The placement of the slide objects on your slide can make so much difference. And proper spacing in-between the slide objects plays an important
role in making your slides look aesthetic. Although distributing shapes is a simple concept it makes a big difference to the symmetry of your slide
content. Look at Figure 1, and you'll see that the shapes towards the left are not distributed equally whereas the shapes towards the
right are. Most of the time, distribution is used along with alignment -- we already covered alignment in our
Align Shapes in
PowerPoint 2013 tutorial.
Figure 1: The benefits of distribution
If you create many PowerPoint slides, it is very important to keep all your shapes cleanly positioned and spaced. In this tutorial we'll look at
how you can distribute shapes evenly. The Distribute option is a great way to position shapes equidistant from each other, either on a
horizontal or vertical plane -- follow these steps to learn more:
Distribute Shapes Horizontally
- Select
all the shapes placed besides each other, as shown in Figure 2. Note that all these shapes are already aligned.
Figure 2: Shapes selected for horizontal distribution
As you can see in the Figure 2 above, the shapes are not equally spaced between each other -- the distance between the fourth and the
fifth shapes is considerably more than the distance between any other consecutive shapes.
- Now, access the Home tab of the Ribbon,
within the Drawing group click the Arrange button to bring up a drop-down gallery that you see in
Figure 3. Within the Arrange drop-down gallery click the Align option to bring up the Align
sub-gallery -- within the sub-gallery select the Distribute Horizontally option, as shown highlighted in
red within Figure 3.
Figure 3: Distribute Horizontally option selected
Note: The Align sub-gallery can also be accessed from the Arrange group within Drawing
Tools Format tab of the Ribbon.
- This will distribute the selected shapes equally on a horizontal plane (compare Figures 4 and 2).
Figure 4: Shapes distributed horizontally showing equal distance between each other
Distribute Shapes Vertically
- Select
all the shapes placed below each other, as shown in Figure 5.
Figure 5: Shapes selected for vertical distribution
As you can see in the Figure 5 above, the shapes are not equally spaced between each other.
- Access the Home tab of the Ribbon,
within the Drawing group click the Arrange button to bring up a drop-down gallery that you see in
Figure 6. Within the Arrange drop-down gallery click the Align option to bring up the Align
sub-gallery -- within the sub-gallery select the Distribute Vertically option, as shown highlighted in
red within Figure 6.
Figure 6: Distribute Vertically option selected
- This will distribute the selected shapes equally on a vertical plane (compare Figures 7 and 5).
Figure 7: Shapes distributed vertically showing equal distance between each other
See Also:
Distribute Shapes in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac
Distribute Shapes in PowerPoint 2010 for Windows
