Duplicate Shapes Using Keyboard Shortcuts in PowerPoint 2016 for Windows

It's easy to duplicate shapes by dragging, but while that's a nice way to duplicate five or ten shapes, it's not the best way to create ten, twenty, or more copies. We all know that you can press Ctrl + C to copy any shape in PowerPoint to the clipboard, and a resulting Ctrl + V always pastes a copy from the clipboard to the slide. What many people don't realize is PowerPoint has this almost supernatural keyboard shortcut called Ctrl + D (yes, the D stands for duplicate), and this Ctrl + D shortcut does more than just let you achieve two shortcuts with one by duplicating. In fact, it creates a pattern of evenly-spaced and symmetrical shapes.

Follow these steps to explore more in PowerPoint 2016 for Windows:

1. Launch PowerPoint. You will see the Presentation Gallery. Here, select Blank Presentation to open a blank presentation with a new slide. You can change the Slide Layout to Blank by selecting the Home tab | Layout | Blank option. Now, insert a shape on the slide and select it, as shown in Figure 1, below.
2. 
   Figure 1: Select the shape
2. Press Ctrl + D to create a duplicate of the selected shape. Figure 2, below, shows the duplicate shape created and placed overlapping the original circle.
3. 
   Figure 2: Duplicate instance of a circle created


PowerPoint Keyboard Shortcuts

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Explore our PowerPoint Keyboard Shortcuts and Sequences Ebook that is updated for all PowerPoint versions.

3. At this point in time, avoid using your mouse altogether. Since the duplicate shape will be selected as soon as it was created, any nudge you make to the shape by pressing the arrow keys on your keyboard should work. Nudge multiple times in various directions until you are happy with the spacing between the original shape, and the duplicated one, as shown in Figure 3, below.
4. 
   Figure 3: Adjust the placement of your duplicate shape
4. Now, press Ctrl + D repetitively to build the pattern. The next duplicate shapes will retain the spacing and direction between the first two shapes, as shown in Figure 4, below.
5. 
   Figure 4: Evenly-spaced duplicates are created
5. You can similarly create other patterns. In fact, you can also select two or more shapes and then cause all selected shapes to create a pattern, as shown in Figure 5, below. Wow, this technique is so easy to work with multiple shapes.
6. 
   Figure 5: Multiple shapes duplicated
6. Save your presentation often.