Using color gradients is one of the most powerful tools a digital artist has for adding visual interest, realism, color flair, and professionalism to computer-based imagery. Formerly, such techniques were available only in certain graphic editing programs. Now they have arrived with PowerPoint 2007, much to the celebration of designers around the globe. Although an entire book (and perhaps a few books) could be filled with all the decorative effects possible when applying gradients—especially when combined with transparency—we’ll merely touch the surface here by showing how gradients are made in PowerPoint. After that, you have the rest of your life to experiment!

Note that our discussion of gradients in this segment applies to shapes, but you can form a gradient on a slide background as well. Likewise, gradients can be added to charts, tables, SmartArt, and even text.

To add a gradient to a shape, follow these steps:

Make a large rectangular shape on a slide (see Figure 1) that is taller than it is wide. We’ll form what could be used as a decorative element behind navigation shapes. If working in PowerPoint 2007, the initial shape takes on a standard dark blue color when working inside a new blank slide show.

We’ll replace this solid blue fill with a three-color gradient. Double-click the blue shape to display the Drawing Tools Format tab.

Click the Shape Fill option and pause the pointer on Gradient. The menu expands as shown in Figure 2. For those of you familiar with gradient fill effects in PowerPoint 2003, what you are looking at here is what used to be called a one-color gradient fill effect. A one-color gradient leaves the shape’s original color intact and gives you the option of choosing patterns that fade out to either a lighter or darker variation of that color. In general, one-color gradients are not especially useful, so we will explore the more versatile multicolor option.

Click the More Gradients button at the bottom of the expanded menu. The following Format Shape dialog box appears (Figure 3).

Toggle the Gradient fill option to display the options shown in Figure 4. This dialog box represents enormous potential and we could spend hours exploring all it can do. Perhaps you will over time. For now, though, let’s build a three-color gradient as planned. The three colors we will use are gray, light gold, and a purple that complements the slide pane colors. Our goal is to create a gradient that looks like the one shown in Figure 5.

Start by clicking the Direction button and changing the gradient direction to Linear Down.

Click the blue arrow next to Stop 1 in the Gradient stops group. See that there are three stops. These stops represent the three colors that will form the gradient. If you wanted four colors in the gradient instead of three, you would click the Add button to add another stop, and thus another color. Also pay attention to the Stop position slider below Gradient stops. This slider adjusts how far the currently selected stop (color) will overlap the other colors. In other words, it affects the starkness of transition between the colors. For this exercise, we will leave the sliders in their default positions.

Leave Stop 1 selected for the moment and click the Color button (Figure 6). Make this color a medium gray. Leave the transparency setting at 0%.

Select Stop 2 and make its color a light gold.

Finally, select Stop 3 and change its color to a medium purple.

Click Close to complete the gradient fill and observe the results. There is no rhyme or reason per se why we chose the color or gradient style specified. We simply experimented with different combinations and found one we liked. There could be a million other viable designs as well.

To make the gradient-filled shape look even more attractive, remove its current outline and apply a shape effect instead (Figure 7).

Double-click the shape to display the Drawing Tools Format tab if not already visible.
Remove the outline by clicking the Shape Outline button, and then clicking No Outline.

Now add a Shape Effect by clicking that button. Rest your cursor over the Bevel effect selection, and then chose Soft Round from the options. This effect causes the shape to appear indented, as though having tiny walls around the outside. It looks like it should contain something, such as a set of navigation buttons (Figure 8).

Back to Top