Shape Alignment

Use this feature to quickly align shapes in PowerPoint.

Best practice

The Snapshot Align feature of smartRush saves plenty of time when working with shapes in PowerPoint.

The shape alignment features can be found in the smartRush ribbon:

Shape align features

Snapshot Align

The Snapshot Align feature of smartRush allows to copy the settings of any shape and apply it to any other shape. The process is like follows:

  1. Select the shape from which you want to copy the settings to another shape
  2. Click the Camera button in the ribbon to capture the settings. If the settings have successfully be captured the camera will turn red.
  3. Select the shape the settings should be applied to
  4. Click one of the buttons in the Snapshot Align group to apply the respective settings to the new shape

The captured settings will be kept until you press the camera toggle again while no shape is selected. Alternatively the settings can be released when clicking the camera toggle while pressing the CTRL key. The settings can be applied to more than one shape. As long as the camera toggle appears in red settings are captured. If the camera toggle appears in blue no settings are captured.

Captured settings
The following alignment features are available when using Snapshot Align:
  1. Align left: Aligns the new shape to the left edge of the base shape. The left edges of both shapes will be in line after this operation. This option applies the X position, but does not apply the Y position of the base shape to the target shape.
  2. Align right: Aligns the new shape to the right edge of the base shape. The right edges of both shapes will be in line after this operation. This option applies the X position, but does not apply the Y position of the base shape to the target shape.
  3. Align top: Aligns the new shape to the top edge of the base shape. The top edges of both shapes will be in line after this operation. This option applies the Y position, but does not apply the X position of the base shape to the target shape.
  4. Align bottom: Aligns the new shape to the bottom edege of the base shape. The bottom edges of both shapes will be in line after this operation. This option applies the Y position, but does not apply the X position of the base shape to the target shape.
  5. Align top left: This operation applies a combination of the Align top and Align left operations. Both positions, X and Y may be adjusted. The top left corner of both shapes will match.
  6. Align top right: This operation applies a combination of the Align top and Align right operations. Both positions, X and Y may be adjusted. The top right corner of both shapes will match.
  7. Align bottom left: This operation applies a combination of the Align bottom and Align left operations. Both positions, X and Y may be adjusted. The bottom left corner of both shapes will match.
  8. Align bottom right: This operation applies a combination of the Align bottom and Align right operations. Both positions, X and Y may be adjusted. The bottom right corner of both shapes will match.
  9. Align center: This operation will place the target shape in the center of the base shape, both X and Y positions may be affected.
  10. Apply width: This operation applies the width of the base shape to the target shape.
  11. Apply height: This operation applies the height of the base shape to the target shape.
Snapshot Align features

Please note that several Snapshot Align operations may be combined. If you want to place shape number 1 in the example above you may simply combine the Align center and Align left operations to center the shape vertically in the base shape and match their left edges.

Combination of Snapshot Align operations

Similar operations are possible for many applications. If you want to copy the size of the shape you can simply capture the base shape and click the Apply width and Apply height buttons of the target shape. The position of the target shape will not be affected by this operation, the top left corner will stay in the same place.

Copy size from base shape to target shape using SnapShot Align

Advanced features of Snapshot Align

f you press and hold the CTRL key while clicking one of the Snapshot Align buttons the center of the target shape will be aligned to the selected position:

Snapshot Align with CTRL key pressed

The CTRL key does not have any effect on the Copy width and Copy height functionality. When holding the CTRL key and pressing the Align center button the shape will only be centered horizontally. The vertical alignment will stay constant. If the shape should be vertically centered press the SHIFT key while clicking the Align center button.

If you press the SHIFT key while clicking one of the Snapshot Align buttons the shape will be aligned like in normal Snapshot Align mode, but keeping distance to the reference shape. The distance is specified in Powerpoints default grid settings.

Snapshot Align with SHIFT key pressed

The SHIFT key reduces the width / height by two times the grid distance when using the Copy width or Copy height functionality. When holding the SHIFT key and pressing the Align center button the shape will only be centered vertically. The horizontal alignment will stay constant. If the shape should be horizontally centered press the CTRL key while clicking the Align center button.

Snapshot Align can also be used without capturing a base shape upfront. In this case the camera toggle appears to be unpressed. If alignment operations are applied and no base shape has been captured the target shape will be aligned based on the default slide borders. Please have a look at the help article on Default slide borders for further information.

Regular Align

Regular align duplicates the built-in PowerPoint aligment actions. The key difference is that the alignment actions respect any Default slide borders set by the user.