If a presentation consisted of only text, it would look boring. Shapes and images enhance the appearance of presentations. We covered how to use and edit images in Google Slides. In this post, you’ll learn how to use shapes in Google Slides.
Shapes can be used to mask images, embed links, create flowcharts, and much more. You can fill shapes with color, customize their borders, and much more.
Let’s take a look at several tips for using and editing shapes in Google Slides.
Add Shapes to Google Slides
To add a shape to your Google Slide, click the Add option in the top bar and select Shape. Then choose the shape you want. Drag the mouse and draw the shape on your slide.
Fly: Press Shift while drawing a shape to maintain the shape’s aspect ratio.
You can also add a shape directly from the menu bar. Click the Shape icon in the menu bar and select the shape you want.
Rotate, Resize and Flip Shapes
Similar to images, you can resize, rotate and flip shapes. To resize a shape, click once on the shape and drag using any of the blue boxes. Use corner boxes to maintain aspect ratio. To rotate the shape, use the circular icon above the shape and rotate it. Alternatively, right-click the shape and select Rotate. From there you can choose the translation options.
How to Add Color to Shapes
Click once on the shape to select it. Then click the Fill color option in the menu bar and choose the color you want. You can choose from solid or gradient colors.
Change Shape Transparency
Select the shape to set the transparency of the shapes. Click the fill color icon. Click Custom from the drop-down menu.
Adjust the Transparency using the slides and press the OK button.
Fly: Learn how to add Bitmoji to Google Slides.
Customize Shape Border
By default, all shapes come with a small border. You can change it by changing its style, color and weight. To do this, click the shape once. Then use the border style options in the menu bar.
How to Remove Border from Shape
If you don’t want any border for your shape, you should set the border color to Transparent. To do this, click once on the shape and then click the Border color icon in the menu bar.
Select Transparent from the drop-down menu.
Place Pictures into Shapes in Google Slides
You can create beautiful and interesting slides by masking pictures with shapes in Google Slides. That way, your image will look like the one you used for masking. To do this, add an image to your slide. Then click on the image to select it. After that, click on the little arrow icon next to the Crop icon in the menu bar and select the shape you want.
Fly: Learn in detail how to fill a shape with an image in Google Slides on mobile and PC.
Edit Shapes
When you add multiple shapes to your slides, you can organize them by bringing the various shapes forward while keeping the others in the background. This helps hide unnecessary parts of the shape and also gives your slide a different look.
To arrange shapes, right-click the shape you want and select Sort, then the desired location.
Fly: To duplicate a shape, copy and paste.
Group Shapes
If you want to do anything (rotate, resize, move, etc.) on multiple shapes together, you should group them. To do this, click on one of the shapes. Then hold down the Shift key and click on other shapes. Right-click any shape and select Group. Learn more methods for grouping and ungrouping items in Google Slides.
Adding Reflections and Shadows to Shapes
Like images, you can add reflections and shadows to shapes. To do this, right-click on the shape and select Format options. From the right sidebar that opens, check the box next to Drop shadow or Reflection and adjust the parameters as needed.
Change Shape While Preserving Formatting
Sometimes you need to use a different shape after editing a shape. Fortunately, you don’t need to start from scratch. You can change the shape without breaking the formatting. To do this, right-click on the shape and select Modify shape. Choose the shape you want.
Create Custom Shapes in Google Slides
Using the formatting options mentioned above, you can mix and match to create any custom shapes you want. It all depends on your creativity. Editing, transparency effect, resizing etc. tools work.
However, if you want to make an image into a custom shape, this is not possible directly in Google Slides. You need to create your shape in Google Drawings and import it as a PNG file into Google Slides.
