Customize keyboard shortcuts powerpoint 2016 windows

Question

In MS Word 2016, I can customize keyboard shortcuts as described here. However, the same procedure cannot be applied to my Powerpoint 2016 software. Simply, the button "Customize" in step 3 of the aforementioned manual does not exist. Is there any way to assign a shortcut to, e.g., "insert equation" in PPT 2016?

Solution 1

Is there any way to assign a shortcut to, e.g., "insert equation" in PPT 2016?

There is no way to customise keyboards shortcuts in PowerPoint 2016.

However there is already a shortcut sequence for inserting equations.

For your convenience, hold down the Alt key, press N , and then press E.

Alt+N is the keyboard shortcut for switching to the Insert tab and then pressing E afterward[s] brings up the equation list.

Source Powerpoint 2016 Customize Keyboard Shortcuts

Solution 2

I use different language versions of Microsoft Office on different computers (English, French and Spanish), so the differences in keyboard shortcuts and the inability to customize them in PowerPoint and Excel is very frustrating. The Alt shortcut system described in another answer might work in some cases, but in my case, it is less than satisfactory. For example, something as simple as "Select All" in Spanish requires Alt,o,ó,e. But because my keyboard does not have the accented ó, I can only do "Select All" with Alt,o,Alt+162,e!

(Note that Alt,o means "press and release the Alt key, and then press and release the o key"; whereas Alt+162 means "press and hold the Alt key while typing 162, and then release the Alt key".)

So, my workaround is to use AutoHotkey to create custom scripts. AutoHotkey lets you create almost any keyboard shortcut for almost anything. They have a tutorial to give you a good idea of what it can do.

If you're interested in that possibility, here's my PowerPoint shortcut script in AutoHotkey to give you a template for customization (note: my purpose is to use English shortcuts on Spanish Microsoft PowerPoint):

; MS PowerPoint
#IfWinActive ahk_exe POWERPNT.EXE
^a::Send {Alt DownR}o{ASC 162}e{Alt up}  ; select All
^b::Send ^n  ; Bold
^f::Send ^b  ; Find
^i::Send ^k  ; Italics
^h::Send ^l  ; find and replace
^s::Send ^g  ; Save file

Comments

[Felix]

Thanks for this helpful answer. It is still a mystery to me why MS does not use the same options panel in all of their office products, which would naturally offer us the "customize shortcuts" option in all of their programs.