Ungrouping Maps in PowerPoint 2010 and 2007 for Windows

In a previous tutorial we showed you how to download vector map files from the Microsoft Office website. In this tutorial, you'll learn how to ungroup these map files. Our example looks at a map of the United States of America that also shows each individual state. Your map may be different but the principles explained below will be useful.

With your downloaded file ready, follow these steps to place the downloaded file in PowerPoint 2007, 2010, or another version and ungroup it:

1. Open PowerPoint, right-click an empty area on the slide and choose the Layout | Blank option in the resultant context menu to change the layout to Blank as shown in Figure 1.
2. 
   Figure 1: Layout
2. Now just drag and drop the map file that you downloaded in the preceding tutorial on the slide (see Figure 2).
3. 
   Figure 2: Downloaded Map File
3. Right-click on the placed file to get the menu as shown in Figure 3. From the menu, choose the Group | Ungroup option.
4. 
   Figure 3: Ungroup
4. Doing so opens a dialog box asking "Do you want to convert the imported picture to a Microsoft Office drawing object?" (see Figure 4).
5. 
   Figure 4: Converting Picture to Microsoft Office drawing object
6. Click Yes to proceed.
5. Repeat the third step again and choose the Group | Ungroup option again to ungroup the file completely.
6. Figure 5 shows the completely ungrouped map.
7. 
   Figure 5: Ungrouped USA map
7. Each ungrouped component can now be individually animated or used as required. Some extra areas such as shadows, etc. can be selected and deleted if not required. If you want a slide with individual US states rightaway, just download this file.