Match Digital Colors Using PowerPoint

Every now and then, I dabble in digital design. Most of the time, it's to make presentations and reports more graphically interesting by choosing colors that match a company's logo or brand identity. Microsoft PowerPoint is my go-to application to match colors, and I'll walk through an example using Google's logo to find each specific digital color they use.

The first step is to grab Google's logo by either searching for an image or taking a snapshot of google.com. Then paste it into a PowerPoint presentation file using the Title Only layout.

Next go into the title box and click on the font color icon. You will see an eyedropper. Select that and put the eyedropper cursor over one of the logo colors. I chose the blue color first.

That blue color has now been added to the color palette. I can learn more about it by clicking on "More Colors".

Now I can see the exact makeup of red, green, and blue values (RGB) that create that color. In this case it is 66 Red, 133 Green, and 244 Blue. And now I have the exact digital color that Google uses for their blue.

I can repeat the steps for the remaining 3 colors in Google's logo. I can also hover the eyedropper over the color, and it will display the RGB values before clicking on the color itself. 

Here are the values:

   

Now with these values, I can use these in any program that allows customized colors. In Excel, I can create tables that use these colors for shading. In Word, I can color fonts for header sections. Even in Outlook, I can create a custom signature that uses these colors.

The next time you want to match specific colors for your own needs, be sure to follow these steps.