# x and y coordinates in PowerPoint

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/x-and-y-coordinates-in-powerpoint/374702>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [September 30, 2006, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/x-and-y-coordinates-in-powerpoint/374702 "2006-09-30T04:06:11Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![E.Thorp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@E.Thorp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E.Thorp)\
**Post date:** [September 30, 2006, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/x-and-y-coordinates-in-powerpoint/374702/1 "2006-09-30T04:06:11Z")

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Today, reading online about PowerPoint, I read the following (the context is “positioning elements on a slide”):

_there is a way to use x and y coordinates in PPT as you would in Quark or InDesign, but it’s not obvious so not everyone knows it._  
OK, it’s not obvious. I don’t know it. Do you?

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**Author:** ![Hunter\_Hawk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/50afbb/32.png) [@Hunter\_Hawk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hunter_Hawk)\
**Post date:** [September 30, 2006, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/x-and-y-coordinates-in-powerpoint/374702/2 "2006-09-30T04:23:13Z")

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I don’t know how Quark and InDesign work, but one thing you could try in Powerpoint is to right-click on an object and select “Format \<object type\>” (e.g., if you right-click on a text box, the context menu item will read “Format Text Box”). In the “Format” dialog, there’s a “Position” tab.