Adding and Modifying a Slide Background

In PowerPoint, you can create a special background on a slide by adding a shade , a texture, a pattern, or even a picture. A shaded background is a visual effect in which a solid color gradually changes from light to dark or dark to light. PowerPoint offers one-color and two-color shaded backgrounds with six styles: horizontal, vertical, diagonal up, diagonal down, from corner, and from title. For a one-color shaded background, the shading color can be adjusted lighter or darker , depending on your needs. You can also choose a preset color background, one of 24 professionally designed backgrounds in which the color shading changes direction according to the shading style selected. In addition to a shaded background, you can also have a background with a texture, a pattern, or a picture. PowerPoint has several different textures, patterns, and pictures that you can apply to a presentation.

Select a Background Fill Effect

Click the Format menu, and then click Background.

Click the Background Fill list arrow, and then click Fill Effects.

Click the Gradient, Texture, Pattern, or Picture tab to display the available fill effects.

Click the fill effect you want.

Click OK.

Click Apply to apply the fill effect to the current slide, or click Apply To All to apply the fill effect to all slides.