Add Video background to text, objects in PowerPoint

Office-Watch.comLast updated: 1 July 2024

Microsoft Office,Microsoft Office for Mac,Microsoft Powerpoint,Office 2016,Office 2019,Office 2021 / Office LTSC,Office 365

It’s easy to get a video background to a shape, graphic or text in a PowerPoint slide, once you know the ‘secret sauce’.

Here’s two examples we’ll show how to make in this article. One uses an Icon/SVG, the other is text, both with a video background.

There are various ‘how to’ guides on the Internet, some are too specific and others are quite wrong.

The secret sauces

Some people like to jump ahead so here are the two ‘secret’ bits that make this work.

The non-video parts must be Office SHAPES.
- There are ways to make text, icons and SVG into an Office Shape
The shapes must be merged using the Combine or Intersect option.
- That makes a ‘see through’ part which reveals what’s in a lower layer of the slide.

Insert Shape

Firstly, insert an Office Shape or something that can be converted into a Shape.

We’ve added an Office Icon to a slide

We’ve changed the slide background to orange, just to make some of these images a little easier to understand. If you see orange, it’s the slide background
And opened the Selection Pane to see all the elements in the slide, visible or not. )

From Graphics Format tab choose Convert to Shape.

Now add a rectangle shape that covers the whole slide or a least the first shape, Insert | Shape

Change the color to the same as the other shape (black in our example).

Merge and Intersect

Now comes the fun bit … select both shapes using Ctrl + A (Select All).

From the Shape Format tab choose Insert | Merge Shapes then Combine or perhaps Intersect.

As you can see in the image above, now the ‘eye’ shape is transparent, showing the slide background.

Look at the Live Preview to see which Merge option is what you need.

Add a background video

Now you have a shape with transparent elements, all you have to do is put a video behind it.

Add any video you like then go to Video Format | Send to Back to put it behind the transparent (merged) shape.

It doesn’t have to be a video, any still image will do.

All the standard PowerPoint video options are available. You’ll probably want the video to start Automatically and keep playing or ‘loop’ until stopped.

Text with video background

If you want text with a video background, go to Insert | Text | Text Box or Insert | Text | WordArt. Either will let you put text inside an Office Shape.