PP used to be great at making company logos.

Trying to build the first letter of the company name from the ground-up (with drawing tools) and match it to nice looking text. Specifically, would like to match Word Art 17 style to drawn graphics. Is it possible to match Word Art color to the drawn objects? Have blue drawn object and could possibly use blue WA17 (default is gold). Is it possible to customize standard text (Calibri) to take on the style of WA17? Is it possible to use the "Format Painter" to accomplish these things? Is it possible to gradient text (and not the box around the text, rather gradient within the letters themselves)? Was able to match the shadowing quite nicely, but other effects (3-D, Glows, etc.) don't seem to apply to inside text line. Are we really stuck with all these fixed, pre-made fonts? Are there options?

This really should be simple and it used to be in 2003. Now Word Art settings seem to be hidden, non-copyable and non-enterable. Likewise, text objects seem un-editable. Surely, there must be a way to match text style and/or color to drawing objects?