Inserting Text and Image Placeholders

Inserting Text and Image Placeholders

Now that our layout elements are in place, we can use them to guide where we insert our Text and Image Placeholders. The advantage to creating your own placeholders is you can create your own custom layouts for text and images.

By default, PowerPoint assumes you want to create a Presentation, not an e-learning course. That's why the text sizes are so large. But you're creating e-learning courses, and your learners will be 1-2 feet from the monitor, not 30+ feet from the presentation screen.

If you're following along, I'm working in Lesson Files > Chapter_04 > SlideMaster_Placeholders.pptx.

Step 1: Customizing the Heading 1 Text

The Title text is already a placeholder so we can make some small changes to modify this into our custom heading using the Licence Plate font.

1. Click-drag the title's resize handle to the right to align with the chapter label graphic
2. Click Home > Align Text Left to left align the title text
3. Select the Font menu and choose License Plate to change the title font. If you didn't install License Plate, you can use a similar font like Impact.
4. Click-drag in the text box to select the text
5. Type H1 SLIDE TITLE to change the default placeholder text. This is useful for more complex storyboards where you have multiple text placeholders and need to reference them in your storyboard.
6. Click the text box to select it and change the Font Size to 40
7. Use your arrow keys to nudge the text box in place so it aligns with the chapter graphic. It's okay if the text box overlaps the chapter graphic.

Step 2: Inserting the Heading 2 Text Placeholders

Here comes the fun part: inserting our own placeholders! Here's how we can customize our templates to guide development and ensure consistency across our slides.

1. Click Slide Master > Insert Placeholder > Text and drag out a text box below the chapter label graphic
2. Click once inside the text box and press Control-A to select the text
3. Type H2 CONTENT TITLE to rename the placeholder
4. Change the font to License Plate and set the Font Size to 28
5. Click the Bullets icon to remove bullet formatting
6. Change the color to R:194 G:72 B:55
7. Use your arrow keys to align the text to the chapter label

Step 3: Inserting the More Info Text Placeholders

Following the same process, we'll insert another Text Placeholder for the more info text that appears in the bottom right of the slide.

1. Click Slide Master > Insert Placeholder > Text and drag out a text box next to the icon-warning.png image
2. Click once inside the text box and press Control-A to select the text
3. Type DIY Text Goes Here to rename the placeholder
4. Change the font to Trebuchet MS and set the size to 12
5. Click the Bullets icon to remove bullet formatting

Step 4: Inserting List Text Placeholders

This course uses a combination of body text and bullet text. In this example we'll create the bullet list text.

1. Click Slide Master > Insert Placeholder > Text and drag out a text box below the H2 CONTENT TITLE text placeholder
2. Click once inside the text box and press Control-A to select the text
3. Type Ordered List Text Goes Here to rename the placeholder
4. Change the font to Trebuchet MS and set the size to 16
5. Click the Numbering icon to change the unordered list to an ordered list

Step 5: Inserting Picture Placeholders

Inserting Image Placeholders is just like inserting Text Placeholders. We left the images on the slide to assist with inserting the Picture Placeholder.

1. Click the car.png image to select it
2. Click Slide Master > Insert Placeholder > Picture
3. Click-drag around the car.png image. Selecting the image first ensures your placeholder will snap to the bounding box of the image.

The Picture Placeholder will prompt us to add an image when we're back on the main slide. We no longer need the car.png on the slide but it's not easily selected with the Picture Placeholder directly above it. Let's first turn off the placeholder's visibility so we can easily access the bottom image.

1. Click Home > Select > Selection Pane to bring up the Selection and Visibility panel
2. Click the eye icon to turn off visibility for the Picture Placeholder you just created
3. Delete the car image
4. Click the eye icon to turn the placeholder's visibility on

Repeat Step 5 to insert a Picture Placeholder for the main content image.

What's Next?

All right! Now that our initial placeholders are in place, we'll look at customizing the line spacing options to make on-screen text easier to read.