How to design a seamless repeating pattern with PowerPoint

The easiest way to create a seamless repeating pattern is just with a bit of paper. Draw anything on the paper, leaving the edges clear. Cut it in half vertically, swap the bottom and top and and rejoin the (opposite) edges with tape on the reverse. Do the same horizontally. You’ll now have a bit of white space in the middle, draw in that, then your ’tile’ is ready to be photocopied and tessellated. Really good instructions here on Skillshare: 5 steps to illustrating a repeat pattern by hand.

You can do this on a computer too (suggested instructions for Canva) and I’ve done it in PowerPoint (instructions below). Yes, I’m quite smug about having worked this out!

The text below accompanies the video called “Designing a seamless repeating pattern with PowerPoint”.

If you want to play along you can use my design or create your own. Download a copy of the PowerPoint file here (remember if you make a mistake you can just come back here and download a fresh copy).

1. Open new PowerPoint presentation, switch the Rulers ON in the View tab
2. Select workspace size. E.g. to create a 20x20cm square slide click on the Design tab, Slide Size, Page Setup, Slide sized for: Custom, set to 20cm, then Yes / OK when it asks you about scaling up
3. Add any image / elements / shapes avoiding the edges

General advice: (1) you can use the Escape key, or click into ‘no man’s land’ – the grey bits outside the image elements, to deselect all elements so that you can then pick what you want to select. (2) To select multiple items hold down the SHIFT key. (3) Ctrl+Z will undo the previous action (and you can keep pressing the Z to go back a few steps) if you make a mistake.

Switch ON the ruler (View > tick next to ruler). I’ve used a custom square shaped slide (20×20 cm).

00:00 – 00:09
I’ve created a PowerPoint slide (Slide One) and inserted a selection of shapes (Insert > Shapes), moved them around and changed their colour, while leaving the edges free. I then selected all the elements (Ctrl+A) and right-clicked Save as Picture, which I imported into Slide Two.

First we’ll split the picture in half, vertically.

00:10 – 00:18
Need to use a rectangle shape (Insert < Shapes, select rectangle shape) as a dividing line. (I didn’t get it to work if I tried inserting an actual line!) and make it as thin as possible.

00:19 – 00:27
Select the line and right-click > Size and Position to bring up the options box. Choose 0.01 cm for the width.

00:28 – 00:33
Click and drag the line on top of the picture and centre it so that it lines up with the 0 in the ruler above.

00:34 – 00:35
De-select all items either by clicking the Escape key or click into the grey area outside the white workspace (this is because the order in which you select the picture and the thing that will bisect it can matter).

00:36 – 00:48
Click the image first to select it, then (while holding the SHIFT key) click the line. The Shape Format option in the menu will appear, click that and then look for the two overlapping circles icon on the left (it’s called Merge Shapes), select Fragment.

00:49 – 00:56
Three elements are now selected: the left fragment of the image, the right, and the line that split them. Get rid of the line. To do this hold the SHIFT key and click the left and right fragments to deselect them, leaving the line selected, which you can then delete (backspace key for me on a Mac).

00:57 – 01:11
Select either the left or the right panel and, once selected, use the arrow keys on your keyboard to push to the opposite side. I don’t recommend dragging it over because it’s easy to misalign it (Ctrl+Z if you do). You now have the pattern on opposite sides to itself. Make sure the edges of the image are on the edge of the workspace.

01:12 – 01:16
You’re going to do exactly the same with the top and bottom of the image.

01:16 – 01:19
You have two panels and I didn’t manage to get one line to bisect them, so made two lines and did the left first then the right – and that worked fine, so that’s my suggestion.

01:20 – 02:02
Insert > Shape > select Rectangle and click and drag to create one horizontally, right-click, Size and Position – make the height 0.01 cm, so it’s long and thin. Duplicate (select the first one, Ctrl+C to copy, Ctrl+V to duplicate).

Line them up carefully (select both to see that the little square boxes at either end are aligned)

02:02 – 02:09
Drag both horizontal lines onto the picture and line up with the 0 in the ruler on the left.

02:10 – 02:18
Ensure the line covers all of the panel you’re going to bisect (so that the line sticks out at either end).

02:19 – 02:26
Select the panel to be cut, (hold SHIFT) then the line, then click the Shape Format in the menu, then the overlapping circles icon and fragment.

02:26 – 02:44
Repeat the process with the other panel, ensuring the line cuts across it. Select panel, (hold SHIFT) then select the line, Shape Format, circles icon, fragment.

Note: if you are tweaking the positioning of the line make sure you’ve deselected the image panel so that only the line moves.

02:44 – 02:50
Ctrl+A to select ALL elements (4 fragments plus 2 lines), then hold the SHIFT key and de-select the four fragments leaving just the two lines selected and delete them.

A NOTE OF CAUTION
To make sure everything lines up correctly on your pattern make sure that whenever you move a panel up or down you move BOTH panels in that plane. E.g. if moving the top right UP / DOWN you also need to select the top left to go with it. Similarly if you are moving a panel horizontally from right to left you also need to select the one above or below it, to move with it.

You can just select any two fragments to move, or you can temporarily group them (right-click > Group > Group) and can ungroup them later (right-click > Group > Ungroup) to ensure you’re moving them together.

02:50 – 03:03
Select the two fragments at the top (optional: group them) and use the down arrow key on your keyboard to shift them into place. Do the same with the two fragments at the bottom.

03:03 – 03:24
Ensure the edge of the image is flush with the edge of the white square slide. This might involve a bit of tweaking – be careful to select two fragments to move in a particular direction so that everything lines up.

Troubleshooting: if you move one of the four fragments out of alignment and Ctrl+Z (undo) doesn’t sort it out then you can try inserting a horizontal or vertical line (Insert > Shapes > Line, draw line while holding SHIFT key so that it is set at horiz or vert) and moving it into position then adjusting the fragment so it lines up again.

03:24 – 03:30
Fill in the white space created with the rest of your pattern (not shown in video). You can now save this as an image, resize and tesselate it. If you are printing on paper remember that you’ll need to cut neatly around the image as the printer will add margins – in fact you may want to slightly shrink your image to take account of that to ensure the pattern template will tessellate properly.

03:30 – 03:34
I’ve added a bunch of pink shapes into the space to demonstrate but I’m sure yours will be much more artistic 🙂