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Reroute Connectors in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac

Learn how to reroute connectors automatically, and also how you can use the yellow diamond handles in connectors within PowerPoint 2011.

Author: Geetesh Bajaj

Product/Version: Microsoft PowerPoint 2011
OS: Mac OS X

Date Created: March 1st 2012
Last Updated: March 1st 2012

You have already learned about the amazing stuff you can do with connectors -- starting from drawing to formatting them. Many times when you draw connectors between slide objects, the connector may use the shortest path between two slide objects -- this might overlap the connector over other shapes, text boxes, or any other object. You might have another reason to use a longer connector between two slide objects as well -- whatever your reason may be, the good news is that you can easily reroute your connectors -- either automatically or manually.

When you use the automatic option to reroute the connector, it always links between two slide objects using the shortest route -- for longer paths, you will have to manually reroute the connector -- you will learn about both these options on this page.

Reroute Connectors Automatically

To fix the connector routing automatically, carefully right-click (or Ctrl-click) just the connector (not the slide objects that it connects) to bring up the the contextual menu -- choose the Reroute Connectors option that you see in Figure 1.

Figure 1: Reroute Connectors option

This will reroute the connector to the closest points between the shapes (compare Figures 2 and 1).

Figure 2: Connector automatically rerouted between two shapes

Reroute Connectors Manually

To reroute connectors manually, you first need to select just the connector (not the shapes that it links) -- you will find one or more yellow diamonds on the connector, as shown in Figure 3 below.

Figure 3: Example of a connector with more than one yellow diamond

Tip: Don't see any yellow diamonds on selected connectors? Yellow diamonds show up only on elbow and curved connectors, and not on straight connectors -- look at our Connector Types tutorials to learn about different types of connectors. Also, if you want to learn more about how to edit shapes with these yellow diamonds, refer to our Manipulating Shapes by Dragging Diamonds in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac tutorial.

What's so special about these yellow diamonds? They have special attributes to format the shape of the connector -- pulling them around lets you change the length and shape of your connector. Look at the top example in Figure 4, and compare it to the example on the bottom -- the difference in the connector's orientation was achieved by pulling the yellow diamond on the connector towards the second shape.

Figure 4: Dragging diamonds reorients the connector

Here are some guidelines on using the yellow diamonds to reroute connectors:

For elbow connectors, the yellow diamond allows you to change the location of any branch of the elbow.
For curve connectors, the yellow diamond allows you to change the curvature of the connector.
Straight connectors need no manipulation, so they don't have any yellow diamonds.

Tip: If you end up with a straight connector that you want to reorient, just change it to another connector type, and then reroute as required.

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