Gridlines in PowerPoint 365 for Windows

PowerPoint's Gridlines help you position slide objects with greater precision. When used together with Rulers and Guides, Gridlines make it easier to align and snap objects into place, helping you create consistent and well-organized slide layouts. In this tutorial, you will learn how to work effectively with Gridlines in PowerPoint.

What are Gridlines?
Show and Hide Gridlines

What are Gridlines?

Gridlines are non-printing horizontal and vertical reference lines that appear across the slide workspace to help position and align objects more accurately. These lines form a visual grid that makes it easier to arrange shapes, images, charts, text boxes, and other slide elements consistently. They form an almost dotted graph-like mesh, as shown in Figure 1, below.

Figure 1: Gridlines on a slide

Gridlines are especially useful when creating structured slide layouts because they help maintain equal spacing, alignment, and balance between objects. They can also work together with PowerPoint’s snapping features, allowing objects to automatically align with the nearest grid intersection or guide.

Unlike objects placed on the slide, Gridlines do not appear during Slide Show view or on printed presentations. They are only visible while editing the presentation.

Show and Hide Gridlines

Let us now learn how to show or hide these Gridlines in PowerPoint 365 for Windows:

1. Launch PowerPoint and open a Blank Presentation, as shown in Figure 2, below. Note that there are no gridlines visible by default.
2. 
   Figure 2: Default PowerPoint interface with no Gridlines visible
2. To display Gridlines, go to the View tab of the Ribbon, and select the Gridlines check-box, highlighted in red within Figure 3, below.
3. 
   Figure 3: Gridlines check-box selected
4. To hide the Gridlines again, simply clear the Gridlines check box shown in Figure 3, above.

   Keyboard Shortcut for Gridlines

   To turn on the visibility of the gridlines, you can use the keyboard shortcut Shift + F9. Use the same shortcut key to toggle it away.

   

   PowerPoint Keyboard Shortcuts

   Do you want more keyboard shortcuts?

   Explore our PowerPoint Keyboard Shortcuts and Sequences Ebook that is updated for all PowerPoint versions.

3. Now, you can see the gridlines displayed on the slide, as shown in Figure 1, previously on this page.

   More Gridlines Options

   Once your gridlines are visible on the Slide Area, you can make them work for you! First, tweak the Snap to Grid settings as per your requirements, and then explore our Working with Snap to Grid tutorial.