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How to keep the font size when resizing text boxes

I work in advertising and it's important that every slide in the presentation looks good.


With the most recent update, Keynote has started to automatically change the font size depending on the size of the text box and the amount of text in the box. It now works pretty much like Powerpoint.


This is frustrating, because it makes achieving a 'uniform' look between the slides very difficult. One slide has the font size of 32, the next one 29, etc. Just adding a single character may result in an automatical change of font size. Remember when you saw that good-looking Powerpoint presentation? Me neither.


So how do I turn this "feature" off? There used to be a setting for this in the text box's formatting panel's (Text -> Styles) but it's no longer there. Sad!

Mac Pro

Posted on Aug 5, 2019 5:38 AM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Aug 7, 2019 2:13 PM

There are two types of text box in Keynote, preset and custom;


1 - a preset text box (which uses a text placeholder) has the shrink text to fit option,

they are contained in the built in themes on the master slide



2 - a custom text box (which does not use a text placeholder, it is a normal text box) does not have the shrink text to fit option, they are created by inserting a text box using either;   Insert > Text Box or clicking the text button on the tool bar



If you do not want to use shrink text to fit in your presentations, either add a custom text box to the slide, or create or amend an existing master slide to use custom text boxes.

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Aug 7, 2019 2:13 PM in response to jacquesnorris1980

There are two types of text box in Keynote, preset and custom;


1 - a preset text box (which uses a text placeholder) has the shrink text to fit option,

they are contained in the built in themes on the master slide



2 - a custom text box (which does not use a text placeholder, it is a normal text box) does not have the shrink text to fit option, they are created by inserting a text box using either;   Insert > Text Box or clicking the text button on the tool bar



If you do not want to use shrink text to fit in your presentations, either add a custom text box to the slide, or create or amend an existing master slide to use custom text boxes.

Aug 7, 2019 10:26 AM in response to jacquesnorris1980

Hi jacquesnorris1980,


Thanks for the reply. To clarify, which exact Keynote and macOS versions are you running?


It sounds like you're sometimes seeing "Shrink text to fit" but not always, correct? Have you noticed any pattern as to when the option appears? For example, when you try to modify pre-existing text blocks, when you add new text, or whether it happens when using a particular type of Header or a specific Keynote template? These might help to narrow things down a bit.


Take care.

Aug 8, 2019 12:00 AM in response to Gary Scotland

Thanks Gary, this is very useful and solves my problem nicely!


I'm not sure why there are two types of text boxes, especially with differences in functionality? Why would you want to limit the users' options like this? Especially if there is no way to insert the "more functional" version manually. With more functional, I mean that it's possible to control the shrink-fitting of text. Don't know if there are other advantages, too.

How to keep the font size when resizing text boxes

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