Is There a Way to Merge Text Boxes in PowerPoint??

[Guest]

Just wondering if anyone knows of a way to merge multiple text boxes on the
same powerpoint slide into just one text box.

I have a powerpoint presentation I received from someone and each line of
typed text is in a different text box for each slide, and I can't for the
life of me figure out a way to merge text these boxes short of manually copy
and pasting text from one box into another.

It seems to me like there should be a "merge text boxes" option somewhere,
but could find it in the different menus and the help function didnt bring
anything up either.

Any help would be appreciated; thanks-

 

[Guest]

AFAIK the nearest you can get is to align and then group them

 

[Guest]

Unfortunately, I need to get the text from all the different text boxes on
each slide into just one text box to be able to reformat the text, so
grouping isnt going to help. Thanks though-

 

[Bill Dilworth]

When merging the text from the various boxes, which order should the program
follow (in programming terms)?
ZOrder, Top alignment, Right alignment, Animation sequence, creation order?

Sure, this is easy to do with a macro, but getting the text boxes to be
merged into the right order requires the macro understand your logic. Since
each text box is a separate object, the program will need more instruction
or it will put them in the most convenient order for it, which may not be
the most convenient for you.

Do all the slides have a title? Does this get merged? Do only some slides
have titles? How can it tell which ones get merged?
Are there shapes with text other than textboxes? Do they get merged?
Are all the text boxes on the slide, or are some on the Master?

--
Bill Dilworth
A proud member of the Microsoft PPT MVP Team
Users helping fellow users.
http://billdilworth.mvps.org
-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
vestprog2@ Please read the PowerPoint FAQ pages.
yahoo. They answer most of our questions.
com www.pptfaq.com
..

 

[Guest]

Bill,

I can see how this could get very copmplicated, especially with animation
sequences and such. I'm just trying to find a way to merge basic text boxes
together. It wouldn't have to be every box on the slide, just selected text
boxes.

As for alignment, the merged box could just retain the alignment/properites
of the original box(or maybe an option to choose alignment/properites of the
majority of the selected boxes?)

Order of text when merged could just be order they are selected with a new
line started for each selected box.

I obviously have little experience with programming, so what I'm asking for
could just be impossible based on the issues you have brought up regarding
this.

I was just hoping there would be an easier way to merge the text boxes short
of pasting them all into the basic paint program, loading the file into an
imaging program and having it recognize the text in the picture, all to just
get the text into one box..

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

Bill,

I can see how this could get very copmplicated, especially with animation
sequences and such. I'm just trying to find a way to merge basic text boxes
together. It wouldn't have to be every box on the slide, just selected text
boxes.

That simplifies things. Have a look here:

Merge text from several text boxes into one text box
http://www.rdpslides.com/pptfaq/FAQ00787.htm

Since the human is willing to supply the intelligence by selecting the boxes to
be merged in advanced, the computer can do the grunt work quite easily. ;-)

 

[Guest]

That works! Thanks for your help, Steve! You too Bill!

 

[Guest]

Steve, Bill or anyone else willing to help;

I tried loading the macro, but I got an error when I tried to run it; I
copied it exactly from the link Steve provided.

Here's where the error came up; it said "this type of shape cannot have a
text range" and highlighted the 3rd and 4th lines of this code section:


Set oRng = ActiveWindow.Selection.ShapeRange
Set oFirstShape = oRng(1)
oFirstShape.TextFrame.TextRange.Text = _
oFirstShape.TextFrame.TextRange.Text & vbCrLf

Any help would be appreciated; let me know if I need to post this in a
different section of these forums, thanks

Ryan

 

[David M. Marcovitz]

It looks like you need to have the text boxes you want to merge selected
for this to work. Have you clicked on two text boxes before running the
procedure? Also, you might have problems with this if something is selected
that is not a text box.
--David

--
David M. Marcovitz
Microsoft PowerPoint MVP
Director of Graduate Programs in Educational Technology
Loyola College in Maryland
Author of _Powerful PowerPoint for Educators_
http://www.PowerfulPowerPoint.com/

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

Steve, Bill or anyone else willing to help;

I tried loading the macro, but I got an error when I tried to run it; I
copied it exactly from the link Steve provided.

Thanks for posting both the code and the error.

David's right ... you need to select the shapes you want to merge text from before
running the macro. But since it's more of an example than production code, there's
no error trapping, so when the user (that'd be you, sir) includes in the selection a
shape like a line or arrow that can't have text ... well. You've seen the result <g>

There are a few other situations where you can get this message; working with a text
placeholder into which you've dragged a picture ... PowerPoint will let you do that,
then it'll foam at the mouth when you later try to add text.