The Stretch shapes in PowerPoint features let you stretch selected shapes on your PowerPoint slide to match the first shape selected. You can also stretch shapes to fill space between objects, so that selected shapes meet.

The stretch features lets you stretch selected objects in PowerPoint, to match the far edge of the first selected object. You can stretch shapes to match the left or right hand side of first selected shape. You can also stretch shapes to fill the gap between the shapes, so that they meet.

The feature is useful when you have a PowerPoint slide with shapes of different sizes, but you need them to align to a common start or end point (e.g., useful for PowerPoint Gantt chart diagrams where workstreams start at different points but all end on the same date).

There are separate feature buttons on the Format toolbar (which can also be assigned custom shortcut keys). The options include the Stretch shapes in PowerPoint features:

  • Stretch left / Extend to left edge: Stretch shapes left stretches the selected shapes to match the left hand boundary of the first selected shape on your PowerPoint slide (so the shapes align at the left hand boundary)
  • Stretch right / Extend to right edge: Stretch shapes right stretches the selected shapes to match the right hand boundary of the first selected shape on your PowerPoint slide (so the shapes align at the right hand boundary)
  • Stretch top: Stretch shapes top stretches the selected shapes to match the top boundary of the first selected shape on your PowerPoint slide (stretch up, so the shapes align at the top boundary)
  • Stretch bottom: Stretches shapes bottom stretches the selected shapes to match the bottom boundary of the first selected shape on your PowerPoint slide (stretch down, so the shapes align at the bottom boundary)
There are also Stretch shapes to Fill gaps features - these buttons increase the size of selected shapes to remove any gap between the shapes:

  • Fill left: Stretches the selected shapes to match the right most boundary of the first selected shape on your PowerPoint slide (so the shapes meet)
  • Fill right: Stretches the selected shapes to match the left most boundary of the first selected shape on your PowerPoint slide (so the shapes meet)
  • Fill top: Stretches the selected shapes upwards to match the bottom most boundary of the first selected shape on your PowerPoint slide (so the shapes meet)
  • Fill bottom: Stretches the selected shapes downwards to match the top most boundary of the first selected shape on your PowerPoint slide (so the shapes meet)