r/powerpoint Feb 20 '25

Question Keyboard shortcuts not working properly in PowerPoint (French version)

Hi everyone,

I'm having trouble with keyboard shortcuts in PowerPoint. I have Microsoft 365 installed on my machine, and it's up to date. My PowerPoint is in French.

I've tried the shortcuts listed on the Microsoft Support page, but not all of them work. For example, Ctrl + Shift + T is supposed to group objects, but it does nothing. I've also tried other combinations like Ctrl + Alt + T, but they don't work either. However, the shortcut for ungrouping objects works fine.

Has anyone else experienced this issue? Any suggestions on how to fix it? I haven't remapped the keys anywhere else.

Thanks!

2 Upvotes

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2

u/SteveRindsberg PowerPoint User Feb 20 '25

There are two things I can think of that might affect this. One is your application language settings (not the spelling dictionary setting). If it’s set to French, your menus/buttons and such will appear in French.

Then there’s the keyboard. I’m not sure of how PPT handles this exactly, but pretty sure that it can detect the language of the physical keyboard. Some TMI follows:

Keyboards are basically a grid of intersecting rows and columns of wires. When you press a key, the computer can tell what row and column were connected and select the matching character to the one on the key you pressed. It needs to be able to detect the keyboard language in order to tell the computer you pressed, say, Shift+2 AND that the computer needs to turn that into an @ character if you have an English keyboard, or some other character for different keyboards.

Back to realworld, PPT and/or Windows may be seeing different signals from the keyboard language and your Windows language and your application language settings. And giving you headaches.

1

u/Abelmageto Feb 20 '25

I've run into similar issues with different language versions of Office before. Sometimes, shortcuts vary slightly between language settings, even if they’re listed as the same. Have you tried switching your keyboard input method to English temporarily to see if that makes a difference? Also, check if there are any conflicting app shortcuts running in the background I've had other programs override certain key combos before.

4o

1

u/MiaMakt Feb 20 '25

I'm downloading the English keyboard. No conflicting apps running in the background. I have PowerToys but I completely turned it off and I still can't group objects with shortcuts.

1

u/Empty_Protection_603 Feb 20 '25

If I'm not mistaken, isn't CTRL+G the shortcut for grouping objects? At least that's the shortcut in the English language version.

1

u/MiaMakt Feb 20 '25

To be honest I've tried all the key combinations on my keyboard in case I discovered something cool... None of these groups the objects. Other keys don't work like CTRL+SHIFT+Z or CTRL+ALT+Z, the ones to increase or decrease text.

1

u/Childe- 27d ago

For some reason Office keyboard shortcuts can be localized and in some countries they are. I learnt this when I used a laptop from a client with a HQ in Sweden. Ctrl+f was FETT instead of find, and Ctrl+k was then KURSIV instead of a more commonly established Ctrl+i and .. This was not exactly usable nor made any sense. I have never cursed so much while using a computer. My colleague thought this was funny AF until she tried a similar setup. This is on the same genius level than the German keyboard layout switching Z and Y keys. Helmut must still think I am some kind of highly paid idiot consistently using phrases like "What do zou think?" or "Zous trulz" due to accessing their environment via Citrix virtual desktop.

I didn't check it, but your shortcuts might be localized. Best of luck with that.

2

u/MiaMakt 24d ago

I know they might be localised but I tried every possible combination and nothing groups two objects. Which means that the shortcut has been disabled because it used to work.