Formatting Callouts in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac

Various Callout shapes available in PowerPoint can be impactors that convey a message, but only when used wisely. You need to attribute and position the callouts properly so that your audience does not get lost. Just like any other PowerPoint shape, Callouts take default formatting attributes from the Theme applied to the presentation. You can change their fill and/or outline and also apply a shape effect to them in the same way as you would do for any PowerPoint shape.

Follow these steps to learn more in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac:

1. Open your presentation and navigate to the slide which includes Callouts that you want to format. Figure 1 shows our sample slide with Callouts that possess default formatting.
2. 
   Figure 1: Callouts with default formatting
2. As you can see in Figure 1 above, the default status of Callouts is not going well with the picture upon which they are placed. So, we changed their fill color to make them a little lighter, as shown in Figure 2.
3. 
   Figure 2: Callouts with a different fill
3. Next, we removed the outline from the Callouts so that they look more contemporary in styling, as shown in Figure 3.
4. 
   Figure 3: Callouts with no outline
4. At this stage (see Figure 3, above), the white color makes of the text difficult to read. So, we changed the text color to black, as shown in Figure 4.
5. 
   Figure 4: Callouts with changed text color
5. Now, to make the callouts stand apart just a wee bit from the picture, we applied a subtle shadow to achieve the effect you see within Figure 5.
6. 
   Figure 5: Callouts with a shadow effect added
6. Format your Callout shapes as required using any of the suitable fills and effects. Remember to save your presentation often.