Selecting text boxes in PP

G

Guest

Sorry if this is a duplicate question. I want to select text boxes in a PP
slide prior to animating them. I can select text boxes with only one word
(or line?) of text without any problem by clicking on where I imagine the the
border of the text box is, but for text boxes with more than one line of text
clicking only seems to select various bits of the text, depending on where I
click. How can I select the whole of the text? Help! David Bowers
 
T

TAJ Simmons

David,

some powerpoint tips for selecting text objects

1) the Tab key (next to Q on qwerty keyboards) will cycle through every
object on a slide

2) If you click on a text box and powerpoint thinks you want to edit the
'text' i.e. the text editing cursor appears, then just press the "esc" key
on your keyboard - the object will now be selected.

3) also by holding down the shift (or ctrl) key when you select the
object....then it will select it and not think you want to edit the text
within the autoshape

4) the mouse pointer changes to the up/down/left/right pointer when your
mouse is in the correct place to click for the object

Cheers
TAJ Simmons
microsoft powerpoint mvp

awesome - powerpoint backgrounds,
http://www.awesomebackgrounds.com
free powerpoint templates, tutorials, hints, tips and more...
 
D

Dave

TAJ Simmons said:
David,

some powerpoint tips for selecting text objects

1) the Tab key (next to Q on qwerty keyboards) will cycle through every
object on a slide

2) If you click on a text box and powerpoint thinks you want to edit the
'text' i.e. the text editing cursor appears, then just press the "esc" key
on your keyboard - the object will now be selected.
Click to expand...

Surely pressing "F2" is much cleaner
 
G

Guest

Dear TAJ,

I have tried your suggestions but unfortunately they do not seem to work. I
tried repeated pressing of the tab key which did indeed cycle through all
objects on the slide as you said but whereas it did properly select the
single word text boxes it did not seem to properly select the text boxes with
lots of words as a whole but selected word by word. The same thing happened
when I clicked on the text box then pressed Escape key, again only one or a
few words were selected - not tall of the words in the box. Ditto with
holding down Shift key when selecteing box. However, I am grateful for your
trouble and time in trying to help. I will carry on regardless until I have
the problem solved! Regards, David Bowers
 
G

Guest

Dear Dave,

I have tried your suggestions but unfortunately they do not seem to work. I
tried repeated pressing of the tab key which did indeed cycle through all
objects on the slide as you said but whereas it did properly select the
single word text boxes it did not seem to properly select the text boxes with
lots of words as a whole but selected word by word. The same thing happened
when I clicked on the text box then pressed Escape key, again only one or a
few words were selected - not tall of the words in the box. Ditto with
holding down Shift key when selecteing box. However, I am grateful for your
trouble and time in trying to help. I will carry on regardless until I have
the problem solved! Regards, David Bowers
 
G

Guest

Do you mean that in a textbox, there are words which seems to be overflow? If
you try moving the textbox, all the words should move also. If you don't want
this to happen, you can right click on the textbox, click Format Placeholder.
Then click textbox tab and put a checkmark to resize autoshape to fit text.
Otherwise, reduce the font so that the words fit in the textbox.
--
Site Updated: October 30, 2005
http://www.pptheaven.xs3.com
PowerPoint Heaven - The Power to Animate
Contains tutorials on creating amazing animations for your PowerPoint
Presentations.
=========
 
S

Steve Rindsberg

Surely pressing "F2" is much cleaner
Click to expand...

Why? They do the same thing, no?

And on my keyboards, ESC is easier to hit w/o looking than F2.

Is there some advantage to F2?
 
T

TAJ Simmons

David,

I reckon that I've perhaps misunderstood your original question.

Are you trying to select several text objects and then animate them ?

To select several text objects in powerpoint

select the 1st one, then hold down the CTRL key on your keyboard, to select
more objects. Each click of an object will 'toggle' it from being selected,
to not being selected...

cheers
TAJ
 
G

Guest

F2 will switch between selecting the textbox and highlighting the text. But
ESC is easier to locate.
--
Site Updated: October 30, 2005
http://www.pptheaven.xs3.com
PowerPoint Heaven - The Power to Animate
Contains tutorials on creating amazing animations for your PowerPoint
Presentations.
=========
 
T

TAJ Simmons

F2

I knew there was another way (like the Esc key), but couldn't remember it.

I guess it's whatever you first learn't that's the easiest.

- I used to have a keyboard where the left shift key did not work (going
back many years now)......to this day, I always use the right shift key when
typing.

Cheers
TS
 
G

Guest

Dear TAJ,

To recap, I created a document in Word which has some normally typed text,
some autoshapes (circles), some arrows, and some text boxes. I Paste
Specialled this into PP as an Enhances metafile - no problem. Then I wanted
to animate the various objects so that they appeared in sequence. The
normally typed text, the autoshapes and the arows I could select by left
clicking on them and choosing my animation scheme, without difficulty. This
was also true of the text boxes containing a single word or single line of
words. However, those text boxes with a lot of words, e.g. "Sample
statistics, e.g. sample proportion female, sample mean body mass index, etc."
are proving impossible to select as a whole. Wherever I click my mouse on
them causes various bits of the text to be selected but not all of it.. I
have tried clicking and then expanding the text box by dragging the borders
but this simply moves that bit of text which was selected, and displaces it.
I have also tried repeated pressing of the tab key, clicking and then Ctrl A,
clicking and then Esc, all to no avail. I know I'm doing something really
stupid. I hope this may illuminate my difficulty. Once agian many thanks
for your time and thoughts.

David Bowers
 
G

Guest

Dear Tohlz,

No the words don't overflow, it's that I cannot select ALL of the words in a
text box. To recap, I created a document in Word which has some normally
typed text, some autoshapes (circles), some arrows, and some text boxes. I
Paste Specialled this into PP as an Enhances metafile - no problem. Then I
wanted to animate the various objects so that they appeared in sequence. The
normally typed text, the autoshapes and the arows I could select by left
clicking on them and choosing my animation scheme, without difficulty. This
was also true of the text boxes containing a single word or single line of
words. However, those text boxes with a lot of words, e.g. "Sample
statistics, e.g. sample proportion female, sample mean body mass index, etc."
are proving impossible to select as a whole. Wherever I click my mouse on
them causes various bits of the text to be selected but not all of it.. I
have tried clicking and then expanding the text box by dragging the borders
but this simply moves that bit of text which was selected, and displaces it.
I have also tried repeated pressing of the tab key, clicking and then Ctrl A,
clicking and then Esc, all to no avail. I know I'm doing something really
stupid. I hope this may illuminate my difficulty. Once agian many thanks
for your time and thoughts.

David Bowers
 
K

Kathy Jacobs

David,
I wonder if when you pasted the graphics in as EMFs the text boxes got split
so that each only contains a single word or single line. This would explain
what is going on...

If this is the case, you will need to select the text boxes and group them,
then animate the groups.

--
Kathryn Jacobs, Microsoft MVP PowerPoint and OneNote
Author of Kathy Jacobs on PowerPoint - Available now from Holy Macro! Books
Get PowerPoint answers at http://www.powerpointanswers.com

I believe life is meant to be lived. But:
if we live without making a difference, it makes no difference that we lived
 
S

Steve Rindsberg

F2 will switch between selecting the textbox and highlighting the text. But
ESC is easier to locate.
Click to expand...

[Duh] Press it TWICE, Steve.

Thanks ... neat trick. Gotta love a place like this where you can learn new
stuff regularly, even after living with a program for umpty years.
 
D

Dave

Steve, come on, F2 toggles from all text selection to bounding box and
back again, escape if you press it twice leaves you nowhere.
Fastest way I know of to select all text with one key.

Ah the games up, you look at the keys when typing, no. :)
Do you not have a gap between Esc and F1
 
G

Guest

Dear Kathryn,

How strange! Last night as I lay in bed I also thought that it might be
something to do with the grouping of the text boxes. When I cycle through
the objects on the slide using the tab key (as suggested by others), I find
that the text boxes with a single word select ok but when the tab key reaches
the text boxes with several words, each press of the tab key selects one of
the words, then the next word, and so on. I tried to select the text box
then right clicked to re-group all the words in the box but this only seems
to ungroup ALL of the items on the slide. Perhaps it would be easier to
start not in Word but with a blank slide in PP and then add the text boxes
there? Many thanks for your help, and if you have any more suggestions about
the re-grouping problem I would be very grateful. This is my first foray
into PP and it's a baptism of fire! I see you are an author too. I wrote a
book called Understanding Clinical Papers but it doesn't help with PP! Best
wishes, David B
 

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