Text, fonts and bullet points

What does an audience do when a long paragraph appears on screen? They start reading — and stop listening to the speaker. That's why text on a slide should be short, large and clearly structured. In this lesson you will learn to work with text in PowerPoint: where to type it, how to format it and how to build lists.

Placeholders and text boxes

There are two places to type text. A placeholder is part of the layout: its font and size come from the theme, and its text shows up in Outline View. A text box (Insert › Text › Text Box) is for free text — for example, a short caption under a picture. Click once on the slide and the box grows as you type; drag with the mouse and its width stays fixed while the text wraps onto new lines.

Font and paragraph formatting

Select text and use Home › Font to choose the font, size, Bold, Italic, Underline, Font Color and Change Case. When you select text, a small Mini Toolbar also appears next to it. The Home › Paragraph group holds alignment, line spacing and lists.

Bullet points and list levels

1. 1
   Type the list

   Click in the big placeholder of a Title and Content slide: the bullets are already set up. Type each point and press Enter — a new bullet appears.

2. 2
   Change the level

   Press Tab at the start of a point to indent it into a sub-bullet. Shift+Tab moves it back up one level. The same commands are the Home › Paragraph › Increase List Level and Decrease List Level buttons.

3. 3
   Choose bullets or numbers

   Use the arrow on Home › Paragraph › Bullets to pick a bullet style, and Bullets and Numbering… to set its color and size. When order matters (steps, a ranking), use Numbering.

4. 4
   Adjust the spacing

   Home › Paragraph › Line Spacing changes the space between lines (e.g. 1.0 or 1.5). In Line Spacing Options… you can add space before and after each point, which makes the text easier to read.

Time-saving tools

• Format Painter (Home › Clipboard): select formatted text, click the brush, then drag over other text — the formatting is copied. Double-click the brush to apply it several times; Esc stops it.
• Replace Fonts (Home › Editing › Replace › Replace Fonts): swaps one font for another everywhere in the presentation.
• Reset (Home › Slides › Reset): throws away manual changes and returns the slide's placeholders to the layout's formatting.
• Convert to SmartArt (Home › Paragraph): turns a bulleted list into a diagram in one click — more in the lesson on visuals.