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Puzzle Pictures in PowerPoint 2013 for Windows

Learn how to create puzzle pictures from jigsaw shapes in PowerPoint 2013 for Windows.


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Product/Version: PowerPoint 2013 for Windows

OS: Windows 7 and higher





Many users do get in touch with us to ask how they can create a jigsaw puzzle from a picture in PowerPoint 2013? This is actually much easier than it sounds -- and the tutorial on this page will lead you through the entire process step-by-step. By the time you are done with this tutorial, you will create a jigsaw similar to whatyou see in Figure 1, below.

Create a jigsaw from a picture
Figure 1: Create a jigsaw from a picture

You will need some prerequisites before you begin. First of all, you can use your own jigsaw shapes, or you can buy some ready-to-use jigsaw shapes to follow this tutorial from here. Thereafter follow these steps:

  1. Launch PowerPoint 2013, and open the sample presentation you bought from the link provided. Within the downloaded presentation, you'll find several types of Jigsaw Pieces created with various shapes. We choose the Typical Jigsaw variant, as you can see in Figure 2.

    Jigsaw pieces in a 5x3 grid
    Figure 2: Jigsaw pieces in a 5x3 grid
  2. Within the Home or Insert tab of the Ribbon, access the Shapes drop-down gallery (see Figure 3) and choose the Rectangle shape.

    Rectangle shape selected within the Shapes drop-down gallery
    Figure 3: Rectangle shape selected within the Shapes drop-down gallery
  3. Draw a Rectangle that spans the entire slide area. This rectangle will serve as a "mock background" for your slide -- you might want to change the fill and line attributes of Rectangle to match the slide background of the rest of your slides. Now, right-click this Rectangle, and from the context menu choose the Send to Back | Send to Back option, as shown in Figure 4.

    Send the Rectangle to the back
    Figure 4: Send the Rectangle to the back
  4. You’ll end up with the jigsaw puzzle shapes being visible over the rectangle, as you can see in Figure 5. The Rectangle placed behind them won't be visible.

    Jigsaw puzzle shapes over Rectangle shape
    Figure 5: Jigsaw puzzle shapes over Rectangle shape
  5. Now change the background of the presentation to any picture that you want to use for your jigsaw. To do that select the Design tab of the Ribbon and click the Format Background button, as you can see in Figure 6.

    Format Background button
    Figure 6: Format Background button
  6. This brings up the Format Background Task Pane, as shown in Figure 7. Within the task pane select the Picture or Texture Fill radio button (highlighted in red within Figure 7). Then click the File button (highlighted in blue within Figure 7).

    Format Background Task Pane
    Figure 7: Format Background Task Pane

    Tip: Learn more about picture backgrounds for slides.
  7. This brings up the Insert Picture dialog box, as shown in Figure 8. Select any picture, and click the Insert button to get back to the Format Background task pane.

    Insert Picture dialog box
    Figure 8: Insert Picture dialog box

    Make sure that you do not click the Apply to All button (highlighted in green within Figure 7, previously on this page).
  8. You won’t find any visible change on the slide since our Rectangle already covers the slide background -- and we really want it to stay this way. To see the actual change, select all the jigsaw puzzle shapes, as shown in Figure 9. Make sure you only select these jigsaw puzzle shapes and nothing else.

    Jigsaw puzzle shapes selected
    Figure 9: Jigsaw puzzle shapes selected
  9. Right-click these selected shapes, and from the context menu that appears, select the Format Object option to bring up the Format Shape Task Pane, as shown in Figure 10. Within the task pane select the Slide background fill radio button (highlighted in red within Figure 10).

    Select the Slide background fill radio button
    Figure 10: Select the Slide background fill radio button
  10. Figure 11 below shows the result of applying the Slide background fill to the jigsaw shapes.

    Jigsaw picture puzzle created
    Figure 11: Jigsaw picture puzzle created
  11. You may further want to change the jigsaw puzzle shapes' line width, or change the line color. All of these changes can be done within the Format Shape task pane - so that the jigsaw puzzle shapes stand apart from each other more distinctly. See Figure 12, where we changed the line width and the line color.

    Jigsaw puzzle shapes with thicker outlines
    Figure 12: Jigsaw puzzle shapes with thicker outlines
  12. Save your presentation.

Tips:

  • Remember, once you have a puzzle slide of this sort created, all you need to do is change the background of any particular slide to another picture to create a new picture puzzle!
  • You can animate individual puzzles to come one after the other (or to exit as required).
  • This technique works with any other shape, not just puzzles.

See Also:

Puzzle Pictures in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac
Puzzle Pictures in PowerPoint 2007 and 2010 for Windows


Pictures in Presentations

Is a picture is worth a thousand words? You probably have heard this adage so often that we decided not to repeat this phrase throughout this book! Now here’s some more info: the human brain uses a larger part of its area to store visual information rather than textual content. And that’s possibly because a picture describes so much more than text.

Go and get a copy of our Pictures in Presentations ebook.


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