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Create Your Own Picture Bullets in PowerPoint 2010

Learn how to create your own picture bullets in PowerPoint 2010.

Author: Geetesh Bajaj

Product/Version: PowerPoint 2010

Date Created: July 15, 2011
Last Updated: July 15, 2011

You have already learned about picture bullets in PowerPoint 2010, and how you can import any picture and use it as a custom bullet. You can also create your own picture bullets to use in presentations, and these can be created right within PowerPoint! Follow these steps to explore this option:

Launch PowerPoint 2010. Most of the time, PowerPoint will open with a new slide in a presentation -- PowerPoint 2010 users can change the slide layout to Blank by selecting Home tab | Layout | Blank.
Access the Insert tab of the Ribbon, and in the Illustrations group, click the Shapes button to reveal the Shapes gallery. Choose the Oval shape (see Figure 1), and click once on your slide to place a circle. To learn more about drawing circles, see our Draw a Perfect Circle tutorial.

Figure 1: Oval shape selected
Make sure the circle is selected. Then select the Drawing Tools Format tab of the Ribbon. In this tab, select the More button (down-arrow) next to the Shapes Styles gallery (highlighted in red in Figure 2).

Figure 2: Shape Styles within Drawing Tools Format tab
This reveals the entire Shape Styles drop-down gallery, as shown in Figure 3. Select any of the available styles to apply it to the selected circle.

Figure 3: Shape Styles drop-down gallery
With the circle on the slide selected, right-click and select the Save as Picture option in the resultant context menu (see Figure 4).

Figure 4: Save as Picture option
In the resultant Save as Picture dialog box, choose a location and name for your picture -- also choose a picture format such as PNG that supports transparency (see Figure 5). Once you are done, click on Save button, and now you can import the picture you just saved to be used as a bullet in PowerPoint.

Figure 5: Save picture as PNG

Tip: Do you want create your own picture bullets in all slides? The instructions on this page are for working with individual slides in Normal view. To make these changes available to all slides, use the same steps within Slide Master view.

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