- PowerPoint "Power Cropping"
- Step #1. Select your images (all of them)
- Step #2. Open the Picture Layout dropdown
- Step #3. Pick one of these two layouts
- Step #4. Ungroup your layout twice and remove the extra pieces
- Step #5. Adjust your photoâs X and Y crop offsets (if necessary)
- Step #6. Change your picture shape (optional)
- Picture Hack Conclusion
- Up Next ...
PowerPoint “Power Cropping”
While shortcuts are the FASTEST way to double your productivity in Microsoft PowerPoint, that does not mean they are always the fastest way to get something done.
Take cropping and resizing your images in PowerPoint, for example.
Even if you know all the best picture and cropping shortcuts, you will never beat PowerPoint at what it does best.
As you will see in the video below, this is what I call “Power Cropping.”
Step #1. Select your images (all of them)
While holding Shift or clicking and dragging with your mouse, select all the images on your slide that you want to crop into a standardized size for your presentation. The number of pictures you have is irrelevant. PowerPoint can crop and resize them all at the same time.
Step #2. Open the Picture Layout dropdown
With your images selected, navigate to the Picture Format tab and open the Picture Layout dropdown menu.
Step #3. Pick one of these two layouts
Within the Picture Layout dropdown menu, select one of the following two SmartArt layouts depending on what shape you want your pictures to crop to:
- Bending Picture Semi-Transparent Text for squares and circles (1×1 dimension)
- Picture Grid for rectangles or ovals
Although the Picture Layout dropdown gives you lots of options, I find these two are the best as they maintain the quality and crispness of the images.
Selecting one of these layouts forces all your pictures into a PowerPoint SmartArt graphic as pictured below (but you don’t want to stop here).
Even if you want a round picture (which I’ll show you how to get in just a second), you still want to start with one of the two layouts I recommend above.
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Enroll TodayStep #4. Ungroup your layout twice and remove the extra pieces
Once you have your SmartArt layout, hit Ctrl + Shift + G on your keyboard twice to ungroup the graphic and break it down to the pictures, shapes and/or textboxes.
Delete all of the shapes you do not want to keep in your layout. In the picture above, that means deleting all the semi-transparent text boxes from the Bending Picture Semi-Transparent Text layout.
Step #5. Adjust your photo’s X and Y crop offsets (if necessary)
For any image that appears cut off or not quite centered correctly within the shape that PowerPoint cropped it down to, you can adjust it by following these steps:
- Right-click your image
- Select Format Picture
- Click the Picture icon
- Adjust the Offset X and/or Offset Y values
Offset X moves your picture horizontally within the cropped frame while Offset Y moves your picture vertically within the cropped frame.
Step #6. Change your picture shape (optional)
Once you have broken your SmartArt graphic apart and adjusted your images, you can change the shape of your images as follows:
- Select your pictures
- Go to the Shape Format tab
- Click on Edit Shape
- Select Change Shape
- Choose the Oval shape (or whichever shape you prefer)
You can convert multiple pictures at the same time to another PowerPoint shape. You do not need to do this one picture at a time.
Picture Hack Conclusion
While there are many shortcuts for manipulating and cropping pictures in PowerPoint, there is no way to do so for multiple slides at a time. That’s where figuring out how to leverage special tools and hacks in the software comes in handy.
Being able to Power Crop 56 photos into a standardize size and shape is always going to be faster than using your keyboard shortcuts to manually crop and resize your images one-by-one.
In the next article, we will dive into your Hold Shortcuts and I’ll teach you a clever mechanic to learn them a lot faster than everyone else.
Up Next …
In the next lesson I’ll show you some PowerPoint HOLD Shortcuts … with a twist!
I still have to edit the crop for each single image separately. I cannot crop multiple images at once, sorry.