How to format text, shapes and use on-brand bullets

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Written by Julien Villemonteix | Updated

Within a presentation, you can apply consistent bullet points, text styling, table formatting, shape fill, and fonts such as callouts or source boxes. This ensures a consistent look and feel when constructing content from scratch or combining content from multiple documents into one new one.

Shape formatting 

Inserting a custom shape

To insert a custom shape, click the Custom Shapes button in the UpSlide ribbon and select the one you want to add to insert it into your presentation, maintaining its size, formatting, position and text.

Insert Custom Shape.gif

You can insert custom shapes into one or several slides at a time.

Insert several Shape.gif

Apply master format

In each PowerPoint template, there are different text levels set in the Slide Master which you can shuffle between using Ctrl+Shift+left/right arrows. If you have text set at different text levels within a shape you can select the apply master format option to reset them to match the Slide Master of your presentation. 

Add new Custom Shapes

The Custom Shapes menu contains template-specific shapes, but you can also add your own. They will be specific to your session and will not be shared with your team.

  1. Insert a shape in the presentation and format it as you wish.
    • If this shape needs to be placed in a specific spot on the slide, do so before proceeding to the next step.
  2. Go to Custom Shapes > Add Custom Shapes.
  3. Name the shape and click OK.

Personal shapes have a grey icon in the top-right corner. Hovering over them with your mouse will display the name, followed by (Only for me).

Table formatting

The Table dropdown menu allows you to create a new table or update the formatting of an existing table if one is selected.

The option applies formatting by identifying the header row, the final row, and the rows in between. When a table or text in a table is fully or partially selected, UpSlide will apply the chosen predefined style based on the row's relative position in the table. Each three-row type may be assigned background colours, font styles, and outer and inner borders.

Applying table styles works like applying shape styles. To apply a style to a table, follow these simple steps:

  1. Select a table.
  2. Click on the Table Styles button in the UpSlide ribbon.
  3. Click on the style you wish to apply.

Table_styles.gif

Paragraph formatting

The Paragraph button contains all text levels included in your Slide Master. This allows you to select different text styles pre-defined for your UpSlide template.

  1. Select the text areas which you want to format.
  2. Click the Paragraph button and choose the format.

Paragraph_formatting.gif

To change what appears in the Paragraph button, you can enter the Slide Master view and make changes to the text levels in the main Slide Master (the first slide at the top).

Applying default margins and removing margins to shape and textboxes

If you're unhappy with your textbox margins after applying your Paragraph styles, you can apply your template default margins and remove them to fit your needs. The functionality works for shapes and content placeholders.

  • Select the shapes you want to apply or remove margins from.
  • Navigate to the Arrange dropdown menu and select either Default Margins (Ctrl + Alt + O) or Remove Margins (Ctrl + Shift + O).

Default Margins.gif

Tip:
To set your Default Margins, insert a textbox in your presentation and format it with the margins you want. Right-click the shape and select Set as Default Shape.

Selecting multiple similar shapes on a slide

If you want to update the paragraph style or margins of several shapes at once, you can select them all at once by following the steps below:

  • Select the shape you want to reference.
  • Navigate to the Arrange dropdown and click on Select Similar Shapes (Ctrl + Shift + Y)
  • A new window will appear, allowing you to select similar shapes based on geometry, height, width, fill and outline. When you select two or more shapes, the feature detects their common attributes and then selects all similar shapes on the slide that share those attributes.

Select Multiple Shapes.gif

How UpSlide styles are different from PowerPoint's native Quick Styles

  • You can create your own styles, whereas PowerPoint only proposes pre-defined styles.
  • Applying an UpSlide shape style will apply the right text formatting according to indentation levels, whereas PowerPoint Quick Styles will only change text colour.

Add, delete or modify any of the styles above and sharing with your team

Administrators can find information here.