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. 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 the objects that you want to align. Just click and drag
over the objects to make a selection box... Once you let go, all of the items 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'll move
to the bottom edge.
Now they still don't look quite right. Even though they're aligned, they're 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 a few objects behind a colored rectangle.
I want the objects to be in front so that the rectangle becomes the background. 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's a Bring Forward command and a Send Backward command. If I
click Send Backward... it moves the shape back one level. If there are multiple objects
on the slide, you may need to click the command several times to get the look you want. Or
you can click Send To Back and the selected object will move behind all the other objects.
And there's just one more thing I want to change here: I'd like to flip this image around
so that 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.