Text Fills in PowerPoint 2010 for Windows

Most of the time, text in PowerPoint is filled with either black or white, or any color that contrasts with the color of the slide background -- this color info is contained within the Theme applied to the presentation. There may be times when you want to change this default text fill to some other particular color. Or, perhaps you applied a WordArt Style to your text -- and you are happy with everything else within that WordArt Style except the text fill. PowerPoint's Text Fill option provides you with plenty of fill options for your text -- fill options include solid colors, gradients, textures, and also pictures. Follow these steps to explore more:

1. Select the Text or that you want to change the fill for -- you can also select the entire text box or place holder as shown in Figure 1, below. Alternatively, if you just want to follow this tutorial step-by-step, launch PowerPoint. Most of the time, PowerPoint will open with a new slide in a presentation -- PowerPoint 2010 users can change the slide layout to Title Only by selecting the Home tab | Layout | Title Only. Type some text within the Title placeholder -- you can also change the text font to something "blockier", such as Arial Black (see Figure 1, below). Make sure that the placeholder is selected.
2. This makes the Drawing Tools Format tab visible on the Ribbon as shown highlighted in red within Figure 1. Activate this Ribbon tab by clicking on it.
3. 
   Figure 1: Drawing Tools Format tab of the Ribbon
Note: The Drawing Tools Format tab is a contextual tab. These tabs are special tabs in the Ribbon that are not visible all the time -- they only make an appearance when you are working with a particular slide object which can be edited using special options within these tabs.
3. Within the Drawing Tools Format tab, locate the WordArt Styles group. Then select the Text Fill button that you can see highlighted in red within Figure 2.
4. 
   Figure 2: Text Fill button within WordArt Styles group
4. This opens the Text Fill drop-down gallery, as shown in Figure 3.
5. 
   Figure 3: Text Fill drop-down gallery
6. The options within Text Fill drop-down gallery are explained below, as marked in Figure 3:

A. Theme Colors

7. Here you can select any of the colors from the active Theme of the presentation. You can also select any of the 5 tints or shades of any Theme color. Learn more about Themes here.

B. Standard Colors

8. Here you can choose from any of the ten standard colors -- these ten standard colors are just choices of colors that PowerPoint believes to be widely used. You don't have to limit yourself to either the Theme Colors or Standard Colors, as you will learn in the next options, although it's a good design idea to use Theme colors as far as possible.

C. Recent Colors

9. Here you can find the colors most recently used. If you have just launched PowerPoint and created a new presentation, the Recent Colors option may be entirely absent since you haven't selected any color recently!

D. No Fill

10. Choose this option to remove any fill from the selected text.

E. More Fill Colors

11. This option is to summon the Colors dialog box as shown in Figure 4. This dialog box has two tabs: Standard and Custom -- to learn more about how to use these tab options, refer to the step 4-E in our Add Solid Fills to Shapes in PowerPoint 2010 tutorial -- although the linked tutorial pertains to shapes, the concepts are similar enough except the Transparency slider option which is not available for Text fill.
12. 
    Figure 4: Standard tab of the Colors dialog box

F. Picture

13. This option allows to use a picture as a fill for selected text. You need to use fairly large sized text so that picture fills look effective.

G. Gradient

With this option, you can apply a gradient as text fill.

H. Texture

14. Use this option to apply a texture as a fill for your text.

I. Pattern

15. This option is not listed within the Text fill drop-down gallery, but you can learn how to fill your text with one of the default PowerPoint patterns.
5. Choose and apply any fill for your text from within the Text Fill drop-down gallery as required. As you can see in Figure 5, we merely changed the color of the text from black to blue.
6. 
   Figure 5: Text with changed fill color
6. Remember to save your presentation often.