Weekly Computer Tip # 293
5 December 2009

My favourite select trick
(PowerPoint 2000-2007)

Today I'm sharing my favourite PowerPoint select trick. (Whenever I say it out loud memories of me and my brothers racing Skalextric - and the associated smell - come flooding in. But I digress.) OK, you can obviously simply click and drag over your text if you want to change its formatting, but there's a much quicker way.

Here's how:

1. Click anywhere on your text or shape, as normal.
2. Click on the border of your text box, text placeholder or shape.

Notice that the flashing insertion point no longer appears. (Or, if you're really, really observant you might spot the border changes too!) Now you can treat the entire block as one entity and any formatting you choose will be applied to the whole area.

If you subsequently click anywhere inside the box the flashing cursor reappears (and the border changes) which allows you to enter or edit the text within the placeholder. (Funny word that, "Placeholder". It makes me remember the Lorem Ipsum dummy text tip; see tip_235.php if you missed it.)

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