Text Manager
The Text Manager is the fifth Content Manager and organizes text blocks — reusable wording: disclaimers, standard sentences, product descriptions, quotes. What gets stored is the plain wording, optionally together with its formatting.
Text vs. Snippet
A Snippet creates an object/shape on the slide. A Text is plain content — it lands where the cursor is, in an existing shape or in a new text box. That is also why texts have no preview image.
Open the Text Manager via the burger menu (≡) → Texts or from the ribbon group Content Manager (buttons Text Manager / As Text / Manage). Like the other managers it has two areas: Gallery and Manage.
Saving a Text
- Select some text on the slide — or select an object containing text.
- Ribbon → As Text.
- Check the content and metadata in the dialog → 💾 Save.
What exactly is picked up depends on the selection:
| Selection on the slide | What is saved |
|---|---|
| a range of text selected | exactly that range |
| cursor in the text, nothing selected | the entire text of the shape |
| shape with text selected | the entire text of the shape |
| nothing suitable selected | nothing — a hint is shown |
The text is editable in the dialog: you can fix typos right there without touching the slide. PPPTools suggests the first line as the name (truncated to 40 characters).
Saving the Formatting
The row Formatting: Yes / No (default Yes) decides whether the detected format comes along. Next to it you see what was detected — e.g. Arial 18 pt, bold.
Stored are font, font size, bold / italic / underline, font colour and the paragraph alignment.
One format for the whole block
No rich text is stored — just one format for the entire block. If the selection contains mixed formats, PowerPoint returns empty values and the hint reads mixed. Choosing No deliberately stores the wording only; on insert the block then takes on the formatting of its target.
Translate: Yes / No
If automatic translation is enabled, an additional Translate row appears. With Yes the block is translated into the remaining languages of the value list right after saving and linked as a language variant — see Language Variants.
Gallery — Inserting a Text
The gallery shows all text blocks as tiles, with the same filters, sorting and views as Snippets and Slides. In addition, the search offers the Text content checkbox — it searches the wording of the blocks, not just the metadata.
Where the text goes is decided by the selection on the slide — there is no mode switch:
| Situation on the slide | What happens |
|---|---|
| cursor sits in the text of a shape | text is inserted at the cursor position |
| text is selected | the selection is replaced |
| exactly one shape with a text frame selected | the text of the shape is replaced |
| nothing selected | new text box on the slide that grows with the text |
The insertion point is preserved
PowerPoint keeps the cursor position while you click in the task pane. So you can stay in the middle of a sentence, click the block — and it lands exactly there.
- Multiple selection: pick several tiles with Ctrl/Shift → the texts are joined as paragraphs, in the order of selection.
- Formatting: is only applied for a single text (with several it would be ambiguous) — and only to the inserted portion, not to the whole shape.
- Double-click on a tile inserts, Edit jumps to the Manage area with the block preselected.
Manage — Editing, Variants, Publishing
In the Manage area (list on the left, detail on the right) you edit a block:
- Text — the content sits in a multi-line field and can be changed and saved directly.
- Metadata as with all managers (name, category, language, audience, status, classification, author, tags, version, description).
- No preview image — texts do not render an image, so the preview buttons are absent.
- Language variants — link, unlink, jump and 🌐 Translate: Language Variants.
- ↑ Publish — make it available to the company library just like Snippets/Slides: Publish Flow.
Licence
| Feature | From tier |
|---|---|
| view, save and edit texts | Free — limited to 5 blocks in the Free tier |
| unlimited number of text blocks | Standard |
| translation (automatic and 🌐) | Pro |