Group, Ungroup, and Regroup Shapes in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac

Many times, you want to animate several slide objects. Rather than select each of them individually and then animate them, you can select them all together as a group and animate them. You may also want to rotate a few shapes placed next to each other to a certain angle, at times like these, you'll be happy to know that grouping, ungrouping, and regrouping shapes makes it simpler and quicker to do these tasks in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac:

Grouping is the process of making a single selection of a disparate or similar set of slide objects, so that when you select it again, you end up selecting the entire group rather than a single object. A group has a single set of selection and rotation handles (compare the individual elements on the left of Figure 1 to the unified, single group on the right).

Figure 1: Individual shapes (left) and the same shapes within a group (right)

Ungrouping lets you break up a group of slide objects back into individual slide objects. If you were to ungroup the object to the right of Figure 1 (see above), it would result in looking again as the one shown towards the left.

Regrouping: Sometimes, you need to ungroup an object just so that you can make one small change to a particular slide object. Regrouping remembers whatever comprised the original group, and reconstitutes the original group without the need of selecting all individual slide objects again.

Grouping Shapes

Follow these steps to group shapes (or any other slide objects) in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac:

1. Select the shapes you want to group.
2. Right click the selection carefully, and choose Grouping | Group from the resultant menu, as shown in Figure 2. You can also group shapes by pressing the Alt + Command + G shortcut key combination.
3. 
   Figure 2: Grouping shapes
4. Alternatively, you can access the Home tab of the Ribbon. Then click the Arrange button to bring up the drop-down gallery as shown in Figure 3. In this resultant gallery, select the Group option.
5. 
   Figure 3: Group option within the Arrange drop-down gallery
6. Once the shapes are grouped, you can change their attributes as if they constitute a single slide object. For example, if you rotate a group, all individual objects in that group will rotate together as a single object.
7. Look at the example towards the left in Figure 4, where you can see all four shapes selected and rotated individually 15 degrees each (compare with the unrotated stage in Figure 1). On the other hand, the grouped shapes on the right (containing the same shapes, but grouped) were also rotated by 15 degrees, you can see that the rotation on the right looks much better.
8. 
   Figure 4: Rotation of 15 degrees applied to individual shapes (on the left) and a group of same shapes (on the right)

Ungrouping Shapes

Follow these steps to ungroup previously grouped shapes and / or other slide objects in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac:

1. Select the group you want to ungroup, and right click to get the resultant menu shown in Figure 5. Choose the Grouping | Ungroup option. You can also ungroup shapes by pressing the Alt + Shift + Command + G shortcut key combination. In addition, you'll also find the Ungroup option on the Home tab of the Ribbon. Click the Arrange button to bring up a gallery that contains the Ungroup option (refer to Figure 3).
2. 
   Figure 5: Ungroup option selected

Regrouping Shapes

Follow these steps to regroup (reconstitute) any hitherto ungrouped group:

1. Select any one of the shapes which were ungrouped earlier. Right click carefully and choose Grouping | Regroup from the resultant menu, as shown in Figure 6. The shortcut key for Regrouping is Alt + Command + J. In addition, you'll also find the Regroup option on the Home tab of the Ribbon. Click the Arrange button to bring up a gallery that contains the Regroup option (refer to Figure 3).
2. 
   Figure 6: Regroup to reconstitute your ungrouped group
Tip: Are the Ungroup and Regroup options grayed out? Remember, Ungroup is only available when the selected object is a group. Similarly, Regroup is only available as an option if any selected shape or slide object was part of a previously constituted group.
2. Save your presentation often.