WordArt Styles (Quick Styles) in PowerPoint 2010 for Windows

Stylizing text is one of those features that is grossly overlooked or entirely over-used in PowerPoint. And, either of those situations can be a shame since PowerPoint allows you to do so much to text with its powerful WordArt feature. Before we proceed further, you must know that WordArt has nothing to do with Microsoft Word and is a totally independent feature in PowerPoint. What WordArt does to the text is similar to what PowerPoint's Shape Styles do to shapes. WordArt Styles are a collection of some prebuilt text styles which you can instantly apply to your text. These WordArt Styles are all Theme-specific, so if the presentation's Theme is changed, any WordArt applied also reflects the changes accordingly. Follow these steps to learn how to apply WordArt Styles to selected text in PowerPoint 2010 for Windows:

1. Select the text (or the entire text object) to which you want to apply the WordArt Style. This will activate the Drawing Tools Format tab of the Ribbon, as shown in Figure 1 (highlighted in red). Click on this tab to activate it.
2. 
   Figure 1: Drawing Tools Format tab of the Ribbon
Note: The Drawing Tools Format tab is a Contextual tab. Contextual tabs are special tabs in the Ribbon that are not visible all the time. They make an appearance only when you are working with a particular slide object which can be edited using the options within these tabs.
2. Within the Drawing Tools Format tab, locate the WordArt Styles group, then click the downward pointing arrow (highlighted in red within Figure 2).
3. 
   Figure 2: WordArt Styles group
3. This brings up the WordArt Styles drop-down gallery that you can see in Figure 3.
4. 
   Figure 3: WordArt Styles drop-down gallery
5. As you can see in Figure 3, WordArt Styles have been grouped into two categories, and there is a third option below. These are explained below, as marked in Figure 3:

A. Applies to Selected Text

6. When you select any WordArt Style within this category, it gets applied only to the selected text.

B. Applies to All Text in the Shape

7. WordArt Styles within this category get applied to the entire text object containing the selected text, even if you select just one character or word.

C. Clear WordArt

8. If you choose this option with your entire text object selected, this will clear all the text of any WordArt formatting. On the other hand, if you just select some text, then the result may not always be predictable.
4. Now, hover the cursor over any of the style previews within the WordArt Styles gallery. As you move over different previews, the selected text shows you a Live Preview of the style. Click on the preview thumbnail in the gallery to apply the style to the selected text (or text object, based on the selection you made within WordArt Styles drop-down gallery), as shown in Figure 4.
5. 
   Figure 4: WordArt Style being selected
5. Figure 5 shows the new WordArt Style applied to the selected text.
6. 
   Figure 5: WordArt Styles applied to the text
6. Remember to save your presentation often.