Advanced PowerPoint:
Master Background Image

Step-by-Step: Background Image

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What you will learn:

to add a Title Master to add a background image to title master to format placeholder text

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Start with: ,  nz.ppt

In this lesson you will be adding a background image to the Title Master and formatting the Title text to show up well over the photo background.

Add Title Master

The presentation nz.ppt only has one slide master. You need to add a Title Master and then format it.

1. If necessary, open nz.ppt from your Class disk.
    
2. Open the Master view. (View | Master | Slide Master)
    
   There is only one master - the slide master.
    
3. Click the Insert New Title Master button on the Masters toolbar.
   
   
    
   A new master appears with the Title layout and the same formatting as the slide master.
    

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Title Master: Background Image

You will use a photo as the background for the Title Master. Photo backgrounds are hard to work with for normal slides, but for a title slide you should be able to position and format the text to be easy to read.

1. Right click on the background of the slide.
    
2. From the popup menu select Background...
   The  Background dialog appears.
   
    
3. Open the color palette by clicking the arrow at the right end of the color bar.
    
4. Select Fill Effects and then the Picture tab.
    
5. Click the Select Picture... button. The Select Picture dialog opens.
    
6. Navigate to the resource files on your hard drive and select the image beach.jpg or type in the full path to the image.
   The default location is -
    C:\My Documents\complit101\presentations\beach.jpg
    
7. Check the box for Lock picture aspect ratio. This will keep the picture from being stretched out of shape. For this particular picture, you might not notice the difference unless you can see the two versions side by side.
    
8. Click on OK to close the Fill Effects dialog and return to the Background dialog.
   
    
9. Click the Preview button. Looks good inside PowerPoint!
    
10. Click the Apply button.
    (NOT Apply to all!)
    You are returned to the Master view with a new background for your Title Master.
     

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Title Master: Format Text

The green text is not showing well over part of the photo background. That is a common problem with backgrounds that have both light and dark areas behind the text. There are a few formatting tricks to help - font color, shadowing, place holder background color with transparency. For this one, you need to use all the tricks!

1. Click in the Title placeholder to select it.
    
2. Font Color: Change the font color to white using the Font Color palette on the Formatting toolbar.
    
3. Shadow: Click the Shadow button to shadow all of the text.
    
4. Placeholder Background: On the Drawing toolbar, click the arrow beside the Fill button and choose More Fill colors....
   The Colors dialog appears.
    
5. If necessary, select the Standard tab.
    
6. Click on gray hexagon on the top row, 3rd from left.
    
7. Set the transparency to 50%.
   Using a partial transparency allows the photo to show through but it won't compete as much with the text. A good compromise!
    
8. Click on OK.
    
9. Click out of the placeholder to deselect it and see the effect of your changes. Better! Now your text shows well over both the ocean and the forest in the photo background.
    
10. Close the Master view and switch, if necessary, to show the title slide.
     

    
     

11. Click the Slide Show button on the Views bar to see your title slide at full screen size.
     
    Hmmm. That photo is rather fuzzy. The detail at the right is at full size.  The effect will be even more noticeable when projected onto a wall screen. This presentation is intended to be viewed on a monitor, so this background would be acceptable, but not great.
    
    Why so fuzzy?? Two causes:
    • Enlarging: The image is only 485 x 318 pixels. PowerPoint enlarged the photo to fit the slide, about 960 x 720 pixels, which enlarged each pixel in the original.
    • Sharpening: The original photo was sharpened in a graphics program. This causes the outlines around edges. 
12. Save As  nz-background.ppt to your Class disk.
    How to handle a full Class disk