Moving, Rotating, Resizing and Flipping Shapes

Move Shapes

Move One Shape

To move a shape: Position the pointer over the shape. When the pointer changes to a four-headed arrow, hold down the mouse button and drag the shape.

To align a shape with another shape, use dynamic grid lines.

Tips:

1. To nudge a shape, click to select it, and then press an arrow key. To nudge a shape exactly multiple pixels, hold down Shift and press an arrow key.
2. To turn on the dynamic grid, on the View tab, tick the Gridlines check box in Show / Hide group.

Move Multiple Shapes

1. Select the shapes that you want to move.

   Note: To select multiple shapes, click the Select tool , and then drag a selection net around all the shapes that you want to select. ( Selection net: A means of selecting more than one shape at a time by dragging the Selection tool to define an area that encloses all the shapes to be selected.)

2. Place the pointer over one of the shapes. (The pointer changes to a four-headed arrow .)

3. Drag the shapes to their new positions. All selected shapes move the same distance and direction from their original positions.

Tip

When you move shapes, you can press Control to copy the selected shapes.

Rotate & Flip Shapes

About Center of Rotation

When you select a shape and position the pointer over the rotation handle, a plus sign in a circle appears at the center of rotation . You can move the center of rotation, called the pin (pin: The point around which a shape or text block rotates, marked by a circle with a plus sign inside it.). As you move the pointer over a rotation handle, it changes to a round arrow to indicate that you can rotate the shape.

When you select a shape and position the pointer over the rotation handle, a pin (center of rotation) appears in the center.

If you need to rotate a shape through 90 degrees, the steps are as below:

1. Select a shape, click the Rotate & Flip button in the Arrange group on Home tab.

1. Choose the Rotate & Flip angle you need.

   1. To rotate the shape counterclockwise, click -90.
   2. To rotate the shape clockwise, click 90.

Rotate a Shape Using the Rotation Handle

To rotate a shape:

1. Click to select the shape and then move the pointer over the rotation handle () until your pointer becomes a circle.
2. Drag the handle to the rotation you want.

Tips:
As you are rotating shape, the angle of single dragging depends on the distance of the mouse point and the shape pin. The larger the distance is, the smaller the angle is. The angle of single dragging may be 15 degrees, 10 degrees, 5 degrees, 1 degree or 0.1 degree. So if you want to rotate shape to a precise angle, you should drag the mouse to enough distance from the shape's pin.

large distance, little angle shorter distance, bigger angle

Rotate a Shape by Typing an Angle Value
Click to select the shape. On Home tab, in the Arrange group, click Rotation Options to open the shape Property options menu. In the Angle box, type the value of the angle you want, and then press Enter.

Rotate One Shape Using Keyboard

1. Click a shape to select it.
2. Hold SHIFT and CTRL at the same time, press LEFT or RIGHT to rotate the selected shape left or right. Shape will be rotated one degree each press.

   Note: You can select more than one shape, and use keyboard to rotate them.

Resize Shapes

Select a Shape.

Do one of the followings:

1. If the shape has selection handles , drag a selection handle until the shape is the size you want. To resize the shape proportionally, drag a corner handle.
2. If the shape has endpoints , drag an endpoint to the length you want.

Tips:

1. If you see fewer than eight handles on a shape, zoom in on the drawing to see the other handles and to size the shape more accurately.
2. Handles that are gray boxes indicate that the shape is locked and cannot be resized.
3. When you resize selected shapes proportionally, the selected shapes will be resized keeping the width and height ratio unchanged.
4. When you resize selected shapes, if you hold Ctrl key, the selected shapes will be resized referencing center point.
5. When you resize selected shapes, if you hold Shift key, the selected shapes will be resized smoothly.