Formatting Text in Text Boxes
When you format the text inside a text box your formatting is only applied to the word with the focus and all too often you have to drag across your text to select it and, if you're a bit clumsy, you end up moving the text box.
No need. Just click the outside edge of the text box or, even easier, press the ESC key. Now the entire text box is your current selection and your formatting is applied to all of the text in the text box.
Only click on the text in the text box when you want to format a single word or a particular phrase.
White Space in Text Boxes
You don't want every element of text in your presentation to be a bullet point, sometimes it is more natural to use a series of short paragraphs. But when you press ENTER to start a new paragraph the space between the paragraphs is full height because it's based on the font size you are using.
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| Paragraphs with full height spacing |
Text usually looks better if you reduce the amount of white space between your paragraphs to around half or two-thirds of the height of the font. Say you're using an 32pt font, then you should consider reducing the space to around 18pt or so.
This is a good one to know for Word as well, instead of banging away with ENTER, ENTER after each paragraph; adjust your paragraph's Space After setting to a suitable amount and then press ENTER once to start a new paragraph. ENTER, ENTER is typewriter formatting.
Anyway, let's stay with PowerPoint. To make the setting you either click the Line Spacing control in the Paragraph group on the Home tab and then look for Line Spacing Options or (far easier) click the launcher at the lower right corner of the Paragraph group.
Anyway, let's stay with PowerPoint. To make the setting you either click the Line Spacing control in the Paragraph group on the Home tab and then look for Line Spacing Options or (far easier) click the launcher at the lower right corner of the Paragraph group.
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| Dialog launcher on the Paragraph group |
Take a quick look at the font size you are using and then enter a suitable value into the After box of the Spacing section. This needs a quick bit of mental arithmetic but it's only working out halves or two-thirds and there's no need to be precise.
The space between your paragraphs is now huge because you have your new space after plus the original full height paragraph. Just click after the first paragraph and press DELETE to remove the empty paragraph and leave you with your beautiful, balanced paragraph spacing.
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| Paragraphs with balanced spacing |
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| Space After |
Space After values can be either typed in or you can use the spinner control.
The effect of the reduced spacing is subtle but it looks so much better than before and that's the type of thing that makes a big difference when your slide is projected on the big screen.
The effect of the reduced spacing is subtle but it looks so much better than before and that's the type of thing that makes a big difference when your slide is projected on the big screen.
White Space around Bullets
You can also use paragraph formatting to adjust the amount of white space around any bullet points on your slide. This is done using the Indentation settings available when you click the Dialog box launcher at the lower right corner of the Paragraph group.
The Before text value sets the amount of white space between the left edge of the text box and the bullet. The Hanging value is the space between the bullet and the text.
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| Paragraph Indentation for Bullet Points |
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