Creating Half Circle in PowerPoint 2010
Author: Geetesh Bajaj
Product/Version: Microsoft PowerPoint 2010
OS: Microsoft Windows XP / Vista / 7
Date Created: March 31st 2011
Last Updated: March 31st 2011
Excerpt/Capsule: Learn to create a half circle in PowerPoint 2010.
An Indezine reader asked me if he could create three circles next to each other, and make sure that they looked like this:
- The first circle should be filled-in full (entirely)
- The second circle should be half full
- The third and last circle should have no fill (empty)
The first and third circles are easy -- all you need to do is ensure that the first circle has both an Outline and a Solid Fill, and that the third circle has only an outline and No Fill. The second circle (half circle) is an easy challenge that I'll teach you to create in this one page tutorial using PowerPoint 2010 -- if you are a PowerPoint 2007 user, look at the Creating Half Circles in PowerPoint 2007 tutorial page.
Follow these steps to get started:
- 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 the Home tab | Layout | Blank.
- 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 the Oval shape,
and click once on the blank slide to place
a perfect circle shape that looks like a circle (see
in Figure
2).

Figure 1: Shapes Gallery in PowerPoint 2010

Figure 2: Oval Shape
- Duplicate the
circle to make two more copies of it as shown in Figure
3.

Figure 3: Three circles with same attributes
- Select all three circles, and increase the thickness of their Outline.
You can also change the line color. Your circles will look similar
to what you can see in Figure 4.

Figure 4: Circles with thick outline
- Select the second and third circles, and format their fills to No
Fill, as shown in Figure 5.

Figure 5: 2nd and 3rd circles with fill removed
- Now create a semi-circle on a new slide, as shown in our Creating
a Semi-Circle in PowerPoint 2010 tutorial.
- Now, copy the shape attributes of the first circle and apply them
to the new semicircle using the Format
Painter. Then set the outline for this semi-circle
to No
Outline. Copy this semi-circle and paste it
on top of the second circle so that it looks like what you can
see in Figure 6.

Figure 6: Paste semi-circle on the second circle
- Now carefully select the pasted semi-circle, right-click and choose
Send To Back | Send Backward as shown in Figure 7.

Figure 7: Send the semi-circle backward
Tip: If you want to know more about re-ordering the shapes, go to our tutorial Reorder Shapes in PowerPoint 2010.
- Keep on selecting the Send Backward option until the semi-circle
goes behind the full circle and looks like a half circle as shown
in Figure
8.

Figure 8: Half circle made using semi-circle and circle
- Once done, save your presentation.