Aligning Objects On a Slide in Microsoft PowerPoint

Can't get the objects to line up exactly how you want them? You can select multiple objects using several methods:

• Hold your Shift key while you click on objects. This selects all objects on which you click, as well as any objects in between.
• Hold your Ctrl key while you click on objects. This selects just the objects on which you click.
• Draw a box around the objects you want to select. (I keep my gridlines turned on; don't let them confuse you.)

Once you've chosen your objects, you can use the Drawing toolbar's Draw menu to align the items in many ways. I moved the toolbar in the graphic below so you could see everything at once.

Hit Draw Align or Distribute Align Middle.

After choosing Align Middle, the objects would look like the following graphic.

After choosing Align Center, the objects would look like the following graphic.

So, why isn't the text centered? Both the textbox and the rectangle are centered with each other vertically and horizontally, but the text isn't centered within the textbox. To do that, you need to select the textbox border and hit the Center align button on your Formatting toolbar.

What if you have several objects, and you want to space them apart perfectly? Use the Distribute feature.

Select all the objects you want to distribute evenly.

From the Draw menu on the Drawing toolbar, choose Align or Distribute, Distribute Vertically.