Working with Shapes in Excel

This topic is incredibly vast, so I’m going to introduce you to some basic concepts and perhaps ones you’re not familiar with. For the longest time, I myself was frustrated with drawing an oval and always have it come out a solid blue, like this:

When what I wanted was this (so I could create images with a key piece highlighted with this circle):

Each time I drew a circle I’d have to click on the Format tab (visible when the shape is selected), then Shape Fill, then No Fill:

Then I’d have to change the Shape Outline change the color to red:

And again to increase the width (weight) of the line:

I had to go through these steps each time. I eventually learned that after I did all that, I could right-click the shape and select “Set as Default Shape” (which I think should read something like “Set as Default Properties”):

Then, the next time I click on the oval shape to insert it, I get the shape I want! If I choose a different shape, like the Bevel (3rd row on the left in the Basic Shapes section of the Insert/Shapes command),

I get this (after having set the default shape as above):

By the way, if, when drawing an oval or rectangle, etc., I hold the shift key down, ovals are drawn as circles and rectangles are drawn as squares! Lines are limited to being drawn at multiples of 45°, etc.

Let’s look at another feature – working with the points of the figure. When you select the shape and right-click it, you get a command, “Edit Points”:

If I draw a simple rectangle and use Edit Points, I’ll see the shape with black handles:

These can be clicked and dragged, like this (in this figure I clicked on the top right handle and then dragged down and to the left a bit:

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When I let go of the mouse it looks like this:

If I select the object again and re-issue the Edit Points, then CTRL/click the top right point, the cursor changes to an “X”, and if I click it, I’ll see this:

This is a way to delete a point. To add a point, you can CTRL click anywhere on a line (not on a point). Doing this to the middle of the last figure gives me this:

And if instead I clicked near the top point, I’d see this:

Notice there’s a new handle (between the white squares) which can be dragged to a new place, like this:

This can be repeated as often as you like. This next figure is the result of CTRL/clicking the previous figure at the middle of the bottom line, then dragging upwards:

When you select a shape, you also get a rotation icon as seen at the top of this figure:

You click that, hold the mouse, and drag left or right to rotate it. You have full rotation access (360°). For example, here the last figure rotated:

Shapes also have a property called the “Z-Order” which determines which shape is on top of overlapping shapes. Or perhaps which is on the bottom, or in the middle. Let’s make this clearer. Suppose I have 2 overlapping shapes – an oval and a rectangle (I colored the rectangle red):

It’s clear that the red one is on top of the blue one. You can change the Z-order of the rectangle by clicking on it and selecting “Send Backward” from the “Shape Format” tab in the ribbon (which shows only when a shape is selected.):

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Then you see this:

I added a yellow triangle and sent it backwards so it looks like this:

What if I wanted the blue oval to be between the yellow and red? That is, I don’t want to send it to the back? The differences between sending it back 1 level or to the back all levels is found on the dropdown arrow of Send Backward (or Bring Forward):

I have the option of sending backward (1 level) or Send to back (all levels).

One last way to alter the Z-order. On the Home tab, at the far right is Find & Select, and at the bottom of this is “Selection Pane.”:

This gives

Here, I can make shapes invisible by clicking the “eye” next to it. Clicking it again makes if visible. If you click on the name, say “Oval 1”, the if you click the down arrow from this icon

It changes the order and the Z-order!

Before:

After

Now it’s time to play! Or maybe put these techniques to good use!