To create word art, go to Insert | Word Art and choose a text style from the dropdown. This can be especially useful if you want to combine your gradient with other effects such as drop shadow, outline or reflection. These days WordArt is hidden on the menus but works much the same way it always has. Word Art is a long standing Word features, often overused or misused. Word Art is another way of adding fancy text effects to your document, and you can do gradients and rainbow effects this way as well. When you’re happy with the appearance of your rainbow text, just close the Format Text Effect sidebar and enjoy your artwork! The easiest way to master these is just to experiment with them till you find a setting that looks right to you. You can now use the Type, Direction, and Angle controls above the slider to fine tune how the gradient appears. Now, click on each of the stops, and select a different color for each one. You can also use the Position setting below the slider to set more exact positioning if you prefer. I want six evenly spaced colors, so have dragged them so they are more or less the same distance apart. Then drag them to create the spacing you want. We’re going to make a basic six-color rainbow.įirst, click the Add Gradient Stops button to add in extra stops according to how many colors you want.

You do this with the Gradient Stops slider. You can now set how many colors you want to appear in your gradient and select which colors to use.

This will open the Format Text Effects sidebar on the right-hand side of your screen. At the bottom of the dropdown, select Gradient | More Gradients. To add a rainbow effect to your text, first select the text you want to apply the effect to, then on the Font group of the Home tab, click the arrow next to the font color button. And we’ll show how to add a gradient or rainbow effect to the background of a text box. If you can do that, you can make a simpler gradient as well! There are two ways to add a gradient to your text – you can apply it either to regular text, or to Word Art. The rainbow is just a slightly more complicated gradient with multiple colors. You can even use it to add a rainbow effect, which is a bit gaudy but demonstrates the possibilities of more subtle gradients. If you want to add a bit of zing to your document, Word has a fun little feature that allows you to add color gradients to your text or background of a text box.

How to color background in word