PowerPoint bullets are something everybody sees, but few do anything about. Bullets and numbers add interest to your presentation text, but you can make your lists more engaging if you venture beyond PowerPoint’s standard default bullets and numbers. Windows comes with a number of fonts filled with bullet characters you can use. For even more options, you can use a clip art picture as a bullet character.
Using the default settings, you often end up with a gigantic bullet rammed right up next to the text, which looks somewhat absurd. However, it’s easy to fix these unsightly problems by adjusting the spacing between the bullet and its text and changing the size of the bullet relative to its text.
First select your bullet text. Place your cursor anywhere in the paragraph you want to format. To format multiple paragraphs simultaneously, click and drag to highlight the text. The changes you make to bullets and numbers affect entire paragraphs even if you don’t select all the text.
Now change the bullet character. Choose Format, Bullets and Numbering. Click the Bulleted tab and click Character. The Bullet dialog box appears. Choose a character set from the Bullets from drop-down box. Click a character and choose OK.
The amount of space between the bullet and the text is controlled by the indents setting. Make sure the Ruler is displayed (choose View, Toolbars and click Ruler). Drag the left indent marker (the right-side up triangle) to the right to increase the hanging indent.
When you add a bullet to a slide, you may be surprised at how very large it is. In the Bulleted tab of the Bullets and Numbering dialog box, use the spin arrows to change the Size setting. This option sets the bullet size as a percentage of the text size. A setting of 50-60% often looks much better than the default 100%.