Drawing Scribble Lines in PowerPoint 2010
Author: Geetesh Bajaj
Product/Version: PowerPoint 2010
Date Created: February 16th 2011
Last Updated: February 16th 2011
Excerpt/Capsule: Learn how to draw with the Scribble line tool in PowerPoint 2010.
You have already learned how to use three of the four line drawing tools in PowerPoint 2010: Line, Curve, and Freeform. In this tutorial, I show you how you can use the last of these line tools: the Scribble Line tool. Drawing with the Scribble line is almost the same as drawing with the Freeform line -- but there is one difference. You don't need to double click to create an end point for your line. Just like you draw with a pencil on a piece of paper, your line stops the minute you stop drawing it. Having said that, you still need to practice to make your scribble lines perfect. Let us get started and explore how the Scribble line option works.
Follow these steps to draw with the Scribble line tool in PowerPoint 2010:
- 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.
- Within the Home or Insert tab of the Ribbon, click the Shapes button
to view the Shapes gallery that you can see in Figure 1.
Select the Scribble line tool.

Figure 1: Scribble line selected
- As soon as the Scribble line tool is selected the cursor changes to
a pencil (see Figure 2).
Figure 2: Pencil cursor
- Click anywhere on the slide to establish the starting point, without
releasing the mouse button
draw the shape, as you can see in Figure
3.

Figure 3: Drawing with scribble line
- Now move the cursor to the starting point and release to thereby close
the shape. The shape now gets filled by a solid color (default fill)
to denote that it has indeed been closed. You'll also see the
shape is surrounded by eight selection handles, as shown in
Figure 4.

Figure 4: Shape created using scribble line
Tip: If you want just a opened shape, don't click on the starting point of the drawing.
- Click anywhere on the slide to deselect the drawing.