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Hierachical bullet "styles" in Powerpoint?

Anonymous
2012-06-12T09:13:34+00:00

In Word I am used to create hierachical, properly indented bullet lists by shifting items around using Tab and Shift-Tab. This automatically adjusts the indentation, the bullet symbol used for that level and - if so desired and properly set up - also the font size of the item.

When working with PowerPoint it always drives me nuts, that bullets obviously are such a different beast here!

I have googled around but everything I found only shows how to adjust a bullet style for one particular line (or group of lines, if so selected), but never hierachical, i.e. for several layers (but different settings for each).

Is there really no way, to specify a hierarchjcal bullet "scheme" (or style or theme or whatever it is called in PPT), where a top level bulleted item has, say, a large filled circle, the 2nd level, say, a smaller fileld square and the 3rd level, say, a dash as bullet. Plus, the font sizes should decrease appropriately with each level. And I want, that this is automatically applied depending on the level, if I enter Tab or Shift-Tab at the begin of a line (or applying the paragraph indentation toolbar buttons).

How does one configure or "design" something like this and how does one apply this??? And, finally, how can I make this my default behavior/template?

Any pointers welcome!

Michael

Microsoft 365 and Office | PowerPoint | For home | Windows

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Anonymous
2012-06-12T11:38:26+00:00

As John said, but also remember the golden rule of PowerPoint:

   NEVER COPY A PLACEHOLDER!

If you copy (and paste) a placeholder the resulting object is a text box, not a placeholder.  Text boxes in ppt can not handle the formatting of multi-level bulleted lists, so while it might look ok to start with, if you try to increase or decrease a paragraph's indent level (using tab or shift+tab), the bullet formatting will not change.  You should use a layout with the required number of placeholders when constructing your slide.

So go to the slide master, and define the bullets in the placeholder in the Slide Master (which is right at the top of the thumbnail pane, above the Layouts associated with that Master).

Hope that helps.

Cheers

Rich

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Anonymous
2012-06-12T09:55:05+00:00

That's pretty much how it works.

If you View slide Master you can set the bullet and font for 5 levels (you can add more)

Tab and shift tab should then work as you suggest BUT only if you put text in Content or Text Placeholders.

Maybe I'm missing something so please get back with more explaination if this doesn't help.

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  1. Anonymous
    2014-01-29T16:17:51+00:00

    Actually I don''t agree with that Rich.

    If you add a letter to a placeholder in 2010 and copy paste I'm pretty sure you get a textbox and it supports multi level bullets. A quick check is try to group with a shape.

    OR

    Sub chex()

    If ActiveWindow.Selection.ShapeRange(1).Type = msoPlaceholder Then

    MsgBox "PLACEHOLDER"

    End If

    If ActiveWindow.Selection.ShapeRange(1).Type = msoTextBox Then

    MsgBox "TEXTBOX"

    End If

    End Sub

    If you look at the XML example I uploaded you will see that it can be programmed in 2007 too (not simple though) and of course you could add more levels.

    Not being argumentative but I know you like experimenting!

    Yes, you're right John.

    As far as VBA is concerned, it's a textbox.  But as far as the user is concerned, it acts just like a placeholder (except that it can be grouped).  Maybe we should call the resulting shape a "placebox"!

    There is no way (correct me if I'm wrong) through the GUI to change the formatting of multiple levels in a textbox.  The only way you can create a textbox with multiple level formatting is either:

    a) Copy and paste a placeholder with the desired multi-level formatting in ppt 2010 or 2013

    b) Use the format painter to copy the level formatting from a placeholder to a textbox in ppt2010 or 2013

    or

    b) Code it in xml (you have to close the file for this right?)

    So to correct my earlier statement, maybe the bug in ppt2007 is to do with how the xml is written when the new textbox is created.

    Wouldn't it make so much sense if there was a template for the textbox formatting which would be inherited by any newly created textboxes!

    Cheers

    Rich

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  2. Anonymous
    2014-01-29T13:01:45+00:00

    I meant contradicting in the sense of your providing an answer which I hadn't found by searching.

    The reason for doing it is that I need to create a set of pre-designed layouts where users can just take a slide and type in their text. The master layouts work fine for smaller numbers but not necessarily for larger numbers of slides. Also, users would like to be able to cycle through the bullet hierarchy in textboxes without having to go through any menus to format individual levels or use an add-in to copy the formatting.

    To recap -- a text box derived from a placeholder created in 2010 with the pre-defined desired levels and fonts and spacing can be copied to 2007 and the levels will work?

    Will there be any side effects?

    How does PowerPoint 2007 know to apply the afore-mentioned levels to the textbox from 2010 and not to ones I draw from scratch in 2007?

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  3. Anonymous
    2012-06-20T22:26:03+00:00

    Thanks for the advice! Using the placeholders to define the bullet type and font size works very well. I'll try to remember that golden rule. These placeholders should be specially marked as such, then one would realize that there is a difference between placeholder and text box. Or text-boxes should simply (at least initially) copy the placeholder definitions. That would spare users such "unexpliccable" hassle!

    On the other hand: wouldn't Office be boring without such quirks? Ha!

    M.

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