Text Tools

As of v8.7.0, text boxes are inserted as MasterShapes. See the MasterShapes section of this documentation for more information.

Toggle between PowerPoint's "Do not Autofit" and "Resize shape to fit text" text box settings, and enable text wrap for selected shapes. PowerPoint's "Shrink text on overflow" setting is excluded from Autofit Toggle because it produces unpredictable and inconsistent font sizes that leave your presentations looking unprofessional. Text wrap should almost always be used, so Macabacus enables it by default when you use Autofit Toggle. The Autofit Toggle button is on the Macabacus tab in the Text group.

The Macabacus > Increase Line Spacing and Macabacus > Decrease Line Spacing buttons provide a fast, accessible way to increase or decrease line spacing for all text within a shape. Key these buttons repeatedly to increase/decrease line spacing further. This is a quick way to fit text within a shape.

Conform selected shapes' bullet formatting to the bullet formatting prescribed in your layouts or slide master, as applicable, by clicking the Macabacus > Fix Bullets button. Only bullet formatting is applied to the selected shape, and all other formatting is preserved.

Fix Bullets inspects all placeholders in the layout looking for one that contains bullet formatting. Since there is no way to precisely identify which placeholder in the layout corresponds to the placeholder on the slide (due to Office limitations), Macabacus assumes that all "body" text placeholders in the layout contain the same bullet formatting, and uses the first such placeholder it finds in the layout. Therefore, Macabacus might source bullet formatting from the wrong placeholder. If this happens, try changing the z-order of body placeholders on the layout using PowerPoint's native Selection Pane so that Macabacus encounters a different body placeholder first.

Some numbered bullet styles are not available through native PowerPoint interfaces. The Macabacus > More Text Tools > Numbered Bullets menu provides access to a wider selection of numbered bullet styles supported by Office, including those not accessible natively.

Add a new footnote at the cursor position, or remove a selected footnote, and update the order of all other footnotes on the slide in what can otherwise be a tedious and error-prone process when performed manually. These tools do not modify footnote explanatory text usually found in a textbox at the bottom of the slide. Footnote behavior can be customized in the PowerPoint > Footnotes section of Macabacus' Settings dialog.

Use Macabacus to redact (i.e., black out) acquirer or target company names or any other sensitive information in your presentations. Macabacus replaces existing text with solid rectangles, which are actually pipe ("|") characters on a background matching the font color of the text being redacted (usually black). You can redact selected text or redact all occurrences of a word or phrase in your presentation. The width of the redaction rectangle very closely approximates the width of the original text to avoid line wrapping changes that would otherwise affect the appearance of your slides.

Redacting tools are found under the Macabacus > More Text Tools > Redact menu in the Text group. Redact Selection works on pictures and charts in addition to text. Find & Redact can redact almost any text, including text in tables, SmartArt, and speaker notes, but cannot redact text in images and does not redact text in charts, slide masters, layouts, and slide comments. Original content redacted by Macabacus cannot be viewed following redaction, aside from using PowerPoint's Undo command.

Swap the text in two selected shapes shapes by clicking the Macabacus > More Text Tools > Swap Text button.

Split paragraphs in the selected shape into separate shapes by clicking the Macabacus > More Text Tools > Split Text button.

To merge text from multiple shapes into a single shape:

1. Select the shape into which you want to merge text from other shapes.
2. With the first shape still selected, select the other shapes whose text you want to merge.
3. Click the Macabacus > More Text Tools > Merge Text button.

To split a table into individual text boxes, each representing a cell in the table, click the Macabacus > More Text Tools > Ungroup Table button.

Sometimes, PowerPoint's spell checker flags words as misspelled—using red squiggly underlines—that are clearly not. This indicates that the proofing language for the flagged text is incorrectly set, which frequently occurs when collaborating with colleagues in other countries, for example. You can set the proofing language for a shape or other item containing text to the correct language using native PowerPoint functionality. However, setting the proofing language for an entire presentation natively is extremely tedious, since you must set the proofing language for each shape/item individually.

This is a significant problem that only a handful of third party solutions, including Macabacus, can address. To set the proofing language for all text in the active presentation, select the applicable language on the Macabacus > More Text Tools > Set Proofing Language menu. Macabacus processes text in obvious places, as well as AutoShapes, grouped shapes, tables, SmartArt, slide masters, layouts, and slide notes. Other third party solutions frequently miss one or more of these locations. The languages available in this menu are populated from the list of languages installed in Windows.

Replace fonts in a presentation with a new font. Unlike PowerPoint's native Replace Fonts tool, Macabacus replaces fonts in charts and SmartArt, and lets you replace all fonts in a single step if your presentation uses multiple fonts. Access this tool from the Macabacus > More Text Tools menu.

_{This documentation refers to the latest Macabacus version. Some features and descriptions of these features may not apply to older versions of Macabacus. Update your Macabacus software to take advantage of the latest features.}