"Align" buttons - which is the anchor

[Mark Durrenberger]

When I use the "Align middle" (tops bottoms centers etc) I can't seem to
figure out which is the anchor

I've tried assuming it was the first item I shift-clicked and the second
item I shift-clicked in both cases a text box took priority (aka the anchor)
over an autoshape... so how do I "give priority" to the autoshape?

Hope this makes sense.

Thanks,
Mark


--
_________________________________________________________
Mark Durrenberger, PMP
Principal, Oak Associates, Inc, www.oakinc.com
"Advancing the Theory and Practice of Project Management"
________________________________________________________

The nicest thing about NOT planning is that failure
comes as a complete surprise and is not preceded by
a period of worry and depression.

- Sir John Harvey-Jones

 

[Bill Foley]

You really can't unless you put that object as the topmost, leftmost,
bottommost, or rightmost, etc. When you select several objects and align
them to the a position (like "top"), they are aligned to the top of the
topmost object, etc.

Hope that helps.

 

[Bill Dilworth]

There is no 'anchor' in using these functions, except for the edges of the
selection area.

If you have 3 objects selected and hit the align middle (vertical
alignment), PowerPoint will place the middle of each object's frame exactly
halfway between the top of the top-most item's frame (within the selection
range) and the bottom of the bottom-most object's frame (within the
selection range). Note that the frame of the object is the key, not the
visible parts within it. The order of selection and object types do not
matter.

Similarly, align top moves the top of all the objects to the top of the
top-most object's frame.

The wording gets a bit confusing, but the concept is pretty straight
forward. Does this make sense the way I explained it?
--

Bill Dilworth
Microsoft PPT MVP Team
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answer most of our questions, before com
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[Geetesh Bajaj]

The left-most item is the anchor for left aligning.
The right-most item is the anchor for right aligning.
The top-most item is the anchor for top aligning.
The bottom-most item is the anchor for bottom aligning.

Place one of the items on the extreme that you want to anchor (left, right,
top, bottom) and then choose the other elements and choose the Align option
you need - this will align it to the first item.

With center aligning, the center of all items selected is the anchor.

You can also align items to a slide:

How do I center content on a PowerPoint slide?
http://www.indezine.com/notes/2004/07/how-do-i-center-content-on-powerpoint.html

 

[Mark Durrenberger]

Ah... and what about middles?

Thanks for your help. I guess what I really want is an "Align to an object"
btw the align when building a Visual basic form works differently - it
aligns to a seleted object

Regards,
Mark

--
_________________________________________________________
Mark Durrenberger, PMP
Principal, Oak Associates, Inc, www.oakinc.com
"Advancing the Theory and Practice of Project Management"
________________________________________________________

The nicest thing about NOT planning is that failure
comes as a complete surprise and is not preceded by
a period of worry and depression.

- Sir John Harvey-Jones

 

[John Langhans [MSFT]]

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