Arrows and check marks are the small grammar of slides: an arrow says “leads to”, a tick says “done”. Getting them right — a smooth curve, a crisp tick that matches the font, shapes lined up to the pixel — is what separates a slide that looks designed from one that looks assembled. PowerPoint has everything for it; the tools are just spread over several menus.
Four ways to make a curved arrow
| Method | Looks like | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Block arrow: Arrow: Curved Right (and Left, Up, Down) | A thick, filled arrow | Big visual cues, cycles |
| Connector: Curved Arrow | A thin line that stays attached to shapes | Diagrams that will be rearranged |
| Arc with an arrowhead | A clean part of a circle | Precise, geometric curves |
| Curve (freehand) with an arrowhead | Any curve you draw | Organic, hand-drawn looks |
A curved arrow between two shapes (connector)Windows and Mac
Choose the connector
Choose Insert → Shapes and, under Lines, the Connector: Curved Arrow.
Insert → Shapes → Lines → Connector: Curved Arrow Attach both ends
Move over the first shape until grey dots (connection points) appear and drag from one of them to a point on the second shape. Both ends turn green or show a solid dot when attached.
Shape the curve
Drag the yellow handle in the middle of the connector to change how strongly it bends. Move a shape later and the arrow follows.
The yellow handle bends the connector
A precise curved arrow from an arcWindows and Mac
Draw an arc
Choose Insert → Shapes → Basic Shapes → Arc and drag while holding Shift for a circular arc.
Set its length
Drag the two yellow handles to set where the arc starts and ends.
Add the arrowhead
Choose Shape Format → Shape Outline → Arrows and pick a style, or open Format Shape → Line and set End Arrow type and End Arrow size. Set the line width under Width.
Format Shape → Line → End Arrow type
For a freehand curve choose Lines → Curve, click where it starts, click at each bend, and double-click to finish; then add an arrowhead as above. Right-click any line and choose Edit Points to move the points and their handles afterwards. The block arrows (Block Arrows → Arrow: Curved Right and the others) are filled shapes: their yellow handles set the thickness and the size of the head.
What an arrow should say
Before drawing, decide what the arrow means. A straight arrow says “leads to” or “becomes”; a curved one returns to the start and suggests a cycle or feedback; a block arrow or chevron suggests progress through stages; a double arrow means exchange. Use one meaning per arrow style throughout the deck, and let the arrows point in the reading direction — left to right, top to bottom — unless the story itself goes back. Fewer, larger arrows explain more than many small ones.
Five ways to insert a check mark
Check marks in PowerPointWindows and Mac
As an icon
Choose Insert → Icons (Microsoft 365), search “check” and insert one. It is a vector graphic you can recolour with Graphics Format → Graphics Fill and scale without blur.
Insert → Icons: searching “check” As a symbol from Wingdings
Click into text, choose Insert → Symbol, set the font to Wingdings and type 252 into Character code (Windows): that is the check mark; 254 is a ticked box and 251 a cross. Click Insert.
Insert → Symbol: Wingdings, character code 252 As a Unicode character
In Insert → Symbol choose a font such as Segoe UI Symbol, set from to Unicode (hex) and type 2713 (✓) or 2714 (✔). Unicode check marks survive copying into email and other apps; Wingdings ones turn into the letter ü.
From the Mac’s character viewer
On a Mac press Ctrl+Cmd+Space, type “check” in the search field and double-click ✓ or ✔ to insert it.
As bullets
Select a list, choose the arrow beside Home → Bullets → Bullets and Numbering…, then Customize…, pick Wingdings and character 252. Every item of the list gets a tick.
Duplicate, align and arrange shapes
Neat slides come from a few habits: copy instead of redrawing, let PowerPoint align, and name things you need to find. These are the commands and keys.
| Action | Windows | Mac |
|---|---|---|
| Duplicate | Ctrl+D | Cmd+D |
| Copy while dragging | Ctrl + drag | Option + drag |
| Keep a straight line while dragging | Shift + drag | Shift + drag |
| Group / ungroup | Ctrl+G / Ctrl+Shift+G | Cmd+Option+G / Cmd+Option+Shift+G |
| Copy formatting (Format Painter) | Ctrl+Shift+C, then Ctrl+Shift+V | Cmd+Shift+C, then Cmd+Shift+V |
Line shapes up exactlyWindows and Mac
Select the shapes
Drag a frame around them or Shift-click each one.
Align them
Choose Shape Format → Align (also under Home → Arrange → Align) and pick Align Top, Align Middle, Align Left or Align Center.
Shape Format → Align menu Space them evenly
In the same menu choose Distribute Horizontally or Distribute Vertically. With Align to Slide ticked, PowerPoint uses the slide’s edges instead of the outermost shapes.
Find hidden shapes
Open the Selection Pane (Home → Arrange → Selection Pane, Alt+F10 on Windows). It lists every object on the slide: rename, hide or reorder them there.
Combine shapes into new ones
Select two or more overlapping shapes and choose Shape Format → Merge Shapes: Union joins them, Combine cuts out the overlap, Fragment splits them along their edges, Intersect keeps the overlap, Subtract removes the second shape from the first. The order you select in matters for Subtract: the first shape keeps its colour. To draw many shapes of one kind in a row, right-click it in the gallery and choose Lock Drawing Mode; press Esc when you are done.
Swap a shape without losing its text
Change a shape into anotherWindows and Mac
Select the shapes
Select one shape — or all the boxes of a diagram with Shift-click — that should take another form, for example rectangles that should become chevrons.
Change Shape
Choose Shape Format → Edit Shape → Change Shape and pick the new form. Text, fill, outline, size and position stay as they were; only the outline of the shape changes.
Shape Format → Edit Shape → Change Shape Fine-tune the outline
For a form the gallery lacks, choose Edit Shape → Edit Points and drag the black points; right-click a point for Add Point, Delete Point or Smooth Point.
For process diagrams whose arrows bend around corners, use Connector: Elbow Arrow from the Lines group: it attaches like the curved connector and makes right-angled turns, with a yellow handle to move the bend. Diagrams built from connectors can be rearranged without redrawing a single arrow.
In Google Slides
Arrows are under Insert → Shape → Arrows (block arrows) and Insert → Line (straight, Curve, Elbow connector, Curved connector); connectors attach to the points of shapes. Set arrowheads with the Line start and Line end buttons in the toolbar. Check marks: Insert → Special characters, search “check”. Alignment is under Arrange → Align and Arrange → Distribute; group with Ctrl+Alt+G (Mac: Cmd+Option+G).
Common mistakes with shapes and symbols
- Wingdings ticks in a copied text. They become “ü” in email and other apps. Use Unicode characters or icons where text travels.
- Arrows that do not touch. A line that stops a few pixels short of a box looks careless. Use connectors, which snap to shapes.
- Shapes aligned by eye. Always use Align and Distribute; the eye is fooled by different shape sizes.
- Stretched icons. Scale with Shift held, or tick Lock aspect ratio in the Size section of the Format pane.
- Too many arrow types. Choose one line width and one arrowhead for the whole deck.
- Grouped too early. Align first, group afterwards: inside a group, Align works on the group, not on its parts.
Designs for this kind of deck
Every design brings its own colours, fonts and layouts to the whole deck.
Shapes, arrows and icons in ExpertSlides
The ExpertSlides editor has 36 shapes in its Insert tab: basic forms, rectangles and quadrilaterals, slanted panels for the slide’s edges, process steps and chevrons, block arrows in four directions and a double arrow, speech bubbles and symbols such as a star, a heart and a shield. What gives a shape its character keeps its proportion when you stretch it — an arrow’s head, a speech bubble’s tail, the angle of a slant — so there is no second handle to adjust. Change shape turns a shape into another and keeps its fill, border, label and size; borders come as solid, dashed, dotted, long dashes or dash-dot, from 1 to 12 px.
Check marks are in the icon library — more than 14,000 icons in eight styles (all of them on Pro and Business), the one-colour ones in any colour — and a table cell that holds just ✓ or ✗ is drawn as a check or cross mark by itself. Cmd+D / Ctrl+D duplicates, Cmd+G / Ctrl+G groups, and Magic Fix at its lightest level moves and aligns loose elements without rewriting the content. Many process and timeline slides of the library come with their arrows already placed.
Read on: bento slides for grid layouts built from shapes, and table borders for tidy tables. The PowerPoint AI page explains how instructions become edits, and Design Templates shows every look.
Questions, answered
How do I make a curved arrow in PowerPoint?
Use Insert, Shapes, Lines, Connector: Curved Arrow between two shapes, or an Arc from Basic Shapes with an arrowhead added under Shape Outline, Arrows. Block Arrows has filled curved arrows too.
How do I insert a check mark in PowerPoint?
Insert an icon with Insert, Icons and search check, or use Insert, Symbol with Wingdings character code 252, or Segoe UI Symbol with Unicode 2713. On a Mac, Ctrl+Cmd+Space opens the character viewer.
How do I add an arrowhead to a line?
Select the line and choose Shape Format, Shape Outline, Arrows, or set Begin and End Arrow type in Format Shape, Line.
How do I align shapes evenly in PowerPoint?
Select them, then use Shape Format, Align: first an Align option for the edges, then Distribute Horizontally or Vertically for equal spacing.
Why does my check mark turn into a ü?
It was inserted from the Wingdings font. Where the text loses that font, the code shows as ü. Use a Unicode check mark (2713) or an icon instead.
Which shapes does ExpertSlides have?
36 shapes, among them block arrows, chevrons, process steps, speech bubbles and symbols, plus more than 14,000 icons (every style of them on Pro and Business). Shapes keep their character when stretched and export as editable PowerPoint objects.
