Use WordArt to produce special text effects in PowerPoint 2007
Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007 Step by Step
By Joyce Cox and Joan Preppernau
Joyce Cox has over 20 years' experience in the development of training materials about technical subjects for non-technical audiences, and is the author of dozens of books about Office and Windows technologies. Joyce is the Vice President of Online Training Solutions, Inc. (OTSI). She was President of and principle author for Online Press, where she developed the Quick Course series of computer training books for beginning and intermediate adult learners. She was also the first managing editor of Microsoft Press, an editor for Sybex, and an editor for the University of California.
Joan Preppernau is the author of over a dozen books about Windows and Office. Having learned about computers literally at her father's knee, Joan's wide-ranging experiences in various facets of the computer industry contribute to her enthusiasm for producing interesting, useful, and understandable training materials. Joan is the President of Online Training Solutions, Inc. (OTSI) and an avid telecommuter. The power of the Internet and an obsession with technology have made it possible for Joan to live and work in New Zealand, Sweden, Denmark, and various locations in the US during the past 15 years.
To learn more about other books on the 2007 Microsoft Office system, visit Microsoft Press.
If you want to add a fancy title to a slide in your Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007 presentation, and you can’t achieve the effect you want with regular text formatting, you can use WordArt. With WordArt, you can visually enhance text in ways that go far beyond changing a font or font size. But you don’t have to be an artist to create stylized text, because WordArt now includes galleries of styles that stretch your words horizontally, vertically, or diagonally to shape them in fantastic ways.
This article shows you how to add stylized text to a slide and then modify the appearance of the text. The example in this article uses WordArt to enhance the title Organization 101 on the title slide of a PowerPoint presentation.
On the title slide of the PowerPoint presentation, delete the title placeholder.
On the Insert tab, in the Text group, click the WordArt button.
The WordArt gallery opens, displaying a list of styles.
Click the last thumbnail in the third row (Fill – Accent 2, Double Outline – Accent 2).
PowerPoint inserts a WordArt object in the slide with placeholder text formatted according to the style you selected.
With the placeholder text selected, type Organization 101.
The replacement text has the same style as the placeholder text.
Move and resize the WordArt object so its frame spans the middle of the top half of the slide.
On the Format contextual tab, in the WordArt Styles group, click the More button, and then in the WordArt Styles gallery, click the style you want to use. In our example, we clicked the fourth thumbnail in the first row (Fill – White, Outline – Accent 1).
In the WordArt Styles group, click the Text Fill arrow, and then under Standard Colors, click the color you want to use. We clicked the first red color (Dark Red).
In the WordArt Styles group, click the Text Outline arrow, and then under Theme Colors, click an outline color you want to use. We clicked the last box in the first row (Indigo, Accent 6).
In the WordArt Styles group, click the Text Effects button, point to Transform, and then under Warp, click the last thumbnail in the first row (Triangle Down).
Click the Text Effects button again, point to Reflection, and then under Reflection Variations, click the second thumbnail in the second row (Half Reflection, 4 pt offset).
The reflections vary by the amount of reflection shown and the starting point below the text.
Drag the pale blue handle in the middle of the bottom of the frame down until the reflection sits just above the subtitle.
The letters in the middle of the WordArt object stretch so that the triangle effect is more exaggerated.
Click an edge of the slide to release the selection and see the results.