Puzzle Pictures in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac

Do you want to create a jigsaw puzzle from a picture in PowerPoint 2011? This is actually much easier than it sounds. 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 what you see in Figure 1, below.

Figure 1: Create a jigsaw from a picture

To follow this tutorial, you can use your own jigsaw shapes, or you can buy some ready-to-use jigsaw shapes from here. Thereafter follow these steps:

1. Launch PowerPoint 2011, 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 4x3 grid
2. Within the Home tab of the Ribbon, access the Shapes drop-down gallery (see Figure 3), select the Rectangles option, and choose the Rectangle shape from the sub-menu that appears.
   
   
   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 (or Command+click) this Rectangle, and from the context menu, choose the Arrange | Send to Back option, as shown in Figure 4.
   
   
   Figure 4: Send back the Rectangle
4. You will 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 hide the Rectangle shape behind them
5. Now, change the background of the presentation to any picture that you want to use for your jigsaw. To do that, select the Themes tab (highlighted in red within Figure 6) of the Ribbon and click the Background button, as you can see in Figure 6 (highlighted in blue).
   
   
   Figure 6: Background button within the Thames tab
6. This brings up the Background drop-down gallery with, as shown in Figure 7. select the Format Background option (refer to Figure 7 again).
   
   
   Figure 7: Format Background option within Background drop-down gallery
7. This launches the Format Background dialog box, as shown in Figure 8. Within this dialog box, make sure that the Fill option is active in the sidebar. Then, select the Picture or Texture tab, as shown highlighted in red within Figure 8.
   
   
   Figure 8: Picture or Texture tab selected within the Format Background dialog box
   
   
   Tip: Learn more about picture backgrounds for slides.
8. Now, click the Choose Picture button (highlighted in blue within Figure 8, above). This opens the Choose a Picture dialog box as shown in Figure 9.
   
   
   Figure 9: Choose a Picture dialog box
   
   In this dialog box, select the picture that you want to use as a fill for the slide background, and click on the Insert button. This will take you back to the Format Background dialog box, where you can now see the selected picture in the preview area, as shown in Figure 10.
   
   
   Figure 10: Picture fill chosen for the slide background
9. Make sure that you click the Apply button (highlighted in red within Figure 10). Do not click the Apply to All button (highlighted in blue within Figure 10, above).
10. You won’t find any visible change on the slide since our Rectangle already covers the slide background, and they should stay this way. To see the actual change, select all the jigsaw puzzle shapes, as shown in Figure 11. Make sure you select only jigsaw puzzle shapes and nothing else.
    
    
    Figure 11: Jigsaw puzzle shapes selected
11. Right-click (or Command+click) the selected jigsaw puzzle shapes, and from the context menu that appears, select the Format Object option to bring up the Format Object dialog box as shown in Figure 12. make sure that the Fill option is active within the sidebar, and select the Slide background fill check-box as shown highlighted in red in Figure 12.
    
    
    Figure 12: Select the Slide background fill check-box
12. Figure 13 below shows the result of applying the Slide background fill to the jigsaw shapes.
    
    
    Figure 13: Jigsaw picture puzzle created
13. You may further want to change the jigsaw puzzle shapes' line width, or change the line color so that the jigsaw puzzle shapes stand apart from each other more distinctly. See Figure 14, where we changed the line width and the line color.
    
    
    Figure 14: Jigsaw puzzle shapes with thicker outlines
14. Save your presentation.

See Also:

Puzzle Pictures in PowerPoint 2013 for Windows
Puzzle Pictures in PowerPoint 2007 and 2010 for Windows