 do that now.
  • 07:36 But for the time being that is it for this lesson.
  • 07:39 I will see you in the next one.

Lesson notes are only available for subscribers.

Gift this course