Resize, Rotate, and Flip Pictures in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac

In this series of tutorials on working with pictures in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac, you have already learned about adjusting picture options, and applying Picture Styles, Picture Effects, and Picture Borders that can help you to enhance the look of your inserted pictures. These skills will make your pictures look better and will provide you with ideas to make your pictures stand apart. Yet, there are some basic picture editing skills that are very significant. These include learning how you can resize, rotate, and flip pictures.

Before proceeding with the rest of this tutorial, we assume that you already have inserted a picture on your slide, and have selected it, as shown in Figure 1. Do note that when you select a picture, the Format Picture contextual tab (highlighted in blue, in Figure 1) appears on the Ribbon. Make sure that this tab is activated.

Figure 1: Picture inserted and selected

Now, let us learn how to resize, rotate, and flip a picture.

Resize

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

1. You can click and drag any of the blueish-white selection handles that show on the selected picture, as shown in Figure 1, above. To resize a picture proportionally, hold the Shift key while you drag one of the four corner handles.
Tip: If you have cropped the picture to a 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 picture's edges.
2. You can locate the Size group within the Format Picture tab. Then, enter the required Height and Width values in digits, as shown in Figure 2.
3. 
   Figure 2: Height and Width values entered within the Size group
4. To learn more about advanced options to resize the selected pictures, just right-click (or Ctrl + click) the picture, and choose the Format Picture option in the resultant contextual menu. Thereafter, follow instructions within our Resizing Shapes tutorial to proceed further.

Rotate

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

1. You can click and drag the green rotation handle that you can see highlighted in blue within Figure 1 towards right or left, as required.

Centimeters or Inches?

You may find that values can be entered either in inches or centimeters. What you see depends upon the unit of measurement chosen in the PowerPoint Preferences pane. More info can be found in our Change The Unit Of Measurement in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac tutorial.
2. You can locate the Arrange group within the Format Picture tab. Then click the Rotate button to bring up the Rotate and Flip drop-down gallery, that you can see in Figure 3 below. Choose any of the two Rotate options (highlighted in blue in Figure 3) within this drop-down gallery.
3. 
   Figure 3: Rotate options within the Rotate and Flip drop-down gallery

To learn more about advanced options to rotate selected pictures, just right-click (or Ctrl + click) the picture and choose the Format Picture option in the resultant contextual menu. Thereafter, follow instructions within our Rotate Shapes tutorial to proceed further.

Flip

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

1. You can click and drag one of the side (not corner) blueish-white selection handles of the picture, as shown in Figure 4, below. Note that side handles are square, unlike the corner handles which are round.
2. 
   Figure 4: Drag the side handle towards the other end of the picture
3. Continue dragging even when you reach the end of the picture until you have flipped it as required (see Figure 5, below). Remember that if you drag the selection handle too little or too farther, you may end up squishing the picture!
4. 
   Figure 5: Drag beyond to the other side to flip a picture
2. You can locate the Arrange group within the Format Picture tab. Then click the Rotate button to bring up the Rotate and Flip drop-down gallery as you can see in Figure 6, below. Choose any of the two Flip options (highlighted in blue in Figure 6, below) within this drop-down gallery to flip your picture vertically or horizontally.
3. 
   Figure 6: Flip options within the Rotate and Flip drop-down gallery

To learn about how to do a more controlled flipping of the picture, refer to our Flip Shapes tutorial. You flip pictures in the same way as you flip shapes.

In Figure 7, you can see the selected picture as well as its variations in which the picture has been resized, rotated and flipped. Compare the original picture with its variations.

Figure 7: Variants of the same picture applied with resize, rotate, and flip options