Add Pattern Fills to Shapes in PowerPoint 2013 for Windows

Pattern fills for shapes are two-color designs comprising lines, dots, dashes and checks. PowerPoint includes 48 patterns such patterns with names like Plaid, Weaves, Shingle and Zig Zag. Pattern fills for shapes are not included within the Shape fill drop-down gallery in PowerPoint 2013. But you can find this option buried within the Format Shape Task Pane. In this tutorial, we'll show you how you can access Pattern fill options:

If you want to see a sample presentation showing pattern fills in PowerPoint, scroll down to the bottom of this page.

Follow these steps to change or apply a pattern fill to a shape:

1. Open your presentation and select the shape that you want to format.

   Alternatively, if you want to start from scratch, launch PowerPoint. Most of the time, PowerPoint will open with a new slide in a presentation, you can change the slide layout to Blank by selecting the Home tab | Layout | Blank. Then, insert a shape and select it.
   

2. Right-click the selected shape, and from the context menu that appears, choose the Format Shape option as shown in Figure 1.
   
   
   Figure 1: Format Shape option
3. This opens the Format Shape Task Pane that you can see in Figure 2. Make sure that the Fill tab is selected (highlighted in red within Figure 2), then select the Pattern fill radio button (highlighted in blue within Figure 2).
   
   
   Figure 2: Pattern gallery within Format Shape Task Pane
   
   You can see the Pattern gallery on the lower half of the Format Shape Task Pane, shown highlighted in green within in Figure 2, above.
4. Choose any of the pattern styles. Figure 2 above shows that we selected a pattern named Divot. You can select any pattern all the way from 5% to Solid diamonds.
   
   Whichever pattern you choose, you can then change the Foreground and Background colors for the pattern using the Foreground and Background color buttons that you can see in Figure 2 above. When you click any of these buttons you can see the Colors drop-down gallery as shown in Figure 3.
   
   
   Figure 3: Colors drop-down gallery
   
   This drop-down gallery will work in the same way as it does for solid fills (this link takes you to one of our previous tutorials). If you don't want to change the Foreground and Background colors, just accept the default color values that PowerPoint uses.
5. Once the pattern is selected and colors are changed, you can see the previously selected shape with the pattern fill, as shown in Figure 4.
   
   
   Figure 4: Shape with pattern fill
6. Remember to save your presentation often.

Sample Presentation of Pattern Fill in Shape:

Click below to view this presentation on SlideShare

Click below to view this presentation on YouTube

See Also:

Add Pattern Fills to Shapes in PowerPoint 2016 for Windows
Add Pattern Fills to Shapes in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac
Add Pattern Fills to Shapes in PowerPoint 2010 for Windows
Add Patterns Fills to AutoShapes in PowerPoint 2003 for Windows