Using icons is a great way to add visuals to your presentation. There are many ways to get icons online, some are even free. But if you need a specific icon that you can’t find or if you want a special spin to your icon (color, shadow etc) – you can use PowerPoint’s great (and somewhat hidden) “Merge Shapes” commands to create your own icons.
Using these commands you can combine basic shapes into other shapes. You can union and subtract shapes. You can intersect and combine. In Office 2013 you can also use the fraction command to turn text into an object and thereby union or subtract it from other shapes. All while still working natively inside PowerPoint.
It is just as fun as building with Lego blocks! Well, almost..
Once you have created an icon you can change the color, filling and add shadows as needed. When you have created an icon, make sure you save it to your own icon asset file to use in future presentations.
This is a guide in 15 steps showing you how you can use these commands to create your own icon – the example we are using is a calendar icon.
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