Change a placeholder into a text box in PPT 2019-2024

Is it possible to change a placeholder into an ordinary text box in PPT?

Not really.

You could be tempted to just go to the Home tab and in the slides group click on the Layout button and choose the Blank layout. Or if you wanted to maintain only the title placeholder, change the slide layout to Title only.

Here's an example of a slide with placeholders (left) and one with the blank layout (right).

You will see that the placeholders changed position. So how can you actually tell that they are still placeholders?

Just remove the text of the title and you will see there is a prompt left. Click to add title and Click to add text are still displayed. If you reinstate the original layout the placeholders will go to there original position again.

The only way to change the placeholder to a text box is to copy paste the placeholder. I do this using CTRL+drag. If you then remove the text there will no longer be a prompt appearing in the box. Then remove the original placeholder.

If you do not delete the original placeholder and go to the selection pane (Alt+F10) you will see that both objects have the same name/number which could lead to some confusion.

In the example below you can see the copied placeholder with the text removed. To show there is a second text box I applied an outline otherwise you would not see the box.

To delete the original placeholder, click on the its edge and press delete, the text will disappear leaving the prompt allowing you to add new text. Then click the edge again and press delete.