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About this lesson
Reuse existing, formatted shapes to save time inserting shape content on your slides.
Lesson versions
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Exercise files
Download the ‘before’ and ‘after’ PowerPoint presentations from the video tutorial and try the lesson yourself.
Duplicate and Add Multiple Shapes.pptx28.2 KB Duplicate and Add Multiple Shapes - Complete.pptx
35.3 KB
Quick reference
Topic
Duplicating and positioning shapes on slides.[PH1] [GM2]
When to use
Duplicating and positioning shapes in a presentation.
Instructions
- Select the shape with the pointer and use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+D to duplicate it.
- Drag the selected shape with the pointer, hold the Ctrl key, and drop the shape to duplicate it.
- Drag the selected shape with the pointer horizontally or vertically, hold the Ctrl and Shift key, and drop the shape to duplicate it in line with the previous shape.
- Drag the selected shape with the pointer horizontally or vertically, hold the Shift key, and drop the shape to move the shape in line with the previous shape.
Also note:
When you duplicate a shape and move the duplicated shape to a new position, the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+D will duplicate a new shape that is relative in position to where the last shape was moved to.
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- 00:04 When you’re working with shapes in your presentation it’s very handy to know how to duplicate them without just a copy and a paste.
- 00:11 So let’s start with our blank slide, insert, the shapes button gives us the drop down menu with various groups of shapes, I select a
- 00:20 rectangle, click, drag, and release, and there is our shape. Now duplicating that is as easy as dragging with the mouse and notice as soon as I
- 00:32 hit the CTRL key it’s duplicated and I can release the mouse and there is that shape there. Do again, hold the CTRL key, click and
- 00:43 drag and there are our three shapes. Now I’m going to align those so I draw a marquee over the top of them, align selected objects, align
- 00:55 middle and there are our three shapes all aligned. Now that’s really cool but if I go CTRL Z, if I want to produce those shapes in alignment
- 01:04 it is actually very easy so I’ll delete that one, delete that one, drag with the CTRL key duplicates it but as soon as I hit the SHIFT key
- 01:14 watch what happens. It pops up in perfect alignment horizontally, and it will align horizontally or if I go this way, vertically down or
- 01:26 vertically up or horizontally left, so release and there is the shape. Again, click with the mouse, CTRL SHIFT, drag, release and there is my
- 01:37 shape in perfect alignment, either with the top or the centre or so on. Very cool. Now let’s do something else, let’s click a little oval, and I use
- 01:49 the keyboard shortcut CTRL D to duplicate that shape, now I’m going to move it just there, and CTRL D again, notice that PowerPoint actually
- 01:59 remembers the last location of movement straight after CTRL D and has replicated that shape so it’s very fast to be able to go CTRL D,
- 02:08 CTRL D, CTRL D, CTRL D and produce a whole bunch of shapes in that particular orientation or alignment and that’s very cool. Finally, let’s
- 02:20 briefly look at something else that’s very cool as well, I’ll go for a funny little shape like a right arrow and it’s not really a funny shape I
- 02:29 shouldn’t say that, but if we actually right click on the shape, we get this option to lock the drawing mode. So I click that, notice that my
- 02:38 curser had changed into a little X or a cross. I click and drag, there’s my arrow but the curser has remained the same so I click and drag,
- 02:49 click and drag, click and drag and as soon as I hit the ESC key on the keyboard, my mouse turns back into a normal pointer, and that’s just
- 02:59 another way of duplicating many shapes and you can right click on these, lock the drawing mode, and hit ESC and very simple. So
- 03:09 remember that you can duplicate shapes with CTRL D, or indeed you can hold the CTRL key and release or if you want them in perfect
- 03:18 alignment you can hold the CTRL and the SHIFT key and they will snap into perfect alignment. And you can also lock the drawing mode so that
- 03:28 your shapes can stick to your mouse effectively and you can draw multiple shapes. So it’s so easy to replicate shapes and duplicate them
- 03:36 and get them in alignment and well worth an investment of your time understanding because it will save so much time, I love it.
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