Resize, Rotate, and Flip Videos in PowerPoint 2010 for Windows

In this series of tutorials on working with videos in PowerPoint 2010, you have already learned about correction adjustments for videos and recoloring video clips. We also explored applying Video Styles, Video Effects, Video Shapes, and Video Borders to help you enhance the look of your inserted videos. These options will make your video clips look better and focused, and will provide you with ideas to make your video clips stand apart. Yet, there are some very basic video editing options that can be even more significant. These include how you can resize, rotate, and flip your inserted video clips. Resizing can help you change dimensions of your video clips, while slight changes in rotation values can draw attention. Flip, the last of these options though is something you will almost never use, unless you want to do something drastically different!

Whether you want to resize, rotate, or flip video clips, the first few steps remain the same for all these options in PowerPoint 2010 for Windows:

1. Open your presentation, and navigate to the required slide where you have already inserted a video clip. Select or double-click the video clip to bring up the two Video Tools tabs in the Ribbon. These two tabs are Format and Playback. Click the Format tab to activate it, as shown highlighted in red within Figure 1, below.
2. 
   Figure 1: Video Tools Format tab of the Ribbon

Contextual Tab

The Video Tools Format tab is a Contextual tab. Contextual 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.
2. When you insert a video on your slide, it may display a black rectangle on the slide, as shown in Figure 1, above. If your video clip does not show a black rectangle, then directly proceed to Resize, Rotate, or Flip sections later on this page.
3. If you see the black rectangle in place of the video clip, then you will not see any Live Preview of resize, rotate, or flip applied on your video clip. This is because you see a black rectangle instead of a frame associated with the video clip. To make sure you see a video frame during live preview, add a Poster Frame to your video clip, so that way you will see a video frame in the place of black rectangle, as shown in Figure 2, below.
4. 
   Figure 2: Video clip with a poster frame added
3. Now, let us learn how to resize, rotate, or flip a video clip next.

Resize

You can resize a selected video in any of the two ways mentioned below:

• Click and drag any of the blueish-white selection handles that show on the selected video, as shown in Figure 2, above.

Manipulate the Video Shape

If you have set your video to play within a certain shape like a Teardrop, a Trapezoid, or a Star, then you can also drag the yellow diamond that appears along with the selection handles to manipulate the video's edges.
• Locate the Size group within the Video Tools Format tab. Then, enter the required Height and Width values in digits, as shown highlighted in red within Figure 3, below.
• 
  Figure 3: Height and Width values entered within the Size group

Inches or Centimeters?

Do you see the Width and Height values in centimeters rather than inches? That's not an issue since you will either see centimeters or inches everywhere in PowerPoint, but if you want to change the unit of measurement, you will have to do that globally in your Microsoft Windows operating system. The following tutorials will help you:

Change the Unit Of Measurement in Windows 10
Change the Unit Of Measurement in Windows 8
Change the Unit of Measurement in Windows 7
Change the Unit of Measurement in Windows Vista
Change the Unit of Measurement in Windows XP

You can also enter the values in inches or centimeters directly into the boxes. If you want to type in values in inches, just type n in and press Enter on your keyboard, where n represents the value you want to type. Similarly, for centimeters, just type in n cm. To learn more about advanced options to resize the selected video clip, follow the instructions within our Resizing Shapes tutorial.

To learn more about advanced options to resize the selected video, click the small arrow dialog launcher located at the bottom right corner of the Size group, as shown highlighted in blue within Figure 3, above. Thereafter, follow instructions within our Resizing Shapes tutorial to proceed further.

Rotate

You can rotate a selected video in any of the two ways mentioned below:

• Click and drag the green rotation handle, as shown highlighted in red within Figure 1, above, towards right or left, as required. Additionally, you can press the Shift key and drag the rotation handle to rotate in increments of 15 degrees.
• Locate the Arrange group within the Video Tools Format tab. Then, click the Rotate button to bring up the Rotate and Flip drop-down gallery, shown in Figure 4, below. Choose any of the two Rotate options to rotate left or right, as shown highlighted in red within Figure 4.
• 
  Figure 4: Rotate options within the Rotate and Flip drop-down gallery

To learn more about advanced options to rotate selected video, right-click the video and, choose the Size and Position option in the resultant contextual menu. Alternatively, click More Rotations Options within the Rotate and Flip drop-down gallery, as shown highlighted in blue within Figure 4, above. Either way, you summon the Format Video dialog with the Size option selected in the sidebar, as shown in Figure 5, below.

Figure 5: Rotation option within the Format Video dialog box

Change the Rotation option, as shown highlighted in red within Figure 5, above, to any value from -360^o to 360 ^o or type a zero rotation value to restore the original placement of the video clip.

Flip

As with Resize and Rotate, there are two options available to Flip the picture:

• Click and drag one of the side (not corner) blueish-white selection handles of the video, as shown in Figure 6, below. Note that side handles are square, unlike the corner handles which are round.
• 
  Figure 6: Drag the side handle towards the other end of the video
• Continue dragging even when you reach the end of the video until you have flipped it as required, as shown in Figure 7, below. Remember that if you drag the selection handle too little or too farther, you may end up squishing the video!
• 
  Figure 7: Drag beyond to the other side to flip a video
• Locate the Arrange group within the Video Tools Format tab. Then, click the Rotate button to bring up the Rotate and Flip drop-down gallery, as shown in Figure 8, below. Choose any of the two Flip options, as shown highlighted in red within Figure 8. Within this drop-down gallery to flip your video vertically or horizontally.
• 
  Figure 8: Flip options within the Rotate and Flip drop-down gallery

In Figure 9, below, you can see the selected video clip in its original form as well as its variations in which the video clip has been resized, rotated, and flipped.

Figure 9: Variants of the same video clip applied with resize, rotate, and flip options