Setting Background

In this tutorial I will showing you how you can set your slide background using various background settings. Note that in the previous tutorial, we didn't go deep into setting background but here I'm going to explain it step by step on how to go about it. Simply follow the steps below to learn this today.

• SETTING BACKGROUND
• Step 1 - Open the slide document that you want to change its background.

• Step 2 - Click on the Design and go to the Customize group, then click on the option Format Background.

• Step 3 - Then Format Background Pane will be displayed at the right side of the powerpoint windows environment. In this pane, we have only one major sub option which is the Fill. The fill has three (3) major sections:
  The first section contains the list of fill options (Solid fill, Gradient fill, Picture or texture fill, Pattern fill) and checkbox option (Hide Background Graphics).
  The second section contains its corresponding properties depending on the fill option that is being clicked on the first section.
  The last section contains two buttons: Apply To All and Reset Background which are used to apply fill settings to all slides and reset background to its default style respectively.


We shall be looking into the fill options one after the another and explaining how their properties works.

• USING SOLID FILL 1 - The solid fill option is the first option which has two properties: Color and Transparency

• USING SOLID FILL 2 - To change the color simply click on the Fill Color icon and it will display other colors for you to choose from. Below the colors are two options: More Colors and Eyedropper. The More Colors option is used to open the other standard and custom colors, while the Eyedropper option when click upon is used to pick colors from anywhere around your slide.




• USING SOLID FILL 3 - The next property here is the Transparent. This is used to increase and decrease the opacity of the selected fill color. You can click and drag the slide range left or right, you can type in the percentage value you want inside the number input field, or you can just use the small arrow up and arrow down button inside the number input field to adjust the percentage value.

• GRADIENT FILL 1 - The Gradient fill option is the next option that can be used to set background on slides. It comes with different properties which you can set and use while setting up your background.



TIP:

Gradient fill can be defined as the gradual blending from one or more colors to another.

• GRADIENT FILL 2 - The first property in the gradient section is the preset gradients which contain different kinds of gradient fill option to use from. Click on the Preset Gradient icon, and group of gradients will be displayed as shown in the image below.

• GRADIENT FILL 3 - The next property is the Type option which is used to set how you want the gradient to be. Click type selection box and a dropdown list of gradient type will be displayed for you to select from.

• GRADIENT FILL 4 - The Direction property in gradient is used to set the direction of how the gradient color should blend. If you click on the direction icon, it will display predefined directions that you can select from.

• GRADIENT FILL 5 - The next property is the Angle option which is used to set the angle from where a particular color(s) blends in or to. This property depends on the Type property that was set.

• GRADIENT FILL 6 - The next property is the Gradients Stops options. The contains the gradient slide and two buttons to add and remove gradients stops. It works with together the next property which is the Color.

• GRADIENT FILL 7 - Color property is used to change the color of the gradients stops fills. To change the color simply click on the Color icon and it will display other colors for you to choose from. Below the colors are two options: More Colors and Eyedropper. The More Colors option is used to open the other standard and custom colors, while the Eyedropper option when click upon is used to pick colors from anywhere around your slide.

• GRADIENT FILL 8 - The Position property is used to manually change the position of the gradient stops. You can also do this by clicking the gradient stop icon and dragging it to the position you want.

• GRADIENT FILL 9 - The next property here is the Transparent. This is used to increase and decrease the opacity of the selected color. You can click and drag the slide range left or right, you can type in the percentage value you want inside the number input field, or you can just use the small arrow up and arrow down button inside the number input field to adjust the percentage value.

• GRADIENT FILL 10 - The next property here is the Brightness. This is used to increase and decrease the amount of brightness of the selected color. You can click and drag the slide range left or right, you can type in the percentage value you want inside the number input field, or you can just use the small arrow up and arrow down button inside the number input field to adjust the percentage value.



NOTE:

The last property here is the option for enabling/disabling Rotate with shape option. This is done by clicking the checkbox beside it. This option is often greyed sometimes, because of the nature of background change you are doing. It can only be used in rare cases.

• PICTURE OR TEXTURE FILL 1 - This is another option that use pictue or texture to fill your background.

• PICTURE OR TEXTURE FILL 2 - To use a picture for the background, under the heading Picture Source click on Insert Picture button. This will display an Insert Picture dialog box; with different locations you can use to insert picture from. Click on you preferred choice and continue.




• PICTURE OR TEXTURE FILL 3 - The next property is the Texture. If you click on the texture icon, it will display default texture which you can select from and use for your background.

• PICTURE OR TEXTURE FILL 4 - The next property here is the Transparent. This is used to increase and decrease the opacity of the selected picture or texture. You can click and drag the slide range left or right, you can type in the percentage value you want inside the number input field, or you can just use the small arrow up and arrow down button inside the number input field to adjust the percentage value

• PICTURE OR TEXTURE FILL 5 - The next property is use to enable Tile Picture with texture. When this property is enabled, you will be able to set it corresponding Offset, Scale, Alignment and Mirror values accordingly to your preferred choice.
  
  When the Tile Picture with texture is NOT enabled, all you need to do is to set its Offset values to the percentage that you want.
  



NOTE:

The last property here is the option for enabling/disabling Rotate with shape option. This is done by clicking the checkbox beside it. This option is often greyed sometimes, because of the nature of background change you are doing. It can only be used in rare cases.

• PATTERN FILL 1 - The Pattern Fill option is the last fill option here which is can also be used for setting you background slide in PowerPoint. Pattern fill are combination of lines and fill color in a particular order.

• PATTERN FILL 2 - To set pattern fill for your slide background, simply click on the pattern fills under the small heading Patter, as shown in image below.

• PATTERN FILL 3 - The first property in pattern fill is the Foreground color. To change this color, click on the foreground color icon and it will display other colors for you to choose from. Below the colors are two options: More Colors and Eyedropper. The More Colors option is used to open the other standard and custom colors, while the Eyedropper option when click upon is used to pick colors from anywhere around your slide.

• PATTERN FILL 4 - The second property in pattern fill is the Background color. To change this color, click on the background color icon and it will display other colors for you to choose from. Below the colors are two options: More Colors and Eyedropper. The More Colors option is used to open the other standard and custom colors, while the Eyedropper option when click upon is used to pick colors from anywhere around your slide.

• HIDE BACKGROUND GRAPHICS - This option is not really a fill option; it is only used to toggle hide/show the Background Graphics on the slides