December 6, 2004
Create Custom Diagrams For PowerPoint Presentations
You already spent hours putting together your presentations. Today I'll teach you a few shortcuts to speed up the process and make your presentations look even more professional.
Create a custom diagram . You can use rectangles, arrows, and images to create a quick flowchart that shows a process or activity.
- Select the rectangle on the drawing toolbar.
- Drag out the rectangle or hold the Shift key to create a square.
- Start typing to add your text. When you finish, the object should still be selected.
- Click the line thickness tool to make the border of the rectangle thicker.
- Use the fill color tool (bucket) to change the fill color.
- Add custom animations to make your effects appear sequentially.
These other techniques can help you tweak your slides quickly.
- Ctrl + drag
To duplicate elements for consistency, select one or more objects, hold down the Ctrl key, and drag out a copy of the selected elements.
- Straighten multiple objects
If you need to straighten your duplicate objects, select them and choose Align or Distribute from the draw menu on the drawing toolbar. 
Click Align to straighten the objects by their centers or borders. Click Distribute to space the objects equally either vertically or horizontally.
- Reorder layers
You can also select multiple layers by using the order option in the draw menu to cover up or reveal overlapped shapes. 
Everything on your slide is a layer. Changing the order moves an item to the front or back of the slide. If you can't select an object because it's hidden, select any object and click Tab to locate and select other shapes.
- Using arrows
Use your arrow keys to nudge objects and move them a little bit at a time.
- Copy formatting
Use the format painter on the standard toolbar to copy formatting and apply it to another object. 
Double-click the format painter to apply formatting to multiple objects, one after the other.
- Create multiple slides
Click Insert and select Duplicate Slide to create multiple slides with custom diagrams. 
- Add bullets
If you want to add bullet points to one of your slides, delete your duplicated elements, go to the slide layout task pane, and change your slide layout to accommodate bullets.
Glue AutoShapes together
The AutoShape gallery contains a bunch of shapes. Click the arrow next to AutoShapes to see them all. 
If you have more than one shape in your slide, you can connect them so that they remain connected no matter where you drag them.
- Under AutoShapes, go to the connectors panel.
- Drag a connector onto your slide and click to glue it onto one shape, then another.
Other AutoShape tricks
Different types of AutoShapes can liven up a scanned or static image.
Drawing toolbar heavy hitters
Finally, add 3-D effects and pictures to finish your presentation. To add a 3-D effect, do the following:
- Select your object
- On the drawing toolbar, click the three-dimensional cube.
- Click 3-D Settings and test the amazing lighting and extrusion capabilities.
Here's how to add an image
- Click the image or clip art icon on the drawing toolbar.
- Click Insert from the main menu, then choose "Picture" and "From File" if your picture is already stored in your PC or CD-ROM.
- With a picture selected, you'll see the picture toolbar. Use it to crop images, compress images on a slide, or compress images on your entire presentation.
Original Article by Tom Bunzel first published here.
If you're interested in learning more about PowerPoint, you can try one of Tom Bunzel'sonline Extreme PowerPoint classes.
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Tom 'Professor PowerPoint' Bunzel is author of Teach Yourself PowerPoint 2003 in 24 Hours.
posted by
on Monday, December 6 2004
Saturday, December 1 2007
URL of this article:
http://masterview.ikonosnewmedia.com/2004/12/06/create_custom_diagrams_for_powerpoint.htm
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, and hold down your Shift key to drag out a circle on the slide. Use the line thickness tool to thicken the border and the line color tool to change the border color 
, then click the arrow next to the fill color tool. Select No Fill color to make an empty circle 
, which you can drag over a highlight portion of the slide.
