How to change the Microsoft Word background color or image
A new Microsoft Word document has a white background. It’s reasonable; we print on white paper and any time you want to print on a different color, you really only need to change the paper that you feed into the printer. Microsoft Word doesn’t know what color the paper is and will print on it the same way it does on white paper.
Microsoft Word background image
You can print an image as the background to any Microsoft Word document, and you can print a color too if you have the ink for it (and a color printer).
Set Microsoft Word background image
You can add a background image to a Microsoft Word document on Windows and on macOS. It’s a basic feature that’s been a part of the word processor for years. You have to set the background on a per-document basis.
- Open the Microsoft Word document that you want to set a background image for.
- Go to the Design tab on the ribbon.
- Look for the Watermark button.
- Select the Picture option.
- Click Select picture.
- Select the picture from your local disk.
- You can uncheck the ‘Washed out’ option if you want the image to appear as it is. A washed out image will make the document easier to read.
- Scale the image up or down.
- Click Ok and the image will be inserted.
If you want to set a color as the background;
- Go to the Design tab on the ribbon.
- Click the Page colour button.
- Select a color for the page.
- The color for the page will change and it will change for all pages in the document.
When selecting an image for the background, make sure it matches the orientation of the page of the document. If you use a landscape image in a portrait document, it will be centered in the page. This is fine if you want it to look that way but if you want the image to cover the entire page, the image needs to match the orientation of the page. When you print this document, the background image will be printed. If you plan on printing it, make sure the text is readable with the image behind it.
Conclusion
A background image, like the background color, is applied to all pages of a document. If you want a background image for only the first page, you can try using the cover page feature instead. Alternatively, you can insert an image like any other image and send it to the back. It will be a little difficult to manage like that but you won’t have the image on every page.
