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Apply Bevel Effects to Shapes in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac

Author: Geetesh Bajaj

Product/Version: Microsoft PowerPoint 2011
OS: Mac OS X

Date Created: August 24th 2011
Last Updated: August 24th 2011

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Excerpt/Capsule: Learn how you can apply Bevel effects to selected shapes in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac.

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While PowerPoint does provide a plethora of Shape Effects, there's something about the Bevel effect that makes it stand apart. Once applied, the Bevel effect can make your shape look embossed, like a button, or even a pillow -- the different output variations occur since there are many Bevel presets available in PowerPoint 2011 for the Mac. Play with all the presets, and some Bevel presets will make your shapes will look as if they can pop out of the slide -- fortunately, there are plenty of Bevel effect presets that are more restrained and understated!

To see a sample presentation containing Bevel effects in PowerPoint, scroll down to the bottom of this page.

Follow these steps to apply Bevel effects to your shapes:

1. Select the shape you want to apply the Bevel effect to (if there's no shape on your slide, insert a new shape now). Double click the selected shape to activate the Format tab of the Ribbon (highlighted in red in Figure 1). Within this tab, locate the Shape Styles group and click the Effects button that you can see in Figure 1 (highlighted in blue).
   
   
   Figure 1: Format tab of the Ribbon selected
   
   Note: Format tab is a contextual tab. Contextual tabs are special tabs in the Ribbon that are not visible all the time -- they only make an appearance when you are working with a particular slide object which can be edited using special options.
   
   
2. This brings up the Effects drop-down gallery. From this gallery, choose the Bevel option to open the sub-gallery that you can see in Figure 2.
   
   
   Figure 2: Bevel sub-gallery within Effects gallery
   
   
3. Options within the Bevel sub-gallery are:
   
   1. Bevel: PowerPoint provides twelve default Bevel styles to choose from (you can preview all these styles in the online presentation -- scroll down this page).
      
      
   2. No Bevel: This option removes any Bevel effect from the selected shape.
      
      
   3. Bevel Options: This option brings up the Format Shape dialog box with Bevel editing options -- we explore this in a separate tutorial.
      
4. Click on the Bevel effect of your choice to apply it to the selected shape, as shown in Figure 3 -- we chose the Soft Round option.
   
   
   Figure 3: Soft Round bevel style selected in the Bevel gallery
   
   
5. In Figure 4 below you can see the Bevel effect applied to the previously selected shape (compare to Figure 1).
   
   
   Figure 4: Bevel effect applied to a Rectangle shape
   
   
6. Remember to save your presentation often.
   

Sample Presentation

Click above to view on YouTube