28. Formatting and Organizing Objects, Slides, and Presentations

After you create a presentation, you most likely will want to modify its appearance. Fortunately, it’s easy to modify slides, objects, and entire presentations in PowerPoint.

PowerPoint offers numerous ways to manage and format slide objects, including several automatic formatting options and the optional use of gridlines and guides. You can also organize entire presentations using tools such as Slide Sorter view.

You can easily cut, copy, paste, move, and resize PowerPoint objects.

1. Click the down arrow below the Paste button to open the Paste Options box, as shown in Figure 28.1, where you can preview the appearance of the pasted object on your slide. If you don’t want to preview, click the Paste button directly (or press Ctrl+V) and skip to step 4.

2. Pause your mouse over each option button to preview what the pasted object would look like on your slide before actually pasting it into your presentation. Depending on what you paste and the context in which you paste it, any of the following option buttons could display in the Paste Options box:

• Keep Source Formatting—Format the object as it was formatted in the location from which you copied it. This displays only when your destination slide has a different theme than the source.

• Use Destination Theme—Apply the current theme formatting to the object. This is the default when you paste the object directly.

• Picture—Convert the pasted item to a picture. To select a specific picture format, click the Paste Special link in the Paste Options box and choose a format from the Paste Special dialog box.

• Keep Text Only—Remove all formatting from pasted text. This displays only when you paste text without having a text placeholder open first. PowerPoint creates a placeholder for the text as it pastes it.

3. Click a button in the Paste Options box to paste using the selected paste option.

4. After you paste an object, the Paste Options button displays to its lower-right. If you aren’t satisfied with the initial paste option you selected, you can click this button and select another option.

You can resize an object using resizing handles, which display around an object’s edges when you select it. Figure 28.2 illustrates these handles.

Drag the handles with the mouse to make the object smaller, larger, or a different shape. Notice that depending on which sizing handle you select—a corner or interior handle—you can either enlarge the entire object or change its shape. To resize the object proportionately so that it keeps its shape, press the Shift key and drag a corner handle.

These tools are also available on the contextual Drawing Tools – Format tab that displays when you select an object.

To specify an object’s layer order in relation to the other objects on a slide, follow these steps:

1. Select the object whose order you want to arrange. If the object you want to select is hidden from view, press the Tab key to cycle through all objects to find the one you want.

2. On the Home tab, click the Arrange button and choose one of the following options: Bring to Front, Send to Back, Bring Forward (one layer), or Send Backward (one layer).

3. Click the order option you prefer from the menu. PowerPoint applies it to your selected object.

Figure 28.3 shows two sets of layered objects.

When you format grouped objects, the formatting applies to all the objects. For example, let’s say you have two grouped objects that were originally different colors. If you now recolor them, the new color applies to both objects, not just one. To make individual changes, you have to ungroup the objects.

To group multiple objects on a slide, follow these steps:

1. Select the objects you want to group by pressing the Shift key and clicking individual objects.

2. On the Home tab, click the Arrange button.

3. Select the Group option on the menu that displays.

The object handles now treat the objects as one, as shown in Figure 28.4.

If you don’t like the way you grouped objects and want to remove this grouping, click the Arrange button and select Ungroup from the menu. To revert back to the grouping, click the Arrange button and select Regroup.

1. Select the objects you want to align by pressing the Shift key and clicking individual objects.

2. On the Home tab, click the Arrange button, and choose Align. A submenu displays.

3. If you want to align or distribute relative to the slide itself, select Align to Slide. If you want to align or distribute relative to the objects, select Align Selected Objects. For example, let’s say you select several objects and want to align them to the left. If you choose Align to Slide, all the objects move to the leftmost edge of the slide. If you choose Align Selected Objects, they align to the left side of the leftmost object.

4. Specify how you want to align the selected objects. You can align to the left, right, center, top, middle, or bottom. Optionally, you can also distribute objects horizontally or vertically, spacing them evenly. PowerPoint aligns your objects based on the direction you specify.

To quickly rotate an object, follow these steps:

1. Select the object you want to rotate.

2. Place the mouse pointer over the green rotation handle that displays at the top of the object, as shown in Figure 28.5.

3. Drag this handle to rotate the object. Pressing the Ctrl key while rotating changes the rotation angle 15° at a time.

You can also select rotation options by clicking the Arrange button on the Home tab and selecting Rotate from the menu. From here, you can choose to rotate right or left 90°, flip vertically or horizontally, or open the Format Shape dialog box.

To open this pane, click the Selection Pane button on the Drawing Tools – Format tab. Figure 28.6 shows the Selection pane.

Gridlines display on your slides as small squares. Select the Gridlines check box on the View tab to display gridlines.

Guides divide your slide into quarters. Select the Guides check box on the View tab to display guides.

You can drag a guide to reposition it up, down, left, or right.

If you want to add another guide, right-click your slide and select either Add Vertical Guide or Add Horizontal Guide from the menu.

In the Grid and Guides dialog box, you can snap objects to a grid, specify grid spacing, activate gridlines, display smart guides, and more.

You can organize and rearrange slides using three different PowerPoint views:

• Normal view—A good choice if you know exactly what you want to move and want to do it quickly.

• Slide Sorter view—Suited to major slide reorganizations, this view enables you to see thumbnails of multiple slides on a single page.

• Outline view—Read the content of your slides as you reorganize.

See Chapter 26, “PowerPoint 2013 Basics,” to learn more about PowerPoint views.

In this view, you see smaller versions of your slides in several rows and columns. By viewing the basic content of each slide, you can more easily rearrange their order.

To move a slide in the Slide Sorter, select it and drag it to a new location. To view a particular slide in more detail, double-click it. To delete a slide in Slide Sorter view, select it and press the Delete key. To select multiple slides to delete, press Ctrl, select the slides, and then press the Delete key.

1. Open both the source and destination presentations in Slide Sorter view.

2. On the View tab, click the Arrange All button. PowerPoint displays both presentations in different window panes in Slide Sorter view, as shown in Figure 28.9.

3. To copy a slide, select it and then drag it to the desired location in the other presentation. PowerPoint places the slide in the destination presentation, but it also remains in the source.

4. To move a slide, select it, press Ctrl+X, position the mouse in the new destination location, and press Ctrl+V. The slide is removed from the source presentation and inserted in the destination presentation.

5. To move or copy more than one slide at a time, press Ctrl as you drag slides from the source presentation.

6. If each presentation uses a different theme, the slide changes to the formatting of the new presentation, and the Paste Options button displays. If you want to retain the formatting of the source presentation, click the down arrow to the right of the Paste Options button and choose Keep Source Formatting. To go back to the formatting of the target presentation, choose Use Destination Theme.

7. To remove the dual-window view, click the Close button in the upper-right corner of the presentation you no longer want to view.

8. Click the Maximize button in the upper-right corner of the presentation you want to keep active.

To delete a slide, select the slide or slides you want to remove and press the Delete key. To delete multiple consecutive slides, press the Shift key and then select the slides. To delete multiple nonconsecutive slides, hold down the Ctrl key and then select the slides.