In Hollywood, when they make movies that require special effects they’ll use the infamous blue screen (although many times it’s a green screen). What they do is shoot the scene and then later replace the colored screen with a different image or video.
They choose a color screen that can easily be selected and replaced. Today, you’ll learn to do something similar in PowerPoint.
Let’s say you have a PowerPoint shape and you want to put a hole in it. In the example below, we’re going to create a piece of paper that looks like a 3-ring binder page. What we want to do is have the holes in the page be transparent.
Create the piece of paper in PowerPoint using the rectangle tool.
Then add three circles.
Fill the circles with a lime green (or any other color).
Get rid of the outline color.
Select the object and cut it from the screen (or CTRL+X). This places it on the clipboard.
Select Paste Special and paste it as a .PNG file. By pasting as a PNG file, you’ll maintain the image quality and retain any transparency.
Select the Set Transparent Color feature and click on the green color. That will make the green color transparent and you should end up with a see through hole.
That’s basically it. The transparent tool in PowerPoint 2007 and lower can only work on one color, that’s why you want the fill to be solid and to be a color that is no where else in the image. PowerPoint 2010 has a more sophisticated transparent tool feature.
Once you master this technique you’ll find all sorts of uses for it, like getting rid of backgrounds. Here’s a tutorial that shows it in action.
Paste Special is one of those commands that doesn’t get used a lot in PowerPoint, yet it offers a lot of extra functionality. Let’s look at some of what you can do with the Paste Special command.
Below I added a bunch of information from the Microsoft site with a link. If you are inclined to learn everything about Paste Special, have at it. For those looking for the nuts and bolts, here it is.
When you copy an object it gets placed on the clipboard. This allows you to paste the object copied. However, by selecting Paste Special, you can paste the object and apply some other features.
One of the reasons I use Paste Special is to create a graphic in PowerPoint and then copy and paste it as an image so that I can use the object as an image rather than as a PowerPoint object.
A good example of this might be when I want to use the picture effects with something I created in PowerPoint. By copying and Paste Special I can convert the PowerPoint object to an image file on the fly. This is a big time saver.
To learn more about Paste Special, check out the quick tutorial.
You can specify formatting when you paste slides, pictures, objects, and text from other presentations, programs, or the Web into your presentation.
For example, like pictures and other objects, text in a presentation has its own formatting — such as typeface, color, and font size. When you copy text that has different formatting into your presentation, PowerPoint automatically reformats that text to match the text in your presentation. However, you can use Paste Special to maintain the original formatting.
On the Home tab, in the Clipboard group, click the arrow under Paste, click Paste Special, and then do one of the following:
To specify the format that you want to paste the slide, text, or object as, click Paste, and then use the table below to select a format from the Use this format list.
To add a hyperlink to a separate document or presentation, click Paste Link.
Note The Paste Link option is unavailable if you cut or copied content from a document that does not support the Paste Link option, or if the document that you are attempting to link to has not been saved.
Use this format
When:
Formatted Text
You want the text to retain the formatting of the text from the other presentation, program, or Web page.
Note When you copy text from another presentation, the Web, or a different program (that has different formatting) into to your presentation, by default, that text is automatically reformatted to match the text in your presentation.
Unformatted Text
You want the text to take on the formatting of the presentation you are pasting to.
The GIF file format is limited to 256 colors, and is therefore most effective for scanned images, such as illustrations, and less effective for color photographs. GIF is also a good file format for line drawings, black and white images, small text that is only a few pixels high, and animation.
The PNG file format is similar to GIF but it provides better color support. It compresses solid areas of color while preserving sharp detail, such as the detail in line art, logos, or illustrations with text.
You can save, restore, and resave a PNG image without degrading its quality. Unlike GIF files, PNG does not support animation, and some older Web browsers and applications do not support PNG.
You can save a picture as a 16-bit graphic (for use with Windows 3.x and later).
Picture (Enhanced Metafile)
You want the contents of the Clipboard to appear as an Enhanced Metafile (EMF) format.
You can save a picture as a 32-bit graphic, which supports more sophisticated graphics functions.
Device Independent Bitmap
You want the contents of the Clipboard to appear as a Device Independent Bitmap (DIB), such as a slide acting as a graphic for use on Web pages.
A DIB is a representation (that consists of rows and columns of dots) of a graphics image in computer memory. The value of each dot (filled in or not) is stored in one or more bits of data.
The Microsoft Windows BMP format can display millions of colors. Because it is supported by several programs, it is an extremely practical file format to use when you are providing an image to someone who may not have the program in which you created the image.
Note The Display as icon check box is only available if you use Paste Link or if you paste the content as an OLE object. You can then can change the icon for the content that you pasted.
