One of the biggest things that irks us at TLC Creative is stacking text boxes on top of shapes in PowerPoint. It might seem like a quick fix, but it’s just lazy formatting. Don’t do this – please! It almost always can be avoided because it almost always leads to formatting headaches down the road.
What is “stacked text”? It’s placing a text box on top of a PowerPoint shape. This creates two objects on the slide that need to be moved and aligned together instead of just one object.
This often happens because someone is not familiar with how to control a shape’s text. Knowing how to edit text inside a shape is ultimately going to make future slide edits happier, vs becoming a slow and time-sucking process.
Another reason not to stack is that text boxes placed on top of a shape are often not horizontally aligned with the shape. As an example, a text box stacked on top of a shape with the text left aligned is not truly centered by default – the text box must be manually moved to center the text on the shape – ugh! Even if you center the text in the text box, you still have to select both objects and center them to one another. The better solution is to set your text inside the shape and simply center the text – yay!
When it comes to animation, it might seem easier with two objects, but it’s still two objects. Don’t do this! You can get the same effect with one object. PowerPoint actually allows you to animate text within a shape independently. This means you can get the same effects without the hassle of animating multiple objects.
Selecting objects can also be difficult when using two elements. When the overlapping textbox is bigger than the shape behind, it’s a little tricky trying to select that back object. You will need to select both, then Shift deselect the top text box in order to modify the back underlying shape (you can also use the selection pane).
Accessibility is another good reason not to stack a text box on top of a shape. The Office PowerPoint accessibility tools do not work very well with layered content, as these tools have several limitations in identifying stacked objects. As an example, white text on top of a light baby blue shape isn’t seen by the accessibility checker as a flawed low contrast item. PowerPoint looks at a text box with no fill color and sees it essentially in black-and-white and ignores the layered element underneath. This can lead to content being missed by users relying on screen readers.
In conclusion, managing text within a shape is simply way more efficient. You have a single object to select and work with while designing, your animation and selection panes are less cluttered, line wrapping adjusts automatically when the shape or text size changes, and the list goes on. All of this makes it easier to keep a clean and responsive layout, plus it’s also more accessible.
-Tips and a big ask, from the TLC Creative Design Team