Love the theme, hate the background image?

Yum, PowerPoint's new themes. They're fun, colorful and a far cry from the drab and boring ones we've lived with for so long. So, what happens when you love everything about a Theme except its background?

Well, since I'm waxing lyrical about PowerPoint you can probably guess I'm about to let you in on a trick for fixing the background problem in your PowerPoint 2007 theme love affair? Click the Background Styles option in the Design tab and there is an entire selection of different backgrounds all coordinated with the theme. If you change your color scheme the background's colors change too - sweet!

Background Graphics in OneNote

One of the improvements in OneNote 2003 SP1 is the addition of background graphics which appear on a separate layer of the note page and which are stable and won't move.

To create a graphic as a background, insert it onto the page and then right click and choose Set Picture as Background.

To alter the graphic later on, you must promote it back onto the page by right clicking somewhere over the top of it and disable the Set Picture as Background checkbox.

This feature is useful for creating custom stationery and for adding notes over the top of your graphics – the graphic stays more stable and you're less likely to encounter the situation where your pointers move out of position.