PowerPoint

TLC Creative is always pushing the limits of PowerPoint. A few years ago, 3D model support was introduced to PowerPoint. TLC Creative leveraged the new file format immediately for a few large corporate events where the end clients had 3D modelling assets available (making those models compatible with Office’s more limited 3D support is another topic).

Always looking to grow our design team’s skills, we are highlighting a little side project Jake on the TLC Creative design team created. This is a Microsoft Office-optimized 3D model of the IBM logo, built from a (non-3D) vector file of the logo, created in Blender.

The fun is twisting, rotating and seeing every angle when a true 3D model is added to a slide! This is a video export from PowerPoint animating the inserted 3D model using morph across a series of slides:

Download the IBM logo slide here.

We just reviewed how to make metallic text with gradients, but we can also use Image Fills to create unique effects as well. We used the following still images from Adobe Stock for this example:

For our first example, we just filled the text with the images. Right-click on your text box and select FORMAT SHAPE. Go to the TEXT OPTIONS tab, then choose PICTURE FILL. What’s great is that the text remains editable, and the image will make itself a pattern to fit as much text as is necessary.

Next we took this image-filled text and added a gradient outline on the text to help jazz it up a little bit. Right-click on your text box and select FORMAT SHAPE. Go to the TEXT OPTIONS tab, then scroll to TEXT OUTLINE. We added a similar gradient from our Metallic Lines post. This helps give the text a literal border, as well as add a little more dimension to the text.

Finally, we added a bevel in addition to the image fill and gradient outline to really elevate the metallic look. Right-click on your text box and select FORMAT SHAPE. Go to the TEXT OPTIONS tab, then the EFFECTS tab. Adjust the bevel depth until you get the effect you’re looking for. We used a deeper bevel to match the bold font.

We’ve reviewed creating metallic effects on shapes and lines, but the real question is – how does it work on text? The answer is, very well and very easily. Adding metallic effects on text is simple to accomplish in PowerPoint, and the best part is that the text will always remain editable even with the effects applied.

To start off, we’re just applying a gradient to the text. Right-click on your text box (important, make sure it’s the text box and not while editing text) and select FORMAT SHAPE. Go to the TEXT OPTIONS tab, and under TEXT FILL, apply a GRADIENT FILL. Here we used a 6-stop gradient to get all the metallic colors, and a 10° angle to get a reflective effect. Download an editable PowerPoint slide with the Gold, Bronze, and Silver metallic text here.

We can further emphasize the metallic effect by adding a bevel onto the text. This can be tricky depending on the font you use – fonts with thin serifs like this one can be problematic with the bevel, but it worked well in this case. Right-click on your text box and select FORMAT SHAPE. Go to the TEXT OPTIONS tab, then the EFFECTS tab. Adjust the bevel depth until you get the effect you’re looking for. Here we used a slightly different gradient for a different look. Download an editable PowerPoint slide with the Gold, Bronze, and Silver metallic text here.

Continuing our exploration of PowerPoint’s capabilities to create metallic effects on shapes, let’s look at how we can create some metallic lines. These are super useful for underline effects, outlines, or other accents in your presentation.

For this first example, we used a very similar gradient to yesterday’s shapes. Select any PowerPoint line, right-click and select FORMAT SHAPE, go to the LINE section, and select the GRADIENT line option. Here we used a linear gradient, 4 gradient stops, but 0 angle. Download an editable PowerPoint slide with the Gold, Bronze, and Silver metallic lines here.

For a more sophisticated metallic look in this example, we added more gradient stops (7 total) with darker colors. The thinner lines also create a more elegant look. Again, create any PowerPoint line, right-click and select FORMAT SHAPE, go to the LINE section, and select the GRADIENT line option. Download an editable PowerPoint slide with the Gold, Bronze, and Silver metallic lines here.

We can make these lines even more convincingly metallic with the same bevel trick that we used with the shapes. The gradient used here is similar to the above 7-stop gradient, with a bevel effect applied on top. Right-click on your PowerPoint line and select FORMAT SHAPE, go to the EFFECTS tab, and open the 3-D FORMAT options. Manipulate the bevel depth for different effects. Download an editable PowerPoint slide with the Gold, Bronze, and Silver metallic lines here.

Adobe Illustrator is the best vector art program for creating metallic effects. Adobe Photoshop is an amazing raster image editing app with tons of presets for realistic metallic effects. PowerPoint… We use metallic effects in PowerPoint all the time! These are surprisingly simple gradients that can be created and applied directly in PowerPoint. Over the next several posts, we’re going to highlight some great ways to create and apply metallic effects in PowerPoint.

First up is making a PowerPoint shape have a metallic fill. By using the right colors and gradient stops, you can achieve some pretty nice metallic effects on any sort of PowerPoint shape. Select any PowerPoint shape, right-click and select FORMAT SHAPE, go to the FILL section, and select the GRADIENT fill option. This examples uses a linear gradient, a 60° angle, 4 gradient stops with slightly lighter and darker hues, and an off-center position. 

Download an editable PowerPoint slide with the Gold, Bronze, and Silver metallic shapes here.

You can also make the metallic effect even more emphasized by layering a PowerPoint bevel effect on the shape. Same thing; FORMAT SHAPE > FILL > GRADIENT. Then go to the EFFECTS tab > 3-D FORMAT. Download an editable PowerPoint slide with the beveled effect Gold, Bronze, and Silver metallic shapes here.

Working on densely layered or animated PowerPoint slides is where the Selection Pane shines. It is almost essential to be able to hide select layers. Usually this involves navigating to the selection pane hidden deep in the view tab. Tip: every TLC Creative computer has the Selection Pane on the QAT for fast access. To do things even faster, the Brightslide add-in has a 1 click toggle to turn off the visibility of any element selected!

Select any object, go to BRIGHTSLIDE, SELECTION & OBJECT section, and click the “hide eyeball” icon. Done, object has been turned off on the Selection Pane!

There is only one option in the BrightSlide tools to turn an object back on – that is to turn on ALL of the objects in the selection pane. Go the the Brightslide tab and click the “eye” icon to turn on all hidden layers.

The BrightSlide add-in for PowerPoint can be downloaded for free at: https://www.brightcarbon.com/brightslide/

Troy @ TLC