Merge / Combine Shapes in PowerPoint 2010

How To Enable Merge Shapes in PowerPoint 2010 Tutorial

Introduction

If you are following this website or my Youtube Channel for PowerPoint tutorials then you might know that many of the animations are only possible if you have Combine Shapes or Merge Shapes in PowerPoint commands available. Unfortunately, PowerPoint 2007 doesn’t support Merge / Combine Shapes, and in PowerPoint 2010; you also might need to enable these commands as they might not appear by default. So, in this tutorial, we will learn to Enable or Add Merge Shapes in PowerPoint 2010 Ribbon. In later versions like in PowerPoint 2013 and above, the Combine Shapes are changed to Merge Shapes.

How To Enable Merge Shapes in PowerPoint

You need to Customize the Office Ribbon to add Merge Shapes / Combine Shapes to the list. To Customize the ribbon, you can either click on the drop-down arrow in the Quick Access Toolbar and then click More Commands:

How To Customize Office Ribbon
Figure 1.1

or you can also click on the File menu and then click on Options:

File - Options in PowerPoint 2010
Figure 1.2

and then click Customize Ribbon from the left side pane. Fetch the “Choose commands from” drop-down menu and select “Commands Not in the Ribbon”.

Customize Microsoft Office Ribbon
Figure 1.3

Scroll down and select Combine Shapes from the list.

Combine Shapes command in PowerPoint 2010
Figure 1.4

If you will click the Add button then most probably chances are that the Combine Shapes commands will be added to the Home tab. You can either go with that or you can click on New Group in the Home tab:

New Group in Office Ribbon
Figure 1.5

and then add Combine Shapes to the newly created Group.

Combine Shapes in PowerPoint 2010
Figure 1.6

Now, in the Home tab, you can find the Combine Shapes commands.

Combine / Merge Shapes in PowerPoint
Figure 1.7

How To Use Shape Union, Combine, Intersect, and Subtract Commands

You can use Combine / Merge Shapes commands by drawing and selecting at least 2 shapes. For instance, draw 2 ovals and select both of them using the Shift key:

Merge / Combine Shapes in PowerPoint
Figure 1.8

Example of Shape Union:

Shape Union in PowerPoint
Shape Union in PowerPoint

Example of Shape Combine:

Shape Combine in PowerPoint
Shape Combine in PowerPoint

Example of Shape Intersect:

Shape Intersect in PowerPoint
Shape Intersect in PowerPoint

Example of Shape Subtract:

Shape Subtract in PowerPoint
Shape Subtract in PowerPoint

I hope you got The Teacher Point!


Watch How To Enable Merge Shapes in PowerPoint 2010 Tutorial


A Microsoft PowerPoint Tutorial by the teacher

2 thoughts on “How To Enable Merge Shapes in PowerPoint 2010 Tutorial

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