Text Flow/Repaging in PowerPoint

January 14, 2010 11:16 AM

Text flow/repaging in PowerPoint

I trained in PowerPoint a year ago, but am stymied by what should be a simple operation.

When I add text to a slide, the text below gets pushed off the bottom of the page, rather than flowing over to the next page as in a word processor.

I can of course create a new slide and move the text over to that, but it leaves me with only a few lines on the new slide.

(1) Does PowerPoint have an option to flow the text over to the next slide?

(2) If not, does it have a "repage" command that will do the job?

(3) If not, can I export the text and formatting to Word, remake the pages there and import back into PowerPoint?

posted by KRS to Computers & Internet (6 answers total)

PPT isn't a word processor (Word) or text layout program (InDesign) so there isn't real pagination, etc to it. It is good for bulleted lists. In modern version of the software, when you put too much content into a slide it will offer to break the content into a second slide, or make the text tinier. Powerpoint also goes out of its way to "help you" by matching text styles during copy/paste operations.

I've inherited documents that were done in Powerpoint which is most often used because people have always used it (and it nearly everyone has it) but it really should be in another application. 300 pages "decks" that had no business in a presentation graphics application. If you're needing to repaginate and deal with text flow issues, Powerpoint is probably not the best app.

You can 'save as Word' in PowerPoint but it comes in pretty messy. If I were you, I'd import the data into Word, clean it up and leave it in Word. You can set up the page layout in Word to mimic a Powerpoint deck. With Word 2007 you can save a file as a PDF and the readers would never know you were doing word processing in a word processing app instead of a presentation graphics app.
posted by birdherder at 11:33 AM on January 14, 2010

When you get close to the end of the slide you should see a little icond that looks like an up and down arrow pointing at some lines. Hover over that and select the arrow to the right of this (Autofit options).

The fourth option is to continue on a new slide. I think this is what you are seeking.
posted by Sheppagus at 12:20 PM on January 14, 2010

Aaaaaargh - that should be "icon" not "icond" and I really wish I could edit my post.
posted by Sheppagus at 12:21 PM on January 14, 2010

There is also a split text between two slides in the autofit options dropdown that will help your problem of only having two lines on the next slide.
posted by Sheppagus at 12:23 PM on January 14, 2010

The Autofit options will let you send the overflow of a text box onto a new slide, but they won't pick the best place to split it. It's a start, at least, but Powerpoint's really not meant for handling lots of text.

If it's just one slide that's the problem, could you split the text into two columns and make it fit better that way? Failing that, I often get everything to fit by fiddling with the font size or the paragraph spacing. Can you re-arrange whatever charts or graphs are on the slide to give yourself more space?

Word and Powerpoint don't play well together, at least in 2003, and re-importing text often requires correcting formatting once it's back in PPT. I haven't worked with 2007 enough to know if it's much better on that front.
posted by mgar at 12:36 PM on January 14, 2010

Someone already gave the technical solution, but my recommendation is to copy all of your text into the notes of each slide. Then, take a step back and make an outline of what you need to get across, and do it in succinct bullet points or short sentences. Nobody will get anything out of a presentation where there is more text than will fit on a slide.

If you put the unabridged version of your text in the notes, you can just print the slides with notes and hand them out.
posted by beyond_pink at 1:35 PM on January 14, 2010