Create Progress Bars in PowerPoint

Progress bars are ideal for visualizing the current status of tasks and processes. They can be used to show the current phase of a project, or how much budget has already been allocated and used. They can even be used to show the progress of a presentation in a clear and unobtrusive way, for example at the bottom of slides, so your audience can see how long the presentation will last.

How-To: Creating Progress Bars

Here’s how to create your own progress bar in PowerPoint:

• First draw a rectangle with two rounded corners.
• Rotate the shape 90° counterclockwise. To do this, simply use the key combination ALT + ← six times.

• Now copy the shape as many times as needed.
  • You can use the CTRL + C and CTRL + V commands to do this and move the copied shapes to the correct position. The intelligent guide lines that PowerPoint displays will help you align them accurately.
  • Or, you can use CTRL + D, which is described in more detail below.
• Rotate the last shape 180° to complete your bar.

• Select all shapes in the middle and in the Drawing Tools/Format > Edit Shape tab, select Change Shape and Rectangle.
• Now you can copy the progress bar to the slides you want and adjust their color.

Tip: Save Time with CTRL + D

The CTRL + D command creates a duplicate of the selected shape. If you move the copied shape to another position on the slide, every further CTRL + D command creates another copy with the same distance to the previous one. This means you can avoid aligning or arranging the shapes later on, which can be tedious! It’s a great timesaver and is much less frustrating than having to drag each shape to the right position.