Microsoft PowerPoint 2007 offers a greater number of object shapes than previous version by far, but if you still find yourself in need of a custom shape and have access to a vector drawing program (or know someone who does), here is a solution for you. *(This tip is for PC users only)
- Create the desired shape in a drawing program (preferably Adobe Illustrator), then save or export it as a .wmf file. This is Windows Metafile Format.
- Bring the drawing into your PowerPoint slide: Insert »Picture » file.wmf
- Select the file, then right click, and select Ungroup. This will convert the file from .wmf format to a native PowerPoint object, which can now be formatted the same as other objects in your presentation. In this example, the drawing was inserted into a slide,ungrouped, then formatted with a blue gradient and darker blue outline and gradient drop shadow.
- Do not use any kind of gradient coloring BEFORE you bring it into PowerPoint as this will result in a multitude of objects upon ungrouping. Assign outlines, shadows, etc. after ungrouping also.
2 Comments
gosh darn it! i’ve tried and tried… i just can’t get my WMF file to ungroup.
Mr Villanueva, why do computers hate me?
That’s fantastic. I only recently discovered a way to do it in Apple’s Keynote as well, so it’s great that I can replicate that easily in PP too. Hooray for Illustrator!