When you create a basic text slide, such as a Title Slide, Bulleted List or Table, you sometimes add so much text that it doesn't fit properly. One solution would be to shrink the font size. Another is to move the text higher on the slide.

Text that is inserted in the boxes provided (such as the title or subtitle of a Title Slide) resides inside a text box. You can tell by the dashed line around the text on the slide. When you click in a text box, its border becomes thicker, and selection handles appear at each corner and the center of each side:

If you click on an edge of a text box, the cursor inside it will disappear. When this occurs, you can move the entire box, either by dragging with the mouse or by using the cursor arrow keys.

If you drag with the mouse, you can prevent the box from shifting left or right by holding down the Shift key while dragging.

To use the cursor arrow keys, click the one pointing in the direction you wish to move the box. To move in extremely fine increments, hold the Ctrl key down while pressing the appropriate cursor arrow button.

If you create a table that includes too many rows to fit on the slide, you can use this same technique to move the table higher.

By the way, clicking on an edge of a text box also means that any changes you make to the text attributes (font, font size, font color, etc.) applies to all the text inside the box.

Positioning text boxes is covered in PowerPoint 2000 Module 1 and PowerPoint 97 Module 1.

Sometimes you wish to perform an operation on several slide objects, whether text or graphics. By simultaneously selecting all the objects at once, you can save time by performing the operation once. To select multiple objects, either:

• Click on the first object to select it, then hold the Shift key down to select each additional object
• Use the Select Objects tool, found on the Drawing toolbar. This bar is normally located at the bottom of the screen.

To use this tool, position the mouse pointer just above and to the left of the uppermost object, hold the mouse button down, and drag down to the right to encircle all the objects. You will see a dashed line representing the area being selected. Note that each object you wish to select must be completely within this dashed line or it won't be included.

When you release the mouse button, you will see selection handles around each of the objects.

Selecting multiple objects is covered in PowerPoint 2000 Module 1 and PowerPoint 97 Module 1.

Normally PowerPoint displays text horizontally on a slide. In special situations, you may wish to rotate the text vertically. To do so:

1. Click on the text box to select the text
2. Click on the Free Rotate button on the Drawing toolbar:

You should now see small green circles at each corner of the text box.

3. Move the mouse pointer onto the upper left green circle

When you do, the mouse pointer should look like this:

4. While holding down the mouse button, drag down to the right to rotate the text box
5. When the box is at the desired angle, release the mouse button

Rotating text is covered in PowerPoint 2000 Module 2 and PowerPoint 97 Module 2.

Suppose you are using PowerPoint while making a presentation at a company staff meeting, and want to display an Excel spreadsheet, a Word document and the department's new Web site. By adding a hyperlink to slide text, you can click on the text to quickly jump to the desired file or URL. Of course, hyperlinking to a URL assumes that your PC is connected to the Internet.

To create a hyperlink:

1. Highlight the text that you want to turn into a hyperlink
2. Press Ctrl K

The Insert Hyperlink dialog box should appear:

The text you highlighted will appear in the Text to display box at the top.

3. If you know the name of the file you wish to hyperlink to, you can type it in the Type the file or Web page name box. For example, to link to an Excel spreadsheet file named Budget.xls stored in the My Documents folder, you would type:

c:\my documents\budget.xls

Or, you can browse for the file by clicking on the File... button. Likewise, you can either type in the URL of the Web site you wish to link to, or click on the Web Page... button to search. If you wish to position the cursor at a precise location within a file or Web page, you can use the Bookmark... button. However, you must first create the appropriate bookmark within the document.

4. Click on OK

The text you had highlighted will now appear in a different color, and will probably be underlined, to indicate that it is now a hyperlink. To test it, you must run the slide show.

When you move the mouse pointer onto the text, the mouse pointer will change into a hand to indicate it is hyperlinked. Clicking on the text should cause the linked file to appear within the application that created it. For example, if linked to a spreadsheet, Excel will first load and then display the file.

Hyperlinks are covered in PowerPoint 2000 Module 2.

Suppose you create a PowerPoint slide show that you are using for an out-of-town presentation. Rather than bring your PC with you, the conference center offers to provide one for you. You save your presentation to a disk and take it with you.

When the presentation begins, you are surprised to discover that the fonts you had used have been replaced by a different set. As a result, some of the text doesn't fit properly, throwing off your usual smooth delivery.

Why did this happen? The fonts you specified when you created the presentation were not found on the borrowed PC. When this happens, PowerPoint looks for a substitute font or fonts that closely approximates the originals.

To avoid this, you can embed the fonts in the presentation. This will make them available on the borrowed PC even if it doesn't have them installed. You can embed any TrueType font that comes with Windows. Other TrueType fonts can be embedded only if they have no license restrictions. If a font can't be embedded — for example, it's not marked as being editable or installable — a message appears to tell you why.

To embed TrueType fonts in your presentation:

1. Invoke the Save As dialog box as you normally would
2. Navigate to the folder or drive where you wish to save the presentation
3. Give the presentation a name
4. Click on the Tools button:

5. Click on Embed TrueType Fonts
6. Click on Save

As you might expect, embedding fonts in a presentation will cause it to be somewhat larger in size.

Suppose your colleague has created a PowerPoint presentation that includes 8 - 10 slides that you need for a presentation that you are creating. It is very easy to either move or copy slides from one presentation to another. Here's how:

1. Open both presentations
2. Switch to Slide Sorter view in the current presentation
3. Hold down the Ctrl key and tap the F6 function key

This will switch to the other presentation. Each time you press Ctrl F6 you will toggle back and forth between the presentations.

4. Switch to Slide Sorter view
5. If necessary, use Ctrl F6 to activate the presentation whose slides you wish to borrow
6. Click on the first slide to be borrowed
7. While holding down the Ctrl key, click on each of the other slides
8. To move the slides, press Ctrl X. To copy the slides, press Ctrl C
9. Activate the presentation you wish to move the slides to by pressing Ctrl F6
10. If you wish, click between slides to specify where the incoming slides should be copied

The "cursor" will appear as a long vertical bar between two of the slides. If you click on the right-most slide, the cursor will appear to the left of the row below.

11. Press Ctrl V

This will paste the slides beginning at the cursor location. If they end up in the wrong positions, you can use "Drag and Drop" to move them to the proper locations.

If you create graphics for your PowerPoint slides using the Drawing toolbar, you can often break a large, complex drawing into smaller components that can be replicated, then joined together.

The Drawing toolbar provides several tools for doing so. To clone an object:

1. Click on the object to select it (selection handles will appear around it)
2. Hold down the Ctrl key and tap the D key

The copy usually appears on top of and partially offset from the original. You can drag the clone to the desired location using the mouse. Or, you can move it by tapping the appropriate cursor arrow key repeatedly. For more precise moves, hold the Ctrl key down while doing so.

The second way to clone an object is to hold the Ctrl key down and drag the object. Instead of moving, this tells PowerPoint to make a copy.

Once you've made copies of the objects and have assembled them in the proper position on the screen, you can group them so they are treated as a single object. To do so:

1. Select all the components that make up the object
2. Click on the Draw button on the Drawing toolbar
3. Click on Group

You should now see 8 selection handles around the entire object. Once grouped, you can move the entire image by dragging with the mouse or with the cursor arrow keys.

Cloning and grouping objects are covered in PowerPoint 2000 Module 2 and PowerPoint 97 Module 2.