MS Office 101

New From Old

Here's the scenario: you're editing a PowerPoint presentation and you realize that the layout of the slide is all wrong. You want a layout with a picture and text but you've got a slide with only a title and text box.

What do you do?

You're dreading the idea that you might have to create a new slide then copy and paste all this information to the new location and delete the old, unwanted slide.

Or... you could start playing with the sizing of the text box then go through the process of inserting a picture into the space you just created.

What a pain!

Wishing for an option of just going back to the original layout choices, picking the new layout and letting PowerPoint do all the transferring work?

Good wish, because it's about to come true.

Instead of the old copy / paste routine, try this on for size.

While you're looking at the slide you need to change, go to the Format menu, Slide Layout choice.

The Slide Layout window will open.

Choose the one that meets your current needs and click Apply.

Instantly you're returned to the presentation with your slide in its new format, ready for editing.

No copy / paste required. :-)

Office Tip of the Day

Time For A Font Change-Up

It's beautiful!

You're MS PowerPoint presentation is "picture perfect".

Well... almost.

You just happen to be looking it over and realize that maybe your choice of font wasn't the best decision.

But then you think of all the time it could take to make a change. Yeah, too much. This font will just have to do.

Too bad—now that you've gone down this mental road the presentation isn't quite so "perfect" after all. (And you just know that's what will run through your mind every time you give the presentation!)

Oh well, next time, right?

Wrong.

MS PowerPoint has a little feature called "Replace Fonts" that will solve our problem.

You can quickly tell PowerPoint which font type needs to go and exactly what to replace it with.

Here's the deal...

You'll need to go to the Format menu, Replace Fonts choice. (Alt, O then R will work too!)

The Replace Font window will open.

In the "Replace" field use the drop-down list to pick the font that's getting the boot from your presentation.

Below that, in the "With" field, use the list to select the font that's to take its place.

Click Replace.

Poof!

Throughout the entire presentation the old font is out and the new font is in.

You should also happily notice that font size and formatting is retained—just the font itself is replaced.

So, is your presentation "picture perfect" yet?

~ April