Shape Intersect Command in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac

PowerPoint 2011 for Mac allows you to take any of the shapes you create. You can then, use Combine, Union, Intersect, or Subtract commands to create your own new shape out of them. Play around with these commands to indulge in endless hours of fun, but be careful not to be addictive. In this tutorial, you will see how you can take two or more shapes and intersect them to end up with interesting results. For example, we placed two basic shapes over a square (three shapes in all) as shown towards the left of Figure 1, below. With these shapes selected, we could use the Intersect command that is explained later in this tutorial to create a unified, intersected shape as shown towards the right in Figure 1. This new shape only retains those areas where all the three shapes were intersecting each other.

Figure 1: Sample showing the use of the Shape Intersect command

Once you finish reading this tutorial, do view the sample presentations embedded on the bottom of this page to see more samples of shapes created using the Intersect command:

1. Open your presentation and navigate to the slide which contains shapes to be intersected. In Figure 2 you can see that two Octagons have been placed overlapping each other.
2. 
   Figure 2: One octagon placed atop another octagon
2. Select the shapes to be intersected (for this tutorial we have selected the two octagons that you saw in Figure 2), and right-click (or Ctrl + click) them carefully. From the contextual menu that appears, select the Grouping option. This opens another sub-menu in which you should select the Intersect command, as shown in Figure 3.
3. 
   Figure 3: Intersect command selected within the Grouping sub-menu
Tip: To use the Intersect command, you must select two or more shapes.
3. This results in an intersected shape as shown in Figure 4. Compare Figure 2 and 4. You will notice that the new intersected shape only retains those areas where both the octagons were intersecting each other.
4. 
   Figure 4: Selected Octagons intersected into a single shape

Here’s how the Intersect command behaves in various scenarios:

• Works effectively when all selected shapes overlap each other
• If any of the selected shapes do not overlap, Shape Intersect can cause complete deletion of all selected shapes
• Removes non-overlapping areas of shapes
• Retains overlapping areas of shapes
• Retains formatting of first selected shape

You will see these guidelines in use within the embedded presentations below (scroll down this page).

The sample presentations below show how we used different shapes placed next to and above each other, and then intersected.

Click below to view this presentation on SlideShare

Click below to view this presentation on YouTube