Working with text in PowerPoint is easy.
All you have to do is insert a text box, or click an existing placeholder… and your
cursor will appear inside.
Now you can type anything you want.
It's no different from working in a word processing program like Microsoft Word, so the experience
should be pretty familiar to you.
There may come a time when you need to work with text that's already in your presentation—maybe
to copy & paste something so you can reuse it elsewhere.
For that, you can use the commands on the Home tab.
Just look for cut, copy, and paste in the Clipboard group.
Alternatively, you could use keyboard shortcuts to perform these actions instead.
Keyboard shortcuts can be a lot faster than commands, because you don't have to keep returning
to the ribbon to use them.
Let's go back to our presentation so I can show you how they work.
First, you need to select the text you want to use.
Just click, hold, and drag your mouse over the text… then let go… and that's all
it takes.
You'll notice that the text is highlighted gray to show that it's selected.
Now you can copy it by pressing CTRL+C on your keyboard, which is the shortcut for the
copy command.
Next, to paste your text, go ahead and place your cursor wherever you want it to go.
Then press CTRL+V… and your text will appear.
In this example, it gets reformatted automatically because it's been pasted into a title placeholder.
Cut & paste works very much the same way.
Why don't we try it on the first item on this list?
All you have to do is select your text… then press CTRL+X on your keyboard.
Now you can paste anywhere you want using CTRL+V again.
Another way to move text from one place to another is the drag & drop technique.
This can be even faster than cut & paste because it requires fewer steps.
First, select the text you want to move… then click, hold, and drag where you want
it to go.
When you're ready, release your mouse… and that's it.
See how easy it is to move the text around?
Next, I'd like to take a look at formatting options like font color, size, and alignment,
all of which can have a big affect on your presentation.
For instance, if we added just a little extra formatting here, I think we could really make
this slide stand out.
To format text in PowerPoint, you can select just the text you want… or you can select
the entire text box… and format everything inside at once.
You might want to start with the options in the Font group, where you'll find lots of
different features that you can play around with.
In this example, I'm going to choose a different font color… a different font… and a slightly
bigger size—I think 35 should do it.
I'm also going to format the text in italics.
See what a difference all these changes can make?
If you want to change the placement (or alignment) of your text, take a look at the commands
in the Paragraph group.
Your options include left, center, right, and justified, which can be used to align
paragraphs.
I think centered looks the best.
Also in this group, you can change the vertical alignment… the text direction… or add
or remove bullets from your text box.
These are all great ways to customize your text, so your slide looks exactly the way
you want.
I think I'm happy with my choices, so I'm going to leave my text the way it is.
Finally, in a long presentation like this, sometimes I have trouble finding a specific
word or phrase that I know is in there somewhere.
The Find feature can help by searching the presentation for you.
To begin, click Find on the Home tab… type the word or phrase you're looking for… then
click the button that says Find Next.
If the word is found, PowerPoint will jump to the slide, and select the text for you.
If you realize that you've made a mistake throughout your presentation, or you need
to swap a certain word or phrase for another, there's a command for that too.
Just click Replace on the Home tab, or right here in the dialog box.
I just need to change this to the actual address for the website, so I'm going to enter that
here.
When you're ready, click the Replace button… and PowerPoint will replace will replace the
word, and take you to the next instance automatically.
You can even use Replace All to change every instance at once, instead of cycling through
them one by one.
There we go.
Now you know the basics, including find and replace; cut, copy, and paste; and even some
formatting techniques.
That should be everything you need to know to work with text in PowerPoint.