Distribute Shapes in PowerPoint 2010 for Windows

Placement of slide objects on your slide can make a big difference. And proper spacing in-between slide objects plays an important role in making your slides look aesthetic. This distribution of shapes brings symmetry to your slide content. Look at Figure 1, below, and you'll see that shapes towards the left are not distributed equally whereas shapes towards the right are comparatively better spaced out. Most of the time, distribution is used along with alignment. We already covered alignment in our Align Shapes in PowerPoint tutorial.

Figure 1: Distributing Shapes in PowerPoint

If you create many PowerPoint slides, it is very important to keep all your shapes well-positioned and spaced apart. You already explored aligning shapes in a previous tutorial. In this tutorial, we'll look at how you can distribute shapes evenly in PowerPoint. The Distribute option is a great way to position shapes equidistant from each other, either on a horizontal or vertical plane.

Follow these steps to distribute shapes evenly in PowerPoint 2010 for Windows:

Distribute Shapes Horizontally

1. Select all shapes placed adjacent to each other, as shown in Figure 2, below.
2. 
   Figure 2: Selected shapes, ready to be distributed horizontally
3. As you can see in Figure 2, above, these shapes are not equally spaced in-between each other. For instance, you’ll notice that the distance between the third and the fourth shapes is considerably more than the average distance between other shapes.
2. Access the Home tab of the Ribbon, and locate the Drawing group. Now, click the Arrange button to bring up the gallery shown in Figure 3, below. Click the Align option to bring up the Align sub-gallery, as shown in Figure 3. Select the Distribute Horizontally option.
3. 
   Figure 3: Distribute Horizontally option in PowerPoint

Access the Align Sub-gallery

The Align sub-gallery can also be accessed from the Arrange group, within the Drawing Tools Format tab of the Ribbon.
3. This action will distribute selected shapes equally on a horizontal plane, as shown in Figure 4, below.
4. 
   Figure 4: Shapes distributed equally, horizontally

Distribute Shapes Vertically

1. Select all shapes placed one above the other, as shown in Figure 5, below.
2. 
   Figure 5: Selected shapes, ready to be distributed vertically
3. As you can see in Figure 5, above, the shapes are not spaced equidistantly. The distance between the first and second shapes is considerably more than the distance between the second and third shapes.
2. Access the Home tab of the Ribbon. Next, within the Drawing group, click the Arrange button to bring up the gallery shown in Figure 6, below. Click the Align option to bring up the Align sub-gallery, as shown in Figure 6. Select the Distribute Vertically option.
3. 
   Figure 6: Distribute Vertically option in PowerPoint
3. This action will distribute selected shapes equally on a vertical plane, as shown in Figure 7, below.
4. 
   Figure 7: Shapes distributed equally, vertically
4. Save your presentations often.