PowerPoint Tips & Tutorials

Use materials and lighting for interesting fills

You can fine tune the fills of your AutoShapes (Shapes, in 2007) by applying a variety of surface materials and lighting treatments. The differences are subtle but can impart a more professional result and create a realistic 3D look. PowerPoint 2007 has added many additional material and lighting settings. I've covered PowerPoint 2007 separately below.

For PowerPoint 2002/2003

In PowerPoint 2002 & 2003, you have a few options for changing the surface characteristics of an AutoShape by choosing one of 4 surfaces. You can also change the direction of the light and its brightness. These settings are all on the 3D Settings toolbar.

To start experimenting with these settings, follow these steps:

1. Insert an AutoShape on a slide. Even better, insert several identical AutoShapes so that you can try out variations and compare them.
2. Select on of the AutoShapes.
3. Click the 3-D Style button on the Drawing toolbar.
4. The 3-D Style menu pops up. For this exercise, choose the upper-left button, called 3-D Style 1. You need to choose a 3D style to use these features.

5. Click 3-D Settings at the bottom to open the 3-D Settings toolbar.

6. Click the Surface button to open the Surface menu.

7. Choose the surface that you want:

• Wire Frame: Doesn't fill in the AutoShape, just showing the outlines
• Matte: The default. Doesn't show highlights
• Plastic: Has slightly more highlights than Matte
• Metal: Has the most highlights, but appears darkest

8. Click the Lighting button on the 3-D Setttings toolbar.

9. Choose a direction.
10. Click the Lighting button again and choose Bright, Normal, or Dim.
11. Apply the 3D, surface, and lighting effects to other AutoShapes.

Here are some results:

For PowerPoint 2007

PowerPoint 2007 has added to the number of options that you have for surface and lighting effects. Follow these steps:

1. Insert a Shape on a slide. Even better, insert several identical AutoShapes so that you can try out variations and compare them.
2. Select a Shape.
3. Choose Drawing Tools Format tab>Shape Styles group >Dialog box launcher button (Format Shape dialog box)>3-D Rotation.
4. Click the Presets drop-down list. Choose the Perspective Above rotation, or another rotation that you like. This is equivalent to choosing a 3-D Style in PowerPoint 2003.
5. Click the 3-D Format category.

6. In the Depth section, enter a depth for the object, to make it 3D. In this example, I set the depth to 11 points.
7. In the Surface section, click the Material drop-down list, and choose a material. You can see that there are many more options than in PowerPoint 2003. Of special interest are the Special Effect and Translucent materials.

8. Click the Lighting drop-down list and choose a lighting option. Note that lighting affects the entire slide, not just the selected object.

Tip: For a description of the various materials and lights, click the ? at the top of the Format Shape dialog box.

9. Try out other settings on other shapes, and then click Close.

This slide displays all of the materials, with assorted lighting settings.

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