Fonts in PowerPoint: find where a font is used, replace it, add fonts on a Mac

A deck assembled from several sources almost always carries fonts nobody chose: Calibri from an old template, Arial from a pasted table, a brand font on three slides only. You notice it when PowerPoint warns about a missing font, when a colleague’s Mac shows different line breaks, or when the company asks for a deck “in our font only”. The fix starts with finding out which fonts are in the file and where.

List every font in a presentation

Find where a font is used

PowerPoint’s Find searches text, not formatting, so there is no direct way to jump to “all text in Arial”. The reliable trick is to make the font impossible to miss for a moment.

Replace a font everywhere — and keep it replaced

Replace Fonts changes the text that exists. New slides, though, take their fonts from the theme, so a stray font can come back with the next layout. Do both steps:

In the font list, theme fonts appear at the top as “(Headings)” and “(Body)”. Text set to those follows the theme automatically; text set to a named font does not. That is why well-built templates use the theme fonts everywhere.

Change the font size on every slide

Replace Fonts swaps the typeface, not the size. Sizes live in the master: choose View → Slide Master, select the top master, click the frame of the body placeholder and change its size (or press Ctrl+Shift+> / Cmd+Shift+> to step it up); the layouts below it follow. Text whose size was set by hand keeps it — select such text on the slides and use Home → Reset to bring it back to the layout’s size. On Windows, the Outline View also lets you select all text of the deck at once (Ctrl+A in the outline) and step it up or down together.

Add a font to PowerPoint on Windows and Mac

PowerPoint uses the fonts installed on the computer. Install the font file (.ttf or .otf), then restart PowerPoint so it appears in the list.

Send fonts with the file: embedding

If the recipient does not have your font, PowerPoint substitutes another and line breaks change. Embedding stores the font inside the .pptx.

• Windows: File → Options → Save → Embed fonts in the file. Choose Embed only the characters used for a smaller file that others cannot edit in that font, or Embed all characters so they can.
• Mac: PowerPoint → Preferences → Save (called Settings on recent macOS), then tick Embed fonts in the file under Font Embedding — in PowerPoint 2019 for Mac and later.
• Limits: a font’s licence can forbid embedding, and PowerPoint then leaves it out. Google Slides ignores embedded fonts entirely.

Fonts in Google Slides

Google Slides uses Google Fonts only; you cannot upload a font, and fonts installed on your computer do not appear. A PowerPoint file opened in Google Slides with fonts Google lacks shows a fallback font — so for a deck that travels between the two, choose a Google Font and install it on the computers that run PowerPoint too (Montserrat, Inter, Roboto and Lato are free to download from Google Fonts).

Choosing fonts for a presentation

Once the mechanics work, the choice matters. Slides are read from a distance and for a few seconds at a time, so the rules differ from print. A sans-serif with open shapes and a large x-height — Montserrat, Inter, Source Sans, Segoe UI, Helvetica — reads best on projectors and screens. Serif fonts work well for large headings and for an editorial or premium tone, less well for small body text on a low-resolution projector.

• Pair by contrast, not by similarity. A strong serif heading with a neutral sans-serif body, or one sans-serif family in two weights. Two similar sans-serifs side by side look like a mistake.
• Check the weights you need. A family with regular, semibold and bold covers almost every slide; a light weight reads poorly on projectors.
• Mind the numbers. For financial slides, a font with tabular (equal-width) figures keeps columns aligned.
• Test with your longest title. Wide fonts push long titles onto two lines; narrow ones keep them on one.

Font problems and their causes

• Different line breaks on another computer. The font is missing there and was substituted. Embed it or use a font both computers have.
• A font that comes back. It is set on a layout or the master. Check View → Slide Master and replace it there.
• Bold that looks smeared. The font has no bold weight and the app is faking one. Choose a family that has real weights.
• Too many fonts. Two families — one for headings, one for text — are enough for any deck. A third only for numbers or code.
• Unreadable sizes. On a screen, body text below 18 pt is hard to read from the back of a room; 24 pt is safer.

Fonts in ExpertSlides: one deck, two fonts

An ExpertSlides deck has exactly two fonts, by role: one for headings and one for body text. Every text knows its role, so changing a font in Settings → General or in the Design tab of the side panel changes every heading or every body text of the deck at once — there are no stray fonts to hunt. A single text can still get another font from the text toolbar.

The Font overview in Settings lists the thousand most popular Google Fonts (and the system and uploaded ones) with their style, their width compared with Montserrat and the size they are set at. Montserrat, the base font, is set at full size and every other font ten per cent smaller, so texts keep their lines when you switch. Each design brings its own pairing, and a brand kit carries your own fonts, uploaded once.

See fonts at work across the designs in Design Templates and on real slides in Solutions. For the rest of a template’s look, read free templates and backgrounds.