Provide a box with a fill color and edges

Since a “Placeholder box” or text box is regarded as a shape, we can provide a background color, a gradient, a texture, or a picture to this.
To fill a “Placeholder box” or “Text box”, first select the box.
This gives us a tab called “Format” under a “Drawing Tools” contextual tab.

Then click the “Shape Fill” button.

Click this button or on the paint pot, as I call it. Then your box is filled with the last fill color.
Click on the text, or the arrow pointing downwards, on this button, and a drop-down menu will open with various options.

At the top we find the colors used in the different themes, and we will discuss themes in greater detail, in a later lesson.

Below this we have the standard colors.

The “More fill colors” option gives us a dialog box where we can choose from more colors.

The “Picture” option opens the “Picture” dialog box, where we can navigate to the image we want to set as background.
Select the file and click on the “Insert” button in the dialog box.

The “Gradient” option gives us a short list of four options.
1. “No Gradient”, 2. “Light variations”, 3. “Dark variations” and 4. “More Gradients”.
The options are many but, but if you have the time, try them all out.

The “Texture” option gives us a menu with a number of available textures, and the “More textures” option from which we can select our custom texture, by clicking on the “File” button and navigating to a particular texture .

All options also display a “Live Preview”.

The “Shape Outline” option, is actually just the same. The only differences here are the “Weight” and “Dashes” options.
The “Weight” refers to the line width of the edge and the “Dashes” are related to the line type of the edge.
I think that this is quite clear.

To fill the shape with transparent background, click the arrow pointing downwards next to the “Shape Effects” button in “Format” tab.
This opens the “Format Shape” dialog box.
On the left of this dialog, select the “Fill” tab and on the right side, move the slider to the desired transparency.

Rotating a shape:
Each shape in our slides, including the “Placeholder box”, has a pivot handle on top.
This is the green circle that you see when this box is selected.

When we move the mouse pointer over the circle, it changes into a circular arrow.
To rotate the “Text box”, click and hold the mouse button and drag the mouse pointer either to the left or right.

A second way to rotate a shape is by using the “Spin” button in the “Format” tab in the “Ribbon”.
This opens a drop-down menu with five options of which, the first four seem quite obvious.
The fifth option opens a dialog box, where we can enter the rotation angle.

Multiple columns in a box

The “Columns” are also new in “PowerPoint” 2007, .

In earlier versions of “PowerPoint”, we had to create multiple text boxes in order to display text in separate columns.
In the 2007 version, they have solved this problem.
We now have the “Columns” option.
We find the “Columns” option under the “Home” tab in the “Ribbon”.
First, select the text that is to be divided into multiple columns.
Click on the “Columns” button in the tab.
This opens the drop-down menu where we have the option of choosing 1, 2 or 3 columns.
Below the drop-down menu, we have the “Multiple columns” option.
When we click it, it opens a dialog window with two fill-in boxes.
In the upper box, you can determine the number of columns and in the lower one, you can determine the spacing between the columns.
Click the OK button when you’re done.

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