On the surface, this topic might seem like a no-brainer. Just click it, right? Well, almost. A text box has two possible “selected” states. One state is that the box itself is selected, and the other is that the insertion point is within the box. The difference is subtle, but it becomes clearer when you issue certain commands.

For example, if the insertion point is in the text box and you press Delete, PowerPoint deletes the single character to the right of the insertion point. However, if you select the entire text box and press Delete, PowerPoint deletes the entire text box and everything in it.

To select the entire text box, click its border. You can tell that it is selected because the border appears as a solid line. To move the insertion point within the text box, click inside the text box. You can tell that the insertion point is there because you can see it flashing inside, and also because the box’s border now consists of a dashed line. Figure 21-27 shows the difference between the two borders.

FIGURE 21-27
The border of a text box is different when the box itself is selected (left) and when the insertion point is in the box (right).

In the rest of this book, when you see the phrase “select the text box,” it means in the first way; the box itself should be selected, and the insertion point should not appear in it. For most of the upcoming sections it does not make any difference, although in a few cases it does.

You can select more than one text box at once by holding down the Shift key as you click additional text boxes. This technique is useful when you want to select more than one text box, for example, so that you can format them in the same way, or so that you can resize them by the same amount.

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