PowerPoint Indentation Driving Me Crazy!
Daryl Pritchard
Firstly, I am a PowerPoint novice, being pretty much forced into using
PowerPoint for a task it really isn't designed for...creating rigidly
formatted test procedure cards that are better suited for an application
such as Word. Our customer seems to believe however that the template
masters of PPT will facilitate some of their activities planned later on.
So, here I am learning PowerPoint XP on the fly, pretty much getting the
hang of it yet finding that it is extremely unwieldy in use, with respect to
cutting and pasting text from an existing Word document, with hopes for
maintaining the indented list structures already in place. Whether I try to
transfer the existing list as is or if I demote the list and remove the
enumeration so that it appears essentially as just simple text, the result
when I paste the text into a PPT chart is the same: Upon applying an
enumerated list and alphanumeric sublist to the various lines of text, the
indentation indicated by the sliders on the ruler is not being respected.
Specifically, for list item "1." followed by a promoted sublist "a.", the
"a." is lining up directly under the "1." although the two indentation
sliders for the sublist and hanging text are at the 5th and 7th tic marks on
the ruler. Further, there is no indent of the text for the enumerated list;
rather, the text is butted up against the "1." even though the 1st indent is
at the 3rd tic mark.
I hope that is sufficiently clear. I've fought and fought with PowerPoint
and can't believe Microsoft would produce such a poorly designed product
with respect to a very basic operation. This is but one of several issues
I've seen when dealing with the format and indentation of lists in
PowerPoint.
I greatly appreciate any help that can be offered and will check this post
in the morning before I leave for work. Unfortunately I can't access the
newsgroup from work.
Thanks in advance,
Daryla
Daryl Pritchard
font sets, so there's nothing peculiar about the fonts that should be a
factor in the problem I'm having.
Daryl
Glen Millar
I must admit I only read the first bit.
You said you were "forced into using PowerPoint". Mate, best thing that ever
happened. Yeah, Word is maybe what you need, but you've discovered a great
program in the Office suit. I hope that others will fix your problem, and that
you'll come back from time to time and learn more. Of all the Office products,
this is HOME!
--
Regards,
Glen Millar
http://www4.tpg.com.au/millarg/index.html
http://www.powerpointanswers.com/article1036.php
"Daryl Pritchard" <daryl@REMOVE*jazzdiver.com> wrote in message
news:v1nlta7...@corp.supernews.com...
TAJ Simmons
If I want to create perfect tables of information in powerpoint I tend to
re-create them from scratch. I've never had much luck just pasting a Word
table / text.
I tend to set the slide master up as best as it can be. Then use "tabs" and
the "ruler" to help with further indents.
Cheers
TAJ Simmons
microsoft powerpoint mvp
awesome - powerpoint backgrounds,
free sample templates, tutorials, hints and tips etc
http://www.powerpointbackgrounds.com
"Daryl Pritchard" <daryl@REMOVE*jazzdiver.com> wrote in message
news:v1nlta7...@corp.supernews.com...
Mike Fried [MS]
> So, here I am learning PowerPoint XP on the fly, pretty much getting the
> hang of it yet finding that it is extremely unwieldy in use, with respect
to
> cutting and pasting text from an existing Word document, with hopes for
> maintaining the indented list structures already in place. Whether I try
to
> transfer the existing list as is or if I demote the list and remove the
> enumeration so that it appears essentially as just simple text, the result
> when I paste the text into a PPT chart is the same: Upon applying an
> enumerated list and alphanumeric sublist to the various lines of text, the
> indentation indicated by the sliders on the ruler is not being respected.
> Specifically, for list item "1." followed by a promoted sublist "a.", the
> "a." is lining up directly under the "1." although the two indentation
> sliders for the sublist and hanging text are at the 5th and 7th tic marks
on
> the ruler. Further, there is no indent of the text for the enumerated
list;
> rather, the text is butted up against the "1." even though the 1st indent
is
> at the 3rd tic mark.
You might try going to your word document, and using the File->Sent
To->Microsoft PowerPoint. Since you are more familiar with the way that Word
formats or rather, doesn't automatically format text. This works the best if
your Word document looks good in the Outline view, and for Word documents
written as an outline first, the PPT slides generated should be about right.
I recommend using PPT's AutoFit to format lists when they run off the slide.
It is usually in the lower left corner of the Content placeholder in some On
Object UI / Smart Tag.
> I hope that is sufficiently clear. I've fought and fought with PowerPoint
> and can't believe Microsoft would produce such a poorly designed product
> with respect to a very basic operation. This is but one of several issues
> I've seen when dealing with the format and indentation of lists in
> PowerPoint.
The way that I view it is that PowerPoint is designed for a different
purpose than Word is, and just as you wouldn't want to give a presentation
in Word, you wouldn't want to write a letter in PowerPoint. However, as many
presentations are in the form of lists of talking points, PowerPoint is very
good at formatting lists, but it is particular about how you enter them, and
copy/paste from Word is tricky in this regard. The Send To PPT option that I
mentioned above does a fabulous job if your Word document looks good already
in outline mode.
Always keep in mind that PowerPoint is designed to make presentations /
slides / handouts, so the unit of work in PowerPoint is Slide and
placeholder unlike Word where your basic units are section/page/column and
paragraph. The first slide in the presentation defaults to a Title layout.
You can change this by going to the Slide Layout task pane (Format->Slide
Layout), and chosing the "Title and Text" layout from the Text layouts
section. This is the default slide layout for all other slides after the
Title slide. My guess is that your frustration comes from jumping right in
and pasting and formatting a list into your first slide's title or author
placeholder, because it sounds to me like you are trying to put a list into
a title slide, which just has two text placeholders one for title and the
other for author. Every other slide has two placeholders, one for slide
title and the other for slide content. The slide content placeholder is the
right placeholder for lists.
The way that I prefer to enter bulleted lists is in the outline view. This
is reached by clicking the left-most tab on the thumbnail view on your left.
If it doesn't say outline, then it is an icon which looks like a group of
parallel horizontal lines. Basically, you click in the outline view, and can
type lists by hitting tab to indent a level, shift-tab to move back a level,
and enter to go to the next item. You don't actually need to be in this view
to type lists (i.e. you can click in the slide editor on the different
sections of a slide), but this is really handy when you want to insert a new
slide or manipulate a list across slides, because outline works across
slides, whereas typing in a placeholder on a slide only works within the
context of that placeholder.
If you prefer a numbered list to a bulleted list or just want different
bullets, you can change the type of list by right clicking on the text in
the slide and choosing Bullets and Numbering... This can also be done on the
Master (View->Master->Slide Master) to change every slide's default bullets
and numbering. If my first guess that you were having a hard time because
you were on the first slide was wrong, then you will be pleased to find the
Ruler to help you align your tabs in bulleted lists. Simply go to
View->Ruler, and you will have a top and left ruler to manipulate your tabs
stops.
If none of this above helps, there's always the notepad trick. Notepad is an
application which only understands one kind of clipboard item: text. If you
copy from Word to Notepad, edit out your list details to one line per entry,
and copy from Notepad to PowerPoint, you will only copy the unformatted text
(even if you removed all formatting you could in Word, you still copied the
text with formatting of the paragraph, font, font size/style/color, etc, but
Notepad doesn't get this information), and PowerPoint will format the text
minimally. Then you can format them in PowerPoint as you like.
Good luck, and don't be afraid to tinker with it or start from scratch.
There are some tutorials floating around the internet and around this
newsgroup that should be of help in learning to use this program. It is very
different from Word, even though it has a lot in common.
--
-Mike Fried
PowerPoint Development Team
Please do not send email directly to this alias. This alias is for newsgroup
purposes only.
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
PTT, Inc.
I agree with trying the "Send to PowerPoint" from Word, but another option
is to copy the text from Word, switch to PowerPoint, click the "Edit" menu,
select "Paste Special", then select "Unformatted text". This will not put
in the various indents making the text easier to format.
Hope this helps.
Bill Foley
www.pttinc.com
"Daryl Pritchard" <daryl@REMOVE*jazzdiver.com> wrote in message
news:v1nlta7...@corp.supernews.com...
Daryl Pritchard
them to the office for reference. It would take too long to describe all
the gyrations I've had to go through to make a slide and title master that
is suitable for the task I'm working on, but the bottom line really is that
PPT really is not the best tool for the documents I'm working with. But, it
is what the customer chose to use before considering all the ramifications
of their decision. Had we both known in advance what I've learned along the
way, I might've persuaded the customer to stick to Work or some other
application. Actually, I began this task under Office 2000 and thought I'd
worked out solutions to my problems, yet a recent push to Office XP now
finds me trying to resolve them again. One thing I do like about PPT XP is
that it supports multiple master sets, thus allowing me to create "charts"
(actually pages of detailed text unsuitable for charts) that are highly
customized yet still kept within a single file.
Thanks again,
Daryl
Steve Rindsberg
--
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======================
Steve Rindsberg PPT MVP
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Carlos Bobadilla
I've found an alternative for creating stunning flash presentations
when you are in a rush. www.prospektor.net It is a powerful
application. I made it in less than an hour.
Carlos
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