Group Pictures in PowerPoint 2010 for Windows

PowerPoint does not limit you to the number of slide objects you can add within the Slide Area. Be it shapes, other slide objects, or even multiple pictures, you can add them all. When you add multiple pictures on the slide you may end up placing them in a haphazard manner and pictures of different sizes may be scattered all over the slide. It is a good idea to arrange them all properly to get a more aesthetic looking slide.

In previous tutorials, we have explored techniques that help you arrange your pictures and other content. Look at our Resize, Rotate, and Flip Pictures and Align and Distribute Pictures tutorials. Moving ahead in the same direction, this tutorial explores how you can group pictures on your slide.

Grouping pictures can be helpful in various scenarios. You may want to resize or rotate all pictures, rather than rotate them individually. To do so, you can group them and thereafter rotate.

Follow these steps to learn more in PowerPoint 2010 for Windows:

1. Place three pictures on your slide. Make sure you resize them so that they have the same height. Also align them so that all your pictures are lined up properly. Select them all, as shown in Figure 1.
2. 
   Figure 1: Resized and aligned pictures selected on the slide
2. Now, group the selected pictures. You can learn how to group shapes in our Group, Ungroup, and Regroup Shapes tutorial. Although the linked tutorial pertains to shapes, grouping of pictures works in the same way.
Tip: To quickly group selected slide objects, press the Ctrl + G shortcut key.


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3. Once grouped, the three pictures behave like a single object. Notice that there is only one selection in Figure 2, compared to three selections in Figure 1. This indicates that the three pictures are now contained in a single group.
4. 
   Figure 2: Pictures contained within a group
4. Rotate your group of pictures as required. We rotated them 15 degrees, as shown in Figure 3.
5. 
   Figure 3: Grouped pictures rotated 15 degrees rightwards
5. Now that your group of pictures is rotated, you can go ahead and ungroup them. This lets you manipulate individual pictures as required. Figure 4 shows that the rotated pictures are now ungrouped.
6. 
   Figure 4: Rotated pictures upgrouped
Tip: To quickly ungroup, press the Ctrl + Shift + G shortcut key.
6. Save your presentation.