SlideBlog

A quick look at how to insert and modify drawing guides in Microsoft PowerPoint 2010 and a brief discussion about when to use them.

Last week we looked at how to create a perspective or skew an image in Microsoft PowerPoint 2010. This week we are looking at how to edit points in shapes and how that is another way of achieving the same thing we did last week but perhaps a bit faster.

Image Credit: asifthebes

A look at how to create and format/edit shapes and draw in Microsoft PowerPoint 2010.

Sometimes it is necessary to change the size of the slides you are using and here is how you can do that in Microsoft PowerPoint.

A somewhat common slide format is the 16:9 format or a wide-screen format. This can be useful for presentations in very large audiences, in big rooms with big projector screens. The typical size is a 4:3 size. The numbers refer to the aspect ratio of width to height of the slide.

So the way to do this in PowerPoint 2010 is to go to the Design tab, then click on Page Setup

The following window will appear:

There are already many options created for you in the drop-down list or you can create your own custom size by directly inputting the size in the width and height boxes.

Just a quick look at how you can insert a video into your slide presentation from the Web. In this example I will use YouTube.

First you must find the video you want to insert into your presentation so I went to YouTube and picked a random video I found. (You can click on the image to see a bigger version.)

Copy the embed code as highlighted in red in the screenshot above.

Back in PowerPoint, find the slide you want the video inserted on and go to the Insert tab and click on Video. Choose Video from Web site….

A new window will pop-up. Past the copied embed code and click insert.

The video will show up on the slide.

Microsoft PowerPoint 2010 has some cool custom shapes functions that are not visible in the ribbon by default but can be added.

To add or customize the ribbon go to “File > Options”. In the pop-up window on the left choose “Customize Ribbon”.

Then you must create a custom group to add the new functions to. On the bottom right side click on “New Group” while having the “Home” selected in the “Main Tabs” window. A new group will be added. You can rename it if you like.

In the middle drop down menu choose “Commands Not in Ribbon”. Then scroll down and find “Shape Combine”, “Shape Intersect”, “Shape Subtract” and “Shape Union”. Select each one of them and click “Add>>”. Click “OK”.

You should now have a new group in the Ribbon under the Home tab.

Let us now look at what each of those do. All of these 4 functions do something to 2 or more shapes so we need to have at least 2 shapes drawn on the slide. We will use the same 2 shapes to test each of the 4 functions; a square and a circle. The shape that is on top (most forward) will be secondary shape. I will show the function selected in the ribbon above each result below.

1. Shape Combine

2. Shape Intersect

3. Shape Subtract

4 Shape Union

Let me know about any cool shapes you come up with.

A quick look at how to change the color of hyperlinks in Microsoft PowerPoint 2010 as this is a little bit unusual and can probably be a little frustrating at times.