Format Font Attributes (Styles) in PowerPoint 2016 for Windows

The appearance of text makes a huge difference to any presentation. The font typeface used within your slides is dictated by the active Theme or Theme Fonts set of your presentation. You can certainly override these defaults and choose another font typeface and also change the font size. However, there are times when you need to highlight a word or a phrase contained within your text so that it stands apart and commands attention. To do so, you can apply font styling attributes such as bold, italics, underline, etc. Often, slide titles in PowerPoint are formatted bold to attract attention; italicized text is mainly used to add emphasis or to mark foreign words. And you can underline text, add shadows, and even strike through any selected text.

Find out more about these font attributes in PowerPoint 2016:

1. Create a new presentation and type some text in the placeholder, as shown in Figure 1.
2. 
   Figure 1: Text selected on the slide
2. Select the text which you want to format (refer to Figure 1, above). Now, navigate to the Home tab of the Ribbon and locate the Font group, as highlighted in red within Figure 2.
3. 
   Figure 2: Font group within the Home tab of the Ribbon
4. The various Font Style options within this group are explained below, as marked in Figure 2, above:

A. Bold

5. Makes the selected text bold (Ctrl + B).

B. Italic

6. Italicizes the selected text (Ctrl + I).

C. Underline

7. Underlines the selected text (Ctrl + U). See also Stop Underlining Your Descenders!

D. Text Shadow

8. Applies shadow to the text.

E. Strikethrough

9. Strikes a line through the middle of the selected text.


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10. Just click on any Font Style option to apply to the selected text. Figure 3 shows examples of each of the Font Styles explained above.
11. 
    Figure 3: Font Styles applied to the text
12. You can also find the formatting options for the Fonts within the Font dialog box. To access this dialog box, click the dialog launcher button within the Font group, as shown highlighted in blue with Figure 2, shown earlier on this page. This opens the Font dialog box with more Font Style options. We cover these in our Font dialog box tutorial.
3. Selecting the text (or alternatively right-clicking some selected text) brings up the Mini Toolbar which includes Bold, Italic, and Underline font style (highlighted in red within Figure 4).
4. 
   Figure 4: Bold, Italic, and Underline options within Mini Toolbar
4. Save your presentation often.