Slidewise displays all specified fonts for each object, even those not directly visible in PowerPoint. Some can be found with a little digging, while others remain completely hidden from the user interface.
To help explain this we need to look at the Slidewise Inspector — found below the main Slidewise index. In the example below you can see it is showing five fonts, each with a label indicating how the font is used.
The labels correspond to the following:
- latin = Latin text
- ea = Asian text
- cs = Complex script
- bu = Bullet font
- sym = Symbol font
When you look in the font combobox in PowerPoint for this object, you only see 1 font. This is because this dropdown PowerPoint only tells you about the primary font used, in this case, Times New Roman.
The primary font will be Latin text when the proofing language is set to a Latin-based language. If you change the proofing language for the object to Japanese however, then it would show the font specified for Asian text instead.
To see which fonts are selected for Latin, Asian and Complex scripts you need to click the more options button in the bottom right of the Font group in the Ribbon.
This will open the detailed Font dialog, which shows that Times New Roman is set for both Latin text and Complex scripts, as shown in Slidewise.
If a single text box uses more than 1 font for parts of the text, like this example that contains Latin text characters in both Times New Roman and Calibri Light:
In PowerPoint the font combobox will be blank.
List styles and bullet fonts
The other reason fonts display in Slidewise but might not be visible in PowerPoint is when they are specified to be used in lists or as bullet characters. Lists can have fonts specified for both the text part of the bullet as well as the bullet character itself.
Bullet characters are indicated in Slidwise with a ‘bu’ label. Bullet fonts can be specified by list level, so you can have up to 9 different bullet fonts in a single text box.
You can sometimes find the bullet fonts by clicking the down angle on the Bullets button in the Paragraph group, then Bullets and Numbering > Customize…
This only shows which font is set directly in the text box for the list level you selected, so a little trial and error is required to track down which level is set to use which font. You can quickly add a bullet for each level and then cycle through checking the font set in the bullets and numbering to track down the font you need.
Alternatively, a hidden list style may be associated with the object. This determines the font for a specific list level if no direct font is applied. PowerPoint does not allow viewing or editing of these hidden list styles. However, they can be seen in the Slidewise Inspector (as shown below). To learn more about hidden list styles and how to remove them, please check this support article.
Slidewise does not yet show you which levels a font is set to be used for.
Objects without any text
It is possible to set default fonts to use on objects that don’t yet have any text content. This most often occurs when you use the Set as default text box or Set as default shape options. This writes all of the properties of the shape into the Theme. Once you have done this, any shapes you create will have that font specified, even if they don’t contain any text. To read more about this check out how to edit default shape or text box fonts.
We plan to add more capabilities in this area to future releases of Slidewise. In particular, we are investigating the following:
- A clean fonts feature that would remove fonts from any objects that don’t contain any text.
- An option to completely remove default list styles from individual objects
- Showing bullet levels for fonts in the Inspector
If you have any comments or suggestions on what we describe above, please leave a comment below.