In PowerPoint 2000, you use Slide Masters to globally control the appearance of all the slides of your presentation, including adding the same background to all your slides. No toiling away on each slide; simply add that background once to the Slide Master and — poof! — the background appears on every slide in the presentation. However, you may find that you don't want that background on a particular slide. Here's how to change the background of that slide:
1. Display the slide of which you want to change the background.
2. Summon the Background dialog box.
To change the background for a slide, use the
Format-->Background command. The Background dialog box appears, as shown in Figure 1.
 |
Figure 1: The Background dialog box. |
 | 3. Check the Omit Background Graphics from Master check box. |
Check this box if you want to hide the Master background objects.
4. Change the Background Fill if you want.
You can change to a different background color, or you can add an effect such as a pattern fill or a texture.
5. Click the Apply button or press Enter.
If you checked the Omit background graphics from master check box (Step 3), the background objects from the Slide Master vanish from the active slide. If you changed the background color or effect, you see that change, too. Don't be afraid to try the Preview feature.
Hiding background objects or changing the background color or effect applies only to the current slide. Other slides are unaffected. In Slide Sorter view, all selected slides are affected.
 | If you want to remove some but not all the background objects from a single slide, try this trick: |
1. Follow the preceding Steps 1 through 5 to hide background objects for the slide.
2. Call up the Slide Master (View-->Master-->Slide Master).
3. Hold down the Shift key and click each object that you want to appear.
4. Press Ctrl+C to copy these objects to the Clipboard.
5. Return to Slide view.
6. Press Ctrl+V to paste the objects from the Clipboard.
7. Choose the Draw-->Order-->Send to Back command if the background objects obscure other slide objects or text. (The Draw menu is found on the Drawing toolbar.)
| 
