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“Hybrid Power” Shortcuts Explained
In this article you’ll learn how to use a special (semi-secret) set of PowerPoint shortcuts that I call Hybrid Power Shortcuts.
These are sets of shortcuts that you access using a combination of your mouse and keyboard, as I describe in the video below.
If you want to jump in and learn all of my best PowerPoint tips and tricks for Investment Bankers and Consultants, check out my PowerPoint Crash Course.
Hybrid Power Shortcuts are different than the visible hybrid shortcuts that you’ll learn about the next article, because they are not fully visually displayed to you.
Although the shortcuts use some of the commands that you see on the bottom of your PowerPoint window (see below), you still need to know what keys to combine them with to activate them.
That means that you do have to memorize them to be able use them. There is no visible component that lets you learn these shortcuts on the fly as you are building your pitch books and presentations.
In the video above, I describe these shortcuts in depth (and how to best use them), but below is a quick overview of a few of these shortcuts if you just want to click around and try them yourself.
Slide Master Jump Shortcut
Holding the Shift key on your keyboard and clicking the Normal icon at the bottom of your screen takes you to the Child Slide Layout of your current slide in the Slide Master View.
If you do this a second time, holding the Shift key and clicking the Normal icon, you jump to the Parent Slide Layout on your Slide Master.
If you have never used your Slide Master before, this is where you build the backbone of your presentation to make sure that all of the formatting and slides are correctly set up.
The Slide Master is beyond the scope of this series on PowerPoint shortcuts, but I walk you through everything you need to know about it in the Slide Master Survival Guide as part of my PowerPoint Crash Course here.
Laser Pointer + Setup Show Dialog Box Shortcuts
While in Slide Show Mode, holding the Ctrl key and clicking and dragging on your screen turns your mouse cursor into a laser pointer.
If you don’t like the default red laser pointer, you can use a different Hybrid Power Shortcut to quickly change it.
Back in the Normal View, if you hold down the Shift key and click either the Reading View icon or the Slide Show icon, you will open the Set Up Show dialog box.
Within this dialog box you can choose either red, green or blue for your laser pointer.
The reason this is a Hybrid Power Shortcut is because you are holding a key down on your keyboard while also clicking with your mouse, which is entirely different than the Hold Shortcuts and Shift-Sister Shortcuts we discussed earlier in this series.
