Smart Dynamic Guides in PowerPoint 365 for Windows

Picture parallel parking with one of those backup cameras that beeps and shows a guide line the moment your car is centered between the lines. You don't measure anything, you don't even think about it; the car simply tells you when you've nailed it. That's the exact job Smart Dynamic Guides do with placing your slide objects inside PowerPoint.

Introduction
Disable and Enable Smart Guides
Reposition
Resize with Smart Guides
Align/Distribute

Introduction

The moment you drag a shape, picture, or text box close to lining up with another object, or close to matching its spacing, a thin red dotted line pops up to say "right here, this is the spot." No grid to count, no ruler to squint at, no guesswork involved. Think of it as PowerPoint's version of a spirit level, except instead of tracking one bubble, it's comparing the edges and distances of every object on your slide, instantly, so your layout looks deliberate rather than nudged into place by trial and error.

Similarly, PowerPoint quietly assists whenever you move, resize, or align objects on a slide. As you nudge a shape into position, adjust its size, or arrange multiple elements, dotted guidelines appear to indicate the closest alignment point, as shown in Figure 1, below.

Figure 1: Smart guides appear while repositioning

In Figure 1, above, the rightmost shape is being moved to the left, indicated by the Move cursor highlighted in green. As it passes a position equidistant from the other two shapes, PowerPoint displays red, dotted lines with arrows on both sides to confirm equal spacing.

These red dotted lines, which appear briefly as you work, are known as Smart Dynamic Guides, or simply Smart Guides. They make positioning objects considerably easier and indicate how far an object still needs to move to match the width of an adjacent one. Objects can even be spaced evenly without opening any Ribbon tab or entering a value into a dialog box.

Disable and Enable Smart Guides

Smart Guides are turned on by default. If you find they're not working, or suspect they were disabled by mistake, the steps below will help you re-enable them in PowerPoint 365 for Windows. To turn them off again, simply reverse these steps and deselect the same options.

1. With PowerPoint open, select the View tab of the Ribbon. In the Show group, click the Dialog launcher button, highlighted in red within Figure 2, below.
2. 
   Figure 2: Dialog launcher for Grid Settings
3. Alternatively, right-click on an empty area of the blank slide to bring up a contextual menu, as shown in Figure 3, below. Within the contextual menu, select the Grid and Guides option, as shown highlighted in red within Figure 3.
4. 
   Figure 3: Grid and Guides option
2. Either option summons the Grid and Guides dialog box, shown in Figure 4, below. Within this box, ensure the Display smart guides when shapes are aligned check-box is selected, as highlighted in red within Figure 4. Click OK to finish.
3. 
   Figure 4: Grid and Guides dialog box
4. You can also right-click on an empty area of the slide to bring up a contextual menu, as shown in Figure 5, below. From there, select Grid and Guides to open a sub-menu. The Smart Guides option will show a check mark if already enabled, as highlighted in red within Figure 5. If it isn't checked, click once to turn it on.
5. 
   Figure 5: Select the Smart Guides option

Once enabled, Smart Guides assist with repositioning, resizing, and aligning or distributing objects. Using the shapes shown in Figure 6, below, we'll walk through how Smart Guides support each of these actions.

Figure 6: Two shapes on the slide

Reposition

Take the example in Figure 6, above. To align the top edges of both squares, drag the smaller square upward until the Smart Guides appear as red dashed lines. As shown in Figure 7, below, the guides appear once the top edges are aligned.

Figure 7: Repositioning the shapes

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Resize with Smart Guides

Smart Guides can help you resize your shapes as well. Let us continue with the example, as shown in Figure 7, above.

1. Select the smaller square so that you can see the selection handles, as shown in Figure 8, below.
2. 
   Figure 8: Square with several handles
2. Now, select the bottom left white handle, as shown highlighted in red within Figure 8, above. Hold down the Shift key and drag it downwards. As soon as the smaller shape is resized to match the size of the adjoining shape, you’ll see that the Smart Guides make an appearance, as shown in Figure 9, below. Since both our shapes were already top-aligned, dragging downwards was all we needed to do to attain the same size for both shapes. If your shapes are not top-aligned, you may have to drag and resize upwards as well.
3. 
   Figure 9: Resizing shapes is a snap
4. In our example, as shown in Figure 8, above, both shapes ended up with a similar width as well when we matched the height by resizing. That happened because our original shapes were rounded squares with the same height:width ratios. If you work with adjacent shapes that are different, such as a rectangle and a square, or even a rectangle and an oval, then you will end up with similar heights only at the end of such resizing.

Align/Distribute

In the preceding sections, you learned how to reposition and resize shapes. Such resizing even aligns the top and bottom (or even the left and right) edges of your shapes. Other than direct alignment, you can also use Smart Guides to influence consistent distribution (spacing) between shapes. However, for distribution to work, you need at least three or more shapes.

When you try to space three or more shapes to be equally apart, small arrows will appear to indicate when the spacing is identical, as shown in Figure 10, below.

Figure 10: Shapes distributed accurately

Using Smart Guides is a matter of practice. The more you use them, the more intuitive you will feel working with them. Remember that you will feel the "snap" when shapes resize, position, or align identically to adjacent shapes.