alignment

PowerPoint Guides: Master vs. Slide

In PowerPoint, guides help with formatting, positioning and slide-to-slide consistency.  The PowerPoint guides have evolved over the past few versions. Here is a quick overview of the three different types of guides:

Master Slide Guides (Orange by default): Editable only on the master slide and display on all layouts and slides using that master slide.

PPT Guides_1

Master Layout Guides (Yellow by default): Apply to individual master layouts only and are only editable on that particular master layout. Here an additional guide is added to the TITLE layout, so only TITLE layout slides will see this new guide.

PPT Guides_2

Slide Guides (Gray by default): These are guides added and editable on slides (in edit view, not master view or slide show). In this example, 2 new guides have been added to the slide.

PPT Guides_3

Existing guides can be adjusted by clicking and dragging them .  The easiest way to remove a guide is to drag it off the slide.

PPT Guides_4

In addition, you can change the color of guides. To change the color of a guide:

  1. Right click the guide you want to change the color of (be sure it is in an area off the slide or on an empty area of the slide)
  2. Hover over Color
  3. Select a color option

PPT Guides_5

To add PowerPoint guides to a slide or layout:

  1. Right click off slide or on an empty area of the slide
  2. Go to Grid and Guides
  3. Choose Add Vertical or Add Horizontal

PPT Guides_6

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-08-10T08:25:22-07:00April 8th, 2016|Tutorial|

Align Objects Within Objects

The eye perceives when things are out of balance, even if the brain cannot identify the cause of it. This is even more evident when the slides are projected on a large screen. Take these images for example:

First, let’s look at how I made these elements. Each consists of two PPT autoshapes, a rounded corner box and a text box with a semi-transparent fill.

So what’s wrong with them? The left box’s text box is a few pixels lower than the others. The right rounded corner box is a few pixels higher than the others.

To fine tune this set of objects I would first select the 3 text boxes and use the ALIGN MIDDLE tool to have them all vertically line up – to the pixel. I would then do the same thing by selecting the 3 rounded corner boxes.

The end result is something that is in balance – and your eyes know it (or at least do not focus on it).

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-11-17T13:16:58-07:00March 26th, 2008|PowerPoint, Tutorial|

Add Align Tools to a Toolbar

I use the Align and Distribute tools constantly. But accessing them by going to the DRAW button and then into the ALIGN OR DISTRIBUTE tab was just to much work. I added these important tools to my Draw toolbar, which now has a number of addtional buttons – all to make my work faster and easier.

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-11-17T15:32:04-07:00January 22nd, 2007|Software/Add-Ins, Tutorial|

What’s Wrong With It? (Alignment!)

In working through many, many presentations this week a large part of my time was spent not only improving the overall visual content and layout, but giving the small, but professional, tweaks to elements. As example:


Here are two elements, as provided. They screamed out to me, but what was the problem…


Zooming in we can see that the two equal size boxes are not aligned.


The solution is very easy in PowerPoint.
Select both boxes.
Go to DRAW >> ALIGN OR DISTRIBUTE >> ALIGN LEFT.


Now both boxes are perfectly aligned! (and all is good with in my world… just 200-300 more slides to go).

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-11-17T15:31:46-07:00January 20th, 2007|Tutorial|
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