The Content Placeholder and Bullet Levels

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About this lesson

Use placeholders to quickly add content to your slides including text, diagrams, and charts – so that you can later change the location and proportions of these objects, often with a single mouse click.

Lesson versions

Multiple versions of this lesson are available, choose the appropriate version for you:

2010, 2013, 2016, 2019/365.

Exercise files

Download the ‘before’ and ‘after’ PowerPoint presentations from the video tutorial and try the lesson yourself.

The Content Placeholder and Bullet Levels.pptx
2.1 MB The Content Placeholder and Bullet Levels - Completed.pptx
1.9 MB

Quick reference

Topic

Using layouts and placeholders to control the location and alignment of slide content.

When to use

To add and place various content on slides.

Instructions

To add new content to a slide

  • Right-click a slide, and then click the Layout menu item and select a specific layout.
  • Either:
  • Click within the content placeholder and type or paste text, or
  • Choose one of the six content icons to add that type of content within the placeholder.

To move content such as an image to a placeholder

  • Apply a layout to the slide that contains a content placeholder.
  • Select the image and cut it to the clipboard using the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+X.
  • Select the boundary of a content placeholder with the pointer.
  • Paste the image from the clipboard using the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+V.

Also note:

Placeholders on a slide can be reset by right-clicking the slide, and select Reset Slide. Layouts and placeholders can be customized in the Slide Master, available on the View tab on the ribbon.

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  • 00:04 When you build a presentation, something that will drive your audience absolutely
  • 00:08 crazy is to have various objects on slides that jump around in location.
  • 00:13 I've seen presenters at conferences with material on their slides that jumps around
  • 00:16 like that, and I feel like yelling out to them lay out some placeholders.
  • 00:21 An underutilized feature of PowerPoint is what's called layouts, and
  • 00:25 layouts govern the placeholders that are contained within them.
  • 00:28 So let's switch to reading view,
  • 00:29 which allows us to run the presentation in a slide show mode in a contained window.
  • 00:34 Notice as I scroll through these slides, that when they contain one or
  • 00:37 more images on the slide, the image locations change.
  • 00:40 And if I didn't have a fade transition between slides it would look even jumpier.
  • 00:45 Now, fortunately, there are some very easy ways to fix this.
  • 00:48 So, let's first of all explore what a layout is, and
  • 00:50 the placeholders that are contained within them.
  • 00:53 On this blank slide, right click on the slide, select layout, and
  • 00:57 here are the various layouts that are available.
  • 01:00 The current layout is a blank layout, and it's highlighted.
  • 01:04 So let's go to a title and content layout and select that.
  • 01:09 Now immediately, the slide updates with a content placeholder on the slide
  • 01:14 in which we can add some title text,
  • 01:16 as well as a content place holder where we can also add one of seven items.
  • 01:20 Text or click one of the six little icons to insert a table or
  • 01:25 a chart, a smart art graphic, a picture from the computer,
  • 01:30 a picture from online, or insert a video.
  • 01:33 So, let me insert some text in this content placeholder.
  • 01:37 I click within it, and
  • 01:38 the blinking cursor tells me now that it's ready to receive my text.
  • 01:42 So I'll add in some text.
  • 01:45 Venue ONE, press enter, Venue TWO, press enter, and Venue THREE.
  • 01:52 Now typing in this placeholder,
  • 01:54 we can also use keyboard shortcuts to manipulate the text further.
  • 01:57 So, for example, select the start of the sentence or
  • 02:01 the line tab demotes the text, and Shift Tab promotes it.
  • 02:06 But also, and this also works in Microsoft Word, Shift+Alt together
  • 02:11 with the down arrow moves the bullet point or the line down.
  • 02:15 Shift+Alt right arrow demotes it,
  • 02:18 Shift+Alt up moves it up, and Shift+Alt left promotes it.
  • 02:24 And that's a fast way of editing text in Powerpoint.
  • 02:27 So tab to the demote, shift+tab to the promote,
  • 02:31 as well as those shift+alt and arrow keys.
  • 02:36 So, let's quickly pop over to the outline panel pane and see that again.
  • 02:40 Select the start of the line of one sentence,
  • 02:44 tab to moat and Shift + Tab promotes.
  • 02:47 Now that's a very simple way to use your keyboard to not only add a text throughout
  • 02:51 your presentation, but to build your entire storyboard, and
  • 02:55 it's my favorite shortcut.
  • 02:57 So, let's go back to our previous view and
  • 02:58 look at fixing those images that jump around.
  • 03:02 So where we have a slide with one picture on it, if we right-click Layout and
  • 03:07 select Title and Content, select the picture,
  • 03:11 Ctrl-X cuts the picture and places a picture on the clipboard.
  • 03:16 Select a placeholder, CTRL V, and the picture is resized and
  • 03:20 constrained within that placeholder.
  • 03:23 On a slide where there are two pictures, we'll select a two content layout.
  • 03:27 Cut the picture with CTRL X, select the placeholder,
  • 03:31 paste which is CTRL V, cut that picture, paste.
  • 03:36 And we can do exactly the same for our next slide as well, so
  • 03:40 Cut that picture, Paste.
  • 03:45 Cut that picture.
  • 03:50 Paste.
  • 03:51 And now when we view our slideshow,
  • 03:53 even though the pictures aren't perfectly the same size,
  • 03:56 they will still fit very well on that slide, and that's a fantastic feature.
  • 04:01 So, for some final, really good news, say for
  • 04:03 example we wanted to manipulate this image for some reason, and we move it around,
  • 04:09 we could apply various effects to it, and then we think to ourself,
  • 04:12 it doesn't really balance the rest of our presentation.
  • 04:15 We can simply right click on the slide.
  • 04:18 Go to Reset Slide, and there it is back to our original, and
  • 04:21 we can commence again without destroying the whole slide.
  • 04:24 In fact, if you ever go to the slide pane here, select
  • 04:27 all of the slides with Control-A and fix all of those slides together as well.
  • 04:33 It's such a powerful feature of PowerPoint layouts and
  • 04:36 placeholders to hold your content, the various types of content that you can add,
  • 04:41 as well as using those keyboard shortcuts to manipulate text.
  • 04:45 It's really an investment well spent of your time to explore these features
  • 04:48 and use them.

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