PowerPoint Tips Blog » PowerPoint 2010

How to create your very own cool shapes with the Custom Shapes tools: Part I-Union

Ellen — Thu, 19 May 2011 19:50:44 +0000

PowerPoint 2010 has a new feature that’s very hard to find, but people are praising it over and over. It’s called Custom Shapes, and it’s a set of 4 tools that you can use to create your very own shapes–the sky’s the limit!

Why do you need Custom Shapes?

To make your slides unique!
For the flexibility to communicate your message in the way that works best for you and your audience
For a professional, designer (custom-made) look

I’ll be covering the Custom Shapes tools in several posts, because there’s a lot to cover.

Why are they hard to find?

Usually, Microsoft highlights new features, but the Custom Shapes tools aren’t even on the ribbon! As a result, many people don’t know about them. First, I’ll tell you how to add them to your Quick Access toolbar, which is at the top-left corner of your PowerPoint window.

At the right of the Quick Access toolbar, click the down arrow and choose More Commands.

In the PowerPoint Options dialog box, you’ll see a Choose Commands From drop-down list at the top. Choose Commands Not in the Ribbon to make the Custom Shape commands easier to find.

Scroll down the list of commands until you get to “Shapes.” You’ll see 4 commands–Shape Combine, Shape Intersect, Shape Subtract, and Shape Union. Select Shape Combine and click Add. Do the same with the other 3 commands that start with “Shape.”

Click OK to close the PowerPoint Options dialog box. The commands are now on the Quick Access toolbar.

Start creating your very own cool shapes

What can you do with these tools? Almost anything! Here’s a quick summary:

Union adds two shapes together
Subtract subtracts them; select the one you want to keep first
Intersect keeps just the intersection between the two if they overlap
Combine cuts out the intersection between multiple shapes but also makes the result a freeform so you can edit points

In this post, I’ll show you a simple example using the Shape Union command.

How to use Union to create a simple custom shape

Let’s say that you want to create a SmartArt diagram, but can’t find the shape you want. You want a space for a small, circular photo at the left, some text in the middle, and an arrow at the right. Here’s what you sketched on a napkin:

Here are the steps to create this shape:

Insert a circle. (Remember, you can press Shift as you drag the circle on the slide to make sure it’s a perfect circle, not an oval.)
Insert a rectangle to the right of the circle. Resize and move it so that it looks like the above image. You’ll see the outline around each shape, but don’t worry about that now.
Insert an isosceles triangle. To get the shape you want, you need to rotate it to the right. Press Shift and drag the little green rotation circle to the right. Then resize and move the triangle so that it matches up to the right side of the rectangle.

Your shapes should look like this:

Select all 3 shapes and click Shape Union on the Quick Access toolbar. (The command button isn’t active unless you select at least 2 shapes.)

Your new, custom shape looks like this:

Go ahead and add a photo (I added another circle on top and filled it with the photo) and text. You can add text to it, just like any shape that comes with PowerPoint! Here’s the final result:

Now go forth and create your own custom shapes! Let me know the results by leaving a comment.

In Part II, I’ll show you how to use the Shape Subtract feature.

Ellen Finkelstein can train you or the presenters in your organization to create high-impact, engaging, professional presentations for training, sales, business, or education. For more information, please click here.

5 simple rules for creating world-changing presentations

Ellen — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 14:55:49 +0000

Watch this video by Nancy Duarte on her company’s 5 simple rules for creating world-changing presentations. At the same time, the video is a showcase of what you can do in PowerPoint 2010. Who said PowerPoint has to be boring?

Nancy Duarte is one of the great speakers in the Outstanding Presentations Workshop. The opportunity to hear her — and the other speakers — for free is unprecedented. Don’t miss this amazing opportunity! The workshop starts September 15th. Attendance is limited to 1000 people and we’ll reach that easily, so don’t delay.

Here’s the link to sign up: Outstanding Presentations Workshop.

The best and longest list of new PowerPoint 2010 features

Ellen — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 02:39:27 +0000

My friend, Echo Swinford, who’s a PowerPoint MVP (Most Valuable Professional) has written up a great list of the new features of PowerPoint 2010. Before making a decision about whether or not to upgrade, read the list!

Buy Microsoft Office 2007 now and get 2010 free later

Ellen — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 20:48:01 +0000

Amazon.com has an offer to help you upgrade now. You buy Office 2007 now and you can then upgrade to 2010 for free. The reason for this is that 2010 is coming out soon and you would otherwise want to wait.

If you’re using Office 2003, why upgrade now? Using 2007 even for a couple of months will help you get used to the new ribbon interface and learn many of the new tools. If you go from 2003 to 2010, the learning curve will be huge.

Microsoft releases public beta of Office 2010

Ellen — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 20:35:41 +0000

Anyone can now download the beta of Office 2010 at http://office.com/beta. It includes Word, PowerPoint, Outlook, Excel, OneNote, Access, Publisher, InfoPath, SharePoint Workspace, and Communicator! Microsoft suggests downloading it on a secondary PC. Remember that betas, even a thoroughly tested one like this, can crash and have bugs. Both 32-bit and 64-bit versions are available. You’ll find more information on the download site.

See my review of some of the new features of PowerPoint 2010.

PowerPoint 2010 is coming!

Ellen — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 02:56:59 +0000

The public beta of PowerPoint 2010 will be available next month. I want to preview some of its features for you, because I think you’ll like them.

Note: Features that I see in my version of the beta may have changed.

Video

There are many new video features. Some have been requested by users for years! Here are some of them:

Embed videos in PowerPoint 2010

By default, videos are embedded when you insert them (although you can choose to link them). This will reduce instances of videos not playing.
Just like images and shapes, videos have a Style gallery, so you can add borders, swivel them, and change their shape!
Video style gallery in PowerPoint 2010
You can easily insert video from YouTube and other video sharing sites. Just provide the Embed code. Well, this didn’t work for me, but it’s a feature, so I’m hoping it’s been fixed.
Inserting video from a sharing site in PowerPoint 2010
You can add text on top of videos, in the same way you add text on top of any other object. Of course, you can animate the text if you want
Videos have play controls, so you can easily start, pause, and stop them during a slide show.
Play controls for video in PowerPoint 2010

Conclusion: This will be a very popular new feature.

New Animation Features

The animation controls are now on the ribbon. You can still open a task pane, but it’s a little different. You’ll need it if you add more than one animation to an object and want to see them together or use the Advanced Timeline. I’m still getting used to this. Certain animations that are not on the animation gallery are a little harder to get to and I find myself going back and forth between the ribbon and the task pane.

There’s an animation painter to copy animations from one object to another! Hallelujah!

There are a few new transitions that are pretty classy. And you can specify animation timing to make it as slow or fast as you want.

Save to WMV video

You can save to WMV video format. If you have slide timings and animation, they will be included. (It can take a LONG time.) This feature doesn’t support video.

Online features

You’ll be able to access presentations online using Windows Live.I haven’t tested this much, so I can’t say too much about it. But you can go to skydrive.live.com and test some of them yourself. You can upload a presentation and keep it private or make it public (put it in the Public folder).

There’s also a broadcast feature to show presentations to others (Slide Show tab> Broadcast Slide Show).

For more information on PowerPoint 2010, go to http://blogs.msdn.com/powerpoint/

Animate an image from color to black & white

Ellen — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 02:57:33 +0000

On the popular TV show, NCIS, scenes end with a still shot that starts in color and then becomes black & white. In a discussion on the LinkedIn group, Great Communicators! Effective Presenting & PowerPoint, this technique was suggested as a fun section transition for a presentation.

Here’s how the technique looks:

Here are the steps:

Insert a photo. If you want text on the slide, right-click the photo and send it to the back of the display order.
Copy and paste the photo.
With the copy selected, choose the Format tab. In the Adjust section, click the Color drop-down list and choose one of the grayscale options. (In PowerPoint 2003, use the Color button’s drop-down list on the Picture toolbar.)
Send the grayscale photo to the back of the order.
Move the grayscale photo so that it’s exactly behind the color version.
Select the color photo and click the Animations tab.In PowerPoint 2007, click the Custom Animation button. In PowerPoint 2003, choose Slide Show> Custom Animation.
Add a Disappear animation to the photo. In PowerPoint 2010, click the More button of the Animations gallery, and choose Disappear. In PowerPoint 2007 and 2003, from the Animation task pane, choose Add Effect> Exit> Disappear.

Now, when you go into Slide Show view and click, the color photo disappears and the grayscale version is revealed. Simply click again to go to the next slide.