Change text alignment, indentation, and spacing in PowerPoint

To make the text on your slides easier to read, you might want to change the spacing between lines of text and between paragraphs in your PowerPoint presentation. You can also adjust the alignment and indentation of lines of text.

Line spacing (single-space, double-space, and so on) and vertical alignment (top, bottom, or middle) are available from menu buttons on the Home tab of the Ribbon, in the Paragraph group:

The Line Spacing menu options on the ribbon let you select single-space, double-space, or other vertical line spacing options.

Figure 1: Line spacing

The Align Text menu on the ribbon lets you decide whether text is aligned vertically to the top or bottom of its container, or centered vertically in the middle.

Figure 2: Vertical alignment

There are more detailed spacing options available in the Paragraph dialog box:

PowerPoint Ribbon Image

  1. On the slide, select the text that you want to change.
  2. Click Home, and in the Paragraph group, click the dialog box launcher.

Paragraph dialog box in PowerPoint

The Paragraph dialog box appears:

Here are the options available in the dialog box:

Indentation

Note: If you keep adding lines until you run out of room in a placeholder, AutoFit adjusts line spacing and font size to fit all list items in the placeholder. When this happens, the AutoFit Options

AutoFit Options control

control appears. To turn off AutoFit, click AutoFit Options, and then click Stop Fitting Text to This Placeholder.

For other ways to work with indentation and spacing, see:

Line spacing (single-space, double-space, and so on) and vertical alignment (top, bottom, or middle) are available from menu buttons on the Home tab of the Ribbon, in the Paragraph group:

The Line Spacing menu options on the ribbon let you select single-space, double-space, or other vertical line spacing options.

Figure 1: Line spacing

The Align Text menu on the ribbon lets you decide whether text is aligned vertically to the top or bottom of its container, or centered vertically in the middle.

Figure 2: Vertical alignment

There are more detailed spacing options available in the Paragraph dialog box:

In the Paragraph group, click the launcher button at the bottom right corner to open the Paragraph dialog box

  1. On the slide, select the text that you want to change.
  2. Click Home, and in the Paragraph group, click the dialog box launcher.

The Paragraph dialog box has options for setting horizontal alignment, indentation on the left margin, and line spacing.

The Paragraph dialog box appears:

Here are the options available in the dialog box:

Indentation

Note: If you keep adding lines until you run out of room in a placeholder, the AutoFit feature automatically adjusts line spacing and font size to fit all list items in the available space.

To format a list on your slide, see Add bullets or numbers to text.