Microsoft PowerPoint has the ability to automate quite a bit of what you need to make presentations in the workplace, but a few things are lacking when you compare them to other Office Suite programs. When you need to sort your slides or text within your slides alphabetically, you won’t find the small “AZ” icon that appears in the other programs’ ribbons. This doesn’t mean you can’t sort – you just need to put on your workaround cap and actually do the sorting yourself.
Get AutoFit in Ribbon if you do not have Classic Menu for Office. In PowerPoint 2010/2007, the AutoFit feature is hidden in PowerPoint Options deeply. It will take almost 7 steps to dig AutoFit feature out! Click the File Tab in PowerPoint 2010; Or Click the Office button in PowerPoint 2007; 2. Select the Options button at left bar; 3.
Using Text Boxes
Step 1
Launch PowerPoint and open the slide deck to sort alphabetically.
Step 2
Scroll to the slide with text boxes to sort.
Step 3
Click once on a text box to enable it. You’ll see its border become darker.
Step 4
Drag the text box higher on the slide, above any other text boxes that come after it in the alphabet.
Step 5
Adjust the other text boxes the same way, by dragging and dropping them into place and moving them down as they should appear in the alphabet.
Step 1
Launch PowerPoint and open the slide deck to sort alphabetically.
Step 2
Click the “View” tab, then click the “Slide Sorter” button on the ribbon. The view changes from the traditional big slide in the main window to the pasteboard with as many slides as will fit in the current view. If the text on the slides is very small, it may help to use the screen view slider to zoom in, but this will then show fewer slides on the screen.
Step 3
Click once on the slide to appear first in the alphabetical list, such as the one with a text box starting with “A.” Press and hold down the left mouse button, then drag the slide to the left of the first slide on the screen.
Step 4
Release the left mouse button and the slide takes the first position, labeled with a “1” on the screen. If you dragged and dropped the slide into the wrong place, simply redo this step and move it into first place.
Step 5
Click the next slide to appear in the alphabetical list, then drag and drop it into place. You can also work backwards, moving slides with letters that appear further back in the alphabet to the end of the slide deck.
Step 6
Click the “Normal” button on the ribbon to return to the regular slide view.
Tip
- If all of your text appears in a single text box, rather than separate text boxes, which may be the case in bulleted lists for example, you can manually sort alphabetically in a similar way as you did with the text boxes. Highlight all of the bulleted items that should come first in the alphabetical list. Note that PowerPoint does not let you highlight the bullet itself. Right-click and select “Cut.” Move the cursor to before the first bulleted item and press “Enter” to create a new bullet. Right-click and select “Paste.” Continue to re-order the bulleted items until they appear alphabetically.
References
Resources
About the Author
Fionia LeChat is a technical writer whose major skill sets include the MS Office Suite (Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Publisher), Photoshop, Paint, desktop publishing, design and graphics. LeChat has a Master of Science in technical writing, a Master of Arts in public relations and communications and a Bachelor of Arts in writing/English.
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In Word, choose Table→Insert→Table; alternatively, on the Ribbon’s Tables tab, in the Table Options group, click New. At the bottom of the pop-up menu, choose Insert Table.
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In Excel and PowerPoint, choose Insert→Table.
The Insert Table dialog lets you choose how many rows and columns your table will have. In Excel, you choose how many rows and columns you want by first selecting a cell range. When using Word, you enter the number of columns and rows you want in the Number of Columns and Number of Rows fields, respectively. The Insert Table dialog in Word offers these additional options:
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Autofit Behavior: Choose from these options:
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Initial Column Width: Choose Auto or type in a value.
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Autofit to Contents:Autofits table cell width to the content within the cell.
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Autofit to Window: Autofits table to the width of the document window.
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Set as Default for New Tables: You can make any changes you apply in this dialog the default for new tables inserted.
Not to be outdone, Word can make a table instantly from delimited text. Occasionally, you may find yourself faced with text that’s been laid out using tabs, commas, or other delimiters. Paragraph marks denote the ends of the rows. Converting this information to a table is very easy. Simply select the range of text containing the tab-separated text. Then display the Insert Table dialog by using either of these two methods:
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(Word only) On the Ribbon, click the Tables tab. In the Table Options group, click New. Choose Convert Text to Table near the bottom of the resulting palette.
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Choose Table→Insert→Table.