PowerPoint 2010: Drawing No-Fill Shapes By Default

by AJ George

Related to last week's article on changing PowerPoint's default color palette, I was asked by a reader if it was possible to set up PowerPoint so that, by default, shapes were drawn without a fill color. After tinkering around with the color palettes, I can find no way to set PowerPoint so that every time you start a new presentation the shapes are already pre-set to draw without a fill color. PowerPoint will always default to drawing with a fill color. You can, however, set up each individual presentation to do this. It is not a perfect solution, but will still save you time versus having to format every shape individually in your presentation.

1. Choose Insert > Shapes to draw the shape as you normally would.
2. Right-click the shape and select Format Shape.

The Format Shape dialog box will appear.


3. Make formatting changes as you see fit (to remove the fill color choose Fill > No Fill).
4. When you are finished, click the Close button.
5. Right-click the shape again (being sure to click on the outside lines, clicking on the center of the shape will give you a different drop-down menu) and choose Set as Default Shape.
   
   

Thereafter, any shape you draw in that presentation will follow this formatting by default (excluding lines and open shapes). Go ahead, give it a go with some other shapes. You will have to reset the shape defaults for each new presentation, but you will only have to do it once per presentation.

***

About the author: AJ George is IconLogic's lead Technical Communicator and author of both "PowerPoint 2007: The Essentials" and "PowerPoint 2008 for the Macintosh: The Essentials."

Comments

[Allen]

I am always going to PowerPoint to create a simple screen shot with a red box highlighting certain areas. I used the suggestion above and have been using a presentation as a template when I want to do this.

Today I learned that I can create a new default theme instead. Now I don't have to remember to open the presentation.

Here are the articles I used beside this one. Hope this helps.

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/powerpoint-help/set-new-formatting-defaults-for-a-shape-or-text-box-HA010244963.aspx

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/powerpoint-help/change-the-default-theme-HA010204550.aspx?CTT=5&origin=HA010244963