There are slide decks with flat design themes and others with three-dimensional themes to add visual depth. A common way to add depth to your slides is with shadows. You can add shadows to your shapes in PowerPoint and alter the color, opacity, angle and blur radius of your shadows, just to name a few features. By the end of this Cubetorial, you will be able to:

• Add a shadow Shape Effect to a shape on your canvas
• Use a preset
• Change the color of a shadow
• Modify the transparency, size, and blur radius of a shadow
• Change the angle and distance of a shadow

A shadow is considered a Shape Effect in PowerPoint. So you need to add a shape, then add an effect.‍

Add a shape to your canvas

Open the Insert tab and click to expand the Shapes drop-down.

Select a shape (we use a Rounded Rectangle in this example) and your arrow pointer will change to crosshairs. Click-and-drag the shape across the canvas to your desired size.
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Select the shape on your canvas to enable the Drawing Tools > Format tab. Click Format > Shape Effects > and hover over Shadow to reveal a list of available presets.

Apply a preset

Select a preset to apply a shadow to your shape.

To customize shadows, select Shadow Options at the bottom of the list of presets.

The Format Shape pane will appear on the right-side of the screen. You can also set presets here in this view.

Change the color of a shadow

To change the color of your shadow, open the Shadow Color palette.

We recommend using a shade of gray for lighter shadow tones that are subtle and not too overpowering. See the example below.

Adjust transparency, size, and blur

To modify the transparency, size, and blur radius of a shadow, click-and-drag each slider to increase or decrease the effect.‍

• ‍Transparency: adjusts the shadow's visibility.

We recommend higher transparency for a subtle shadow.

• Size: adjusts the size of the shadow.

We recommend choosing a size between 100% and 102%.

• Blur: adjusts the blur radius.

We recommend using lower points for shapes placed directly on the canvas, and higher points for shapes placed over other shapes to add more visual depth.

• Angle: adjusts the angle in which the shadow appears (e.g. 0-359 degrees).

Shadow presets are a great way to see how different angles will affect the shadow's position behind your shape. We recommend starting off with a preset if you're primary goal for a particular shadow is getting the right angle for your design.

• Distance: Adjusts the position of the shadow from the shape.

Distance and angle go hand-in-hand. With distance, you can set the shadow to be closer to, or further away from, the shape. But the position of the shadow depends on the angle set for the shape. In the first block below, the distance is only 2 pts with angle of 30°; positioning the shadow slightly to the right of the shape. In the second block, the distance is 30 pts with angle of 130°; positioning the shadow further away from the shape in the bottom-left corner.

Try this with more shapes!

Adding shadows to shapes on your PowerPoint canvas can enhance the visual depth of your slides. Now is your time to practice placing a variety of shapes on your canvas and familiarize yourself with how each shadow reacts to your adjustments.

Thanks for learning! Check out more PowerPoint Cubetorials below.