Microsoft PowerPoint :  Custom Backgrounds

by Karyn Stille

Your boss hands you the outline of a presentation he needs to close a client deal with ABC Floral.  He asks that you develop a PowerPoint presentation, and gives you a disk containing a graphic he would like to use for the background.

Oh, no!  You have never used a custom background before.  Never fear! By following this tutorial, not only will you be able to use your own graphic as a background, but also customize your color scheme for text and other elements.  Are you ready?  Let's go! 

Understanding Custom Backgrounds

You can use just about any type of graphic as a custom background in PowerPoint.  Some of the more popular file types are: .gif, .jpg, .bmp, .wmf, .png, .wpg, .cdr; and for Mac, .pic and .pict.  Because you can use .gif and .jpg files, an excellent resource for finding graphics is one of the many free Web graphic sites on the Internet.  Surf and find background textures and pictures that fit your presentation.

Once you have located/downloaded the appropriate graphic, your next step is to apply it in PowerPoint.  This article is presented as if you are starting a new, blank presentation, but remember that you can apply a new background to any existing presentation by following the same steps.

  1. Open PowerPoint, and select Blank presentation in the opening dialog box.  Alternatively, from the File menu, choose New and Blank presentation.

  2. Choose OK.

  3. Double-click on the first slide layout to make the opening Title slide in the subsequent New Slide dialog box.

  4. Right-click anywhere on the background of the slide, and choose Background.

  1. In the Background fill area of the Background dialog box, choose the drop-down arrow and select Fill Effects.

The Fill Effects dialog box offers a number of choices for customizing your background.  Gradients, textures, patterns, and pictures can be used as a background.  For our purposes here, I am presenting the two most popular, which are textures and pictures.  The basic difference, is that if you select a graphic to use as a texture, PowerPoint tiles the graphic on the background.  If you select a graphic to use as a picture, PowerPoint adjusts the picture size to fit the size of the slide.  Take a look at the this example:

 


Graphic used as a texture.


Same graphic used as a picture.

Keep this in mind when selecting pictures to use as a background.  To use a graphic as a picture, it should be large enough to cover the slide or it may look stretched or distorted, as in the second example.  Web sites that offer free wallpaper graphics for your desktop would be good places to look for graphics to use as pictures.

Note that the default size Microsoft uses for applying a full-size picture background is 720 x 540 x 16M (million colors).  So, if you have a picture to use that you want to fill the whole background without using it as a tiled texture, be sure the size is correct or the background may appear stretched and/or grainy.

Now, let's finish applying your graphic as the background...

Applying Custom Backgrounds

In our example, a tiled background is desired so a texture is applied.  However, the steps are the same when applying a picture under the Picture tab.

  1. In the Fill Effects dialog box, select the Texture tab.

  2. To use your own graphic, choose the Other Texture button.  

  3. Browse and select the desired graphic. Choose Insert and then OK on the Fill Effects dialog box.

  1. Click the Preview button if you would like to see the texture applied to the slide without making the change permanent. 

  2. If you like the way it looks, and want to apply the texture to the current slide only, choose Apply on the Background dialog box.  If you want the texture applied to all the slides in the presentation, choose Apply to All.  The dialog box automatically closes once you choose either button.

You've got it!

Now, take a look at the background example in the graphic above.  Notice how the text and chart colors no longer seem to be appropriate for the background.  Let's explore how we can customize the color scheme.

Customizing Color Schemes

To change a color scheme:

  1. Right-click anywhere on the background of the slide, and choose Slide Color Scheme.

  1. In the Color Scheme dialog box, select the Custom tab.

  2. Select the color next to the attribute you want to change, and choose Change Color.

Note:  If you are using a graphic for the background, changing the background color is not necessary.

  1. Select an appropriate color in the Change Color dialog box either by choosing one from the Standard tab or by selecting your own color from the Custom tab.  Choose OK.

  1. Continue selecting attributes and changing colors until you are satisfied with the scheme.  If you would like to make the scheme available as a standard scheme for other presentations you create, choose Add as Standard Scheme.  Standard schemes are available under the Standard tab when you right-click and select Slide Color Scheme on a background.

  2. Choose Preview to see your scheme on the slide without making the change permanent, Apply to apply the scheme only to the current slide, or Apply to All to apply the scheme to all slides in the presentation.

At your next department meeting, your boss raves about how knowledgeable you are with office applications.  To top it off, the presentation you made helped to close the largest client deal in company history!  Do I see a raise in your next review?

 

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