How to Convert Text to Shapes in PowerPoint

I’ve always been a big fan of using PowerPoint to create custom shapes, but I used to find myself opening other graphic design programs (like Adobe Illustrator) when I wanted to edit text like a shape. I quickly stopped doing that when I discovered how to easy it is to convert text to shapes in PowerPoint!

How to Convert Text to Shapes in PowerPoint

This technique is a quick and easy way to transform text into objects that you can manipulate like any other shape in PowerPoint. This is useful when using PowerPoint to create custom icons, or anytime you want complete editing control over your text.

Check out my how-to video below and learn how to convert text to shapes in PowerPoint!

How to Convert Text to Shapes in PowerPoint

Additional Resources

Tim Slade
Tim Slade is a speaker, author, and award-winning freelance eLearning designer. Having spent the last decade working to help others elevate their eLearning and visual communications content, Tim has been recognized and awarded within the eLearning industry multiple times for his creative and innovative design aesthetics. Tim is a regular speaker at international eLearning conferences, is a recognized Articulate Super Hero, author of The eLearning Designer’s Handbook and creator of The eLearning Designer's Academy.

11 Responses to “How to Convert Text to Shapes in PowerPoint

  • Oh my goodness…I thought I was really good using PowerPoint, but this is amazing. THANK YOU!

  • This is amazing! But alas I think the “merge shapes” option is not available as a feature in Powerpoint for Mac 2011…would that be correct? I can’t find the feature anywhere!

  • Hi Tim, thanks for the quick reply!

    Alas, I found that article too and had high hopes, but it looks like although that is in fact the fix if you’re dealing with two shapes, 2011 won’t recognize the text selection and the “Combine, etc..” options are dimmed.

    Thanks anyway, I will say that finding that hidden feature will be great for making other graphic elements if not for text. And one other nice trick I discovered is that you can save the text as a picture (.png format), which allows you to bring it back in and crop/mask it into a shape/frame as you could any other image…which was what led me here in the first place!

    So thanks very much for your tut, so helpful and inspired even more creative digging!

  • Hey Tim! Thanks so much for the video. I was wondering if you knew how to do the opposite of this- taking a shape that has already been converted and making it into text that is editable? I recently bought a powerpoint template for the business I work for, and was planning on using a lot of its visual graphics because I liked the way they were displayed. However, I am stuck right now, because they created the shape of 17 in special font, but I need it to say 19 instead since that is the current year. However, I have been struggling to try and recreate it or edit the shape itself because I do not know the font it used and it won’t recognize it as regular text anymore. Can you provide any insight? Thanks again.

    • Hey Emma! Thanks for watching and commenting! Unfortunately, there is no way to convert a shape into editable text. In this situation, you’ll likely have to find a similar or alternative font to use instead. Otherwise, you might try emailing the creator of the template and see if they can tell you what font was used.

  • Sarah Ambriati
    5 years ago

    How did I NOT know how to do this before! Thanks Tim! You just upped my PPT game! Thank you so much for all this great content. Being relatively new to the industry, all your tips and trips are invaluable!

    • Thanks, Sarah! I appreciate the comment! I use this technique all the time in PowerPoint. It’s a good one!

  • Tim, Hi. My PowerPoint 2016 doesn’t have the ‘Convert to Shape’ option showing. Can I add that from somewhere or is it only available in business versions of PPT?

  • Helen C
    3 years ago

    This worked – sort of. When it converted, it filled in all the letters that are closed, like A or O, with black. Individually the spots can be selected and deleted, but there are several hundred. There are nearly a hundred just in these sentences, so you can see how quickly they add up. Do you have any solutions to converting the text without the filled letters?

Leave a Reply Text

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *