I made this on Powerpoint 2007 many years ago but this can be useful to anyone looking to sharpen their Powerpoint skills even on recent versions. Feel free to use and share.

1. PowerPoint
Formatting
Tips
Saurav Kumar
Email: sauravkumar17@gmail.com

2. Using Gridlines (1/3)
• Important: Before you begin the presentation, turn on gridlines (Alt + F9 or Alt + Fn
+ F9 in some systems)
Benefits of
Procrastination None

3. Using Gridlines (2/3)
Benefits of
Procrastination None

4. Using Gridlines (3/3)
• Gridlines can be used to set the margins of the slide
• Ideally, margins should not be too narrow
– For printing purposes, margins should be kept wider
• Gridlines will help you in consistent placement of elements and they will not “jump”
during slide show
• You can have multiple horizontal and vertical gridlines
• To copy gridlines: Ctrl + Click on gridline & drag to new position
• When you click on a gridline it displays a number which indicates the position of the
gridline relative to the centre/ middle of the slide
• You can use this property to symmetrically align your elements on a slide

5. Formatting Text Boxes (1/5)
• Always ensure that your text
boxes have sufficient internal
margins
– In case there is a paucity of
space, you may reduce
margins to accommodate
more content
• Always select the ‘Do not
Autofit’ option to reduce
formatting work
• Shortcuts:
– CTRL + E to center a paragraph
– CTRL + L to left align a
paragraph
– CTRL + R to right align a
paragraph

6. Formatting Text Boxes (2/5)
• As a best practice, keep text aligned to top if the box layout is vertical and middle-
aligned if box layout is horizontal
A guy is sitting at home when he
hears a knock at the door. He
opens the door and sees a snail
on the porch. He picks up the
snail and throws it as far as he
can. Three years later there’s a
knock on the door. He opens it
and sees the same snail. The
snail says: ‘What the hell was
that all about?’
India has a population of a
billion people. One billion. That
means even if you’re a one in a
million kind of guy, there are still
a thousand others exactly like
you.
Fact 1 Fact 2

7. Formatting Text Boxes (3/5)
A guy is sitting at home when he
hears a knock at the door. He
opens the door and sees a snail
on the porch. He picks up the
snail and throws it as far as he
can. Three years later there’s a
knock on the door. He opens it
and sees the same snail. The
snail says: ‘What the hell was
that all about?’
India has a population of a
billion people. One billion. That
means even if you’re a one in a
million kind of guy, there are still
a thousand others exactly like
you.
Fact 1 Fact 2
• As a best practice, keep text aligned to top if the box layout is vertical and middle-
aligned if box layout is horizontal

8. Formatting Text Boxes (4/5)
• As a best practice, keep text aligned to top if the box layout is vertical and middle-
aligned if box layout is horizontal
A guy is sitting at home when he hears a knock at the door. He opens the door and
sees a snail on the porch. He picks up the snail and throws it as far as he can.
Three years later there’s a knock on the door. He opens it and sees the same snail.
The snail says: ‘What the hell was that all about?’
India has a population of a billion people. One billion. That means even if you’re a
one in a million kind of guy, there are still a thousand others exactly like you.
Fact 1
Fact 2

9. Formatting Text Boxes (5/5)
A guy is sitting at home when he hears a knock at the door. He opens the door and
sees a snail on the porch. He picks up the snail and throws it as far as he can.
Three years later there’s a knock on the door. He opens it and sees the same snail.
The snail says: ‘What the hell was that all about?’
India has a population of a billion people. One billion. That means even if you’re a
one in a million kind of guy, there are still a thousand others exactly like you.
Fact 1
Fact 2
• As a best practice, keep text aligned to top if the box layout is vertical and middle-
aligned if box layout is horizontal

10. Alignment (1/6)
• To reduce time spent aligning elements, you can use hot
keys
• Click on the ‘Customize Quick Access Toolbar’ – This
button is beside the redo button on the PowerPoint
ribbon (top left of page)
• Click on ‘More Commands’
• Select ‘All Commands’ from the dropdown
• Select ‘Align’ and add it to the Quick Access Toolbar
• Now you can use shortcut, Alt + 4 (or 5, 6 if you have
added other commands to your Quick Access Toolbar)
• To align elements, you can use intuitive shortcuts now:
– Centre Align - Alt + 4 + c
– Middle Align – Alt + 4 + m
– Top Align – Alt + 4 + t
– Horizontal Distribution – Alt + 4 + h
– Vertical Distribution – Alt + 4 + m
• Remember, Alt + 4 + <First alphabet of alignment
/distribution type>

11. Alignment (2/6)
• Always ensure that elements on a page are aligned with respect to each other and to the slide

12. Alignment (3/6)
These two
boxes have
been left-
aligned
These two boxes have
been top-aligned

13. Alignment (4/6)
• To align these boxes with respect to the slide, group them together (Ctrl + g)
• Then align them to the centre of the slide, using shortcut (Alt + 4 + c)
These four boxes have been
centre-aligned wrt to the slide

14. Alignment (5/6)
• Use (Alt + 4 + h) for horizontal distribution
• Use (Alt + 4 + v) for vertical distribution

15. Alignment (6/6)
• Use (Alt + 4 + h) for horizontal distribution
• Use (Alt + 4 + v) for vertical distribution

16. Using Space Efficiently (1/3)
1. A guy shows up late for work. The boss yells, ‘You should’ve been here at 8.30!’ He replies.
‘Why? What happened at 8.30?’
2. India has a population of a billion people. One billion. That means even if you’re a one in a
million kind of guy, there are still a thousand others exactly like you.
3. A guy is sitting at home when he hears a knock at the door. He opens the door and sees a
snail on the porch. He picks up the snail and throws it as far as he can. Three years later
there’s a knock on the door. He opens it and sees the same snail. The snail says: ‘What the
hell was that all about?’
4. Three guys stranded on a desert island find a magic lantern containing a genie, who grants
them each one wish. The first guy wishes he was off the island and back home. The second
guy wishes the same. The third guy says: ‘I’m lonely. I wish my friends were back here.’
5. Two campers are walking through the woods when a huge brown bear suddenly appears in
the clearing about 50 feet in front of them. The bear sees the campers and begins to head
toward them. The first guy drops his backpack, digs out a pair of sneakers, and frantically
begins to put them on. The second guy says, ‘What are you doing? Sneakers won’t help you
outrun that bear.’ ‘I don’t need to outrun the bear,’ the first guy says. ‘I just need to outrun
you.’
6. A guy meets a girl in a bar. She says, ‘This is your lucky night. I’ve got a special game for you.
I’ll do absolutely anything you want for £300 as long as you can say it in three words.’ The
guy replies, ‘Hey, why not?’ He pulls his wallet out of his pocket and lays £300 on the bar,
and says slowly. ‘Paint…my….house.’

17. Using Space Efficiently (2/3)
Use the ruler
at the top to
increase/
decrease text
indentation
Increase/ Decrease paragraph
spacing to accommodate content

18. Using Space Efficiently (3/3)
1. A guy shows up late for work. The boss yells, ‘You should’ve been here at 8.30!’ He replies. ‘Why?
What happened at 8.30?’
2. India has a population of a billion people. One billion. That means even if you’re a one in a million
kind of guy, there are still a thousand others exactly like you.
3. A guy is sitting at home when he hears a knock at the door. He opens the door and sees a snail on
the porch. He picks up the snail and throws it as far as he can. Three years later there’s a knock
on the door. He opens it and sees the same snail. The snail says: ‘What the hell was that all
about?’
4. Three guys stranded on a desert island find a magic lantern containing a genie, who grants them
each one wish. The first guy wishes he was off the island and back home. The second guy wishes
the same. The third guy says: ‘I’m lonely. I wish my friends were back here.’
5. Two campers are walking through the woods when a huge brown bear suddenly appears in the
clearing about 50 feet in front of them. The bear sees the campers and begins to head toward
them. The first guy drops his backpack, digs out a pair of sneakers, and frantically begins to put
them on. The second guy says, ‘What are you doing? Sneakers won’t help you outrun that
bear.’ ‘I don’t need to outrun the bear,’ the first guy says. ‘I just need to outrun you.’
6. A guy meets a girl in a bar. She says, ‘This is your lucky night. I’ve got a special game for you. I’ll
do absolutely anything you want for £300 as long as you can say it in three words.’ The guy
replies, ‘Hey, why not?’ He pulls his wallet out of his pocket and lays £300 on the bar, and says
slowly. ‘Paint…my….house.’

19. Formatting Images (1/3)

20. Formatting Images (2/3)
Original Image
Human looks
thinner without
aspect ratio
distortion

21. Formatting Images (3/3)
• Right-click on image to access
Format Picture
• Click on Size
• Ensure that the options below
are checked:
– Lock Aspect Ratio
– Relative to original picture size
• A best practice would be to
always resize an image by
dragging from a corner
– Alternatively, hold down the
shift key to retain the aspect
ratio
• Cropping of image should be
preferred to changing its aspect
ratio for fitting it within a slide

22. Removing Extra Spaces
Two campers are walking through the woods when a huge brown bear suddenly
appears in the clearing about 50 feet in front of them. The bear sees the campers and
begins to head toward them. The first guy drops his backpack, digs out a pair of
sneakers, and frantically begins to put them on. The second guy says, ‘What are you
doing? Sneakers won’t help you outrun that bear.’ ‘I don’t need to outrun the bear,’ the
first guy says. ‘I just need to outrun you.’
• Press Ctrl + h
• In Find What: press space two
times
• In Replace with: press space
once
• Select Replace All to remove
all double spaces

23. Removing Stray Fonts
• On home page ribbon, click on ‘Replace’ < ‘Replace Fonts’
• In the ‘Replace dropdown’, you can enter a common font like Arial / Calibri or any
other font that you may have encountered and replace it with the default font to
remove all instances of the stray font

24. Some Useful Shortcuts
• Hold down the SHIFT key when:
– drawing a line to get a perfectly straight line
– drawing an oval to get a perfectly round circle
– drawing a rectangle to get a square
– pressing Enter to get a blank line without a bullet
– resizing a graphic (image/ charts) to retain the same proportions in the resized graphic
– pressing F3 to change the case of letters
• Press CTRL +
– T to change the formatting of characters between sentence, lowercase, and uppercase
– Equal Sign to apply subscript formatting
– Plus Sign to apply superscript formatting
– Space Bar to remove subscript and superscript