When creating presentations in Microsoft PowerPoint, you may find yourself needing to join lines together for various reasons. This could be to create unique shapes, to form a continuous flow of information, or to simply make your slides look more engaging. Despite what you may think, this task is quite simple and straightforward. In this blog post, we will walk you through the simple steps of how to join lines in PowerPoint.
Step 1: Draw Your Lines
The first step is to draw the lines you wish to join. To do this, navigate to the Insert tab, then select Shapes, and choose the line style that suits your needs.
Step 2: Arrange Your Lines
After drawing your lines, arrange them to form the desired shape or pattern. Make sure the ends of the lines you want to join are touching or overlapping.
Step 3: Select The Lines To Join
Next, select the lines you wish to join. This can be done by clicking and dragging your cursor over the lines, or by holding down the Ctrl key and clicking on each line individually.
Step 4: Join The Lines
Now to the main part, joining the lines. With your lines selected, navigate to the Format tab, then select Merge Shapes, and in the dropdown menu that appears, select Union.
Joining Lines Using VBA
For those who prefer using Visual Basic for Applications (VBA), you can join lines in PowerPoint using a simple code snippet. Simply press Alt + F11 to open the VBA editor, then insert a new module and type in the following:
Sub JoinLines()
Dim s As Shape
Dim shp As ShapeRange
Set s = ActiveWindow.Selection.ShapeRange(1)
Set shp = ActivePresentation.Slides(1).Shapes.Range(Array(s.Name))
shp.MergeShapes msoMergeUnion
End Sub
After running this subroutine, your selected lines will be joined. This is particularly useful when you need to join a large number of lines and manual selection would be too time-consuming.
Conclusion
Joining lines in PowerPoint is a pretty simple task whether you’re doing it manually or using VBA. It allows you to create unique shapes and diagrams to make your presentation more engaging. Now that you know how to join lines in PowerPoint, your presentations can reach a whole new level of creativity and professionalism.