By Brad Lazaruk, Sun 21 August 2022, modified Sun 21 August 2022, in category Note to self
I had a PowerPoint document that I inherited where the text boxes were allowing words to be split in the middle of the word. Turns out the solution, copied/pasted below, was this:
Your presentation was edited at one time on a computer running an oriental language. When that happened, an obscure PowerPoint setting got applied to it. If it’s just a few placeholders that are affected, here’s how to fix it:
- Choose File>Options>Language. In the Office authoring languages and proofing section, click Add a Language.
- Choose an Asian language (Chinese, Japanese, Korean all will work). OK out and restart all Office programs.
- Open your deck in PowerPoint.
- Select the text in an affected text box or text placeholder.
- Open the Home>Paragraph dialog and click on the Asian Typography tab.
- Uncheck the option for Allow Latin text to wrap in the middle of a Word. OK out.
- Repeat steps 4 to 6 for all other affected text boxes and text placeholders.
If the presentation is large and the problem is widespread, take an alternate approach:
- Use File>Save As and change the Save as type to PowerPoint XML Presentation (*.xml).
- Open the XML file in NotePad
- Choose Edit>Replace.
- In the Find what field, type latinBreak=“1”.
- In the Replace with field, type latinBreak-“0”
- Choose Replace All.
- Save the file and close NotePad.
- Open PowerPoint and use File>Open to find and reopen the XML version. Resave in the normal PowerPoint pptx format. All English text will now break normally.