Import Pictures for Bullets in PowerPoint 2010

PowerPoint 2010 lets you quickly use picture bullets rather than the conventional symbol bullets, and while PowerPoint does have an impressive collection of ready-to-use picture bullets available, you can also import your own pictures to create a unique bullet for your text lists. So why would you want to import your own picture bullets? Probably because you want their color to match your company branding, or you want to use a stylized bullet that matches your logo -- whatever your reason may be, do remember that detailed graphics don't work well as bullets -- the more closer your graphic looks to the conventional dot-shaped bullet, the better it will appear for consistency and visual reasons.

Follow these steps to import your own pictures for bullets in PowerPoint 2011:

1. Open any presentation or create a new one. Then navigate to the slide where you want to add picture bullets. At this point, you can make a selection:
   1. If you want to make changes to just one bullet in the text placeholder (or text box), select that individual line.
   2. If you want to make these changes to all the bullets in the text placeholder (or text box), you can select the entire placeholder by clicking on the edge of the placeholder (see Figure 1).
      
      
      Figure 1: Slide with bulleted text
      
2. Access the Picture Bullet dialog box (step-by-step instructions here). First select the Home tab of the Ribbon -- within the Paragraph group, click the arrow beside the Bullets button. This brings up the Bullets gallery. Within this gallery, choose the Bullets and Numbering option. This will open the Bullets and Numbering dialog box. Make sure that the Bulleted tab of this dialog box is selected. Click the Picture button. This brings up the Picture Bullet dialog box, as shown in Figure 2. Click the Import button (highlighted in red in Figure 2).
   
   
   Figure 2: Import button within the Picture Bullet dialog box
   
   
3. This opens the Add Clips to Organizer dialog box, as shown in Figure 3.
   
   
   Figure 3: Add Clips to Organizer dialog box
   
   
4. Navigate to the folder where the picture is saved, and then select the picture, and click the Add button. The selected picture then appears as a thumbnail within the Picture Bullet dialog box, as shown in Figure 4.
   
   
   Figure 4: Picture added to the Picture Bullet dialog box
   
   
5. Select the imported picture, and click the OK button to apply it as a bullet to the selected paragraph.
   
   
6. Figure 5 shows the customized picture bullet for the selected text (compare Figures 1 and 5).
   
   
   Figure 5: Imported picture added as a bullet