Texture Fills for Text in PowerPoint 2010 for Windows

Although you can fill text with a texture in PowerPoint, the appearance of the text depends upon the texture you use, and how well it contrasts with the slide background. For reasons of readability, make sure that the texture used is not too crowded or even multicolored. And as already stated, choose a texture that contrasts with your slide background. Look at the slide shown below in Figure 1. Notice that the text on the top part of the slide has a texture fill that almost merges with the background. The texture used as a fill for the text on the bottom part of the slide looks so much better than the earlier example.

Figure 1: Two examples of Texture fills for text

Follow these steps to learn how to apply a texture fill to your text in PowerPoint 2010 for Windows:

1. Select text to which you want to apply a texture fill. Alternatively, if you just want to follow this tutorial step-by-step, insert a text box on a blank slide and type some text in it. Also, change the text font to something "blockier", such as Arial Black (see Figure 2). Select the text, or the entire text box to bring up the Drawing Tools Format tab on the Ribbon as shown highlighted in red within Figure 2.
2. 
   Figure 2: Drawing Tools Format tab of the Ribbon
Note: The Drawing Tools Format tab is a Contextual tab. These tabs are special tabs in the Ribbon that are not visible all the time. They only make an appearance when you are working with a particular slide object which can be edited using special options within these tabs.
2. Within the Drawing Tools Format tab, locate the WordArt Styles group. Then click the Text Fill button that you can see highlighted in red within Figure 3.
3. 
   Figure 3: Text Fill button within WordArt Styles group
3. This opens the Text Fill drop-down gallery. In this drop-down gallery, select the Texture option (highlighted in red within Figure 4) to open Texture sub-gallery as shown in Figure 4 (highlighted in blue).
4. 
   Figure 4: Texture sub-gallery
4. You can choose any of the textures from this Texture gallery by click on the preview thumbnail of your choice. If you want to make some adjustments to the selected texture, or if you want to select any Custom Texture for your text, then click the More Textures option that can be found right below all the texture previews (highlighted in green within Figure 4).
5. This opens the Format Text Effects dialog box that you can see in Figure 5. Make sure that the Text Fill tab is selected within the side pane, then click the radio button in front of the Picture or texture fill as shown highlighted in red within Figure 5.
6. 
   Figure 5: Picture or texture fill options within Format Text Effects dialog box
6. Click the downward arrow next to the Texture option to open a Texture gallery that's similar to what you saw in Figure 4, earlier on this page. If you are using a Custom Texture of your own, or a third-party texture collection, such as the one from Ppted.com, click the File button (highlighted in blue within Figure 5) among the Insert from options. To learn more about using other textures, refer to our Using Custom Textures as Fill for Text in PowerPoint 2010 tutorial.
7. In the same dialog box (see Figure 5), you'll find several Tiling options. These are explained on the Tiling Options page. Although the linked tutorial pertains to shapes, the concepts are similar enough.
8. Finally, set the transparency value for the texture fill using the Transparency slider, or by entering the transparency value in digits within the box next to the slider.
9. Select the texture of your choice and edit the selected texture further using More Textures option. Figure 6 shows the selected text with a texture fill applied.
10. 
    Figure 6: Text with texture fill applied
10. Remember to save your presentation often.