Change the direction of text or a table - Help and How-to

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Change the direction of text or a table

Applies to: Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2003

The feature or some of the options described in this Help topic are only available if support for right-to-left (right-to-left: Refers to keyboard settings, document views, user interface objects, and the direction in which text is displayed. Arabic and Hebrew are right-to-left languages.) languages is enabled through Microsoft Office Language Settings.

Show Change the direction of text on a slide

Select the text boxes or placeholders whose direction you want to change.
On the Format menu, point to Paragraph Direction, and then click Left-to-Right or Right-to-Left.

Show Change the direction of text on all slides, notes, and handouts

On the View menu, point to Master, and then click the master you want to change— either the Slide Master, Notes Master, or Handout Master.
Select the text boxes or placeholders whose direction you want to change.
On the Format menu, point to Paragraph Direction, and then click Left-to-Right or Right-to-Left.

Show Change the direction of a table

Select the table whose direction you want to change.
On the Tables and Borders toolbar (toolbar: A bar with buttons and options that you use to carry out commands. To display a toolbar, click Customize on the Tools menu, and then click the Toolbars tab.), click Table, and then click Table Direction.
Do one of the following:
- To change the table direction to right-to-left (right-to-left: Refers to keyboard settings, document views, user interface objects, and the direction in which text is displayed. Arabic and Hebrew are right-to-left languages.), click Set Right-to-Left Table.
- To change the table direction to left-to-right (left-to-right: Refers to keyboard settings, document views, user interface objects, and the direction in which text is displayed. English and most other European languages are left-to-right languages.), click Set Left-to-Right Table.

Note Objects within text boxes (text box: A movable, resizable container for text or graphics. Use text boxes to position several blocks of text on a page or to give text a different orientation from other text in the document.) or placeholders (placeholders: Boxes with dotted borders that are part of most slide layouts. These boxes hold title and body text or objects such as charts, tables, and pictures.) must be moved manually to the right or left side of your selected slide or master (master: A slide view or page on which you define formatting for all slides or pages in your presentation. Each presentation has a master for each key component: slides, title slides, speaker's notes, and audience handouts.).

Show Tip

If you want your presentations to always open with a right-to-left (right-to-left: Refers to keyboard settings, document views, user interface objects, and the direction in which text is displayed. Arabic and Hebrew are right-to-left languages.) direction, change the default version of Microsoft Office to Arabic or Hebrew through Microsoft Office Language Settings.