Creating professional and visually appealing documents in Microsoft Word is simpler than many people realise. One powerful yet often overlooked option is the use of Shapes in Word. Whether you want to design a flowchart, emphasise important content, or add visual interest to your pages, Word has a great selection of built-in shapes that can help bring your ideas to life.
Microsoft Word comes with a comprehensive library of shapes that you can use to create diagrams, highlight messages, or illustrate concepts. The Shapes gallery provides everything from straight lines and arrows to banners, callouts, stars, hearts, and various types of rectangles and circles, the possibilities are endless. What makes these shapes especially useful is the ability to personalise them by applying different colours, patterns, gradients, outlines, and even special effects like shadows or reflections to match your desired style.
Over the years, I’ve worked with many people who’ve told me they’ve spent far too long trying to get a shape to appear exactly the way they want, or have completely abandoned the idea because it was too frustrating. The truth is, once you understand a few simple techniques, working with shapes in Word becomes easy and enjoyable.
Insert a basic shape
Follow these steps:
- Open Microsoft Word and create a new blank document.
- Select the Insert tab from the Ribbon and click the Shapes button.
- The Shapes gallery will be displayed:
- Click on the shape you wish to insert such as the circle, using the left mouse button.
- Your cursor will now change to a cross on the page – this is not the time to start clicking all over the screen:
- Move your cursor to an empty spot in the document.
- There are two ways to create a perfect shape: the first option is to click once on the page.
- A perfect circle will appear on the page at the default size of 2.54cm x 2.54cm:
Create Perfectly Proportioned Shapes
For shapes that require equal dimensions, such as circles or squares, Word provides a simple method to maintain the correct proportions. Let’s see a little shortcut to help you create larger sized perfectly proportioned shapes using a quick shortcut key.
- Select the Insert tab from the Ribbon and click the Shapes button.
- The Shapes gallery will be displayed.
- Select the shape you wish to insert such as the circle, rectangle or line.
- Your cursor will now change to a cross on the page.
- Hold down the Shift key on your keyboard as you click the left mouse button, then drag down and across to the right to create the shape at the size you want.
- Release the mouse button & shift key when the shape is at the size you want.
- The shape will now be displayed at the size you have drawn:
- Repeat the process and create a perfect square using the rectangle shape, or draw a perfectly straight line using the line shape.
Lock Drawing Mode
Did you know that if you want to insert multiple instances of the one shapes, you can use the Lock Drawing Mode feature and you’ll be able to draw as many shapes as you want without having to go back and select the Shape again?
- Select the Insert tab from the Ribbon and click the Shapes button.
- The Shapes gallery will be displayed.
- Right-mouse click on the shape you wish to insert multiple times.
- Select Lock Drawing Mode from the menu:
- Your cursor will now change to a cross on the page.
- Click with the left-mouse button and draw the first instance of the shape.
- The cursor remains displaying as a cross.
- Repeat this to draw a second, third or fourth instance of the shape you chose.
Shapes in Word are a powerful way to add structure, emphasis, and visual appeal to your documents. With a wide variety of shapes and customisation options available, you can create everything from simple highlights to detailed diagrams and flowcharts. By learning a few basic techniques, you’ll be able to enhance your documents with ease.
If you like shapes then be sure to check out how to use SmartArt graphics in Word.
Comment below with any questions.
