9.2 Images, shapes, SmartArt and icons

What you'll be able to do

Make slides that show things instead of listing them. Images placed on purpose, shapes aligned properly, SmartArt and icons used where they earn their place, and alt text on all of it.

Before you start

Carry on in the fix-this-deck practice file. Its middle slides need exactly this lesson.

The work

1. Same either way: insert a picture from your machine with Alt+N, P, D. Get your images honestly: your own photographs and screenshots, or images whose licence allows reuse. A watermark on a slide tells the room you cut corners.
2. No documented keyboard shortcut for this — use the menu: select the picture and go to Picture Format → Crop; drag the black handles, then press Esc. Crop close to the subject, because the audience should see what you mean, and not the whole desk it sat on.
3. No documented keyboard shortcut for this — use the menu: big photographs swell the file until it will not send. Select any picture and go to Picture Format → Compress Pictures. Untick "Apply only to this picture", and a whole deck slims in one pass.
4. Same either way: give every image that carries meaning some alt text. Open its context menu with Shift+F10 and choose View Alt Text, then write one sentence carrying the image's point. Mark pure decoration as decorative, as the Getting Your Footing module explained.
5. Same either way: insert shapes with Alt+N, S, H. Hold Shift while drawing to keep squares square and circles round, and hold Shift while clicking to select several at once. Use connectors, from the same shape gallery, rather than plain lines between boxes. A connector grips the shapes and follows them when they move.
6. No documented keyboard shortcut for this — use the menu: never nudge boxes into rough alignment by eye. Select the shapes, go to Shape Format → Align, and use Align Middle and then Distribute Horizontally. Two clicks, and the result is exact. Rough alignment is the loudest amateur signal a slide can send.
7. Same either way: SmartArt, which you insert with Alt+N and then choose, turns a short list into a labelled diagram: a process, a cycle, a hierarchy. It earns its place when the shape of the idea matters, such as steps, containment or flow. As decoration for an ordinary list, it is noise. Icons, from the same Insert tab, follow the same rule: one icon that carries a meaning beats five that decorate.
8. Same either way: build one slide where the picture fills the whole slide. A photograph edge to edge, one short line of text on it, and nothing else. Check the text against the photograph the way the accessibility lesson taught: real contrast, or a plain band behind the words. It is the strongest slide in most decks, and it costs the least.

Try it

Repair the practice deck's visual slides. Crop and compress every image, and write alt text for each one. Replace the crooked group of shapes using Align and Distribute, with connectors between them. Turn the four-step list into SmartArt. Finish with one full-slide photograph carrying one line.

Check yourself