Lesson 2: How to Create the Core of Your Presentation
How to Modify Text Font, Size, and Impact
We know how to insert text, but what about the appearance of the text? To emphasize keywords we want to use bold text. We might want to change the color or even font of the text to help illustrate a point. Modifying text is an easy process, but it takes practice.
Open a slide in which you already have text. Highlight a portion of the text by left mouse clicking and dragging your cursor over the text. What can you do now? You can modify the text font, size, and impact.
How to modify the text font
The default text might not be the text you wish to have in your presentation. Most PowerPoint programs use Times New Roman text because it is easy to read. Let’s say you are giving a presentation to an audience of children. The presentation is about storybook characters or comic books. In this case, you probably want to find a font that more closely resembles a comic font.
Once you have the text highlighted do the following:
1.) Open the Format menu.
2.) Select font.
3.) The Font window will open. In this window you can modify the text font, style, size, effects, and color.
4.) Scroll through the list of fonts and select “Comic Sans”. You will have a “Preview” button. This button allows you to preview the appearance of the new font (Comic Sans) before closing out of the font window. This button is very helpful if you are not sure what type of font you would like and want to try different fonts.
5.) Click “OK”.
How to modify the text size
Follow the previous steps to open up the font window. This time change the size of the text to 28. Once again you can preview your changes.
How to modify the text impact
In certain instances you might want to show mathematical formulas or just create cool looking text effects. Follow the previous steps to open the font window. Under Effects you can place a check mark by the desired effect such as superscript or embossed. You can also change the color of the text.
Note:The changes you make will affect any additional text you type in that specific text box. It can be especially tricky when you are working with superscripts and subscripts. If you are creating mathematical formulas and need to use superscripts for exponents, I would recommend that you first type the formula in without any text formatting. Then highlight just the number or text that you want in the subscript. Otherwise, if you try to format as you are typing it will become frustrating switching back and forth between different text effects.
Quick Tips
* You can also modify text in the outline pane by highlighting the text and then opening the font window.
* If you want to highlight just one word, then left double click on the word and the whole word will be highlighted.
* Modifying the text in PowerPoint is very similar to that of Microsoft Word.
