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As we explored in our earlier Chart Gridlines in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac tutorial, PowerPoint 2011 only shows Horizontal Major Gridlines on the chart. Yes, you can enable Vertical Gridlines too — and more importantly you can format these Gridlines to appear exactly as you want them to show. In this tutorial, we will look at these format options.
Powerpoint Gridlines Spacing
![Gridlines on powerpoint for mac 2011 help Gridlines on powerpoint for mac 2011 help](/uploads/1/1/8/6/118684015/564870054.png)
- PowerPoint’s default gridlines are dotted. To view the default PowerPoint grid, right click your slide, select Grid and Guides and check Display grid on screen. You’ll see that you can adjust the default grid by changing the spacing.
- In Word and PowerPoint, gridlines are for visual reference only and cannot be printed. If you want to print gridlines in Excel, see Print gridlines in a worksheet. To show the gridlines, in Excel, PowerPoint, or Word, click the View tab, and then check the Gridlines box. To hide the gridlines, clear the Gridlines check box.
- I was asked a question via email by a Macgasm reader on how to play an audio clip across a set of slides within PowerPoint for Mac 2011. I knew it was possible, since I’ve done the same thing under Office 2007 on the PC. So, I set out to investigate, and I thought I would share my findings.
In Office 2011 for Mac, the Media browser is where you can find an assortment of shapes to add to your documents, workbooks, and presentations. You’ll also find the same shapes on various places on the Ribbon. Each shape can be customized and formatted in endless ways so that you can get just the right look. Shapes can be simple lines. Solid shapes can act as containers for text and even pictures.
Finding just the right shape is a breeze with the Shapes tab of the Media browser. Click the Media browser’s Shapes tab to display the built-in shapes available to you. You can filter shapes by category by clicking the All-Shapes pop-up menu at the top of the Media browser. There are several distinct kinds of shapes:
![Gridlines On Powerpoint For Mac 2011 Gridlines On Powerpoint For Mac 2011](/uploads/1/1/8/6/118684015/811384809.png)
Powerpoint Mac Gridlines
- Solid shapes: A solid shape has an area that has a fill, such as a triangle or rectangle. Solid shapes can double as text boxes. To add text, you can simply start typing while a solid shape is selected. Every solid shape has a line that is the border of the shape. The fill area and the line are formatted independently.
- Lines and Arrows: These shapes have no fillable area. Lines can be formatted to have arrows at either end. Lines have thickness (weight) and style. You can make a solid shape by connecting a line to itself to form a fillable area.
- Connectors: Connectors are special lines that have elbows. You can adjust the elbows by dragging the yellow diamond associated with the elbow. Connectors are sticky in that if you connect the ends to other objects, when you move those objects the connector stays attached to the object.
- Callouts: These are boxes with connectors permanently attached.
- Action Buttons: These are available only in PowerPoint. Action Buttons have built-in properties that you can use for navigation, playing media, running macros, and more.
You’re probably itching to get your hands on one of these shapely shapes, but first, here’s the procedure for inserting shapes:
- Click inside your document in the approximate place you want to insert the shape.
- In the Media browser, select the Shapes tab. Click a shape in the Shapes palette.
- Hold down the left mouse button and drag across the document to draw a shape the size you want.Alternatively, click once on the shape in the Shapes palette and then once again in the document to place the selected shape. This creates a 1 x 1 inch shape. You can also drag a shape from the browser: Right-click a shape in the browser and choose copy to copy it to the Clipboard.
- Let go of the mouse button when you’re done.