If you already maximized the efficiency of your slide show viewing options (see Slide-Viewing Options) you can still display a MENU of actions while running a PowerPoint presentation. A simple FUNCTION KEY does the trick!

Pressing F1 (Function Key #1) while in a PowerPoint Slide Show will display the following Help Menu on the screen.

These are keyboard shortcuts you can use during a slide show to make certain things happen. Of course, the N and P keys stand for “next” and “previous”, but you should be using a remote to control your slides. We already discussed the “Number followed by Enter” choice in a prior post (the ENTER-ENTER trick). We mentioned using the Escape key (Esc) to exit the slide show (see the LOOP Option).

But here are some other goodies in the above Help Menu which may be useful for you:

• The B key can be used as a toggle (on/off) to display a BLACK screen. This is helpful if you need to temporarily “turn off” the presentation, perhaps to take a break, have a discussion or do an activity. Pressing B again re-displays the image.
    
• The H key reveals the next slide only if that slide is HIDDEN.  If the next slide is not marked as “hidden”, then the H key has no effect (you might hear a beep or ding). This is useful if you suddenly decide to show some support content that you normally would have skipped, but now feel the need to share. Of course, you have to know where these “hidden” slides are in your presentation.
    
• The Ctrl+S action (holding down the Control key while pressing the letter S) will display a list of all your slides. If you want to jump to a specific image you can scroll this list to find the slide you need. This feature is discussed in greater detail (see the “List-Slides” Feature).