Fade out

Would it not be more suitable to use a presentation application to achieve that sort of thing, such as Keynote or PowerPoint?

 

if by fade out you mean the text has a gradiant where by say the top of the letter is black and the bottom of the letter is white and there is a gradual gradient of colour between then word art in Microsoft Word does this.

 

how about faking it by changing the colour of each letter to different shades of gray ?

 

I'm pretty sure word art can do what you are asking , to make the fade go from left to right you just change the angle of the gradient ,

choose word art from the documents and elements tab, pick the example that looks like a vertical gradient , type your text and then choose format text effects from the drop down menu and click the gradient option , change the angle of the gradient to something around 0 degrees, choose your gradient colours and your done