Change One Shape to Another in PowerPoint 2016 for Windows

Shapes tend to be similar to each other. You may work with one shape and then realize that you used the wrong one. Typically, users create a 5 pointed star when they need a star with 4 or 8 points, and that was just one example! Let's explore another scenario: you worked on a shape and applied effects, animations, and fills to this shape. Later you realize that you used a wrong shape, or perhaps the client wants you to change the shape but retain all the effects, animations, and fills! You may want to delete the existing shape and start over again, and that is a long drawn process. However, but you don't have to do that for you can change any existing shape to another by following these steps in PowerPoint 2016 for Windows:

1. Select the shape which you want to change (see Figure 1).
2. 
   Figure 1: Star Shape selected
2. This activates the Drawing Tools Format contextual tab of the Ribbon, as shown highlighted in red within Figure 2. Within this tab click the Edit Shape button, as shown highlighted in blue within Figure 2.
3. 
   Figure 2: Edit Shape button
3. This brings up a drop-down menu that you can see in Figure 3, below. From this menu, choose the Change Shape option (highlighted in red within Figure 3) to bring up a variant of the Shapes gallery. In this gallery, choose the shape you want to change your selected shape to.
4. 
   Figure 3: Choose a Shape to change to
4. Once you click on another shape within the Shapes gallery, the selected shape on your slide changes into the new shape as you can see in Figure 4. Note that the new shape has the same fill, animation, outline, effect, and hyperlink attributes as the earlier shape. If the original, selected shape did not have any animation or hyperlink applied, then of course the new changed shape also won't have any animation or hyperlink attributes.
5. 
   Figure 4: 10-Point Star shape changed to 5-Point Star
5. Save your presentation often.