Object defaults (e.g., default fill color)

[Jeff]

MS writes:

"Hello,

PowerPoint does not have the specific capability that you
are looking for.
Although some defaults can be customized (such as using
the Options dialog)
other defaults (such as fill color) are presentation
specific and cannot be
set as a global default.

If you (or anyone else reading this message) think that
PowerPoint should
provide more control over various default behaviors,
settings, etc. ...send feedback please to Microsoft at..."

1. What does this mean? While it is not easy to do,
eventually I discovered--with the suggestions of helpful
others--how to set the default fill to blank. Does MS
believe that this is impossible (without having to resort
to VBA or 3rd party add-ins)?

2. Perhaps the larger question is, why would MS create a
default format for a circle or a square that is filled
with turquoise? How bizarre! After manually reformatting
to remove the bizarre turquoise fill coloring a few
hundred times, I learned how to default to an "ordinary"
(e.g., empty*) circle or square. But who was the twisted
programmer who reasoned that every new object should be
made to be turquoise? Is he or she working on even more
bizarre defaults for future releases?

(Of course, something has to be the default. But surely,
while 1 person in 100 may decide to default fill with
white, and 1 with black, the other 98 would reason that a
circle is a circle and doesn't need any colorful interior
color at all. Certainly not a purple, chartreuse or
turquoise one!)

 

[Sonia]

Actually, John reminds us all of the time that anyone and everyone should
voice their needs, wants, wishes via the MS Wishlist vehicle whenever you
want, but especially if something is bugging you, so maybe this is "your
time". <G> The Wishlist is an excellent way for customers to voice their
needs and wants. If 10,000 people complain about the fill color default and
51% say no fill is the best choice, that's valued input that is definitely
seen by the product planners. It was through just that process that
Microsoft got the message loud and clear that customers were demanding a new
Viewer and so the PowerPoint 2003 Viewer was developed.

A team of designers (programmers just do what they're told) probably
developed what they thought would be the best and "mildest" set of defaults
for the color scheme of the blank.pot file. I suspect that they picked
colors that would work well in the corporate world, recognizing that
customers could and would change the defaults to whatever they want. If you
look at the color scheme, the background is white, the text is black, the
fill is a pale turquoise, and the accent colors were selected to stand out
against a white background. As you noted, something had to be chosen and
transparent wouldn't work any better than picking a color. At least this
way the new user can look at the color scheme and look at his or her objects
and relate the "Fill" color to what happens when they draw an object on a
slide.

Personally I only use the blank.pot for slapping together quick tests, so I
haven't even changed it. For all "real" work I use templates customized to
my specifications, and I change absolutely everything to exactly what I want
and need for a specific presentation and/or client.

Just my two cents, which won't buy anything these days, not even penny
candy. <G>

 

[Echo S]

The "original" default fill color of an autoshape is based on the slide
color scheme. Because the first swatch representing a fill in the blank.pot
template is that turquoise color, that's why the fill defaults to it. That's
also the default color for the first bar in a chart.

If you look under Slide Design - Color Schemes on the task pane, you can see
the little arrow-ish autoshape and chart diagram which show you what pieces
receive which color scheme colors.

Different templates will have different autoshape default colors, because
their default color schemes are different than that of blank.pot. Take a
look at Balance.POT, for example. That default fill color is kind of an
orange-ish shade. In Bold Stripes.POT, it's white. Competition.POT is red.
You get the idea. If you then view the color scheme of any of those
templates -- and change to a different color scheme -- you'll see the color
of the autoshape change along with it. There's more on color schemes on my
site if you're interested. http://www.echosvoice.com/colorschemes.htm

As far as what John Langhans wrote, he's just basically asking you to submit
feedback to MS about the default settings features. If you would like MS to
make it possible to create a global default format for autoshapes (or
whatever) so that you don't have to change this for each
presentation/template, please submit your feedback as per his information.
This type of feedback from users is how feature sets for new versions of
products is determined. (Well, partially, anyway.)

BTW, I'm glad to hear that you got your default setting working. I wouldn't
have thought to look for additional blank.pot files on your system, that's
for sure!