Google Slides – Word art & Gradient fill

If you want to make some dramatic looking text, Word art can be a better option than using a normal text box. So, what’s the difference between the two?

With Word art, the text is treated like an image allowing to change the size without being limited to font sizes. It also allows you to colour the text in different ways.

We’re also going to use this tool to introduce gradient fill instead of just a solid fill. Let’s go through an example.

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Inserting Word art

Go to the “Insert” menu and select “Word art”.

This opens a dialogue box where you type your text into. If you want to add multiple lines of text, hold down Shift & Enter to add a new line. Press “Enter” to finish.

This creates your piece of ‘word art’.

Unlike a text box, we have controls more similar to that of Shapes. I.e. we can change the outline colour (fill colour), the text colour (border colour), line thickness of the outline and add dotted lines.

Let’s start with filling it red. Click on the “Fill colour” on the toolbar and select a colour.

Now let’s change the outline colour to blue, using the Border colour control.

Now let’s thicken the blue outline a little, by changing the line weight from 1 to 2px.

Not amazing, but you get the idea.

Here I’ve rotated it by clicking on and moving the blue circle in the middle of it.

Like a text box you have full access to the range of fonts.

Unlike a text box, you can stretch the text either vertically or horizontally, just like an image or a shape.

Adding a gradient fill

A gradient fill is basically filling a space with not just one colour, which is what a solid fill does but with 2 or more colours. The most basic version is with 2 colours where it the shape gradually changes from one colour to the other.

Here we have a box with a linear gradient fill, where it goes from white to black from top to bottom. Then underneath, we have a radial gradient fill where it’s white in the centre and gets progressively blacker as it goes away from the centre.

Let’s add a gradient fill to our word art. Click on the text and open the fill menu.

Select Gradient at the top and you will see the different default colour options. Like the solid fill, just click on the one you want. They are organised in pairs with linear and then radial gradients.

Creating a custom gradient fill

Let’s look at how you can create a custom gradient fill. From the colour palette click on the plus button under Custom.

Here we can change the type and the angle of the gradient. Plus, change the colours, and add more than 2 gradient points (or “stops”).

To change the gradient type, click on the Linear drop-down and you have will see the two types of gradient that can be selected.

We can change the direction of the gradient by changing the angle. Here I’ve changed it by 90^o, so it goes right-to-left not top-to-bottom.

With a radial gradient we choose where the centre is rather than the angle. For example, here the gradient radiates from the top left corner.

To change the colour of one of the gradients stops, click on one of the squares on the gradient line at the bottom. Then click on the colour icon next to “Remove”.

For example, here I’ve changed the one on the left to a bright pink.

Finally, you can add extra gradient stops along the line to produce some unique effects. Click “Add” and it will add a stop on the line which you can then click and drag to where you want it to be. Here I’ve added a green stop in the middle of the gradient line.

It’s not the word’s best art program, but with a bit of imagination you can produce some cool effects.

Find more posts on how to use Google Slides here.

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