Auto Shapes

We’re now going to try something new – a technique for adding clever shapes and a few “secret” things to our slides.

First, point the cursor away from the Title box and click the left mouse button. This is called “clicking away.” This will “turn-off” the square “box” around the Title.

Look at the bottom of your PowerPoint screen. A Drawing Toolbar, like the one below, should be there.

This Drawing Toolbar normally loads when PowerPoint loads. If you do not see the toolbar, do the following:

Click-on View in the Menu Bar. When the menu list appears, move the cursor down to Toolbars. Look at the Toolbars drop down list. Notice that, normally, the first two selections (Standard and Formatting) have a small check mark in front of them. This indicates that these toolbars are visible on the screen. Look further down the list until you see Drawing.

Since you were unable to see the Drawing Toolbar, there should be no check mark to the left of Drawing. If you do not see a check mark, click-on Drawing. The Drawing toolbar will appear at the top, side or bottom of the screen. It will look like the tool bar at the top of this page

If you see a check mark, then the Drawing Toolbar is probably on your PowerPoint screen, just in a different place. If you see the checkmark, point away from the drop down menu, click the mouse, and look for the Drawing Tool bar (normally at the bottom of your screen).

Move up and down the pop-up menu box and notice the different shapes that appear next to each choice. Then, click-on Callouts. Click-on the far right callout in the top row (Cloud Callout). When you have clicked, the cursor will change to “cross hairs” when you move it into the slide area.

Move the cross hairs up to the area just below the title. Click and hold down the left mouse button, and drag down and to the right about one inch. Release the button. A cloud shape should appear similar to the one below.

If you don’t see the cloud shape – try again. If your cloud is very small, use the sizing techniques in the section ~ Clips Online

Drag this Cloud callout to the upper right corner of your screen just under your title (move your cursor over the Cloud until you see the four arrow shape, click and hold down the left mouse button and drag the cloud).