Inserting a Text Box in PowerPoint 2010 for Windows

ManyYou have already learned the differences between text placeholders and text boxes within PowerPoint 2010. Beyond those differences, almost everything else does work in the same way as far as formatting for text placeholders and text boxes is concerned. However, there is one more vital difference between a text placeholder and a text box:

• You never insert a text placeholder on a slide since they are part of the layout for your slide.
• Text boxes on the other hand need to be inserted manually.

Follow these steps to learn how you can insert a text box in PowerPoint 2010:

1. Launch PowerPoint 2010. This typically opens a new presentation, containing one slide as shown in Figure 1.
2. 
   Figure 1: PowerPoint 2010 interface
Tip: If you want to learn more about the PowerPoint 2010 interface, check out our PowerPoint 2010 interface walkthrough.
2. Select the Insert tab of the Ribbon, locate the Text group, and click the Text Box button (highlighted in red in Figure 2).
3. 
   Figure 2: Text Box button
3. This changes the cursor into a vertical line, highlighted in red in Figure 3.
4. 
   Figure 3: Cursor changed into a vertical line
4. Now do either of the following:
5. To create a text box which automatically enlarges as you type more text, click once where you want the text to start, and begin typing.
6. To create a text box with a width specified, and that automatically wraps text to the next line and grows in height, click and drag to draw a box where you want the text box to be. The height drawn may snap back to a single text line height. However it will grow in height as you type more text into it.
5. Figure 4 shows text typed within the text box. In subsequent tutorials, you will learn how you can work with text boxes, and format them. Also a text box is just another shape in PowerPoint -- so any of the tutorials on using shapes in PowerPoint are relevant to working with text boxes.
6. 
   Figure 4: Text typed within the text box