In some of your presentations, you're probably going to have pictures,
shapes, and text boxes all on the same slide.
And to get everything to look right, you'll need
to know how to arrange the objects.
We're going to go over the different options that
you have.
In this example, I have several copies of the same
picture,
and right now they're in kind of a random arrangement,
and I want to align them so that they're all in a row.
I could drag each one individually,
but I can also get PowerPoint to align them for
me.
You'll first need to select all of the objects that you want to align.
Just click and drag over the objects to make a
selection box.
When you let go, all of them will be selected.
Go to the Format tab and click the Align command.
You'll have six different alignment options.
I'm going to choose Align Bottom.
This has aligned the bottom edges of each object.
Now they didn't move to the bottom of the slide,
they only moved just enough to be aligned.
If you wanted to align them with the bottom of the slide,
you could go back to the Align command, and check Align to Slide,
and now when you click align Bottom, they will move to the bottom edge.
Now they still don't look quite right.
Even though they're aligned, they are not the same
distance from one another.
To fix that, we'll need to Distribute the objects.
Go back to the Align command.
And then select Distribute horizontally.
And now they look perfect.
Let's look at another example.
Here I have three pictures of computers,
and also a shape that I've formatted to look like a table top.
And I want the computers to look like they're sitting on the table.
But if I overlap the objects, the shape is now
covering up the computers,
and that's not what I want.
Whenever you have overlapping objects, they have a
specific ordering,
and sometimes you'll need to change it to get everything to look right.
On the Format tab, there is a Bring Forward command and a Send Backward command.
If I click Send Backward, it only moves the shape
behind one of the computers.
I could keep clicking Send Backward until it's in
the very back,
or I can click the drop-down arrow next to it and select Send to Back.
Now I'm just going to move the computers a little
bit.
And there's just one more thing I want to change here:
I'd like to flip this computer around so it's facing the other way.
The rotate and flip options are on the Format tab,
but since I'm on the Home tab,
I'm going to go ahead and use the Arrange command,
which has the same arrangement options as the Format tab.
Go down to Rotate, and select Flip Horizontal.
I finally have all of these objects arranged exactly how I want them,
and I don't want them to change.
I'm going to group the objects into one big object.
Select all of the objects that you want to group.
And then click on Arrange, and then Group.
And again, you can do this from the Format tab if
you prefer; it's up to you.
Now, we have a grouped object, and you can move it,
or even resize it,
and everything will stay together.
Practice using the different arrangement options,
and once you're comfortable with them, you'll be
able to create more complex presentations
that have lots of pictures, shapes, and other objects.