Formatting Objects in PowerPoint 2016 Part 1
During this Microsoft PowerPoint 2016 training tutorial video, we will discuss how to format objects on your PowerPoint presentation. We will walk you through some of the commonly used drawing tools such as shape fill, shape outline, and shape effects.
Hey. Welcome back. This is Cindy. We’re working in module six where we’re talking about how to work with objects. Now we’re down in section three where we’re taking about formatting your objects. And basically formatting just means taking the original characteristics of the objects you have and changing them.
So if you didn’t like the color inside of an object you drew you could change that. If you wanted to give it a little shadowed effect you could change that. So all of that’s considered formatting.
Now I just want you to know that there are two parts to this particular section so go ahead and make sure you watch both parts to this. There is a lot of different options here so don’t get overwhelmed. A lot of it you’ll just learn as you start playing with it. But at least you’ll kind of know where to go when you’re looking for some of these different objects. So let’s jump right in and you’ll see how fun some of this stuff.
Okay so I took the liberty before we got started to go to slide four and go ahead and delete all of those objects. I wanted to put something in that looks a little bit nicer. So you already know how to draw your shapes. I’m going to come up here and I’m going to draw this one.
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And let’s say that I’d like to have three of these. So remember the quickest way to copy an object is to hold the Control key and just drag your object. And that way you end up with them all the exact same size. Now I purposely misaligned these because we’re going to talk in section four abut how to range your objects.
Now I’m going to go ahead and grab a block arrow. We’ll say this is something like a little flow chart here. Okay? And let me put a couple more objects in. Let’s go ahead and put in a sun. So the sun looks a little bit like this. And one more. We’ll just put in what’s called a callout. We talked about those a little bit earlier as well. And there’s a callout.
Okay. Now we also talked about the fact that you can type inside of any object. So you just select the object and start typing. So we’ll say the first one is welcome. This one will be all about our campus. And let’s say this one is about the graduates. Now if you have an object that is not wide enough you’re going to see that it will word wrap like this.
You can always change the size of your object if you need to but remember that means that this one is a different size from these. So let me undo that and show you that if you have all three selected and you change one then they’re all three going to change. So that way you can keep it all the same size. Okay?
Now if you wanted to change the color of the font go ahead and select the object and this is your font color. You already know this one. You don’t have to drag across the text. Just select the object change your font color. Okay?
Alright. So let’s start talking a little bit about some of your drawing tools that are available. Now before I click on your Drawing Tools contextual tab, see how it’s there if you select your object and if it’s not if you click away from it?
So before I talk about that I want you to know that some of the more common options we’re going to be talking about are also listed here on your Home tab under this Drawing grouping. So I’m going to click on the Drawing Tools contextual tab.
Now the first thing I want to show you is this. You may draw an object and later decide you want another one that’s similar to this one. Well you don’t have to delete your object and redraw it. You can change the shape.
So you’ll notice up here where it says Edit Shape there’s a Change Shape option which shows all your shapes. You just click the shape that you want to change your current one into.
So if I click this first one you see it now changed to the next shape and it took that little corner off. So I’m just going to undo that but you can always change your shape.
Now the next thing I want to look at is the shape styles right here. Now these are what they call theme styles. So if you needed a quick way just to change the color, maybe the font, the line around the object, you can pick from some of these predesigned ones. So if you liked one of these you could just choose it and then it would take on all those characteristics.
But if you really wanted to spend time working with your object then you’re going to want to use these three right here. You’ve got your shape fill which is changing the inside of the object. You’ve got your shape outline which lets you change the line around the object. And then you’ve got some effects. So let’s start with an outline in the middle here.
You might not realize it but every object has a little line around it unless you’ve taken it off and you can barely see it in this case. But we’re going to change the color and then make it a little thicker so it stands out.
So I’m going to Shape Outline and I’m going to pick a color. Now this is your theme colors. You can pick from these. These are your standard colors. Now what these represent are the colors that were part of the theme that you chose when you started your actual presentation. And the one that says Recent Colors, those are colors you’ve manually picked and it gives you an easy way to go back and choose them again.
So let’s say that I want this one right here. Now you can barely see that it changed that color there but it did. So let’s make it a little bit thicker. See how if you get on to the weight you can choose a thickness. Now you can really see it when I pick that six point one there. So you can always change the line around your object.
Now let’s talk about also what’s called the dashes.
So if I don’t like that straight line around my object I can come down to where it says Dashes and I can choose a dotted line, I can choose a dash line. You can kind of see the different choices here as I move the mouse over them. So let’s say I pick round dot. And now you can see I have a different shape for the line around the object.
Alright. So let’s move over to this next object and talk a little bit about your fill. And remember the fill is whatever is inside of your object. It could be a color, a picture, a texture who knows. So we’re going to go back to Shape Fill and remember you’ve got these colors you can pick from.
These are your theme colors. Now what I didn’t tell you earlier with the line because it’s kind of hard to see is that sometimes you don’t like any of these colors and you have the ability to create your own. So if you don’t like these colors go down to where it says More Fill Colors. And when you get in here you’re going to see a Standard tab and a Custom tab.
Now starting with the Standard tab. If you liked one of these colors you could just choose it. This would always be your new color. If you pick a color and you need a little more transparent use the transparency slider at the bottom to change that color a little bit.
Now let’s say that you don’t like any of these colors. If you go to Custom you can create your own color. The way this works is you just drag your mouse through the colors and generally you kind of have an idea before you start that you’re looking for a green or a red or whatever color you’re looking for.
But let’s say this ones pretty close. Now over on this little slider you take your mouse and take this arrow and just point to the exact color that you want and that’s going to be your new color. Okay? Alright.
Now when I go back to Shape Fill I want you to notice something. You can also take all of the color out. So let’s say that you wanted to show what was behind this particular object, whether it’s the slide or there’s another object back there. Then that just takes all the color out. That’s all that does. Okay. I’m actually going to leave this one.
Now I’m going to come over here to this one that says Graduates and I want to show you how the eye dropper works. Now sometimes it might be that you want a color and you can’t find that color. You can’t make it yourself. You just can’t get the color. But maybe the color you wanted was in a clipart picture or in a photograph you had. So let me go ahead and just put a picture in.
I’m just going to go up to Insert and I’m going to insert a picture that’s on my computer. And I’ll put in this one called School Pic. There you go. Now let me just change the size just a little bit and move it out of the way for a second.
Okay. So let’s say there was a particular color in here that you wanted to be the background for this particular object. You can use the eye dropper to suck up that particular color. Now I’m going to go back to the Drawing Tools contextual tab, Shape Fill and I’m going to click on Eye Dropper.
Now see how my mouse looks like a little eye dropper. And when I point to a certain color you’ll see that I’m going to be able to suck up that color. Let’s see if we grab this red here. And see how it put that color inside of my object? So you can always put a color inside of your object.
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Okay something else I wanted to show you as far as pictures are concerned. This picture that I put in over here I just inserted it onto the slide. So if I wanted to actually make it look like it’s inside of one of these objects I could drag it over like this and I can try to make it the same size. But you know it’s still an object on top of another one and it’s never going to be the exact same size. I can’t cut this little corner off in this picture. So here’s what you want to do when you want to put a picture inside of your object.
Select your object and you’re going to use the Shape Fill again. Don’t use Insert Picture because that will just put it over here like this one. So what you’re going to do is once you’ve clicked on your shape fill you’re going to go to the picture option. And then here you can pick your picture from a file or you can do a Bing search. And just choose it this way and choose Insert. And now the picture is actually inside of your object.
You can see it took on the constraints of the object itself. So that’s kind of cool how that works. Now if I wanted to I could move this text. I could take it out, whatever I wanted to do. But we’ll leave it there for now.
So that’s going to give you a good idea of how to work with the fill. So what I’d like to do now is wrap up this part of section three and let’s go over to the second part of section three and continue with some of these formatting options. I’ll see you over there.
Simon Calder
Chris “Simon” Calder was working as a Project Manager in IT for one of Los Angeles’ most prestigious cultural institutions, LACMA.He taught himself to use Microsoft Project from a giant textbook and hated every moment of it. Online learning was in its infancy then, but he spotted an opportunity and made an online MS Project course - the rest, as they say, is history!
