Changing the background

If you created a Blank Presentation, all of your slides will have a plain white background by default. Boring or minimalist…you decide. If you want to change it, do it now, while you are still (hopefully) on your first slide. Technically you can edit your default background at any time, but it can get messy to change it after you’ve already created a lot of slides. (For example, if you’ve typed all your notes in black font and you change to a black background, you’ll have to reformat your font too). I recommend choosing a subtle, basic, neutral background and applying it to all your slides ASAP. You can always change your title slide (or others) to a special background afterwards.

If you are using a design template instead of a blank presentation: You probably don’t have a plain white background. You can still change the background on any slide(s) in your presentation using these instructions, but depending on your template, you may have to check the Omit background graphics from master box (hidden by the drop-down menu in the picture below) to get rid of the template’s extra graphics.

To change your background, go to >Format - Background, and you will see the window pictured to the left. After you choose a background from the options below, clicking on Apply to All will make your new background the default for all present and future slides in your presentation. Clicking on Apply will change only the slide you have open. Background Options: 1. Solid Colour To get a solid colour as your background, just click on the little down arrow under the Background Fill box, and you will get a few colours to choose from. If you don't like these choices, click on More Colours

2. Gradient

To get to this option, click on Fill Effects (pictured above – it’s under the colour choices on the pull-down menu).  Gradients give a professional shading effect to solid colours.  The default gradient settings are extreme (e.g. all white at the top and all black at the bottom), which makes it difficult to place readable font on the slide.  You can correct this issue by choosing two colours that are similar, or by choosing one colour and playing with the dark-light spectrum under the colour chooser to make the gradient more subtle.  There are also some preset gradients, but most of them use distractingly bright colours. 

3. Texture

Click on Fill Effects, and then choose the Textures tab.  Here you can choose from a wide variety of preset textures.  A lot of the textures are loud enough to detract from your text, so it’s usually best to use these sparingly on individual slides, rather than as the background for a whole presentation. 

4. Pattern

Click on Fill Effects, and then choose the Patterns tab.  Patterns are similar to gradients – you choose two colours, then the kind of pattern you want.  The default patterns (white and blue) are annoying.  Try picking two colours that are almost the same, e.g. two similar shades of blue.  To get more colour options, click on More Colours under the colour-choosing tabs.

Pictures can also make interesting backgrounds for the body of your lecture if you are willing to do some work in image-editing software (like Adobe Photoshop, available on the workstation in the History Department computer lab).  You will need to fix the contrast and brightness of the picture to make it very faint and muted, so you can write text on top of it.  Changing a coloured picture to black-and-white can also make it less distracting.  Here is a sample image (of a protest march in DC) washed out to make an appropriate PowerPoint background:

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