Open a new graphic 100x20. Choose your colors (darkest foreground and lightest background). If you want the canvas to be white, choose white as the background color. Choose the Flood Fill Tool (Paint Bucket) from the toolbar. Set the Fill Style to Linear Gradient. PSP 5: Click on the Options button and set the direction of the gradient to 90 degrees. PSP 6: Set the gradient to 90 degrees. Click on the Flood Fill Options tab (second tab). Choose Foreground to Background from the Gradient drop down list. Fill the graphic with the gradient. Reverse your colors if you want to go from light to dark rather than dark to light. Choose Image|Add Borders and add a right border of 1,000 pixels. This will fill the background with the background color and make the image large enough to fill the screen on a 21" monitor, preventing a repeat pattern.
	Note: If you use a background with a color bar on the left you will need to set the page up so the text starts printing in the area beyond the color bar. I do this by placing the whole page in a table (actually I place all my pages in tables - see General Graphic Tips). Then create a transparent gif 5 x 5 pixels and place this transparent graphic in the first cell of the table making the graphic width the width of the color bar (i.e. WIDTH=100). Then place the text in the second cell. For complete instructions on how to use tables and how to create a transparent gif, go to General Graphic Tips.