Add a Text Box to a PowerPoint slide

The next thing we'll do is add some text below the image we inserted onto the previous slide. In PowerPoint, you can't just start typing text where you please. It needs to go into a text box. You can then move the text box around the screen, and position your text where you want it.
To add a new text box to your slide, click Insert from the menu bar at the top. From the Insert menu, click Text Box:

When you click on Text Box from the menu, you won't see anything happen. That's because text boxes need to be drawn on to the slide.
So move your mouse pointer over to you slide, just below your image. The pointer will change shape to a slim white arrow:

Hold down you left mouse button. Keep it held down and drag:

When your text box is about the same width as your image, let go of the left mouse button. Your text box will then look like this in PowerPoint 2000:

And this in PowerPoint 2003:

The white line is the cursor, waiting for you to type some text. So go ahead and type the following into your text box:
The Start of the AutoContent Wizard
When you're done, your text box should like this:

The font itself is different from the one we used for the titles. The title font was Arial Narrow; this is Times New Roman. To change the properties of the font, first highlight all of your text. It should turn white:

With the text highlighted, click Format > Font from the menu bar at the top of PowerPoint:

When you click on Font, you'll see the following dialogue box appear:

As you can see, the font is Times New Roman, the font style is Regular, and the Size is 24. Change the font to Arial Narrow, and keep the other two values the same:

You can also change the colour of the font. Click the black arrow on the Colour dropdown list:

Select the light yellow colour, which is the same as the Title colour we have. When you're done, click the OK button at the bottom of the dialogue box.

The text box above looks a little too wide, though. You can resize the text box by holding your left mouse button down on one of the white square (or round) sizing handles. The mouse pointer will change shape:

Keep your left mouse button held down, and then drag to the left to make the text box narrower, or to the right to make it wider

Let go of your left mouse button when you are happy with the size. (You can also make the text box higher. Use the same technique to drag the top-middle white square or circle upwards.)
To move the text box to a new position, hold you mouse pointer over the shaded edges of the text box. Again, the mouse pointer will change shape:

The image above shows the Move pointer. When you see this pointer, hold down your left mouse button. Keep it held down and drag your text box to a new location.
But your Slide 3 should now look like this:

Have a look at your slideshow so far by pressing F5. See if slide 3 looks OK.

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Add an Image to a PowerPoint Slide

On the next four slides, we'll have an image and a text box. The images will be the four steps of the Wizard, and the text box will contain a brief description of what the wizard is doing. You can find the images for this presentation by clicking the link below:
Presentation Images
Download the ZIP file on the resources page, and you'll find all the images for this PowerPoint course in separate folders. The images you need are in thepresentation1 folder.
The first thing we need to do is to delete the text box that's holding the bullets. So, from the Outline View on the left, click on slide 3 to highlight it. The "AutoContent Wizard - Step One" slide should display on the main stage:
Click anywhere inside the bulleted list, like you did previously. The outline of the text box should be showing. Click on the text box outline, and then press the Delete key on your keyboard twice. The text box and its contents should then vanish.
Now we can insert an Image in place of the bulleted list. To insert an image on to slide 3, click Insert > Picture from the PowerPoint menu bar at the top. The Picture submenu should display:

The one we want is From File. But note the other picture options you have: Clip Art, AutoShapes, Organization Chart, Word Art, From Scanner or Camera, and Word Table. We'll see a few of these in action in later chapters. But for now, click on From File. When you do, you'll see an Insert dialogue box appear:

From the "Look in" dropdown list at the top, navigate to where on your hard drive you saved your downloaded images files to. Locate the image calledautoContentWizardStep1.jpg. Click on this to highlight it, and then click the Insert button in the bottom right. The picture will appear on your slide 3. Your slide should now look like ours below:

Resize and Move an Image

The picture looks a bit big for the slide, and there's not much room for the text we want to add. To resize the image, make sure the image is selected. If it is, you'll see white squares or circles around the edges, as in the previous image.
With the image selected, click it with the right mouse button. You'll then see the following menu:

Click on Format Picture, and you'll see the following dialogue box appear:

This is not the Tab we want, so click the Size tab to see the following settings:

Make sure there's a tick in the box that says Lock aspect ratio. If there's a tick in this box, when you change the height, the width will change automatically to match. That way, you don't end up with an odd-shaped image.
On the Size tab, change the Scale > Height from 100% to 80%. You'll see the other values change by themselves. Click the Preview button at the bottom to see what the image looks like at this size. If you're happy with the size of your image, click OK.
To move your image, click on it with your left mouse button. Hold the left button down and drag to a new location. Aim for something like ours below:

In the next part, you'll see how to add a text box just below the image.

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Add Notes to a PowerPoint Presentation

Another thing we can do is to add a note to our slide. This will be for our benefit. The audience won't see this note.
In Outline View on the left, select slide 3 to highlight it. The slide with your image and text box should appear on the main stage. Below the main stage, you should see a white text area. It should say "Click to add notes":

When you click inside of the Notes text area, the default text will disappear. If you'd like a bigger screen to work with when you type your notes, click Viewfrom the PowerPoint menu bar. From the View menu, select Notes Page. You'll see the screen turn in to this:

To get back, click View > Normal.
But type the following text for the notes to this slide (without the quotation marks):
"There's nothing to do on the first screen. But notice the green dot next to the word Start on the left hand side. The green dot tells you where you are in the Wizard."
The notes for a presentation should be just that - a Note. This is not the place for your entire speech! The idea is that you add a note to remind you of what the slide is all about, and what points you should be covering. It's a bad presentation if you're reading everything from notes. You should be looking at your audience as much as possible, and only occasionally (if at all) glancing at the notes to make sure that you're on the right track, and that you've covered what you want to cover.
But when you have typed your notes out, they should look like this:

You can print these notes out by clicking File > Print. On your Print dialogue box there will be a Print What dropdown list. Select Notes Pages from the list. Here's what it looks like for our printer:

If you don't want to print the notes out, you can view them on just your screen, if you have a monitor in front of you during your presentation. To see them, press F5 to start your slide show. Move to slide three. Right-click anywhere on the screen, and you'll see a pop up menu:

When you click Speaker Notes, you'll see the following dialogue box:

The right click menu you just saw above has some useful option for your presentation, and we'll explore some of them later. But feel free to explore on your own!

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Complete your First PowerPoint Presentation

Now that you have one image slide done, you can do slides 4, 5 and 6. These are going to be more or less the same as slide three, with an image and some text below it. Rather than go through them with you, we'll leave you to complete these three slides for yourself.
Exercise
Finish your presentation using the same techniques you've learned throughout these first lessons. For reference, load up our completed presentation, which you can find here:
Presentation Number One
The images you need are here, if you haven't yet downloaded them:
Presentation Images
The images to insert on each slide are:
Slide 4 - autoContentWizardStep2.jpg
Slide 5 - autoContentWizardStep3.jpg
Slide 6 - autoContentWizardStep4.jpg
Text for your Text Boxes
The text for your text boxes should be as follows:
Slide 4 - Text for text box
Choose a presentation type
Slide 5 - Text for text box
How will the presentation be viewed?
Slide 6 - Text for text box
Set up a default title and Footer
Notes for the Slides
The notes for these slides can be as follows:
Slide 4 - Notes

This step of the Wizard will determine what content the default slides will contain. It will also determine what the background of each slide looks like. Note where the green square is now.

Slide 5 - Notes
Discuss the various ways that a PowerPoint presentation can be viewed.
Slide 6 - Notes
Discuss Slide titles, and the various Footer options
Completed Slides
When you're finished, slides 4, 5 and 6 should look like these:
Slide 4

Slide Five

Slide Six

But remember the steps you took for slide 3. They are as follows:

• Insert the image
• Resize and move the image
• Insert a text box
• Type the text for the text box
• Format the font
• Add the notes

After you have completed slides 4, 5 and 6, there is only one more slide to do before the slide show is finished - slide 7.
Exercise
Using the techniques you have learnt in this section, complete slide 7. You can use a bulleted list to sum up what the slideshow has been about. Use any text you like. (Look at our finished presentation if you're stuck for what to add.)

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