Benefits of Slide Masters and Templates

Slide Masters allow for changes in fonts, font treatments, and backgrounds to be applied to an entire presentation or to a designated section of it. Slide Masters also provide the option of adding a date and time, footer, and slide number to a presentation’s slides, elements that become part of a slide’s background, are not editable on the slides themselves, and can update themselves automatically to reflect the changing positions of slides or present the current date and time. These features, when saved in presentation templates, can provide you with a fixed, repeatable, and editable structure that you can use again and again when creating new presentations.

Edit the Slide Master

Select View > Master > Slide Master. Slide Masters can be formatted in the same ways a regular slide is formatted. Edit fonts and font sizes by selecting and editing the font information as you would in a standard slide. Use the Format > Background command to edit the background color or use a gradient, pattern, or picture for the slide background. Select Format > Slide Design and click on the Color Schemes link to select a color scheme palette from a provided list (shown at right) or create your own using the Edit Color Schemes link at the bottom of the pane to open the Edit Color Schemes window and select custom colors for text, links, and even backgrounds or images (a logo, for example). You can create as many Slide Masters, as well as multiple Title Masters, for use in your presentation or to save as a template.

Adding the Date, Slide Number, and Footer

The Slide Master also contains boxes that designate where the date (and time, if desired), slide numbers, and a footer will appear if you assign them. On the slide master you can set the font and font size as well as position of these elements, should you choose to use them. You can use them all, or can use them independently, and you can set formats for them for your template even if you do not plan to always make use of them.

To designate whether a presentation will use any of these elements, go to View > Header and Footer. Under the Slide tab, select your preferred settings and formats, including the date and time (automatically-updating or fixed), slide numbering, and a footer, if desired, and specify whether you would like these elements to appear on your title slide. You can also add these elements, as well as a header, to your notes and handouts pages. Then click Apply to All to set your selections.

Applying Slide Masters

To apply a slide master, click on Format > Slide Design and select the master from the thumbnails in the righthand pane. Click on the master to apply it to all slides in the presentation, or click on the arrow on the righthand side of the thumbnail image for the option of applying it only to selected slides. You can also use this arrow to apply an existing slide design to the slide’s current slide master.

Saving A PowerPoint Template File

These Masters can be saved in a PowerPoint template, which can also include a sequence of actual presentation slides containing standard content you would like included in your presentation (a recurring title, your name in the subtitle, or organizational content, for example). When you are satisfied with the contents of your file and would like to save them for future use, go to File > Save As and select PowerPoint Template from the dropdown file list. The default save location should then change to your Templates, and you should save it there with a representative title. The file will be saved with the “.dot” extension, with designates it as a design template.

You can access this template in two ways. To open and use a template which includes pre-established content, go to File > Open and browse to your Templates folder, which is located on your local disk on the filepath Documents and Settings/Username/Application Data/Microsoft/Templates. You might find it helpful to create a shortcut leading to this folder, which is preferable to storing your template files in a different location. After editing and using this file, the default save setting will be as a presentation file (.ppt) rather than a template file (.pot) to prevent you from accidentally saving over the template.

To apply the slide designs to a new presentation without the pre-established content slides, select File > New and then select From Design Template in the list of options in the righthand pane. This will call up a set of thumbnails of recently used slide designs. Clicking the Browse link at the bottom of the pane will open your Templates folder, where you can select your new design template. The first slide master will be applied to the default presentation slide, and you will be asked whether you wish to import the additional slide masters for use in the presentation. Click Yes and you are ready to begin creating your custom presentation.