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![](data:image/svg+xml, %3Csvg xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg' height='64' class='font-weight-bold' style='font: 600 30.11764705882353px "SegoeUI", Arial' width='64'%3E%3Ccircle fill='hsl(128, 10%, 22%)' cx='32' cy='32' r='32' /%3E%3Ctext x='50%25' y='55%25' dominant-baseline='middle' text-anchor='middle' fill='%23FFF' %3EC%3C/text%3E%3C/svg%3E)
Hi,
This may be by design, but I'm at a loss why. I have two textboxes with the same font, both left aligned, both with their left edges matching, both with no left margin. One is smaller than the other. Despite this, the text doesn't align:
This seems to be independent of font choice as well. I guess my question is twofold; 1. is this a bug? 2. if not, what does "0cm left margin" actually mean since you can clearly visually see there is a left margin.
A family of Microsoft presentation graphics products that offer tools for creating presentations and adding graphic effects like multimedia objects and special effects with text.
It's not a bug, but a common way that many programs display text in a container. PowerPoint does it, as does Word, Excel, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe InDesign, Apple Pages, etc.
To make the text sit directly on the text border, give the line a small negative indent, around -.01 to -.03, depending on the text size. You'll find that different characters of the alphabet sit at different positions, so you'll have to apply a larger negative indent to an E than you will to a T.
![](data:image/svg+xml, %3Csvg xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg' height='64' class='font-weight-bold' style='font: 600 30.11764705882353px "SegoeUI", Arial' width='64'%3E%3Ccircle fill='hsl(284.8, 89%, 37%)' cx='32' cy='32' r='32' /%3E%3Ctext x='50%25' y='55%25' dominant-baseline='middle' text-anchor='middle' fill='%23FFF' %3EL%3C/text%3E%3C/svg%3E)
Dear @CB23,
I hope you’re having a good day
Based on the behavior you've described, I do not believe this is a bug. After testing similar scenarios in PowerPoint, including with PowerPoint's built-in Title and Subtitle placeholders, I observed that text can appear to start at slightly different visual positions even when:
My understanding is that PowerPoint aligns text according to its internal text layout and font rendering rules rather than the leftmost visible pixel of the first character. Because of this, a 0 cm left margin does not necessarily mean that the visible edge of the first letter will sit exactly on the text box boundary.
In other words, the left margin setting controls the text container, not the visible outline of the glyph itself. The small offset you are seeing appears to be a result of how PowerPoint positions and renders text within the text box rather than additional padding being applied.
I agree that the behavior can be surprising, especially when trying to achieve pixel-perfect alignment, because visually it does look as though a left margin still exists. However, from my testing, the observed behavior appears to be consistent with how PowerPoint's text rendering engine works rather than an indication of a defect.
If precise visual alignment is required, the practical approach is usually to align based on guides or the visible text itself rather than relying on the text box boundary alone.
I hope this information helps point you in the right direction.
Warm regards,