line spacing

Applying Line and Paragraph Spacing

Quick Shortcut to Apply Line and Paragraph Spacing

The F4 key reapplies the last action. It’s a great timesaver for those repetitive actions – an especially helpful task in customizing the line and paragraph spacing in a text box where not every paragraph gets the same spacing. Here is my sample slide with several text boxes and several paragraph spacing opportunities to improve the legibility.

line spacing f4_image01

If the formatting goal is to add some additional paragraph space between the bullets on each text box, the process unfortunately involves selecting the bulleted text in one text box, opening the paragraph spacing dialog, adjusting, closing dialog and then repeating the process in the next text box.

As a shortcut, adjust the Line and Paragraph spacing, then select the next text box and position cursor on the next bullet line. Use F4 to repeat the step automatically! F4 applies the last action made, so in this case you can go from the above sample slide to the one below in less than 30 seconds vs. several minutes selecting text boxes and opening/adjusting the Line and Paragraph dialog 6 times.

line spacing f4_image02

The F4 repeat works on virtually any command while editing slides. Another great use is formatting text in Tables – in this sample F4 was used to quickly add the text indenting for each 2nd line.

line spacing f4_image04

Also, Ctrl Y is another key command that does the same thing. So F4 or CTRL+Y repeat the last command. Test it out and see how it can save you time.

-Troy @ TLC

By |2016-08-10T08:24:12-07:00April 13th, 2016|Tutorial|

Line Spacing PPT 2003 vs 2007

The new line spacing tools were a bit confusing until I figured out how to correlate the new layout to the more familiar PPT 2003 tools.

To access line spacing tools in PPT 2003 – go to FORMAT >> LINE SPACING.

To access line spacing tools in PPT 2007 – go to the HOME tab >> PARAGRAPH section >> LINE SPACING button.

In PPT 2003 there are 3 options: Line Spacing – Before – After. In PPT 2007 there are a number of tools combined into one interface (which is good).

All 3 of the PPT 2003 options are in the lower section. Using the BEFORE and AFTER tools are intuitive and work the same in both versions. But LINE SPACING offers a number of options:

For me the key was figuring out that MULTIPLE is the same as PPT 2003’s LINE SPACING tool.

To use, select MULTIPLE. The “at” number is the same as the number in PPT 2003’s tool.

The confusing part is the default number in this box is 3, which is much larger than the typical .5 to 2 range. Adjust to something like .9 and you should see results you are expecting.

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-11-17T13:03:28-07:00May 15th, 2008|PowerPoint, Tutorial|

Line Spacing and the Magic of F4

Here is our sample text.

To help visually cluster the information by the primary bullets we position the cursor on the second bullet and add additional spacing BEFORE PARAGRAPH of 0.5

Now to do the same for the third bullet we can either position the cursor on the third bullet line, open the Line Spacing dialog and enter the new distance OR we position the cursor on the third bullet line and click the F4 button!

F4 is a keyboard shortcut in PowerPoint that repeats whatever the last action was. In this case it automatically changes the BEFORE PARAGRAPH line spacing from 0.2 to 0.5, matching the bullet above!

-Troy @ TLC

By |2016-11-17T14:07:36-07:00July 24th, 2006|Tutorial|

What Does Line Spacing Do?

Here is a sample three lines of text and the default line spacing dialog.

If I select the entire text box and change the LINE SPACING all of the lines move further apart as you can see here.

If I place the cursor in line 2 and add BEFORE PARAGRAPH space, the distance between line 2 and line 1 increases. The distance between line 2 and 3 remains the same.

If instead I place the cursor on line 2 and add AFTER PARAGRAPH space, the distance between line 2 and 3 increases. While the distance between line 1 and 2 remains the same.

-Troy @ TLC

By |2016-11-17T14:07:17-07:00July 22nd, 2006|Tutorial|

Access Line Spacing Dialog

With your cursor positioned at the line to be adjusted, or with the entire text box selected (will globally change all lines in text box), go to FORMAT LINE SPACING.

This brings up the Line Spacing Dialog which has three settings that can be adjusted.

(1) Adjusts the distance between the lines of a paragraph.
(2) Adjusts the distance between the start of this paragraph and the one above it (separated by a hard return).
(3) Adjusts the distance between the last line of this paragraph and the one below it (separated by a hard return).

-Troy @ TLC

By |2016-11-17T14:06:58-07:00July 20th, 2006|Tutorial|

Use Line Spacing to Increase Legibility

Here is a sample from a recent project (logos, names and telling content have been removed to protect the design challenged). Here is the original slide:

Here is the revised slide:

I was somewhat limited in what could be done. Things like the template could not be altered, content could not be edited, etc. But here are some details of what was adjusted:

(1) I adjusted the template so the content text box was separated a bit more from the header text.
(2) I changed the font to a more legible Arial, which does not have the serifs (small ‘hooks’ on the end of the letters)
(3) I adjusted the overall line spacing from 0 to .35, this gives a bit of room between each bullet and allows the brain to “clump” the content into sections – which makes it more legible.
(4) Used a soft return (SHIFT RETURN) and made sub-content on its own line and reduced its font size. Did the same with the sub-content at the end of the last bullet.

There is a lot of small things that can be done to text heavy slides to make them more legible. The problem is that this usually involves modifying the content on a slide-by-slide basis, which can be time consuming. But the results are an audience the is able to understand your message clearer!

Troy @ TLC

By |2016-11-17T14:06:38-07:00July 18th, 2006|Portfolio, Tutorial|
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