Power Point® All?in?One Desk Reference For Dummies®

Chapter 2. Managing and Manipulating Objects

In This Chapter

• Selecting objects

• Using the grid, drawing guides, and rulers to align objects

• Resizing and repositioning objects

• Copying an object

• Handling objects that overlap

• Rotating and flipping objects

• Aligning objects and distributing them equably on a slide

• Changing the color and border around an object

• Giving objects three dimensions and shadows

• Grouping several objects into one object

This chapter is meant to bring out the artist in you. Here, you will discover the many ways to manipulate lines, shapes, text boxes, WordArt images, clip‐art images, and graphics. You discover how to lay out these objects on the page, flip them, change their colors, resize them, move them, and otherwise torture them until they look just right.

Use the techniques I describe in this chapter to bring something more to your PowerPoint presentations — originality. Most people rely on headings and bulleted lists to communicate their ideas in PowerPoint. With the techniques I describe in this chapter, you can bring the visual element onto your slides. You can communicate with images as well as words.

The Basics: Manipulating Lines, Shapes, Art, Text Boxes, and Other Objects

After you insert a shape, line, text box, clip‐art image, graphic, diagram, WordArt image, or embedded object in a document, it ceases being what it was before and becomes an object. Figure 2-1 shows eight objects on a slide. I'm not sure whether these eight objects resent being objectified, but ...