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.
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:
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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.
Figure 2: Jigsaw pieces in a 5x3 grid
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Within the Home or Insert tab of the
Ribbon, access the Shapes drop-down gallery (see
Figure 3) and choose the Rectangle shape.
Figure 3: Rectangle shape selected within the Shapes drop-down gallery
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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.
Figure 4: Send the Rectangle to the back
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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.
Figure 5: Jigsaw puzzle shapes over Rectangle shape
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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.
Figure 6: Format Background button
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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).
Figure 7: Format Background Task Pane
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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.
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).
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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.
Figure 9: Jigsaw puzzle shapes selected
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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).
Figure 10: Select the Slide background fill radio button
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Figure 11 below shows the result of applying the Slide background fill to the jigsaw shapes.
Figure 11: Jigsaw picture puzzle created
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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.
Figure 12: Jigsaw puzzle shapes with thicker outlines
- 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!
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You can animate individual puzzles to come one after the other (or to exit as required).
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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