Add connector point to a line in PPT 2010 (2)

In my previous blog I explained that all lines you draw are connector lines. What if you want an ordinary line that can be edited?

Well the answer is quite simple, use the freeform tool to draw your line. Select it by going to Insert - Shapes - Under the lines item select Freeform, in my screenshot it was already in the recently used shapes section.

Draw your line, if you want use the shift to make it a perfect straight line:

Now when you right click the line you will be able to edit points.

Right click the line and choose Add point:

This is the result on our slide, observe that one can connect to the newly added point on the Freeform shape. Moving the Freeform shape or the extra connecting line moves them both. But they do not connect to the rectangle.

Add connector point to a line in PPT 2010 (1)

You may have noticed that; starting with PPT 2007, all lines you draw are connector lines. You can see that if you right click on a line, in the quick menu there will be no option to edit points only change the connection type.

Unfortunately connector lines cannot be edited to have extra connector points.

Here's a slide where lines connect text boxes and rectangular shapes.

As you can see there are red dots on either side of the lines, which indicates that they are connector lines.

On the following slide one of the lines is different:

As you can see the second line is no connector line, there are no red connector points and it can be rotated.

So how did we draw that line? I will explain in my next entry.

Behaviour of lines in PPT 2007/2010

Behaviour of lines in PPT 2007/2010

Some of you may have noticed that line drawing is not what it used to be. In PowerPoint 2007/2010 all lines are behaving like connectors. The lines you draw will snap to the red connect handles on shapes. So when you draw a line and approach an object to the middle of the object it will snap to it. 
Turning off "Snap objects to grid" or "Snap objects to other objects" will not help.

The only way I know to avoid the connectors to appear is to use the Alt key to draw your line, only then the connectors will not show.

If you use the Freeform tool to draw the lines, they will not act as a connector. Remember that you should click once to choose the beginning point of your line, move the mouse and double click to end the line.