Drawing Lines in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac

PowerPoint is a very comprehensive program with an amazing repertoire of tools that go beyond just slide creation. However PowerPoint is first and foremost considered a presentation slides program in which you can bring in text, graphics, multimedia, animation, etc. to deliver a message or a story. Even many longtime PowerPoint users are completely unaware of the fact that PowerPoint is also a great drawing program with a feature set that rivals top end graphic programs.

Yes, you have learned how you can use readymade shapes in PowerPoint to place rectangles, circles, and hundreds of other shapes. In addition, we have explored how you can create new shapes by combining one or more shapes. If these are not capable enough for you, PowerPoint includes the ability to create your own shapes from scratch by drawing them. These drawing tools are essentially the Line shapes that can be found within the Shape gallery. This introductory tutorial shows you how to draw a simple line on the slide; subsequently, you will learn more advanced concepts.

To draw a simple point to point line in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac, follow these steps:

1. Launch PowerPoint. You will see the Presentation Gallery which allows you to set all attributes of your new presentation, such as a preset Theme or template. Make selections or just click Cancel in this gallery to open a blank presentation with a new slide. PowerPoint 2011 users can change the slide layout of this slide to Blank by selecting the option Layout | Blank within the Home tab of the Ribbon.
2. Within the Home tab of the Ribbon, click the Shape button to view the Shape gallery that you can see in Figure 1. Select the Lines and Connectors option within this galley, and from the resultant sub-menu, select the Line shape (refer to Figure 1 again).
3. 
   Figure 1: Line shape selected
3. As soon as the Line shape is selected, the cursor changes to a cross hair as shown in Figure 2.
4. 
   Figure 2: Cursor changed to a cross hair
4. Move the cursor to the point on the slide where you want to establish the starting point of your line. Then hold down the left mouse button, don't release it yet, and start dragging the cursor to the point where you want the line to end as shown in Figure 3. As you can see in Figure 3 below, the tool tip displays the length of the line you have drawn so far.
5. 
   Figure 3: Straight line being drawn on the slide
5. When you have completed drawing the line, release the mouse button to establish the ending point of your line. Your line will look something like what you see in Figure 4. The line has handles at both ends, these handles are used to resize or to move the line.
6. 
   Figure 4: Completed straight line
6. Click anywhere on the slide to deselect the line.
7. Save your presentation.