Add Picture Fills to Shapes in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac
Add picture fills to shapes in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac.
Author:Geetesh Bajaj
Product/Version: PowerPoint 2011 for Mac
OS: Mac OS X
Picture fills can look great and distracting at the same time, it all depends upon the type of picture you use for the fill. Remember using a
detailed or crowded picture as a fill for a small shape will get you no awards for slide design! Any shape on your slide in
PowerPoint 2011 can be provided with a picture fill in the same way that you learned to add
or change solid fills or
gradient fills. Scroll down this page to
see a sample presentation that contains shapes with picture fills. Then follow these steps to change or apply a picture fill to a shape:
Select the shape that you want to change the fill for. Alternatively, if you just want to follow this tutorial step-by-step, launch PowerPoint.
You will see the Presentation Gallery which
allows you to set all attributes of your new presentation, such as a preset Theme or template. Make
selections or just click Cancel in this gallery to open a blank presentation with a new slide, PowerPoint 2011 users can
change the slide layout of this slide to
Blank by selecting Layout | Blank within the Home tab of the
Ribbon.
Within the Home tab of the Ribbon, locate the Insert group and click the
Shape button to access the Shape gallery with different types of shape options that you can see in
Figure 1. Select any shape option to access the related submenu, select the shape you prefer (we selected the Teardrop shape, as you
can see in Figure 1).
Figure 1: Shape gallery
Click and drag on the slide to insert the shape, or click once on the blank slide to
place an instance of the shape. Select the shape so that the
Ribbon area now shows the Format tab, as shown in Figure 2 (highlighted in
red). Activate this Ribbon tab by clicking on it.
Figure 2: Format tab of the Ribbon
Note: 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.
Within the Format tab, locate the Shape Styles group. Then click the downward arrow next to the
Fill button to view the Fill drop-down gallery that you can see in Figure 3.
Figure 3: Fill drop-down gallery
Within the Fill drop-down gallery, select the Fill Effects option which is the last option (refer to
Figure 3 above). This opens the Format Shape dialog box. Make sure that the Fill panel is active,
and click on the Picture or Texture tab that you can see highlighted in red in
Figure 4.
Figure 4: Format Shape dialog box
Within this tab, click the Choose Picture button that you will find within From file section (highlighted in
blue in Figure 4). This will display the Choose a Picture dialog box as shown in
Figure 5.
Figure 5: Choose a Picture dialog box
In this dialog box, navigate to the folder where the picture to be used as shape fill is located, select it, and click the
Insert button. This will take you back to the Format Shape dialog box, where you can now see the selected picture
in the preview area, as shown in Figure 6.
Figure 6: Picture fill chosen for the selected shape
At this point, you can make some more changes to the picture fill using the other options in the Format Shape dialog box as
explained below:
i. If you want to change the transparency of the picture fill, you can use the Transparency slider that you can see
in Figure 6.
ii. Also, if you want the picture fill to rotate when the container shape itself is rotated, do select the
Rotate with shape check-box as shown highlighted in red in Figure 6.
iii. If you want the picture used as a fill to be tiled, select the Tile check-box which you can see below the
Rotate with shape check-box in Figure 6. By using this option you can make any picture to behave like a texture. We
cover texture fills in a subsequent tutorial.
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 place the Format Shape dialog box on the slide such
that it won't hide the selected shape.
Once you have made all required selections in the Format Shape dialog box, click OK to get back to the slide
where you can see the shape filled with selected picture, as shown in Figure 7.
Figure 7: Shape with picture fill
Remember to save your presentation often.
Note: Once you add a picture as a fill for a shape as explained above, you can use some
Adjust Picture Options to make some changes to
the picture fill.
Sample Presentation of Picture Fill in Shape:
Click below to view this presentation on SlideShare
Is a picture is worth a thousand words? You probably have heard this adage so often that we decided not to repeat this phrase throughout
this book! Now here’s some more info: the human brain uses a larger part of its area to store visual information rather than textual content.
And that’s possibly because a picture describes so much more than text.
