How can I create a text box in a PowerPoint slide that formats bullets just like a placeholder?

Question

I've noticed that if I edit a slide master in PowerPoint, I can insert a special kind of text box called a "placeholder". With placeholders, I can easily create nice looking multi-level bulleted outlines. What's bothering me is that I don't seem to be able to insert placeholders on regular slides (when I'm not in master editing mode). Is there any way to do this or do I need to always create a special master slide any time I want the functionality of a placeholder?

Answer 1

In Microsoft PowerPoint, placeholders are boxes with dotted borders that contain content and reside within a slide layout. All built-in slide layouts that come with PowerPoint contain content placeholders. If you click on the bottom half of the New Slide button in Home tab, PowerPoint displays all the slide layouts you can insert, and on each you can see content placeholders.

How placeholders appear on each slide is determined by the Slide Master. So you can add new placeholders and create new layouts only by using Slide Master. I recommend you to create new layouts as you wish (if the existing layouts do not satisfy you), and then to insert new slides with the layouts you just created whenever you need to use them.