Bevel (3-D Format) Options for Shapes in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac

Author: Geetesh Bajaj

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

Date Created: August 26th 2011
Last Updated: August 26th 2011

Excerpt/Capsule: Explore the advanced Bevel (3-D Format) options available for shapes in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac.

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Bevel options for shapes in PowerPoint 2011 are aplenty. Most of the time, the Bevel preset effects may work for you as explored in our Apply Bevel Effects to Shapes in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac tutorial. Yet, those presets are merely the tip of the iceberg -- PowerPoint's advanced Bevel effect options provide customizations for contour, contour color, depth, depth color, and materials used in the Bevel effects. And if all that 3-D terminology had you in a dizzy, don't worry -- this simple tutorial explains every option within the 3-D gamut as far as Bevels are concerned. Do note that advanced Bevel options are available in the 3-D Format area within PowerPoint -- so for reasons of sanity, just imagine that Bevel and 3-D Format are the same attribute with two different names -- we use both terms interchangeably in this tutorial!

To see a sample presentation with examples of 3-D Format options in PowerPoint, scroll down to the bottom of this page.

Follow these steps to access advanced Bevel options:

Select the shape you want to apply the advanced Bevel effects to -- or select a shape that already has a Bevel preset effect applied which you want to edit further. Then double click the 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

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.
This brings up the Effects drop-down gallery you can see in Figure 2. In this drop-down gallery, select Bevel | Bevel Options.

Figure 2: Bevel Options in the Bevel gallery
This will bring up the Format Shape dialog box, with 3-D Format selected in the Sidebar (see Figure 3). As you can see, this dialog now includes two different tabs for Bevel and Depth & Surface. Figure 3 shows the options within the Bevel tab.

Figure 3: Bevel options within Format Shape dialog box

Let us explore bevel options under Bevel tab first:
1. Top: Allows you to alter the top Bevel surface. Click the Top option to bring up a drop-down list that contains some ready-to-use Top Bevel styles (see Figure 4).You can choose any of the styles. Thereafter, change the values in the Width and Height boxes towards the right of this drop-down list (highlighted in blue in Figure 3).
  
  Figure 4: Top Bevel styles
2. Bottom: Allows you to alter the bottom Bevel surface. Click the Bottom option to bring up a drop-down list that contains some ready-to-use Bottom Bevel styles.You can choose any of the styles. Thereafter, change the values in the relevant Width and Height boxes towards right of this drop-down list (highlighted in green in Figure 3).
  
  Figure 5: Bottom Bevel styles
  
  Note: Can't see any changes to your shape after you apply the Bottom Bevel styles? That is because the bottom of the shape is not visible to you! Although you can apply the bottom bevel style to your shape, you will need apply a 3-D Rotation effect to see that bottom part. Learn more about 3-D Rotation in our Apply 3-D Rotation Effects tutorial.
  
  If you want to convert a 3-D formatted shape back to a 2-D shape, click the Remove 3-D button (highlighted in red in Figure 3 above).
Once you have chosen the Top and Bottom Bevel styles for the shape, continue to explore other 3-D Format options within the Depth & Surface tab ( see Figure 6).

Figure 6: Depth & Surface options within Format Shape dialog box

Options within the Depth & Surface tab are:
1. Depth Color: Selecting the Depth Color option will display the Color gallery as shown in Figure 7. Here you can choose any color for the depth. Note that this will change only the color of 3-D additions of the selected shape rather than color of the original shape.
  
  Figure 7: Depth Color gallery
2. Depth: Use this option to increase or decrease the extrusion value of the depth.
  
  Note: To see the Depth and Depth Color applied to a shape, you must have 3-D Rotation applied to the shape. Learn more about 3-D Rotation in our Apply 3-D Rotation Effects tutorial.
3. Contour Color: This option allows to change the color of the edge thickness. Displays a color gallery similar to the one that you explored in Figure 7.
4. Size: Use this option to adjust the edge thickness. Smaller sizes can often work better.
5. Material: Select this option to chose the required Surface Material style from the resultant drop-down list you can see in Figure 8.
  
  Figure 8: Material drop-down list
6. Lighting: Select this option to chose from the Lighting style drop-down list shown in Figure 9.
  
  Figure 9: Lighting drop-down list
7. Angle: Use the spinner control to change the angle of the light source.
  
  Again, clicking the Remove 3-D button will remove all 3-D effects from the selected shape and make it a 2-D shape.
  
  Note: When you are making changes to the shape attributes within Format Shape dialog box, you can see the live preview of the changes in the selected shape. So, always offset the Format Shape dialog box away from the selected shape on the slide.
Click OK to apply the 3-D effects and get back to the slide. Figure 10 below shows an example of advanced 3-D effects applied to a Rectangle shape selected previously (refer to Figure 1 above).

Figure 10: Rectangle shape with 3-D effects applied
Remember to save your presentation often.