How to curve text in PowerPoint with Transform

The steps, on Windows and on a Mac

Microsoft’s article on curving text gives the same route for PowerPoint, Word and Excel, starting from WordArt:

1. On the Insert tab, select WordArt and pick a style. Microsoft notes that the icon sits in the Text group and may look different depending on the version and the size of your screen.
2. Replace the placeholder text with your own.
3. Select the WordArt.
4. On the Shape Format tab, select Text Effects, choose Transform, and pick the look you want.

The macOS tab of the same article prints the same four steps. Two details sit around them. First, WordArt is not required: Microsoft’s note at the end of the article says Text Effects works with WordArt or a regular text box, so text already on a slide can be curved where it is. PPT Productivity, a maker of PowerPoint add-ins, adds that for a plain text box on Windows the tab may be called Format rather than Shape Format.

Second, Text Effects is in the WordArt Styles group, not with the shape options next to it. Microsoft’s page on WordArt warns that shape styles and effects change the box around the text, not the text, and that if Transform is not at the bottom of the menu, you probably opened something other than Text Effects. That is the question asked on Super User in 2014, from someone who could not find Transform at all; the reply in the comments points to the WordArt Styles group.

PowerPoint in a browser, and on the phone

Microsoft’s Insert WordArt page has a Web tab, and it is short: in Microsoft 365 for the web you can see WordArt that is already in a document, presentation or worksheet, but to add more you need the desktop version of Word, PowerPoint or Excel. What the browser offers instead is the Font group on the Home tab: color, size, bold, italics and underline.

So WordArt curved on a desktop still shows when a colleague opens the deck in a browser, and, per Microsoft, adding WordArt needs the desktop version. The page does not say whether a plain text box in the browser offers Transform, and we did not check. The searches people run next, for the mobile app and for PowerPoint online, are the same question; none of the pages read for this page documents a Transform option on the phone.

Getting the arc you meant

The Transform menu groups its curves under Follow Path. Microsoft names Circle; PPT Productivity lists the row as Arch Up, Arch Down, Circle and Button, and that is also the row to use for the people who search for how to arch text in PowerPoint. Once a style is on, three controls decide how it looks:

• The yellow handle. A small yellow dot appears on the edge of the box. PPT Productivity says dragging it tightens or flattens the curve; PresentationLoad says it sets how far along the curve the text stretches.
• The width of the box. PPT Productivity: a wider text box makes a gentler curve, a narrower one a tighter arc.
• Size and spacing. Microsoft’s WordArt page sends you to the Font group on the Home tab for size and style; PPT Productivity adds character spacing from the same place, for letters that overlap on a tight curve.

PresentationLoad also suggests centering the text before you bend it, with Ctrl+E or the center button in the Paragraph group.

All the way round a circle

Microsoft calls this a little bit more work, and its instructions are two lines: on the Shape Format tab select Text Effects, choose Transform, select Circle under Follow Path, and drag any of the sizing handles until the WordArt is the size and shape you want.

The text does not close the circle by itself. PresentationLoad’s advice is to make the box as tall as it is wide first, so the text has room for a complete ring, and if it is still not long enough, to increase the font size until the circle closes.

PPT Productivity describes a second route for badges and seals: draw an oval from Insert, Shapes (hold Shift for a true circle), right-click it, choose Add Text, and apply the same Follow Path style to the shape. The text then curves with the shape that holds it.

Straight sides, groups and angles

Transform bends text along curves. For a shape with straight edges, such as a rectangle, Microsoft’s method is one WordArt object per edge: its example inserts WordArt four times, one for each side. PresentationLoad notes the same gap: no option wraps text round corners, so you make a separate text field for each side.

Several pieces then need to move as one. Microsoft’s steps: press and hold Ctrl (Command on a Mac) while you select the objects, then on the Shape Format tab select Group and choose Group again. If the Group button is grey, Microsoft lists the usual reasons, and one is specific to PowerPoint: the selection includes a slide placeholder, the “Click to add title” or “Click to add text” box, which cannot be grouped with shapes.

For the angle, Microsoft points to the rotation handle at the top of the object. Holding Shift while dragging it limits the rotation to 15-degree steps; for an exact figure, Rotate in the Arrange group, then More Rotation Options, takes a number of degrees.

When the shape flips and the text does not

Flipping is the other half of the Rotate menu, and Microsoft documents a catch: when you rotate an object the text rotates with it, but the text in a flipped object is not flipped. Its fix for PowerPoint, Excel and Outlook:

1. Right-click the object and choose Format Shape.
2. Under Shape Options, select Effects.
3. Under 3-D Rotation, type 180 in one of the X, Y or Z boxes, depending on the direction you want.

Microsoft adds two side effects: the fill color may change, and the text shows its original orientation while you edit it, returning to the reversed look when you click outside.

What PowerPoint does not do

Beyond the Transform presets, the sources point elsewhere. Asked in 2024 whether PowerPoint could set text along a wave or fit it into a funnel or a box, the answer on Microsoft Q&A, a thread migrated from the community, was that PowerPoint does not have native capabilities for that, and that feature requests go through the program’s feedback button.

Microsoft’s own article reaches the same limit from the other side: for very precise control, or a complex combination of shapes and text, it suggests making the text in a third-party drawing or graphics program and pasting it into the Office document.

If the curve is going to move, PresentationLoad, which sells PowerPoint templates, names the animations it says suit the round shape, Shape, Zoom and Wheel among them, and advises against Object Color.