AutoShape Magic
Author: Geetesh Bajaj
Page 1 of 4
Date Created: January 15th 2006
Last Updated: February 26th 2009
This book extract is from Cutting Edge PowerPoint for Dummies, a book that will teach you how you can make your PowerPoint dance and sing.
Okay, you've PowerPointed before, right? And you knew there must be more cool things you could do? Here they are! This handy guide gives you pointers on what makes a powerful presentation, tips on using the right formats and templates, and directions for dressing up text, wowing 'em with color, adding action, and much more.
The book is part of the Dummies series, published by Wiley.
I wish to thank Greg Croy, Pat O'Brien, and Eric Holmgren for facilitating the permission to extract.
Introduction
Presentation graphics can emphasize your essential
message and keep your audiences attention. But great presentation
graphics often take time that you can better spend elsewhere in your
business (especially if you arent already an expert designer or
maybe you just need more time to study astronomy).
PowerPoint AutoShapes can give your presentations the pop you need
with just a few simple steps. This chapter shows how you can quickly
create and customize presentation graphics with AutoShapes.
Why AutoShapes?
AutoShapes are preset, intelligent shapes like circles, arrows, stars, and callouts that you can use to draw almost anything inside PowerPoint. Figure 5-1 shows some of these AutoShapes. Combine these shapes to create amazing visual content so fast that your colleagues will be left blinking and dazzled.
With AutoShapes, you can
- Draw circles, rectangles, arcs, hexagons,
cubes, and many other shapes.
- Place a thought bubble beside a picture of
Aunt Eliza and make her think (for a change).
- Combine several shapes to create diagrams,
charts, and timelines.
- Draw an exotic thunderbolt shape fit for
Harry Potters forehead.
- Draw stars with more points than you can
count.
If you want to create better presentations,
youll love AutoShapes.
You can create professional-looking drawings on your slides even if
you have led an uneventful, boring, or sinister life that required
no artistic expression. If you have led a moral and eventful life full
of artistic vision, youll still love AutoShapes because Microsoft
beta-tested this technology with all sorts of guinea pigs (er, users).
Figure 5-1: AutoShapes may be at the bottom of the PowerPoint
interface, but theyre the tops in PowerPoint.
Types of AutoShapes
Each type of AutoShape is accessed from the AutoShapes toolbar, as shown in Figure 5-2.
Figure 5-2: The AutoShapes toolbar.
PowerPoint offers nine types of AutoShapes:
- Lines: Lines (with or without arrows),
curves, freeform paths, and scribbles. Chapter 6 shows you more
about drawing lines and paths.
- Connectors: Connect AutoShapes with
straight and curved connectors. You can have arrowheads on either,
none, or both ends of the connectors.
- Basic Shapes: Create circles, rectangles,
cubes, hearts, and many not-so-basic shapes.
- Block Arrows: An assortment of arrow
styles will make sure that you move in the right direction.
- Flowcharts: Create a number of standard
flowchart shapes, such as process, decision, and data.
- Stars and Banners: Draw stars, explosions,
scrolls, and banners.
- Callouts: Insert comic bookstyle
and line callouts.
- Action Buttons: Add push-style buttons
that allow you to add navigation between slides.
See Chapter 14 for more information on navigation.
- More AutoShapes: Not really an AutoShapes, this option opens the Clip Art Organizer and lets you use clip art as an AutoShape.
Drawing AutoShapes
AutoShapes can be found in the Drawing toolbar.
If you cant see the Drawing toolbar within PowerPoint, choose
View|Toolbars|Drawing. By default, the Drawing toolbar lives at the
bottom of the PowerPoint interface (refer to Figure 5-1), but you
can move the toolbar anywhere you want.
Click the AutoShapes icon in your Drawing toolbar and then drag the
handle to spawn a standalone AutoShapes toolbar (refer to Figure 5-2).
Youll find nine icons on the toolbar. All but the last one open
their own flyout menus that can be dragged off by their handles to
create new toolbars.
Figure 5-3: If you can find a place to work after opening
all the AutoShape toolbars, youre either an optimist or have
a very large monitor.
You can draw an AutoShape in two ways:
- Choose any shape and click on the slide
to place a default-sized AutoShape.
- Choose any shape and then drag-and-draw on the slide to place an AutoShape of the size and proportion you require.
PowerPoint automatically applies a default fill and line to the AutoShape. Yes, those defaults can be changed. (See the sidebar, Changing default fills and lines, later in this chapter.)
Text within AutoShapes
To add text to an AutoShape, draw an AutoShape
and start typing. Anything you type shows up within the AutoShape.
To type or edit text within an existing AutoShape, follow these steps:
That isnt surprising; any new text box you create on a slide
is actually just a rectangle AutoShape with special characteristics.
You even use AutoShapes when you arent aware. Many elements,
like tables and charts, are special types of AutoShapes. In fact, if
you ungroup a table or chart, you end up with a collection of AutoShapes,
as I discuss in the section, A tale of tables,
later in the chapter.
Sticky AutoShapes tools
Sometimes, you want to pull your hair out because
PowerPoint insists on making you work more. This is particularly
true if you want to draw a hundred stars on your slide. PowerPoint
will insist that you reselect the Star AutoShape after drawing each
star. That means youre clicking within the AutoShape menu a
hundred times! Maybe its just easier to imagine a sky without
stars?
Or maybe you should tame PowerPoint and get your work done fast I
show you how in this section.
PowerPoint changes the AutoShape crosshair cursor to the default arrow
cursor soon after you draw an AutoShape. If you want to draw a hundred
stars, dont go back to the Basic Shapes flyout menu a hundred
times. Do this instead:
- Select the AutoShapes menu on your Drawing
toolbar and open the category you need (such as Stars & Banners).
- Drag the handle of the flyout menu to create
a standalone toolbar.
- Double-click the AutoShape you need and
the icon remains sticky.
- Draw your hundred or so AutoShapes.
- Click the star icon once again (or any other
icon) or just press the Esc key to get your hands off this sticky
mess.
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