How to Replace a Font in a PowerPoint Presentation

PowerPoint 2013 has a number of convenient features that allow you to change the fonts on a single slide or throughout your entire presentation. By changing the fonts, you can make your presentation more attractive and highlight parts that require more attention.

1. Let’s review how you would change the font in your entire presentation. First, click on the DESIGN tab. Then, as seen circled in the screenshot below on the right side of the ribbon, click on the More button under Variants.
   
2. Select Fonts and scroll down the list of available font types to find the one you prefer.
   
   Now the whole presentation will display the font type you selected.
3. If you have inserted individual text boxes in separate slides they will not be affected by the font change you performed above. This is because these text boxes are not part of the default text boxes in a PowerPoint presentation, so they will not inherit the preferences set in the master slide. To change the font type of these boxes, you will need to use a different feature.
   In the screenshot below, you will see that there are individual text boxes sitting on top of the default text boxes on different slides. These are usually used to place emphasis on a specific part of the presentation.
   
4. To change the font type in these text boxes, you will need to use the Replace feature. First, click in the text box and check which font type is displayed. You can do this in the HOME tab. The font type in this example is Arial.
5. While still in the HOME tab, click on Replace and then Replace Fonts.
6. As seen in the screenshot below, a dialog box will appear asking you to select (a) which font to replace and (b) the new font you want your text boxes to display. Make sure you select the right font to replace as identified in step 5.
   
7. Next, select the new font you want your text boxes to display and click Replace.
8. After you close the dialog box, you will notice that all your individual text boxes display the new font you have selected.

A word of caution: Once you have changed a font in your presentation, you should check whether the new font needs resizing. This is because not all fonts are equal in size (for example, size 24 in Arial font is very different from size 24 in Monotype Corsiva font).

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Most Common Presentation Mistakes

There are some classic mistakes that PowerPoint users all over the world make time and time again. Here’s a slideshow of the most common pitfalls with tips on how to avoid them:

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How to Create a Star Wars Intro Crawl in PowerPoint 2013

In this post, you will learn how to create a text crawl similar to the one used at the beginning of the Star Wars films. Here's a video of the final PowerPoint presentation:

To achieve the text crawl effect, I basically had to do three things:

1. Add a 3D perspective effect to the text.
2. Add a motion path animation to move the text up.
3. Combine the motion path animation with a shrink animation to simulate the depth effect.

You can find step-by-step instructions on how to create the same effect below:

1. Add a Text Box to the slide via INSERT → Text Box.
2. Type in =rand(3,4) and press Enter to generate three paragraphs of example text.
   
3. Change the font of the text to Arial Black and the size to 44 point.
4. Set the alignment of the text to Justify.
5. Select the text box and choose FORMAT → WordArt Styles → Text Effects → 3-D Rotation → Perspective Relaxed Moderately.
   
6. Choose FORMAT → WordArt Styles → Text Effects → 3-D Rotation → 3-D Rotation Options and increase the Perspective value to 80.
7. Center the text box on the slide and increase its size so the width of the first line almost matches the slide width.
8. Move the text box below the slide so that the first line is directly below the slide edge.
   
9. Select the text box and choose ANIMATIONS → Add Animation → More Motion Paths… → Up.
10. Grab the red arrow (which marks the end of the motion) with the mouse cursor and drag it to the top of the slide. Hold down the Shift key while dragging to keep the motion path vertical).
    
11. Add a second animation via ANIMATIONS → Add Animation → Grow/Shrink.
12. Click the Animation Pane Ribbon button.
13. Double-click the Up animation item in the Animation Pane. In the Effect tab, change the values of Smooth start and Smooth end to 0.
    
14. Double-click the Grow/Shrink item in the Animation Pane, change the Size value to 10%, and change Timing → Start to With Previous.
    
15. Grab the end of the Up animation timeline bar and drag it to the right until a value of 30.0s is reached.
    
16. Repeat the previous step for the Grow/Shrink animation.
17. Change the slide background to a starry sky by right-clicking on the slide and choosing Format Background… → Picture or texture fill → File…. Then select an appropriate graphic (click here to download a ready-to-use image file).
18. Select the crawl text. Change the color to a yellow orange: HOME → Font Color.
19. Choose FORMAT → WordArt Style → Text Effects → Glow → More Glow Colors to give the text a yellow glow effect.
20. Create a Rectangle shape that covers the top half of the slide.
21. Remove the outline of the shape via FORMAT → Shape Styles → Shape Outline → No Outline.
22. Set the shape fill to the same image that was used for the slide background.
23. Choose PICTURE TOOLS → FORMAT → Picture Effects → Soft Edges → 50 Point.
24. Start the presentation and enjoy the Star Wars atmosphere.

The resulting .pptx file is available for download here.

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How to Get Over Your Fear of Public Speaking

Most of us aren’t naturals on stage. Nevertheless, we almost all have to speak in public at one point or another. Whether the situation involves a casual talk with a small group of people or a formal speech before a large audience, the ability to speak well and fluently in public is an important one.

If you find yourself going silent or turning red in front of a crowd, try following these guidelines to improving your public speaking skills.

Know your subject

No matter the subject or the context of your speech, you should always be sure that you know your topic well enough to feel comfortable talking about it to a group of people. If you’re an amateur astronomer, for example, you shouldn’t have any problems trying to find things to say about astronomy. If, however, you’re asked to talk about the law, and you aren’t exactly a legal expert, you may find it very difficult to speak to a group about it.

This may be a very obvious piece of advice regarding public speaking, but it is surprising how easily some people can fake their way through a speech on a topic about which they know little. There are a select few who command such mastery over words and who are so comfortable on stage that they can talk about almost anything to a crowd. Most of us are not so gifted. If you have serious problems speaking in front of an audience, knowing your subject matter well is an absolute necessity. It will make you feel more relaxed and give you the freedom to stray from your notes when appropriate and return to your next bullet point later on.

Know your audience

By definition, public speaking involves an audience. An audience can be as small as a group of five students clustered in a tight semi-circle around a chalkboard or as large as a crowd of thousands in a massive theater auditorium. Even a few people sitting at a bar or around a restaurant table can be considered an “audience” in the right context. Your audience can also differ in composition: an auto insurance sales lecture and a speech at a sci-fi convention will undoubtedly attract very different sorts of people.

If you are nervous about speaking in public, the reason is the audience – how they perceive you and whether they like your speech or find it dull. Therefore, it is vital to know your audience before you step onto the stage. Know what their interests are and how they might feel about the subject you’re dealing with. If you understand the expectations your audience has of you, you can more effectively tailor your speech and your performance to meet those expectations. And remember, if you see a few people yawning or looking bored while you speak, that does not mean that the audience hates you. Different people have different ways of reacting to a speaker, and it is likely that a few of your audience members simply aren’t interested in the subject matter of your address. Do not fix upon these few people and allow them to wreck your entire performance.

Bring notes

A great public speaker will seem to glide through his speech as though he were improvising it. This is usually not the case. The great majority of speeches are planned out and written, either in whole form or as an outline in note form. The best speakers just happen to be so natural on stage that audience members don’t realize they have notes or a written speech in front of them.

Whether you are new to public speaking or you’ve already had a few rough experiences with it, remember to always take notes with you to read from. Notes in bullet point form will help you keep your mind on target while you speak. Without such notes, you might easily stray from your subject and end up in a place thematically hundreds of miles away from where you should be. Don’t let this happen to you. Notes will keep you on the road from the beginning to the proper end of your speech and prevent you from rambling.

Practice in front of a mirror

You might feel silly doing it, but making your speech in front of a mirror might make you more comfortable with yourself and your public speaking ability. We often have an image of ourselves that is not quite accurate, and we usually tend to exaggerate our negative qualities more than our positive ones. If you watch your body language and your posture while you make your speech, you will be able to better judge your true faults as a speaker and what you’ll need to work on before you get on stage while identifying and ignoring the purely mental faults that don’t actually exist.

Following these few tips won’t turn you into a perfect public speaker. Barring a miracle, you probably won’t become a Theodore Roosevelt-level speaker overnight, no matter how much of an effort you make. With the right kind of practice and the proper mindset, however, you will be able to greatly improve your public speaking ability and thus find the confidence that you need to succeed.

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ShapeChef 1.1 Released

Version 1.1 of ShapeChef is now available for download. In addition to dozens of bug fixes and performance improvements, the update includes the following major enhancements.

Copy and Paste

ShapeChef’s new copy and paste functionality makes it easy to move items around in your shape library. This works in the same way as moving files in Windows Explorer. You select a shape or category, right click on it, and select “Copy” or “Cut” from the context menu. ShapeChef also supports common keyboard shortcuts, such as Ctrl+C for copy and Ctrl+V for paste.

Image File Import

We have extended the application’s import functionality, allowing you to directly import image files into your shape library. Many common image formats are supported, including PNG, JPG, and EMF.

Sort Keys

By default, the categories in your shape library are ordered by their names. Starting with this version, you can change this behavior by assigning sort keys to categories. The categories will then be sorted by their keys first and then by their names.

Expanded/Collapsed State

Another change is that ShapeChef now remembers the expanded/collapsed state for each category in a shape library and restores it at the next start.

How to Update?

ShapeChef Version 1.1 is a free update. Just download and run the installer from here, and enjoy the improvements!

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How to Permanently Change the Default Font in PowerPoint

Every time you start PowerPoint 2013, you are automatically provided with a blank presentation theme. The default font of this blank presentation theme is Calibri. You can change this font according to your preferences by following a series of steps.

1. First, switch to the VIEW tab and click on the Slide Master button.
   
2. In the Slide Master view, you will see thumbnail versions of all the different slide templates in the left pane. Click on the first slide thumbnail. Making changes to this slide template will affect every template, which saves you from having to change each of them individually. To change the font of the text boxes, select the Font drop-down menu located under the HOME tab.
   
3. When you are finished, click on the SLIDE MASTER tab and select Close Master View.
4. Now, click on the FILE tab and select Save As.
5. In the dialog box that appears, select Save as type and choose PowerPoint Template (*.potx). Navigate to the C:\Users\\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Templates folder (substitute with your Windows username). In the File name text box, type Blank. The file name MUST be Blank in order for the presentation to become the default start-up template. Click Save.
   

Now, every time you open PowerPoint 2013 and choose FILE → New, your template appears as the first option in the Presentation Gallery. It will be labeled as the Default Theme and will include the previously configured font.