Slide Background Styles in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac

Launch PowerPoint 2011 for Mac to create a new presentation, and you may typically see a single slide with a white background. Alternatively, if you open any of your existing presentations, the background of your slides may be in a different color depending upon the Theme that the presentation is based upon. You can always change this slide background to a picture, a solid color, a pattern, or even a gradient. However, considering all those options, explore the twelve Background Styles that PowerPoint 2011 for Mac offers for every presentation by default. These styles are all coordinated and also designed to work well as a set of complementary backgrounds. You can change your presentation slides to follow any of these Background Styles by following the steps explained below:

1. Create a new presentation or open an existing presentation. Figure 1, shows our sample presentation opened in Slide Sorter view.
2. 
   Figure 1: Presentation in Slide Sorter view
2. Now, you can explore the slide background options. To do so, select the Themes tab of the Ribbon. Within this tab, locate the Theme Options group which includes the Background button that you can see highlighted in red within Figure 2.
3. 
   Figure 2: Background button within the Themes tab
3. Click the Background button to open the Background drop-down gallery that you can see in Figure 3, with 12 default slide Background Styles (highlighted in red).
4. 
   Figure 3: Background drop-down gallery
Note: These 12 default styles change when you apply a different Theme to your presentation. Also, do you see the Format Background and Hide Background Graphics options below the default Background Styles? These are explained in our Format Slide Background in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac tutorial.
4. Among these twelve slide Background Styles, select any style of your choice by clicking on it. In Figure 4, you can see Style 11 is selected.
5. 
   Figure 4: Style 11 chosen for the slide background
5. This applies the selected Background Style to the entire presentation, as shown in Figure 5. Compare Figures 1 and 5.
6. 
   Figure 5: Slide Background Style 11 applied to the open presentation
7. Save your presentation.