Presentations Glossary

Selecting Shapes: Select, Deselect, View, and Hide Shapes Using the Selection Pane in PowerPoint

To format any slide object in PowerPoint, you must select it. There are a couple of ways with which you can select any slide object. Other than the obvious way of clicking the slide object to select, you can also use the Selection Pane. It’s always more difficult to select overlapping slide objects or objects placed behind a larger object in busy, populated slides — to select slide objects that are difficult to locate, you can use the Selection Pane.

To learn more, choose your version of PowerPoint. If we do not have a tutorial for your version of PowerPoint, explore the version closest to the one you use.

Microsoft Windows

Select, Deselect, View, and Hide Shapes Using the Selection Pane in PowerPoint 2016

Select, Deselect, View, and Hide Shapes Using the Selection Pane in PowerPoint 2013

Select, Deselect, View, and Hide Shapes Using the Selection Pane in PowerPoint 2010

Apple Mac

Select, Deselect, View, and Hide Shapes Using the Selection Pane in PowerPoint 2016

Tutorial Code: 06 03 02
Previous: 06 03 01 Select and Deselect Shapes in PowerPoint
Next: 06 04 01 Duplicate Shapes by Dragging in PowerPoint

Filed Under: S
Tagged as: 06-03, PowerPoint Tutorials, Selecting Shapes, Shapes

Circles and Squares: Drawing a Perfect Circle in PowerPoint

Drawing shapes is drop-dead easy with the vast repertoire of readymade shapes available in PowerPoint. You can easily insert these shapes with a click or two, but once in a while you may get stumped. One such scenario is when you need to draw a circle, you’ll find that PowerPoint’s Shape gallery has no Circle shape! Don’t worry, all is not lost because there is an Oval shape and that can be used to draw a perfect circle.

To learn more, choose your version of PowerPoint. If we do not have a tutorial for your version of PowerPoint, explore the version closest to the one you use.

Microsoft Windows

Drawing a Perfect Circle in PowerPoint 2013

Drawing a Perfect Circle in PowerPoint 2010

Apple Mac

Drawing a Perfect Circle in PowerPoint 2011

Tutorial Code: 06 07 01
Previous: 06 06 06 Grouping and Ungrouping Shortcut Keys in PowerPoint
Next: 06 07 02 Drawing a Perfect Square in PowerPoint

Filed Under: S
Tagged as: 06-07, Circles and Squares, PowerPoint Tutorials, Shapes

Julie Terberg

      Julie Terberg is a Microsoft PowerPoint MVP (Most Valuable Professional) and the owner of Terberg Design LLC. She has more than 20 years of presentation-design and computer-graphic experience. She specializes in custom presentations designed to help presenters better communicate with their audiences. Julie is also the author of Building PowerPoint Templates Step by Step with the Experts, published by Que.

Here’s a list of links on Indezine.com where she has been featured:

Presentation Summit 2025: Conversation with Julie Terberg
September 29, 2025

Presentation Summit 2024: Conversation with Julie Terberg
September 24, 2024

Presentation Summit 2023: Conversation with Julie Terberg
August 31, 2023

Presentation Summit 2022: Conversation with Julie Terberg
June 16, 2022

Building PowerPoint Templates v2: Conversation with Julie Terberg
October 21, 2021

Presentation Summit 2021: Conversation with Julie Terberg
July 23, 2021

Presentation Summit 2020: Conversation with Julie Terberg
June 10, 2020

Click 2019, the Presentation Design Conference: Conversation with David Blatner
March 4, 2019

An Update on “Safe Fonts” for PowerPoint
June 20, 2018

Presentation Summit 2017: Conversation with Julie Terberg
August 16, 2017

Presentation Summit 2016: Conversation with Julie Terberg
August 17, 2016

Can I Get a Better Green?: Conversation with Geetesh Bajaj and Julie Terberg
February 07, 2014

Building PowerPoint Templates: Conversation with Julie Terberg
November 5, 2012

Outstanding Presentations Workshop 2012: Conversation with Ellen Finkelstein
September 13, 2012

Office Intervention: Learning PowerPoint with Julie Terberg
May 16, 2009

The PowerPoint Live Template Contest: Conversation with Rick Altman
March 21, 2009

PowerPoint Design Shift: Conversation with Julie Terberg
August 6, 2008

The Polished Presentation: Shellie Tucker and Julie Terberg
July 8, 2008

An Open Book in PowerPoint
April 12, 2006

Motion Paths
December 17, 2005

Resolution Explained
December 3, 2005

Perfect Medical Presentations wins BMA Prize
November 5, 2005

Consistent Color Palettes in PowerPoint
October 11, 2005

An Interview with Julie Terberg
February 26, 2004

Filed Under: J
Tagged as: Julie Terberg, MVP, PowerPoint Design, Presentations, Templates

Fonts: Font Types and Sizes in PowerPoint

Default text in PowerPoint always takes the Font type and size from the Theme of the presentation. However, you can override these defaults and choose a typeface (font type) that is different — or even a different font size. Explore in the following tutorials how you can choose different font types and change the font size of the selected text on the slide. Select a link based upon your PowerPoint version.

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Filed Under: F
Tagged as: 05-02, Fonts, PowerPoint Tutorials, Text and Fonts

Text Basics: Inserting a Text Box in PowerPoint

In PowerPoint, there are some differences between text placeholders and text boxes. As far as formatting for text placeholders and text boxes is concerned, almost everything else does work in the same way. However, there is one more vital difference between a text placeholder and a text box. You cannot insert text placeholders on a slide since they are part of the layout for your slide and already exist when you insert a new slide. Text boxes on the other hand need to be inserted manually.

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Filed Under: T
Tagged as: 05-01, PowerPoint Tutorials, Text and Fonts, Text Basics