Have you ever needed to create many similar autoshapes? You can set the default color, line style, etc and then use an autoshape mode to crank out numerous autoshapes. Episode 404 shows you how.
This blog is the video podcast companion to the book, Learn Excel from MrExcel. Download a new two minute video every workday to learn one of the 277 tips from the book!
This blog is the video podcast companion to the book, Learn Excel from MrExcel. Download a new two minute video every workday to learn one of the 277 tips from the book!
Transcript of the video:
Hey, welcome back to the MrExcel netcast, I'm Bill Jelen.
We're going to talk about AutoShapes a littlebit today, just some of the more obscure AutoShape tricks.
The AutoShapes are usually on the Drawing toolbar, to get to that you have to go View, Toolbars, and choose Drawing.
It usually shows up at the bottom of the screen, but for the netcast I've moved it up to the top of the screen.
There's a couple of shapes right on the toolbar, the Rectangle and the Oval, choose one of those shapes, and you can draw any kind of a shape.
Now one of my favorite tricks is if you hold down the Shift key while you draw, you're going to make the oval into a perfect circle, or the rectangle into a perfect square, so that's trick #1.
Once you've created the shape, then you can use the Fill Color icon to choose any sort of a color, or even Fill Effects, you can go in and put a gradient, one color to another color, click OK.
Once you've done some sort of formatting to an AutoShape, you can then go to the Draw drop-down and say Set AutoShape Defaults.
Now that I basically created my first AutoShape, I formatted it, I made it the default shape.
Now when I draw a new shape, Excel will automatically copy all of that formatting over.
Alright, last trick for creating many, many shapes.
If you find that you have to create many shapes, instead of clicking, dragging, clicking, dragging, clicking, dragging, just double-click the Oval.
Now you're actually in Draw Oval mode, and every time that you click and drag, Excel will create a new AutoShape for you.
Of course, when you're done drawing the ovals, you need to make sure to get out of Draw Oval mode by clicking the icon one last time.
Those basic concepts work with both the Square, the Oval, and all of the other shapes in the AutoShapes drop-down.
Hey, there you go, a few tricks if you need to create a lot of AutoShapes.
Thanks for stopping by, we'll see you next time for another netcast from MrExcel!
We're going to talk about AutoShapes a littlebit today, just some of the more obscure AutoShape tricks.
The AutoShapes are usually on the Drawing toolbar, to get to that you have to go View, Toolbars, and choose Drawing.
It usually shows up at the bottom of the screen, but for the netcast I've moved it up to the top of the screen.
There's a couple of shapes right on the toolbar, the Rectangle and the Oval, choose one of those shapes, and you can draw any kind of a shape.
Now one of my favorite tricks is if you hold down the Shift key while you draw, you're going to make the oval into a perfect circle, or the rectangle into a perfect square, so that's trick #1.
Once you've created the shape, then you can use the Fill Color icon to choose any sort of a color, or even Fill Effects, you can go in and put a gradient, one color to another color, click OK.
Once you've done some sort of formatting to an AutoShape, you can then go to the Draw drop-down and say Set AutoShape Defaults.
Now that I basically created my first AutoShape, I formatted it, I made it the default shape.
Now when I draw a new shape, Excel will automatically copy all of that formatting over.
Alright, last trick for creating many, many shapes.
If you find that you have to create many shapes, instead of clicking, dragging, clicking, dragging, clicking, dragging, just double-click the Oval.
Now you're actually in Draw Oval mode, and every time that you click and drag, Excel will create a new AutoShape for you.
Of course, when you're done drawing the ovals, you need to make sure to get out of Draw Oval mode by clicking the icon one last time.
Those basic concepts work with both the Square, the Oval, and all of the other shapes in the AutoShapes drop-down.
Hey, there you go, a few tricks if you need to create a lot of AutoShapes.
Thanks for stopping by, we'll see you next time for another netcast from MrExcel!
