Okay, PowerPoint, this should stump you. Let's say I'm doing a presentation on music. I've got slides on everything from Abba to Gwen Stefani to Guns N' Roses. I want to make sure I don't have too much Rock and Roll and not enough Blues in my presentation. Is there an easier way to plan than just clicking from slide to slide?

Yep. It's called Outline View, and it's designed for viewing the titles and text of all your slides in one, easy to scroll page. Let me show you how it's done...

What is Outline View? In Outline View, your presentation appears as an outline, made up of titles and main text from each slide. Because you can see all your presentation in one window, rather than one slide at a time, it's an ideal place to plan, organize, or edit your presentation.

This Outline View thing sounds swanky. How do I do it?

Switching to Outline View To switch to Outline View, click the Outline Tab in the upper left-hand corner of the PowerPoint window. This is what you should see in Outline View:

When viewing all these slides in Outline View, I may realize something's missing. Like in that example of the Music Presentation, what if I realize Jim forgot a slide for Beethoven? Can I add a slide in Outline View?

Adding a slide to your outline You can add a new slide in Outline View the same way that you do in Slide View. 1. In the Slides Group in the Home tab, click on the top part of the New Slide button. A new slide is added which by default is the Title and Content layout slide. 2.  Alternatively, to add a new slide with a different layout than the default, click the bottom part of New Slide button with the arrow beside the text, "New Slide". A drop-down list appears with all the slide layouts you can choose from. Click on the layout you want to use. A new slide with that layout is now added. You can also add new slides quickly by using the Enter key. To add a new slide right after a slide title: 1. Place your cursor at the end of a slide title. 2. Press the Enter key. A new slide icon will appear in your outline.

What if, in Outline View, I want to add text to a slide? What if my favorite band keeps changing drummers? I'll want to mention that.

Adding text to your outline If you want to add text to a slide that you created previously, click an insertion point in the outline and start typing. With previously created slides with text you can also edit, delete, or change the formatting of text. When you use the default layout when you add a new slide in Outline View, there's a text box already available in the slide where you can add more text which says, "Click to add text". Click and start typing your desired text. There is another way to add text to a new slide you've created in Outline View. Follow these steps: 1. Type a title beside the slide icon. 2. After the slide title, press the Enter key. PowerPoint adds a new slide. 3. To convert the new slide into a text object, you need to use the Demote function. To get to the Demote function, do a right click on the mouse to make a formatting menu appear that includes the special functions used in Outline View. Select Demote. 4. Type your text. 5. To add another bullet point, press Enter. You can press Enter either where the text is shown in the Outline View sidebar on the left side of the PowerPoint window, or inside the text box in the slide. Note: With the exception of the title slide, any text you add will be formatted as a solid black bullet point when the new slide is the default Title and Content layout one. You can change the kind of bullet - to a square or remove it entirely, for example - by using the Bullets subtask in the Paragraph Group in the Home tab. The Bullets subtask can also be accessed in the formatting menu when you right click. There's also the other formatting tools that you can use like font type, size and color.

Also, PowerPoint, what if I need to look at just the slide titles to get a broad view, without getting bogged down in the content of each slide?

Moving around in Outline View When you are in Outline View, you see all the text that appears on your slides. However, PowerPoint lets you collapse the view, so you see only the outline titles. Use this option if you want to print an outline of your presentation, or if you want to check the logical flow of your slide titles without the distraction of extra text. To collapse all the slides in your outline: 1. Click on the slide icon (square box to the right of the number) in the Outline View sidebar on the left side of the PowerPoint window, then right click to make the formatting menu appear. 2. From the menu, select the Collapse button, then go to its arrow to reveal the 2 options. Choose Collapse All. The slide text for all the slides will disappear. You will see that the slide titles now appear to be underlined. This indicates text is hidden. To expand all of the slide titles again: 1. Click a the slide icon (square box to the right of the number) in the Outline View sidebar on the left side of the PowerPoint window, then right click to make the formatting menu appear. 2. From the menu, select the Expand button, then go to its arrow to reveal the 2 options. Choose Expand All. The slide text for all the slides will appear again. If you pick Expand instead of Expand All, only the text of the selected slide will reappear.

While I'm at it, how do you move from one slide to another? In my Music Presentation, let's say I've been checking out Louis Armstrong, and now I want to check out Jay-Z.

Oh, I love Benny Goodman. There's nothing like Big Band music to get me jumping. And on that note, let me tell you how to jump from one slide to the next.

Jumping from one slide to the next To move from one slide to another in Outline View, click anywhere on the slide you want to move to.