- Adding Title and Body Text
- Entering Bulleted Text
- Entering Special Characters
- Adding Text Boxes
- Layering Text
- Formatting Text
- Modifying Text Color
- Removing Font Formatting
- Changing Text Alignment
- Creating Text Columns
- Using the Mini Toolbar
- Adjusting Text Spacing
- Copying and Pasting Font Formatting
- Setting Bullet and Number Styles
- Setting Text and Bullet Tabs
- Finding and Replacing Text
- Checking Your Spelling
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
Formatting Text
PowerPoint does a good job of showing off the improved font rendering capabilities in Office 2007 and Windows Vista. You can scale text with no loss of quality, so your presentations will remain readable (unless you make the text too small for people in the back row!).
The main tools you'll use to work with fonts are in the Font and Paragraph groups on the Home tab of the Ribbon (Figures 4.16 and 4.17). These tools are similar to the ones in the other Office 2007 applications. Because great-looking text is so vital to a good presentation, I'll be discussing the text tools in depth.
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Figure 4.16 Most of your font stylings are done using the Font group on the Home tab of the Ribbon.
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Figure 4.17 Paragraph styling is done mostly with the Paragraph group on the Home tab.
To change fonts in a text box:
- Select the text you want to change.
- Choose Home > Font > Font, then choose the font you want from the pop-up menu (Figure 4.18).
Figure 4.18 Choose the typeface you want from the Font menu.
As you hover over a font, the text shows you a live preview of the change. Click a font to select it, and the selected text changes.
Notice how PowerPoint lists the fonts used in the theme design at the top, other fonts that have been recently used next, then all the fonts in your system last. All the fonts are shown as previews, rather than just a plain menu font.
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Changing font sizes
Like changing fonts, changing font sizes is just a matter of selecting text boxes or text and making your choice from the Font window.
To change the size of type:
- Select the text you want to change.
Choose Home > Font > Font Size, then choose the size you want from the pop-up menu.
As you hover over a font size, the text shows you a live preview of the size change. Click a size to select it, and the selected text changes.
or
Choose Home > Font > Increase Font Size, or press
or
Choose Home > Font > Decrease Font Size, or press
These two buttons change the font size up or down in the same increments that they are listed in the Font Size menu. So for instance, clicking Increase Font Size on 24-point text jumps the text size to 28 points, and clicking Decrease Font Size on that same 24-point text shrinks the text to 20 points.
Setting font styles
There are several font styles that you can set using the Font group, including bold, italic, underline, strikethrough, and shadow. There are also additional styles accessible from the Font dialog.
To set basic font styles:
- In a text box, select the text that you want to style.
Click on the style button you want from the choices in Home > Font.
or
To make text bold face, press
or
To make text italic, press
or
To underline the text, press
The text changes as you command.
To set additional font styles:
- Select the text that you want to style.
At the lower-right corner of the Font group, click the Open Font Dialog Box button.
The Font dialog appears (Figure 4.19). The additional font styles available in this dialog include your choice of underline style and color; double strikethrough; superscript; subscript; small caps; all caps; and the ability to equalize the character height.
Figure 4.19 You can use the Font dialog to make several font style changes at the same time.
- Make your choices in the Font dialog, then click OK to apply your changes.
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- You can also set superscripts and subscripts from the keyboard; for superscript, press
(plus sign), and for subscript, press 
(equal sign)
Using Equations in PowerPoint
PowerPoint is fine for creating basic superscripts and subscripts, but its shortcomings in creating complex equations will make mathematicians, scientists, and engineers throw up their hands in horror. PowerPoint's built-in text tools just aren't made for specialized formatting of that complexity.
The solution is to use other applications to create an equation, save it as an object, then place the equation into your presentation. Microsoft provides a good basic program for equation creation, Microsoft Equation Editor, which is part of the default installation of Office. The Equation Editor does a decent job for light-duty equation wranglers. To use it, choose Insert > Object, then choose Microsoft Equation from the resulting dialog. The Equation Editor will open, and you can type your equation into it, using the editor's tools to give it that equation-y goodness (Figure 4.20). Then choose File > Exit and return to [presentation name]. You'll need to resize the graphic, but the result looks good (Figure 4.21).
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Figure 4.20 The Microsoft Equation Editor is a handy way to get equations into PowerPoint.
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Figure 4.21 This equation was created in the Microsoft Equation Editor, then placed into PowerPoint. After scaling the graphic up to a size where it will look good on a slide, the result is quite acceptable.
If you have hard-core equation needs, consider upgrading to MathType ($97; www.dessci.com), which is made by Design Science, the same company that provides Equation Editor for Microsoft. MathType contains many more symbols, templates, and specialized math fonts than Equation Editor. You may also want to consider turning to the LaTeX equation typesetting system. There are free, open source software implementations of LaTeX for Windows; perhaps the best known is MiKTeX, which you can find at www.miktex.org.
Changing text case
Sometimes you accidentally press your Caps Lock key, and type an entry in all uppercase. Or perhaps you purposely made a title uppercase for effect, then later decide you don't like that effect. Rather than retyping the offending entry, use PowerPoint's Change Case feature to apply the capitalization you want.
To change text case:
- Select the text that needs its case changed.
Choose Home > Font > Change Case, then choose the capitalization you want from the pop-up menu (Figure 4.22).
Figure 4.22 The five choices for text capitalization.
Your choices are:
- Sentence case.
- lowercase
- UPPERCASE
- Capitalize Each Word
- tOGGLE cASE
The text changes.
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