Slides: Work with Lines and Shapes — Insert, Edit, Group, and Arrange Lines and Shapes

In this video, you will insert, edit, and arrange lines and shapes on your slides.

Lines and shapes make your layouts unique and engaging.

You can use these visual elements to separate items on a slide, like headings and body text, or to call your audience’s attention to key information.

To start, choose a slide that contains information you want to emphasize.

Add a line to the slide.

Change the color of the line, so that it matches the text.

This will help the slide look more unified.

Next, add a shape to the section heading slides to call more attention to the sections.

All objects on your slide, such as lines, shapes, text boxes, and images, work as layers that are placed on top of each other.

The newest item you add appears on top of everything else on the page.

To make other objects, like a text box, appear in front of your shape, send the shape to the back.

Now the shape serves as a background.

Resize the shape to surround the text.

Change the border of the shape...

and change the color inside the border.

To edit multiple objects, like a line and a shape, at the same time, group the items to work with both at once.

Group text boxes with other text boxes, and objects with objects.

To group the objects, move the text box to the side.

Select both objects, and group them together.

Once the line and shape are grouped, move and edit them as one object.

Select the grouped shape.

Arrange the shape in the center of your slide.

Next, arrange the text box in the center, too, so that your audience will focus on the text.

Copy your grouped line and shape, and add them to the other section heading slide.

Bring the text box to the front, so that your new shape frames the heading.

Now, it’s your turn: Add one line and one shape, resize both objects, change their colors, group the line and shape together, and send the grouped object to the back.