Video: Change font size, line spacing, and indentation

You created a bullets list, and now you want to change its look and formatting, including font size, line spacing, and indentation. Watch this video to learn how.

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Use slide masters to customize a presentation

Apply and change a theme

We have created a bulleted list for our Agenda slide. Now, we’ll make some changes to its look and formatting.

Since I want to apply a different theme to the presentation, I’ll do that first.

Let’s click DESIGN and choose this theme called Facet.

That applies different styles and formatting to the list. So, now those are in place.

This theme uses a small font size for the text. Let’s increase it.

I’ll select the placeholder, click HOME, Font Size, and choose 24.

This font size is easier to see and makes use of the space on the slide.

Note that if you want to change the font size for every list in the presentation, you should change it on the slide master.

We’ll work with the slide master in Movie 3, Change list formatting on the slide master.

We have increased the font size. Let’s also increase the line spacing. To do that, I’ll select the placeholder, and on the HOME tab, I click Line Spacing, where I see that the current setting is 1.0, or single spaced.

And I see a preview of other settings. I don’t want quite so much spacing as 1.5. Let’s open Line Spacing Options.

This includes settings for indentation as well as spacing.

Under Spacing, the list is set to Single, but I can add space incrementally in the Before box.

I’ll change this from 10 pts to 20, and click OK.

So, I have added a bit more space to the single spacing, but it is not quite as much as the 1.5 spacing.

Now, because we have changed the font size and line spacing, I want to mention AutoFit, which can affect both of these types of formatting.

To demonstrate AutoFit, I’ll add one more item to this list. Watch closely as I type it: "Our support".

See how the list adjusted when I started typing? It got more compressed. It’ll continue to do so with each additional item.

That’s the result of AutoFit; it adjusts the line spacing and font size to fit all list items into the placeholder.

We’ll delete this last item.

Because you may not want the AutoFit. Whenever it happens, this control appears, called AutoFit Options.

Let’s click it.

To undo the AutoFit, I click Stop Fitting Text to This Placeholder. The line spacing returns to what it was.

I prefer that, so I’ll leave the AutoFit undone. And let’s say I want to turn off the AutoFit altogether.

I click the control again and click Control AutoCorrect Options.

In the AutoCorrect dialog box, I uncheck Autofit body text to placeholder, and click OK.

AutoFit is now off until I turn it back on.

Next, I want to move the list to the right a little bit, to balance out the slide more.

To do that, I’ll increase its left margin.

I right-click the text placeholder and click Format Shape. Then, I click Size & Properties, and TEXT BOX.

In the Left margin box, I’ll change the setting from .1 to 1.

The text moves to the right as I press the up arrow for the box.

I’ll close the Format Shape pane.

The new margin moves the list over nicely.

Now, if you ever need to adjust the space between the text and bullets, a great way is to use tab markers on the ruler.

To display the ruler, click VIEW, and check Ruler.

Now, let’s say I want to increase the space between text and bullets. I’ll select the text, and on the ruler, find this upper tab on the bottom of the ruler.

I drag the tab, and the dotted line shows where the text’s left indent will be.

To move the bullets, I drag the tab at the top of the ruler.

Now, note that if my list has more than one text level, I need to select the level of text that I want to adjust, and then move the tabs.

My Agenda list now looks the way I want it to.

Up next: We’ll change list formatting on the slide master.