“Placeholder boxes” vs. “Text boxes”

So as I had previously discussed, “Placeholder boxes” are used to maintain consistency between the different slides in our presentation (Lesson 5).

These can be text, but they are still very different from an ordinary “Text box”.

First, “Placeholder boxes” can only be inserted via the “Slide Master” tab, which I will explain in a later lesson.

Secondly, if you want to remove all text that is typed from a “Placeholder box”, you will see that the text in a standard “Placeholder box” reappears.

                     

                            

Thirdly, a “Placeholder box”, whether it is a title box or a subtitle box or a caption box, all have a preset size independent of the text it contains.

Fourth, the information from a “Text box” is not listed in the “Outline” view.

Fifthly, if it is an empty box, it disappears completely.

Sixth, the size of a text box changes depending on the length of text that we type.
This is in contrast with a “Placeholder box” where changes are made to the font of the text.

 

The manual entry of a “Text box”

If you want to insert a “Text box” in a slide, click the “Text Box” button under the “Insert” tab in the “Ribbon”.
The mouse pointer changes to an inverted cross.

Now, you have two options:
1. Click and start typing but then, all your text will be placed on a line, even if the text comes out of the slide margins. This is a good solution only if your text contains a few words.
2. Click and drag the mouse pointer in your slides, in order to determine the width of your “Text box”.

The text will automatically go to the next line. When you reached the end of the text it goes to the next line and it is called text wrap.

 

“AutoFit” a “Text box” and a “Placeholder box”

Thus, as mentioned previously, the size of the “Text box” adapts to the size of a “Placeholder box”.

The opposite is that a “Textbox” here, changes its size according to the length of text.
We can also adjust using the “AutoFit” feature.
To do this, right-click the text box or “Placeholder box” and choose “Format Shape …”from  the drop-down menu.
This opens the “Format Shape” dialog box.
The “Format Shape” dialog consists of two parts. On the left side are the various categories and on the right side, we find the various options under these categories.

Select the “Text Box” category.

This shows us the different options for setting our text or “Placeholder box” and is  divided into three sections.

“Text Layout”, “AutoFit” and “Internal margin”.
The upper “Text Layout” option seems clear.
The lower, “Internal Margin” box also seems clear.

About the middle “AutoFit” section, I will elaborate a little.
In the “AutoFit” section, we have three possibilities.

1. 
   

   “Do not AutoFit”

   .

   When this is checked, the size of the “Text box” or “Placeholder box” that was selected is not adapted to the length of text. This may lead to text going beyond the edges of the box.

2. 
   

   “Shrink Text on overflow”

   .

   This is the default setting for a “Placeholder box” but, can also be set for a “Text box”. When this is checked, the text size adapts to the size of the box.

3. 
   

   “Resize shape to fit text”

   .

   This is the default setting for a “Text box” but, can also be set for a “Placeholder box”. When this has been checked, the size of the box will adapt to the size of the text.

 

Whatever changes you make, applies only to the selected text or “Placeholder box”.

 

But we also have the ability to set this for all “Text boxes” and display all our subjects.

Just click the “File” tab in the “Ribbon”.

Click the “Options” button at the bottom of the menu.

In the “PowerPoint Options”, choose the “Proofing” option.

Click the “AutoCorrect Options” button.

This opens a second “AutoCorrect” dialog box.

Choose the “AutoFormat As You Type” tab.

Check the box for the text “AutoFit title text to placeholder” for the “Text box” and uncheck the “AutoFit body text to placeholder” option.

Click OK when you want to save these settings.

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