Puzzle Pictures in PowerPoint 2013
Learn how to create puzzle pictures in PowerPoint 2013 for Windows.
Author: Geetesh Bajaj
Product/Version: Microsoft PowerPoint 2013
OS: Windows 7 and 8
Many users do get in touch with us to ask how they can create a jigsaw puzzle from a picture in PowerPoint 2013? This is actually much easier than it sounds -- and the tutorial on this page will lead you through the entire process step-by-step. By the time you are done with this tutorial, you will create a jigsaw similar to what you see in Figure 1, below.
Figure 1: Create a jigsaw from a picture
You will need some prerequisites before you begin. First of all, you can use your own jigsaw shapes, or you can buy some ready-to-use jigsaw shapes to follow this tutorial from here. Thereafter follow these steps:
- Launch PowerPoint 2013, and open the sample presentation you bought from the link
provided. Within the downloaded presentation, you'll
find several types of Jigsaw Pieces created with various shapes. We choose the Typical Jigsaw variant, as you can see in Figure 2.
Figure 2: Jigsaw pieces in a 5x3 grid
- Within the Home or Insert tab of the
Ribbon, access the
Shapes drop-down gallery (see Figure 3) and choose the
Rectangle shape.
Figure 3: Rectangle shape selected within the Shapes drop-down gallery
- Draw a Rectangle that spans the entire slide area. This rectangle will serve as a "mock background" for your slide -- you might want to change the fill and line attributes of Rectangle to match the slide background of the rest of your slides. Now, right-click this Rectangle, and from the context menu choose the Send to Back | Send to Back option, as shown in Figure 4.
Figure 4: Send the Rectangle to the back
- You’ll end up with the jigsaw puzzle shapes being visible over the rectangle, as you can see in Figure 5. The Rectangle placed
behind them won't be visible.
Figure 5: Jigsaw puzzle shapes over Rectangle shape
- Now change the background of the presentation to any picture that you want to use for your jigsaw. To do that select the
Design tab of the Ribbon and click the Format Background button, as you can see in Figure 6.
Figure 6: Format Background button
- This brings up the Format Background
Task Pane, as shown in
Figure 7. Within the task pane select the Picture or Texture Fill
radio button (highlighted in red within Figure 7). Then
click the File button (highlighted in blue within
Figure 7).
Figure 7: Format Background Task Pane
Tip: Learn more about picture backgrounds for slides.
- This brings up the Insert Picture dialog box, as shown in Figure 8.
Select any picture, and click the Insert button to get back to the
Format Background task pane.
Figure 8: Insert Picture dialog box
Make sure that you do not click the Apply to All button (highlighted in green within Figure 7, previously on this page).
- You won’t find any visible change on the slide since our Rectangle already covers the slide
background -- and we really want it to stay this way. To see the actual change, select all the jigsaw puzzle shapes, as shown in Figure 9. Make sure you only select these jigsaw puzzle shapes and nothing else.
Figure 9: Jigsaw puzzle shapes selected
- Right-click these selected shapes, and from the context menu that appears, select the
Format Object option to bring up the Format Shape
Task Pane, as shown in
Figure 10. Within the task pane select the Slide background fill radio
button (highlighted in red within Figure 10).
Figure 10: Select the Slide background fill radio button
- Figure 11 below shows the result of applying the Slide background fill to the jigsaw shapes.
Figure 11: Jigsaw picture puzzle created
- You may further want to change the jigsaw puzzle shapes'
line
width, or change the
line color. All
of these changes can be done within the Format Shape task pane - so that the jigsaw
puzzle shapes stand apart from each other more distinctly. See Figure 12, where we changed
the line width and the line color.
Figure 12: Jigsaw puzzle shapes with thicker outlines
- Save your presentation.
- Remember, once you have a puzzle slide of this sort created, all you need to do is change the background of any particular slide to another picture to create a new picture puzzle!
- You can animate individual puzzles to come one after the other (or to exit as required).
- This technique works with any other shape, not just puzzles.
See Also:
Puzzle Pictures in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac
Puzzle Pictures in PowerPoint 2007 and 2010 for Windows
Jigsaw Shapes for PowerPoint
Here are a bunch of jigsaw slides that you can use to create your own jigsaw puzzles quickly within your own slides! This entire kit contains 5 different styles of jigsaw pieces: typical jigsaws, arrows, hearts, ovals, and rounded squares. Each jigsaw shape is available in three counts: small, medium, and large. We made these available in two slide sizes for both standard (4:3) and widescreen (16:9) resolutions.
Go and get a copy of our Jigsaw Shapes for PowerPoint.
