PowerPoint.Advanced.Presentation.Techniques [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

Working with Color Schemes

To achieve the perfect look for your presentation, you will probably want to experiment with color choices. You can probably see the trouble coming a mile away, though-if you change one color, some other color probably won't look good next to it, and then you'll end up changing that color, and so on, until you've wasted several hours making corrections manually on every single slide.

To avoid that kind of hassle, PowerPoint employs color schemes. A color scheme is a set of eight colors that are carefully chosen to look good with one another and to offer appropriate levels of contrast-so your text won't be a similar color to the background on which it's placed, for example. Each of the eight colors is assigned a named position:

Color 1: Background. This color appears as the background on the slides.

Color 2: Text and lines. All text on the slide except the slide title will appear in this color. Also, if you draw any AutoShapes, their outside borders will be this color.

Color 3: Shadows. If any elements are shadowed with the Shadow feature (Drawing toolbar, see Chapter 7), the shadow's default color is Color 3.

Color 4: Title text. This is the color for text that appears in title placeholders.

Color 5: Fills. When you draw any AutoShapes (see Chapter 7), their fill will be this color.

Color 6: Accent. For templates that use accent colors, this will be one of the colors used.

Color 7: Accent and Hyperlink. A secondary accent color, plus the color for hyperlinks that have not been followed.

Color 8: Accent and Followed Hyperlink. Another secondary accent color, plus the color for hyperlinks that have been followed.

Figure 2-9 shows a slide with the color numbers pointed out, so you can see how PowerPoint uses these color placeholders. Different templates may use them differently in minor ways.

Figure 2-9: Color selection for an object on the slide.

One of the most common uses for color schemes is to prepare "light" and "dark" versions of the same presentation. Sometimes a presenter does not know the conditions in the presentation room in advance-will a light background or a dark one be more appropriate? By testing the presentation with multiple color schemes in advance, you can know which schemes will work well with it and be ready to switch to an alternate scheme quickly when conditions dictate.

Selecting a Color Scheme

Each template comes with a default color scheme, and in most cases several alternative color schemes too. That means that if a certain template is perfect except for the colors, you can simply switch to a different color scheme-without giving up any of the other design elements of that template.

The color schemes available depend on the template. Some templates have lots of color schemes; others have only a few.

Before selecting a color scheme, you should be happy with your choice of templates. If you switch to a different template later, your color scheme choice will be wiped out, so make sure the template is correct first. Then, do the following to see what color scheme choices that template offers:

Click the Design button to open the Slide Design task pane if it is not already displayed.

Click the Color Schemes hyperlink near the top of the task pane. Thumbnail images of various color schemes appear, as shown in Figure 2-10.

Click the color scheme to apply; it is immediately applied. Try several, if needed, to find the one that looks best. Then, close the task pane.

Figure 2-10: Select from among the alternative color schemes that the template provides.

Applying a Color Scheme to Individual Slides

As with slide designs, you can also apply a color scheme to only the selected slides, if you prefer. Point to the color scheme, so that an arrow appears to its right, and then click that arrow to open a menu. Then choose Apply to Selected Slides, as shown in Figure 2-11.

Figure 2-11: Select a different color scheme for some or all slides.

Color scheme can be copied from one slide to another via Format Painter. In Normal view, make sure that the left-hand pane shows the slide thumbnails, as shown in Figure 2-11. Then click one of the slides that has the desired color scheme, click the Format Painter button, and then click the slide that needs its color scheme changed.

To switch all slides back to a common color scheme, simply reapply the color scheme by clicking on it in the task pane.

Customizing a Color Scheme

As I said before, some templates are much more generous in the number of color schemes they provide than others. If none of the color schemes suits you, customize one.

When you customize a color scheme, you redefine one or more of the color numbers as a different choice. For example, you could redefine Color 1's definition in order to change the color of the background plus any other images that are formatted using Color 1. (See Using Scheme Colors for Individual Object Formatting later in this chapter for details about how that might occur.)

It's best to start with the color scheme that is closest to what you want, because then you'll have fewer changes to make. To customize a color scheme, follow these steps:

In the Slide Design task pane, make sure Color Schemes is selected and the available schemes appear.

(Optional) To apply the scheme to certain slides only, select them.

Click the color scheme that is closest to what you want. It is applied to all slides.

Click the Edit Color Schemes hyperlink at the bottom of the task pane. The Edit Color Scheme dialog box opens, as shown in Figure 2-12.

Click a colored square representing a color you want to change, and click the Change Color button. The Color dialog box appears. Its exact name depends on the colored square you chose. For example, it's Background Color in Figure 2-13.

Select a color. You can click the color you want or enter an exact value by number. I'll explain more about these advanced ways of picking a color in Chapter 7; for now you might be better off going to the Standard tab and selecting one of the solid colored hexagons there, as shown in Figure 2-14.

Click OK.

Repeat steps 4-7 for each color to change. Click Preview if you desire to see the color choices previewed on the slide behind the dialog box.

When you're finished, click Apply. (Or, click Cancel to reject all the changes you've made.)

Figure 2-12: Edit the color scheme by redefining one or more of the color placeholders.

Figure 2-13: Select the exact color that the chosen placeholder should display for all objects formatted with it.

Figure 2-14: Select the exact color that the chosen placeholder should display for all objects formatted with it.

Saving a Custom Color Scheme

Saving the color scheme is easy. After making your changes to the color scheme, but before clicking Apply (step 9 in the preceding steps), click the Add as Standard Scheme button. It's added to the color scheme thumbnails in the Slide Design pane. There's no need to name it.

Using Scheme Colors for Individual Object Formatting

Whenever there is an opportunity to select a color for an object in PowerPoint, the drop-down list shows the scheme's colors on its first row. Below that are menu items for opening dialog boxes (which I'll get into a bit later). Figure 2-15 shows a typical list.

Figure 2-15: Color selection for an object on the slide.

If you have chosen any non-scheme colors for any objects in the presentation (which I'll get into in Chapter 7), they will appear on menus in a row immediately below the scheme colors. In Figure 2-16, for example, there is one non-scheme color that has been used. Use non-scheme colors sparingly, as they don't automatically change when you apply a different color scheme.

Figure 2-16: Non-scheme colors appear on a separate row.