PowerPoint’s Ribbon interface is great for finding everything you might ever want to do in the presentation package — particularly things you don’t do frequently, like using the rehearse timing feature.

But if you’re looking to do common tasks fast, you’ll find keyboard shortcuts far more useful. Why bother to lift your hands from the keyboard if you want to open or close a presentation, apply formatting, or start a presentation?

There are keyboard shortcuts to accomplish a vast array of tasks in the PowerPoint desktop client, in both the Windows and Mac versions. (Fewer shortcuts are available for the Mac, but you can create your own custom keyboard shortcuts if you like.)

We’ve listed the shortcuts we’ve found the most useful below. Most work whether you’re using a subscription (Microsoft 365/Office 365) or non-subscription version of PowerPoint. For even more shortcuts, see Microsoft’s Office site, which lists shortcuts for creating and delivering a presentation.

Note: On Macs, the ⌘ key is the same as the Command or Cmd key.

Useful PowerPoint keyboard shortcuts

Looking for more help with Excel for Windows? If you have Microsoft 365 or Office 365 subscription, see “PowerPoint for Microsoft 365 cheat sheet.” If you have a non-subscription version of Office, see “PowerPoint 2016 and 2019 cheat sheet.” We’ve also got cheat sheets for an array of other Microsoft products, including older versions of Office.