Changing Slide Layout
Changing Background Color
Reapplying Themes, Colors, and Fonts
In the previous chapter, you learned how to massage text into perfectly indented paragraphs, columns, and lists. Now it's time for the big picture. This chapter shows you how to format slide using layouts, and how to reapply a theme (see Section 1.2) or color scheme (a list of coordinating font colors). Finally—and most important when you're in a time crunch—you'll learn how to turn on PowerPoint's automatic formatting options.
Each time you create a slide—by creating a new presentation, or by adding a slide to an existing presentation—PowerPoint gives that slide a layout such as the Title Slide layout, with one title text placeholder near the top and one subtitle text placeholder near the middle of the slide. But you can change the layout of your slide at any time, either before you've added content to it or after. PowerPoint gives you several options for changing slide layout:
Apply canned layouts to your slides. You can tell PowerPoint to put a title at the top of a slide and two content placeholders (for text, pictures, and so on) side-by-side in the body of the slide.
Change orientation. You can change a landscape orientation (where the slide's wider than it is tall) to a portrait orientation (where the slide's taller than it is wide).
Reposition elements. You can drag text boxes and other objects (such as pictures) around on your slide to reposition them.
PowerPoint offers nine canned layouts you can use. Most of the time, you're going to want to apply these layouts before you add text to your slides, but you can apply them after, as well.
To apply a canned layout to your slide:
Create a new slide (Section 1.4). Click any blank spot on your new slide.
Make sure you don't click a text placeholder, picture, diagram, or other object.
Choose Home → Slides → Layout.
A layout gallery based on the template or theme you've applied to your slideshow appears. (You can also display the layout gallery by right-clicking the slide or the slide thumbnail you see in the Slides pane and then, from the context menu that appears, mousing over the Layout option.)
From the layout gallery, click to choose the layout thumbnail you want to apply to your slide (Figure 4-1).
Mousing over any thumbnail in the gallery pops up the name of that thumbnail option. Typically, your options include:
Title Slide. One title placeholder near the top of the slide, and one subtitle placeholder.
Title and Content. One title placeholder and one large content placeholder.
Section Header. Similar to the Title Slide layout, but with a contrasting background. (Useful for alerting your audience that you're starting a new section of your slideshow.)
Two Content. One title placeholder and two content placeholders, each containing an icon you can click to add a diagram, chart, picture, or other content.
Comparison. Similar to the Two Content layout, but with extra placeholders for headings.
Blank. No text placeholders at all.
Content with Caption. One title placeholder and one placeholder containing an icon you can click to add a diagram, chart, picture, or other content (see Figure 4-1).
Picture with Caption. One title placeholder and one placeholder you can click to add a picture.
PowerPoint automatically applies the layout to your slide.
Unless you tell it otherwise, PowerPoint assumes you want your presentation to appear in landscape form; that is, with slides that appear wider than they are tall. But you can change this orientation to portrait if you like. For example, if you intend to print your presentation, staple the pages, and hand it out to your audience, then you may want to switch to portrait so your audience can flip through the pages more easily.
To choose an orientation, go to Design → Page Setup → Slide Orientation and choose either Portrait or Landscape. Figure 4-2 shows you an example of each.
Figure 4-2. Left: Here, you see a slide in landscape orientation, which is the standard orientation for PowerPoint slides. Right: Here's what a slide looks like in portrait orientation. You can't change the orientation of a single slide or group of slides; it's all the slides in a presentation, or none.
PowerPoint gives you different ways to reposition the text boxes (and other objects) on your slides. You can either drag objects where you want them, or use the Size and Position dialog box.
Dragging typically works best when you have only a few objects on your slide. If you've got a bunch of objects (especially if they're overlapping), or if the text box you want to move is so completely filled with text you think you'll have trouble selecting its border to drag it, you'll want to use the Size and Position dialog box and save yourself some aggravation.
To reposition a text box by dragging:
Click inside the text box you want to reposition and mouse over the outline of the text box.
PowerPoint changes your cursor from an arrow to the double-arrow cross you see in Figure 4-3.
The dashed outline turns solid.
Drag the text box where you want it and release the mouse.
PowerPoint redraws the text box where you put it.
Tip
For finer control over the position of your text box: As soon as you see both the double-headed arrow cursor shown in Figure 4-3 and a solid text box outline, press the arrow keys on your keyboard to move the text box up, down, left, or right. To move the text box in even tinier increments, hold down Ctrl while you press the arrow keys.
Figure 4-3. When you click in a text box, the text box outline appears dashed. When you click the outline itself—which you need to do to reposition the text box—the outline changes from dashed to solid. If you're having trouble finding the right spot to click, look for the double-headed arrow cursor. When you see it, you know you're in the right spot to drag.
Tip
If you drag a bunch of stuff around on a slide and then change your mind and want to put it back the way it was, there's an easy way to revert to your original. Choosing Home → Slides → Reset tells PowerPoint to change your slide back to its original layout.
To reposition a text box using the Size and Position dialog box:
Click anywhere inside the text box you want to reposition. Go to Drawing Tools | Format, and click the Size dialog launcher.
The Size and Position dialog box pictured in Figure 4-4 appears.
On the Position tab, use the Horizontal box to tell PowerPoint how many inches to position the top-left corner of the text box from the left edge of the slide.
PowerPoint moves your text box left and right so you can gauge the effects on your slide in real-time.
Use the Vertical box to tell PowerPoint how many inches to position the top-left corner text box from the top of the slide.
PowerPoint moves your text box up and down so you can gauge the effects on the slide in real-time.
When you're satisfied with the position of your text box, click Close.
The Size and Position dialog box disappears.
Figure 4-4. The Position tab of the Size and Position dialog box lets you specify precisely how you want to position your text boxes and other elements, which is especially useful if you're using PowerPoint to create a program interface mock-up. If you like, you can tell PowerPoint to calculate the Horizontal and Vertical amounts you specify based on the center of your slide (instead of the top-left corner).
Whether you prefer dragging or using the Size and Position dialog box, there are times you'll need a little help positioning your text boxes and other objects—especially if your eyesight's not the best. PowerPoint offers that help in the form of the zoom, guides, and grid.
Zoom. The zoom tool magnifies your slide, making it easier for you to distinguish between the boundaries of different objects on a cluttered slide. To use this tool, drag the zoom slider in the status bar at the bottom of the PowerPoint window. You can also click the + or − signs to zoom in or out, respectively.
Guides. Guides in PowerPoint consist of two movable (draggable) crosshairs, one horizontal and the other vertical (Figure 4-5). Guides don't show up when you run your presentation; they appear only when you're working with your slides, to help you align text boxes and other objects. To display the guides, click Alt + F9. To make them disappear, click Alt + F9 again.
As you drag a guide, PowerPoint pops up a little direction arrow and the number of inches the guide currently is away from the center of your slide, helping you align stuff exactly 2.5 inches left of center, for example.
Grid. PowerPoint's grid (Figure 4-5) gives you a bunch of visual reference points you can use to line up text boxes and other objects. To display the grid, select View → Show/Hide → Gridlines.
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