Understanding Color Schemes

Every presentation has at least one color scheme. A presentation with more than one set of slide masters can have more than one color scheme. A color scheme can be a set of custom colors that you choose, or it can be the default color scheme. Understanding color schemes helps you create professional-looking presentations that use an appropriate balance of color for your presentation content.

The default color schemes in PowerPoint are made up of a palette of eight colors. These colors appear on the menu when you click the Fill Color or Font Color button list arrow on the Drawing toolbar.

These eight colors correspond to the following elements in a presentation:

Background. This color is the canvas, or drawing area, color of the slide.
Text and lines. This color contrasts with the background color. It is used for typing text and drawing lines.
Shadows. This color is generally a darker shade of the background.
Title text. This color contrasts with the background color.
Fills. This color contrasts with both the Background color and the Text and lines color.
Accent . This color is designed to work as a complementary color for objects in the presentation.
Accent and hyperlink. This color is designed to work as a complementary color for objects and hyperlinks .
Accent and followed hyperlink. This color is designed to work as a complementary color for objects and visited hyperlinks.

graphics/03inf18.jpg