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In PowerPoint 2010 there are six types of Shape Effects that you can use -- and more than one of these effects can be applied to a selected shape. It goes without saying that some combinations of these effects look better than others -- the restraint to not go overboard is always a good thing. On the other hand, trying out all the effect combinations may take a lot of time -- fortunately, the Presets option comes to your rescue. This option lets you use pre-combined combinations of the different effects -- these work well almost always.

To see a sample presentation containing Preset effects in PowerPoint 2010, scroll down to the bottom of this page.

Follow these steps to apply a Preset effect style to a shape:

1. Select the shape that you want to apply the effect to. Alternatively, if you just want to follow this tutorial step-by-step, launch PowerPoint 2010. Most of the time, PowerPoint will open with a new slide in a presentation -- PowerPoint 2010 users can change the slide layout to Blank by selecting Home tab | Layout | Blank.
   
   
2. Within the Home or Insert tab of the Ribbon, click the Shapes button to access the Shapes gallery that you can see in Figure 1. Select any shape, and then either drag and draw, or click once on the blank slide to place an instance of the shape (I used a Rectangle shape as you can see later in Figure 2).
   
   
   Figure 1: Shapes gallery
   
   
3. Select the shape so that the Ribbon area now shows the Drawing Tools Format tab, as shown in Figure 2. Activate this Ribbon tab by clicking on it.
   
   
   Figure 2: Drawing Tools Format tab of the Ribbon
   
   
   
   Note: The Drawing Tools Format tab is a contextual tab. These 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.
   
   
4. From the Drawing Tools Format tab, locate the Shape Styles group, then click the Shape Effects button (highlighted in red in Figure 2 above) to access the Shape Effects drop-down gallery that you can see in Figure 3.
   
   In this gallery, select the Preset option (refer to Figure 3 again).
   
   
   Figure 3: Preset drop-down gallery
   
   
5. This opens the Preset sub-gallery (refer to Figure 3 above) that provides the following options:
   
   
   1. No Presets: This is the option you can use if you already have applied a preset effect to a shape that you want to remove.
      
      
   2. Presets: There are twelve preset effects which can be applied to a selected shape. All these presets are combinations of the other six effect types that PowerPoint provides: Shadow, Reflection, Glow, Soft Edges, Bevel, and 3-D Rotation. We plan to have subsequent, indvidual tutorials for each of these Shape Effects.
      
      
   3. 3-D Options: This option takes you to the 3-D Options tab of the Format Shape dialog box -- this is something that is covered as part of the Bevel and 3-D Rotation tutorials (to be available subsequently).
      
6. Move the cursor over any of the effects within the Preset gallery to see a live preview of the effect. Click on the effect to apply it to the selected shape. In Figure 4 below you can see the previously selected Rectangle shape applied with a Preset effect.
   
   
   Figure 4: Shape with applied Preset effect
   
   
   
   Tip: Place your shape in the area that is not covered by the Shape Styles drop-down gallery as shown in Figure 4, so that you can see the live preview.
   
   
7. Remember to save your presentation often.
   

Sample Presentation

Click above to view on Slideshare

Click above to view on YouTube

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