Creating a PowerPoint presentation means juggling a lot of pieces — moving, formatting, and editing objects such as AutoShapes, pictures, text boxes, and the slides themselves. It’s not always immediately apparent how to select one of these items or how to navigate within it. Here are a few indispensable keyboard shortcuts that will quickly become second nature, saving you and your users a significant amount of time.

Note: A comprehensive list of PowerPoint shortcuts is available as a PDF download.

Action Shortcut
Select the next object on a slide Shift + Tab
Select all the text within a selected object (a selected object has a dotted border) Enter
Select all the objects on a slide Ctrl + A in Slide View
Select all the slides in a presentation Ctrl + A in Slider Sorter View or on the Slides tab
Select all the text in a presentation Ctrl + A on the Outline tab
Move to the beginning of a line in a text box Home
Move to the end of a line in a text box End
Move to the beginning of a text box Ctrl + Home
Move to the end of a text box Ctrl + End
Move to the next text box on a slide; when you reach the last one, this shortcut will insert a new slide with the same layout as the current slide Ctrl + Enter