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About this lesson

Learn to move and color shapes to draw attention to an area.

Lesson versions

Multiple versions of this lesson are available, choose the appropriate version for you:

2013, 2016, 2019/365.

Exercise files

Download the ‘before’ and ‘after’ Word documents from the video tutorial and try the lesson yourself.

Basic Use of Shapes .docx
60 KB Basic Use of Shapes - Solution.docx
68.4 KB

Quick reference

Basic Use of Shapes

     

When to use

Shapes are for more than decoration. They draw a reader’s eye to a specific point. For example, the red outline above is simply a rectangle shape placed for a useful purpose.

Instructions:

Note: When you add a shape a new ribbon appears called the DRAWING TOOLS ribbon.

Insert ribbon, shapes

  1. Click Insert, Shapes: a gallery of available shapes appear on the screen.
  2. Choose a choose a shape and notice your curser changes to a crossbar.
  3. Click to drop, or Click and drag to control the size of the shape on your document.
     

Move and re-size a shape

  1. Move a Shape:  When dragging a shape to a new area of your document, make sure to click the edge of the shape rather than a re-size handle.  The cursor will have 4 arrows on it.
  2. Re-size a Shape: You can resize using the white handles around the shape frame; and you can use the Size options on the Drawing Tools ribbon.
       

 

Shape styles

Notice the gallery of Shape Styles with ABC in the shape examples. That allows you to type words inside your shape.

You also can choose a specific “Shape Fill” color, even “No Fill” if you want a transparent box.

You can choose a color for the outline and even the thickness, or WEIGHT, of the outline: 

And SHAPE EFFECTS will give a new dimension to the look of the shape. Click and experiment!

 

Layout options

 

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  • 00:04 All right, we're gonna do some inserting of shapes.
  • 00:07 This is actually a very fun lesson.
  • 00:09 Let's go ahead and click on Shapes.
  • 00:11 Here you go, and basically, the rule is you don't click and drag the shapes,
  • 00:15 you activate it.
  • 00:16 And then your mouse comes out to your screen, and it's a black cross bar and
  • 00:19 you click to drop the shape.
  • 00:21 They always drop in their default size and color.
  • 00:23 You, of course, can change that.
  • 00:24 All these little handles around the edge are resizable, and you can alter that.
  • 00:29 And then we have a spinning arrow right on top.
  • 00:31 That it is a rotation arrow.
  • 00:33 And then, of course, we have this little animal here, which is our layout.
  • 00:37 And you can tell it where to beyond the screen.
  • 00:39 Type with text, through the text, in front, behind, top, bottom of the text.
  • 00:44 We have two options below.
  • 00:46 Move with the text, or fixed position on page.
  • 00:48 So as you move text, it won't bump your shapes around it.
  • 00:51 That's kind of a nice option so.
  • 00:53 All right, that the circle.
  • 00:54 Let's go ahead and draw a square.
  • 00:56 Go back to the Insert, and Shapes, and
  • 00:58 I'm going to grab the rectangle here with rounded corners.
  • 01:02 I'm going to click and drag a square this time, not just drop a default one.
  • 01:06 I'm going to click and drag the shape I want.
  • 01:08 And so, we're going to actually use the format.
  • 01:11 Drawing Tools Format this time.
  • 01:13 The shape fill, I don't want to fill at all.
  • 01:16 I want to be completely transparent.
  • 01:18 And the shape outline I want to be maroon, and
  • 01:21 the shape outline thickness or weight I want to be about that thick.
  • 01:25 There we go.
  • 01:26 It's a great way to outline something on a Microsoft Word document,
  • 01:30 putting an outline around something, draw attention to it.
  • 01:33 All right, we're going to do with the heart.
  • 01:35 Click on the Insert, go to Shapes, we're going to focus on the heart right here.
  • 01:40 Click it once, and I can click and drag any shape I want.
  • 01:44 And of course, hearts should be red, right?
  • 01:46 Or, should they, let me go to more outline colors.
  • 01:50 Let's see, I can go through all the standard colors,
  • 01:53 make a purple heart, and I make it a transparent purple heart.
  • 01:56 Click that and see what happens.
  • 01:58 Why did it go, 'cause I only did the outline, my goodness.
  • 02:01 All right, shape fill.
  • 02:03 Lets go to more fill colors, and I'll go to the purple and
  • 02:08 make it a transparent purple heart.
  • 02:10 Come back out here, and look at that.
  • 02:12 Now when I put it over words, see what happens?
  • 02:15 it's transparent, very nice.
  • 02:16 Well, there's a couple other things you can do with that, as well.
  • 02:18 Let's go back to Shape Fill.
  • 02:21 I can put a picture inside that heart.
  • 02:23 I can make it a gradient color.
  • 02:25 I can put texture inside the heart.
  • 02:28 See what's happening?
  • 02:29 It's kind of great in the background.
  • 02:30 The more fill colors also has a custom option where you can type the RGB codes if
  • 02:35 someone tells you well, I need this color purple.
  • 02:39 You say, well what are the RGB codes for that color, and
  • 02:41 I'll type it in to get the exact color.
  • 02:43 We also have HSLS, stands for Hue, saturation, luminosity or luminance.
  • 02:50 So generally, RGB is the language everyone uses.
  • 02:53 So here we go, our last one is a lightning bolt.
  • 02:56 Go to Insert, go to Shapes, find the lightning bolt, click once.
  • 03:00 Come out here, and I want you to see that no matter
  • 03:03 how I try to get this thing to face left, it won't face left.
  • 03:07 I'm clicking and dragging.
  • 03:08 So I'm just gonna go ahead and let go of that thing.
  • 03:10 And right up here on the Drawing Tools > Format, over here,
  • 03:14 we have this button that says Rotate 90, Left, Right 90, Vertical or Horizontal.
  • 03:19 So I can get it to flip horizontal.
  • 03:21 But there's even an easier way.
  • 03:23 Now notice the side handles this time.
  • 03:26 I can fold this like a page in a book.
  • 03:28 I'm just folding it back and forth, to get that thing to go right or left,
  • 03:32 depending on what I need.
  • 03:33 Okay, that's it for our Shapes lesson.
  • 03:35 Have fun with those and
  • 03:36 use those transparent shapes to draw attention to things.
  • 03:41 Thanks.

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