The Normal View is where you will do most of your work. The Normal view usually shows three panes: Navigation, Slide, and Notes.
First we will take a closer look at the Slide Pane.
A large version of the selected slide in the Navigation Pane appears in the Slide Pane.
You will do most of your editing and format changes directly on the slide.
Most slides have placeholders to hold your text. A placeholder is a special kind of text box.
Only placeholder text appears in the outline
PowerPoint creates placeholders when you
apply a slide layout to a slide. Text in those placeholders is what shows in the outline of the presentation. The outline will not see text that you
put in a text box that you created yourself.
A selected placeholder looks like a text box. It shows a thin border with circles for resizing handles.
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![]() Placeholders for the title and subtitle of the whole presentation |
![]() Placeholders for slide title and bullet list (the default layout for a new slide) |
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Step-by-Step: Slide Pane |
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What you will learn: | to select, resize, and move placeholders to AutoFit text in placeholder to edit text to save with Save As |
Start with:, socialissues-Lastname-Firstname.pptx from your Class disk
AutoFit will change the size of the Title only by 1 size (in the Font Size drop list) as you resize the placeholder. If the text won't fit in the placeholder, it will lie outside the placeholder. An odd effect!
Border - dashes = edit the text
Border - solid = move or resize placeholder
Drag inward to make the placeholder smaller.
As the placeholder gets
smaller, the text wraps. Text can fall outside the placeholder! In other programs text is hidden if it won't fit inside the text box.
AutoFit changes the text size to make it fit in a normal placeholder. This behavior can be set in three different places in PowerPoint:
So you may have to look in three places if your placeholders are not behaving the way you want!
In the steps below you will work with a placeholder that has AutoFit turned on.
It is quite easy to enter or edit text.
Do not use the Save button on the Quick Access Toolbar this
time. That button
saves the file back where it came from, with the same name.
Change the name of the presentation to issues-Lastname-Firstname.pptx and Save to your Class disk in the folder powerpoint project1.
Be
sure to use your own first name and last name in the file name.
Be sure to check where
the file will be saved! PowerPoint and most programs remember what folder
you used last, not necessarily from when you used PowerPoint last!
PowerPoint 2013 makes you pick a location before you enter a file name or pick a file type.
PowerPoint 2016, as updated in February 2016, shows text boxes for file name and file type between the path to the current folder and the list of that folder's contents. The blue up arrow changes the folder list to the next higher folder. Or you can navigate with the Browse button at the bottom of the list of locations in the middle pane.
Problem:
Deleted Placeholder
At some point you may delete a placeholder from a slide and want it back but Undo won't get you all the way back. A placeholder is not quite the same as a normal text box.
Solution 1- if you need the missing text to show in the outline or you want placeholder properties as in the original layout:
Apply the layout again: Home > Slides tab group > Layout > pick a layout.
You will have to add to the new placeholder any text or objects that were in the placeholder that you deleted earlier.
Solution 2- if you do not need outline text or properties:
Add a plain text box to your slide: Home tab > Drawing tab group > Text box.