8.4: Creating Bulleted and Numbered Lists

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The Title and Content slide layout is both the default and the overwhelming most popular slide layout for most slides in a presentation. This the root cause of why so many PowerPoint presentations bore their audiences with mundane amounts of text. The worst offense is when users simply write sentence upon sentence of text, which often gets read to the audience by the presenter. (Not a crowd favorite!) A better approach is to create presentations which utilize bulleted and numbered lists to help organize text, or show sequential processes. Too many slides of the same format can exhaust the audience, so use lists in moderation. However, when used with animation (discussed in the next chapter), lists can really help manage the flow of information by synchronizing the visual elements of the slide show with the verbal accompaniment of the speaker.

Bullets and Numbers PPT slideBullets and Numbers PPT slide

As defined in the Word chapters, bulleted lists differentiate from numbered lists in that numbered lists demonstrate sequencing, whereas bulleted lists simply imply that each item is part of an non-ordered group. Bullets and numbers can be formatted using custom symbols and number formats to synchronize with the presentation design.

Bullets and numbers can also be indented to create sub lists. The Paragraph group contains the commands to increase and decrease the indentation of bullets and numbers.