Matching a brand color by eye, or typing in a hex code copied from somewhere else, almost never comes out exactly right.

PowerPoint's eyedropper skips the guesswork by sampling a color directly from whatever is actually on screen.

Here's the trick:

Not just inside your slide — anywhere on the display, including other open apps.

How to use it

  1. Select the shape or text you want to recolor.
  2. Open the fill color or font color dropdown.
  3. Choose "Eyedropper" from the menu.
  4. Move the cursor anywhere on the screen — including over other open apps — and click to sample that exact color.

Where it helps most

Matching a brand color pulled straight from a logo image, or lifting a color directly out of a photo that's already on the slide.

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One thing to watch for

It samples a single pixel, so on a busy or textured image, zoom in first to make sure you're picking the exact shade you actually want.

Found a faster way to do this, or a version that works differently on Mac? That's what the comments are for — this section connects to your comment system of choice (Disqus, giscus, etc.) once the site is live.