When you draw a shape in Microsoft Word, it has a default fill colour. However, you can change the shape's fill to be a different colour, a gradient, a picture and even a texture. Let's draw a shape now, and change the shape's fill. Click Insert > Illustrations > Shapes. Choose any shape you like and draw it on the page (click and drag). Here, I drew a basic rectangle.
To change the shape's fill, ensure that it is selected and then in the Drawing Tools contextual tab, click Shape Styles > Shape Fill. The panel that opens displays a dizzying array of theme colours for us to select for our shape's fill.
In addition to the theme colours displayed, we can also select the following options:
- More Fill Colours - if you want to use a colour that isn't on of the theme colours, select this option.
- Picture - you can change the shape's fill to be a picture using this option. The picture you choose will resize to fit the shape.
- Gradient - this option allows us to specify a fill that displays one colour merging smoothly into another. You can choose one of the simple ready made gradients, or you can define your own, with as many colours as you wish.
- Texture - Microsoft Word comes with a selection of textures for us to use as fills for our shapes.