Introduction
To create effective PowerPoint presentations, it's important to make your slides
easy for the audience to read
. One of the most common ways of doing this is to format the text as a
bulleted or numbered list
. By default, when you type text into a placeholder, a
bullet
is placed at the beginning of each paragraph—automatically creating a
bulleted list
. If you want, you can modify a list by choosing a different bullet
style
or by switching to a
numbered list
.
Optional: Download our
practice presentation
.
To modify the bullet style:
-
Select an existing list you want to format.
-
On the
Home
tab, click the
Bullets
drop-down arrow.
Clicking the Bullets drop-down arrow
-
Select the desired
bullet style
from the menu that appears.
Selecting a bullet style
-
The bullet style will appear in the list.
To modify a numbered list:
-
Select an existing list you want to format.
-
On the
Home
tab, click the
Numbering
drop-down arrow.
Clicking the Numbering drop-down arrow
-
Select the desired
numbering option
from the menu that appears.
Selecting a numbering option
-
The numbering option will appear in the list.
To change the starting number:
By default, numbered lists count from the number one. However, sometimes you may want to start counting from a different number, like if the list is a continuation from a previous slide.
-
Select an existing numbered list.
-
On the
Home
tab, click the
Numbering
drop-down arrow.
-
Select
Bullets and Numbering
from the menu that appears.
Selecting Bullets and Numbering
-
A dialog box will appear. In the
Start At
field, enter the desired starting number.
Entering a new starting number
-
The list numbering will change.
The updated list
Modifying the list's appearance
Whether you're using a bulleted or numbered list, you may want to change its appearance by adjusting the size and color of the bullets or numbers. This can make your list stand out and match the appearance of your presentation.
To modify the size and color:
-
Select an existing bulleted list.
-
On the
Home
tab, click the
Bullets
drop-down arrow.
Clicking the Bullets drop-down arrow
-
Select
Bullets and Numbering
from the menu that appears.
Selecting Bullets and Numbering
-
A dialog box will appear. In the
Size
field, set the bullet size.
Changing the bullet size
-
Click the
Color
drop-down box and select a color.
Changing the bullet color
-
Click
OK
. The list will update to show the new bullet size and color.
The updated bullets
Customizing bullets
Customizing the look of the bullets in your list can help you emphasize certain list items or personalize the design of your list. A common way to customize bullets is to use
symbols
.
To use a symbol as a bullet:
-
Select an existing bulleted list.
-
On the
Home
tab, click the
Bullets
drop-down arrow.
Clicking the Bullets drop-down arrow
-
Select
Bullets and Numbering
from the menu that appears.
Selecting Bullets and Numbering
-
A dialog box will appear. On the Bulleted tab, click
Customize
.
Clicking Customize
-
The
Symbol
dialog box will appear.
-
Click the
Font
drop-down box and select a font. The
Wingdings
and
Symbol
fonts are good choices because they have a lot of useful symbols.
-
Select the desired symbol.
Selecting a symbol
-
Click
OK
. The symbol will now appear as the selected bullet option in the Bullets and Numbering dialog box.
Applying the symbol
-
Click
OK
again to apply the symbol to the list in the document.
The updated bullets
To change the distance between the bullets and the text, you can move the
First Line Indent marker
on the ruler. For more information, visit our
Indents and Line Spacing
lesson.
Changing the position of the bullets
Challenge!
-
Open an existing PowerPoint presentation. If you want, you can use our
practice presentation
.
-
Change a bulleted list to a
numbered list
. If you're using the example, use the list on slide 4.
-
Change the
color
of the numbered list.
-
Change another list to a different
bullet style
. If you're using the example, change the bullets on slide 3 to a different style.
-
Change the bullet
color
.
-
Change the bullets of a list to a
symbol
. If you're using the example, change the bullets on slide 2 to a symbol.