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How To Use Selection Pane in PowerPoint, Word, and Excel Tutorial

Using Selection Pane in Microsoft PowerPoint

Selection Pane in PowerPoint

Introduction

After writing 70 dedicated articles on animations, I thought to write this article on How To Use Selection Pane in PowerPoint 2016 / 2019. However, this topic is not only limited to PowePoint but you can also use Selection Pane in other Microsoft Office applications like Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel as well.

In the past so many years, I rarely used Selection Pane in other Office apps than PowerPoint. Mostly, I use PowerPoint for Animation purposes, where I need to draw and animate so many objects like Shapes, Pictures, WordArt, Symbols, and Tables and when I also need to apply animation effects, then a simple task of Selecting Objects can become very frustrating. The Selection Pane can then be a time-savior to help you Select, Hide / Unhide, Change Order, Rename, Group / Ungroup and Delete objects.

This article could be a little long but once you understand the Basics of using Selection Pane then it can save you a ton of time in all of your next PowerPoint presentations. So, let’s get started with How To Use Selection Pane in Microsoft Office applications?

How To Show / Hide Selection Pane in PowerPoint?

You can show or hide Selection Pane in PowerPoint using 2 methods. The first and most common is clicking the Select drop-down button from the Home tab and then clicking on Selection Pane. That applies to three major applications of Microsoft Office: Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. You can hide the Selection Pane by repeating the same steps. See Figure 1.1 and Figure 1.2.

Selection Pane in Word and Excel
How To Show or Hide Selection Pane in Word and Excel
Figure 1.1
How To Show / Hide Selection Pane in PowerPoint
How to Show or Hide Selection Pane in PowerPoint
Figure 1.2
PowerPoint Welcome Screen with Blank Presentation
Blank Presentation with Default Layout
Figure 1.3
PowerPoint Blank Presentation with Title Slide Layout
The title Slide is the Default Layout for a Blank Presentation
Figure 1.4
Open Selection Pane from Shape Format in PowerPoint
Shape Format or Picture Format tabs can also be used to Show or Hide Selection Pane
Figure 1.5
Selection Pane Task Pane Options
Task Pane Options displaying Move, Size, and Close commands.
Figure 1.6

How To Move the Selection Pane?

How To Move Selection Pane in Microsoft PowerPoint
Using the Move-Task Pane option move the Selection Pane to the left.
Figure 1.7
Move Selection Pane in PowerPoint
De-attaching the Selection Pane and can place it anywhere as required.
Figure 1.8

How To Resize the Selection Pane?

Changing Size of Selection Pane
Figure 1.9

How To Hide / Unhide Objects with Selection Pane?

When you insert an object inside your presentation whether it is a Shape, WordArt, Table, Picture, Audio, or Video, then its default name appears in the Selection Pane. If your presentation consists of many various kinds of objects then it becomes necessary to rename the objects and then you can easily identify and select the objects through the Selection Pane.

Hiding / Unhiding Objects through Selection Pane
The girl Character is only visible after hiding most of the Light objects.
Figure 2

Why and How To Rename Objects with Selection Pane?

So, if you are naming all the objects as you insert them, then later you can easily identify and select them through the selection pane or even you can work on a particular object by hiding the rest of them using the method described above. Naming objects can help you easily identify a particular object from a huge list of objects.

Renaming Objects with Selection Pane
Figure 2.1

How To Arrange Objects with Selection Pane?

It is obvious that when working with so many objects then you also need to take care of the order of those objects. In Microsoft PowerPoint, you can change the order of objects from the Format tab using Send Backward, Send To Back, Bring Forward, and Bring To Front.

I hope you got The Teacher Point.


Watch How To Use Selection Pane in PowerPoint, Word, and Excel Tutorial

How to Use Selection Pane in Microsoft Office Tutorial (Applies To: Word/Excel/PowerPoint)

The Selection Pane is only available in the following versions:

Excel for Office 365 Word for Office 365 PowerPoint for Office 365 PowerPoint for Office 365 for Mac Excel 2019 Word 2019 Excel 2016 PowerPoint 2019 for Mac Word 2016 PowerPoint 2016 Excel 2013 Word 2013 PowerPoint 2013 Excel 2010 Word 2010 PowerPoint 2010 Excel 2007 PowerPoint 2007 PowerPoint 2016 for Mac.

A Microsoft powerpoint tutorial
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