Editor's note: In the video, Brandon Vigliarolo uses Microsoft Office 365 and walks through the steps of adding colors or images to the background of your Word documents. In the following tutorial, Susan Harkins explains the process when using Give-and-take 2010. This article was first published in Dec 2011 and was updated in March 2019.

Most documents are rather irksome–the same blackness text on a white background. That's the way it should be though because nearly documents don't require special graphics and colors. However, when a document requires more, Discussion offers many visual possibilities. For instance, you might want to change the background's colour or even use a picture every bit the document's background. Both are like shooting fish in a barrel to accomplish, technically speaking, and in this article, I'll testify y'all how to practice both.

Keep in mind that adding a background color or flick to a document is much easier than designing a visually constructive document. I'll share simply the mechanical process; how you implement the feature is up to yous.

I'm using Office 365 Word (desktop) on a Windows 10 64-fleck system, just you lot can use older versions. You'll find these options on the Design tab in the Folio Groundwork group. (In earlier versions, look for the Page Layout tab.) The browser edition doesn't support the background feature.

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Add colour

Adding a bit of color is probably the easiest way to liven up an otherwise boring document. You might make up one's mind to add a sedate color to a promotional letter or resume. To add together colour to a document's background, you'll work from the Design tab, equally follows.

  1. Click Page Color in the Page Background group.
  2. Choose a colour from the gallery (palette) as shown in Figure A.

Figure A

It doesn't go much easier than that. You can click More Colors to fine-tune a gallery color. Choose No Color to remove a colored background.

Although simple, you could create some ghastly backgrounds. At that place's a lot to consider when introducing colour into a document. Color-wise, in that location are several attributes, hue, chroma, so on.

Your main consideration should be legibility. In that regard, dissimilarity is normally the near important factor: the college the contrast, the more than legible the text. It likewise adds to the layers of separation, as shown in the illustration in Figure B. The more than contrast, the more depth, which improves readability. I'm not suggesting that you have a crayon-box attitude to your documents though. This illustration is just that, an illustration–not a recommendation for these particular colors.

Figure B

Limiting your choices will produce the best results. Limit your color palette to 2 or three colors. Use different shades (hue) and saturation (chroma) to add together variation. And think, even in digital form, there'south nothing wrong with a white background.

Add a motion picture

The process for adding a picture to a document'south background is similar to inserting a picture into an AutoShape–you lot use the Fill Effects option.

Note:This characteristic has the potential to produce more ghastly results, so just because you can add a moving picture doesn't mean yous should.

You'll apply the same Page Color option on the Folio Layout tab (in the Page Groundwork group) to add a picture, every bit follows.

  1. Click the Folio Colour option and choose Fill Effects.
  2. Click the Picture tab.
  3. Click Select Picture.
  4. Locate the picture show y'all want to insert and click Insert.
  5. Click OK.

Figure C

Figure C shows an interesting groundwork that might work well with the right subject field matter, just information technology presents quite a challenge. What color font would you employ? How much text could you add? Balancing all the requirements takes skill, but most of us can learn those skills with the right training. If you lot change your heed, it's easy to remove, albeit not intuitive: Choose No Color from the Folio Color dropdown.

As I mentioned, adding color or a motion-picture show to a document's background is easy. Producing a visually effective document takes specialized knowledge.

Send me your question about Office

I answer readers' questions when I can, merely there's no guarantee. Don't send files unless requested; initial requests for help that arrive with attached files will be deleted unread. You can send screenshots of your data to help clarify your question. When contacting me, be as specific as possible. For example, "Please troubleshoot my workbook and prepare what'due south incorrect" probably won't become a response, just "Can y'all tell me why this formula isn't returning the expected results?" might. Please mention the app and version that you're using. I'thou not reimbursed past TechRepublic for my fourth dimension or expertise when helping readers, nor practise I ask for a fee from readers I assist. You can contact me at susansalesharkins@gmail.com.

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