Applying an AutoShape to a Text Box

Normally, we think of AutoShapes as the drawn lines and shapes created with the Drawing toolbar's tools, but PowerPoint also considers text boxes to be AutoShapes too. As a consequence of that assumption, almost anything that you can do to an AutoShape, you can do to a text box. You've seen that throughout this chapter; a lot of what we've done here, we'll do again in Chapter 7 when working with drawn shapes.

PowerPoint sees a text box as an AutoShape without the "shape"-that is, a frame around a shape that doesn't have any line or fill. You can apply an AutoShape to any text box (actually PowerPoint calls it "changing" the shape) to use an AutoShape as a frame around the text.

Note

In Chapter 7 you'll learn how you can add text to an AutoShape; this is the flip side of that. Actually, the results you get are the same either way; you can start with the text box or with the AutoShape. The advantage of starting with the text box is that you can apply an AutoShape to either a text placeholder or a manual text box. The AutoShape-first method always produces a manual text box.

To apply an AutoShape to a text box, follow these steps:

1. Select the text box.

2. On the Drawing toolbar, choose Draw⇨Change AutoShape and then select a category of shape and a specific shape. The shape is applied to the text box, but you won't be able to see it yet.

3. Use the Line Color button on the Drawing toolbar to select a line color for the AutoShape. And/or, use the Fill Color button on the Drawing toolbar to select a fill color for it. Figure 5-28 shows an example of both a line and fill color assigned to a subtitle placeholder on a title slide that has an AutoShape arrow applied to it.

To remove the AutoShape, simply set its border and shading to No Line and No Fill, respectively.