Text Placeholders vs. Text Boxes in PowerPoint 2013 for Windows

When you explore text containers in PowerPoint, you'll find that there are essentially three kinds: text placeholders, text boxes, and shapes. We explain shapes in our comprehensive section on Shapes tutorials. Let us now look at the other two text container types: Aren't text placeholders and text boxes the same? Are they really different? And why should we bother even if they are different? All these are valid questions, and the answers to them form one of the most important foundations in learning to create more structured presentations. We will now explore the relationship between text boxes and text placeholders in PowerPoint 2013.

Within PowerPoint slides, text can be found in many places, however, the text within a text placeholder has characteristics that set it a class apart from all other text. So what exactly is a text placeholder, and how is it different from text within a text box or anywhere else?

See Figure 1, which shows you what exactly a text placeholder is within a PowerPoint slide. Also note that only text content within the placeholders is part of the presentation's outline.

Figure 1: Text Placeholders

Let's explore which text shows up as a part of the outline in various Slide Layouts, as marked in Figure 1, above:

A. In a slide that contains a title and subtitle, text contents of both placeholders comprise the outline.

B. In a slide that contains a title and content placeholder (Text, Table, Chart, SmartArt, Picture, Online Picture, other Media Elements), the outline comprises just the text, and not the tables, charts, SmartArt graphics, etc.

C. In a slide that has only a title, the outline comprises just the title.

D. In a slide that contains a title and two content placeholders (Text, Table, Chart, SmartArt, Picture, Online Picture, other Media Elements), the outline comprises just the text within all placeholders.

If your slide has the Blank layout that has no text placeholders, then any text within that slide is not contained within the presentation's outline.

To understand the difference more clearly, follow these steps:

1. Launch PowerPoint 2013, and create a Blank Presentation as shown in Figure 2.
2. 
   Figure 2: Default PowerPoint interface
2. Type some text into the boxes that say: "Click to add title", and "Click to add subtitle" (see Figure 3). These boxes are text placeholders that PowerPoint provides as boilerplates to fill in.
3. 
   Figure 3: Text typed within the text placeholders
3. Now, access the View tab of the Ribbon and click the Outline View button, as shown highlighted in red within Figure 4.
4. 
   Figure 4: Outline View button
4. You'll notice that the text you type within both the placeholders showed up within the Outline View, as shown highlighted in red within Figure 5.
5. 
   Figure 5: Outline View shows the text content of both the placeholders
5. Access the Insert tab of the Ribbon, and click the Text Box button (highlighted in red within Figure 6).
6. 
   Figure 6: Text Box button
6. Now, drag and draw a text box on the slide, and type something within this text box. Notice that anything you type within the text box does not show within the Outline View (see Figure 7). The text typed with the placeholders only can be seen in Outline View. The text within the text boxes doesn't shows up in the Outline View.
7. 
   Figure 7: Text typed within text boxes does not show in the Outline View

Although this differentiation between text placeholders and text boxes may not sound very significant at first, the more structured you get in your approach in creating better PowerPoint presentations, the more important this foundation concept will appear. So do remember this important rule: always try to put your text content in placeholders rather than mere text boxes as far as you can. Remember that PowerPoint has slide layouts that have at least two text placeholders, some layouts have even more, and if you want, you can even create your own slide layouts, but that is something we will cover in subsequent tutorials.