Section 5.5. Creating Slide Masters and Layout Masters

5.5. Creating Slide Masters and Layout Masters

Unlike earlier versions of the program, PowerPoint 2007 lets you create your own layout masters. Instead of making do with just twoan overall slide master and a title masterin PowerPoint 2007 you can either tweak one of the many layout masters PowerPoint gives you, or create your own from scratch. Creating your own layouts is handy when you want to position content on a bunch of slides in a very specific way. For example, say you want several of the slides in your slideshow to feature a long, skinny spreadsheet, underneath which you want to position three short columns of text. You can create your own layout, call it something like "Spreadsheet with Three Columns ," and then apply it to any number of slides, without repeating the whole editing process each time.

GEM IN THE ROUGH
Serving Two Masters

For most presentations you want to stick with a single slide master (in other words, a single theme). After all, the whole point of a slide master is to make it easy for you to apply the same colors, formats, graphics, and other design elements to all of the slides in your slideshow for a consistent, professional-looking result.

But you may run into a situation where applying more than one slide master to your slideshow makes sense. For example, say you are creating a presentation that describes your company's pending takeover by the corporate giant Engulf & Devour. You want to format half of your slideshow (the "before" half) using your existing company's color scheme and logo, and the second half (the "after" half) using the new company's color scheme and logo.

The answer: create an additional slide master, as described on page 158, and then apply it to the slides in the second half of your presentation.

5.5.1. Creating a New Slide Master

Out of the box, PowerPoint assigns each new slideshow a single slide master. To create another one, choose Slide Master Edit Master Insert Slide Master. When you do, PowerPoint creates a new main slide master and several layout masters directly below your original slide master, as shown in Figure 5-12.

Note: Another way to create a new slide master is to hit Ctrl+M or, in Thumbnail view, right-click any slide and thenfrom the context menu that appearschoose Insert Slide Master.

Figure 5-12. No matter which thumbnail you've selected when you create a new slide master, PowerPoint always places your new slide master at the bottom of the list.

PowerPoint numbers the new slide master and displays an unbelievably tiny graphic that's supposed to look like a pushpin. This pushpin means that PowerPoint has preserved (that is, saved) your newly created slide masterwhich is a very good thing indeed because the program has a nasty habit of deleting slide masters that aren't preserved. (For more on preserving slide masters, check out page 160.)

Now you can edit the slide master, as described earlier in this chapter. Sometimes, though, you don't need to create a new slide master from scratch. Maybe you have a presentation that you're happy with, but you want to add an additional layout for variety. The next section explains how to do that.

5.5.2. Creating a New Layout Master

PowerPoint 2007 starts you off with seven different layout masters per slide master: Title and Text, Blank Content, and so on. (Page 124 gives you the complete list.) But sometimes, those seven layouts aren't enough. Say you know you'll be adding a lot of slides containing three columns of text. In that case, you want to create your own layout master with three columns.

To create an additional layout master:

Create a new presentation (or open an existing one). Go to View Presentation Views Slide Master to switch to Slide Master view.

You see a Thumbnail view of your slide masters and layout masters on the left side of the screen and an editing workspace on the right side.
In the Thumbnail view, click to select the slide master or layout master after which you want to create a new layout master.

The position you choose tells PowerPoint where to position your new layout in the Layout gallery after you've finished creating it.
On the Slide Master tab, click Insert Layout. (Alternatively, you can right-click the selected slide master or layout master and then, from the context menu that appears, choose Insert Layout.)

A new blank layout master appears in both the Thumbnail view and the editing workspace.

Note: PowerPoint assumes you want your new layout to display footers. If that's not the case, then head to the Slide Master tab and turn off the checkbox next to Footers.

5.5.3. Renaming Slide Masters and Layout Masters

Technically speaking, you don't have to name your slide masters and layout masters, since PowerPoint automatically gives them names the instant you create them. But because the names that PowerPoint comes up with are pretty lame (Custom Design 1, Custom Design 2, and so on), and because these names show up in the Themes gallery and Layout gallery for all the world to see, you really do want to get in the habit of naming your slide masters and layout masters.

To name a slide master:

In Thumbnail view, click the slide master or layout master you want to rename. Then choose Slide Master Edit Master Rename.

(Alternatively, in the Thumbnail view, you can right-click a slide master or layout master and then choose Rename Master or Rename, respectively, from the shortcut menu.)

If you've chosen a slide master, then the Rename Master dialog box (Figure 5-13) appears; if you've chosen a layout master, then the Rename Layout dialog box (Figure 5-14) appears.

Figure 5-13. The name you choose for your slide master is the name PowerPoint lists as the theme name, so choose something both meaningful and descriptive.

Figure 5-14. Make sure you type in the nitty-gritty description of a layout so that, two months form now, you won't have to rely on the teensy-tiny thumbnail in the Layout gallery to tell how you laid out the content. You're not limited to the handful of basic content layouts that PowerPoint starts you off with. You can add your own, as described on page 159.

Type a new name in the "Master name" box (or the "Layout name" box) and then click Rename.

PowerPoint renames your slide master or layout master. To see your slide master's new name, click View Normal, then click the Design tab. Then click the down-arrow next to Themes. To see your newly renamed layout master, click the Slides tab, and then click Layout and, in the gallery that appears, mouse over the layouts.

5.5.4. Preserving Slide Masters and Layout Masters

If you don't explicitly tell PowerPoint to preserve your slide masters and layout masters, then there's a good chance they'll disappear one day (more than likely when you're working against a tight deadline). That's because PowerPoint automatically deletes unpreserved slide masters that aren't being used to format any slides, a situation that usually occurs while you're experimenting to see which master looks best. (See the box on page 161 for more details.)

WORKAROUND WORKSHOP
PowerPoint Ate My Slide Master!

You've created two slide masters. You want to apply one to the first half of your presentation, and the other to the second half. What could be simpler? You've got a lunch date in three minutes, so you don't take the time to make sure both of your slide masters are preserved. After applying the first slide master you click the Slide Master tab, head to the Thumbnail view and click to select a slide for the second half of your show, then click Design andfrom the Themes gallerychoose your second slide master.

Poof! PowerPoint reformats every single slide in your slideshow using the second slide master and deletes your first slide master because it's not longer in use. Since you're headed out the door, you save your file and close PowerPoint. When you return from lunch, you find that all the time and energy you spent creating your first slide master (and all of the attendant layouts) has gone down the drain.

To prevent this from happening to you:

Apply themes explicitly. This trick prevents PowerPoint from reformatting your entire slideshow and "orphaning" an unpreserved slide master in the process (which is what happens when you select a single slide and click a theme). In the Slides pane, first select the slides you want to format, then click the Design tab, and finally, in the Themes gallery, right-click the theme and select "Apply to selected slides."

If you really do want to apply a theme to all of the slides in your slideshow, then right-click the theme in the Themes gallery and select "Apply to all slides". By explicitly telling PowerPoint what to do, you'll never be blindsided by unexpected results.
Preserve your slide masters. PowerPoint never jettisons preserved slide masters, so get in the habit of preserving your slide masters the instant you're finished creating them, as described on page 160.
Save your slide masters as a named theme. The box on page 153 shows you how.

Bottom line: To keep from having to recreate and re-edit slide masters and layouts, get in the habit of preserving them. Here's how:

Choose View Presentation Views Slide Master. In the Thumbnail view that appears, right-click the slide master you want to preserve.

A shortcut menu appears.
In the shortcut menu, turn on the checkbox next to Preserve Master.

PowerPoint displays a tiny pushpin icon beside your slide master (Figure 5-12).

Note: Another way to preserve your slide master is to click the slide master to select it and then, from the Slide Master tab, choose Preserve. The problem with this option, though, is that choosing Slide Master

Preserve when PowerPoints already displaying the pushpin unpreserves your slide master.

5.5.5. Applying Multiple Slide Masters

PowerPoint lets you apply multiple slide masters to your slideshow. You don't want to go crazy and apply a different slide master to every single slide because that would counteract the whole time-saving point of slide masters. Still, in some situationslike when you want to format the sections of a long presentation differentlythe ability to apply multiple slide masters comes in handy.

To apply a new slide master to one or more slides:

In the Slide pane, select the slides to which you want to apply a new slide master. Go to Design Themes and click the down arrow next to the thumbnails.

The Themes gallery appears. Mousing over each theme shows you a live preview, right there on your slide.
In the Themes gallery, right-click the theme you want to apply to your slides and, from the shortcut menu, choose how you want to apply the theme. Your choices are:
- Apply to selected slides. Applies the selected theme only to the slides you've highlighted in the Slides pane.
- Apply to matching slide. Applies the selected theme only to those slides that share a layout with the slides you've selected.
- Apply to all slides. Applies the selected theme to all of the slides in your slideshow.
PowerPoint reformats your slideshow based on your selection.
Repeat steps 12 once for each slide master you want to apply to your slideshow.

Tip: If you change your mind immediately after applying a slide master, then press Ctrl+Z or click Undo to tell PowerPoint to reverse your change.

5.5.6. Editing Handout Masters

PowerPoint handouts are specially formatted pages that you can print and then hand out to your audience just before your presentation, or print and then transfer to 35mm slides. Handout masters let you control the look of your handouts. You can put anywhere from one slide to nine on a page, with optional space for note taking. You can also add snazzy backgrounds and graphics, although these options are of questionable value if you don't intend to print your handouts on a color printer. If you're like most people, you'll edit your handout master's header or footer or both (Figure 5-15) and leave it at that.

Figure 5-15. PowerPoint assumes you want your handouts to have a page number, today's date, and spots for a header and a footer. If you don't want one of these placeholders, then simply head to the Placeholders section of the Handout Master tab and turn off the appropriate checkbox. You can also move them, resize them, and reformat them, just as you can any other placeholders.

Note: Unlike slide masters, you can't create additional handout masters. PowerPoint starts you off with one handout master per slideshow, and that's all you getand really, that's all you'll ever need.

To edit the handout master that PowerPoint assigns to each slideshow:

Choose View Presentation Views Handout Master.

The Handout Master tab shown in Figure 5-15 appears, and a preview of your handouts appears in the editing workspace. Notice that the content of your slides doesn't appear on the handout preview, just slide placeholders.

Note: To see exactly what your handouts will look like after you print themslide content includedchoose Office button Print Print Preview, as shown in Figure 5-16.

Figure 5-16. The changes you make to your handout master in Handout Master view aren't set in stone. You get a couple of chances to tweak themchange the number of slides you want displayed on each page from nine to three, saywhen you go to print your handouts. Choose Office button Print Print Preview to reveal the Print Preview tab. Chapter 8 covers printing in detail.

Figure 5-17. You see this Page Setup dialog box when you choose Page Setup from either the Handout Master tab or the Notes Master tab.

Handout Orientation. The option you choose here applies to the handout pagenot the slides that appear on the handout page. Your choices are Portrait (vertical) and Landscape (horizontal).

Slide Orientation. Tells PowerPoint to display your slides in Portrait or Landscape layout on the handouts.

Slides-per-page. Tells PowerPoint how many slides you want to display per handout page. You can choose one, two, three, four, six, nine, or outline.

Placeholders. Turning on the checkboxes next to the following options tells PowerPoint to add text boxes to your handouts: Header displays a text box at the top of each handout page, which you can fill with whatever text you like. Date displays the date when you print your handouts. Footer puts a text box at the bottom of each page. Page Number displays the page number when you print your handouts.

Themes, Colors, Fonts, and Effects. Just as you can change the overall look and feel of your slides, as you saw in Chapter 4, you can click one or more of these options to change the overall look and feel of your handouts (but not the slide thumbnails that appear on your handouts).

Custom background. Click this option to paint your handout's background with a color, gradient, or graphic image.

Type text into your footer and header placeholders, if you chose to add them.

Page 34 shows you how to add text to placeholders.

If you like, you can format the text in any of your text boxes by clicking the Home tab, or add images or other objects to your handout master by clicking the Insert tab.

See Chapter 9 if you need help working with images.

When you're finished editing your handout master, on the Handout Master tab, click Close Master View.

PowerPoint returns you to normal slide-editing mode, and the Handout Master and Drawing Tools Format tabs disappear.

5.5.7. Editing the Notes Master

The Notes master lets you control the way your speaker notes appear when you print them out or when you display them on a separate computer monitor that's positioned so only you can see it. (For more details on this monitor setup, see page 227.)

Because speaker notes are meant for your eyes only, you probably won't spend a lot of time or effort editing your Notes master. You may want increase the font size so you can read your notes from a distance, but that's about it. Eye-gouging colors, busy backgrounds, and hard-to-read fonts are no help when you're standing in front of a crowd and your mind's gone blank.

Note: As with handout masters, you can't create additional notes masters. You only get the one PowerPoint attaches to each slideshow.

To edit the Notes master PowerPoint assigns to every slideshow:

Choose View Presentation Views Notes Master.

The Notes Master tab appears, and a preview of your speaker notes appears in the editing workspace.
Edit the Notes master as you like. You can choose from among the following options:
- Page Setup. This option displays the Page Setup dialog box shown back in Figure 5-17, which lets you specify the orientation of the note page, the orientation of the slide placeholder within the notes page, and the overall size of the printout.
- Notes Page Orientation. The option you choose here applies to the notes pagenot the slides that appear on the notes page. Your choices are Portrait (vertical) and Landscape (horizontal).
- Slide Orientation. Tells PowerPoint to display your speaker notes in Portrait or Landscape layout.
- Placeholders. Turning on the checkboxes next to each of the following options tells PowerPoint to add editable text boxes to your handouts: Header displays an empty text box at the top of each handout page. Slide Image displays a thumbnail of the slide associated with each speaker note, which is handy for double-checking that the speaker note goes with the slide you think it goes with. Footer displays an empty text box at the bottom of each handout page. Date displays today's date when you print your handouts. Body displays the speaker note itself. Page Number displays the page number when you print your handouts.
  
  Note: The PowerPoint design team was asleep at the switch when they decided to make the Body placeholder optional. You never want to turn off the checkbox next to Body. If you do, then the text of your speaker notewhich, presumably, is the whole reason you're editing the Notes masterdoesn't appear.
- Themes, Colors, Fonts, and Effects. Just as you can change the overall look and feel of your slides, you can click one or more of these options to change the overall look and feel of your notes.
- Custom Background. Click this option to paint your speaker notes' background with a color, gradient, or graphic image (page 129 shows you how).
Type text into your footer and header placeholders, if you chose to add them.

Just click in a text placeholder and start typing.
If you like, you can format the text in any of your text boxes using the tools on the Home tab, or add images or other objects to your Notes master by clicking the Insert tab (Chapter 9).
When you're finished editing your Notes master, on the Notes Master tab, click Close Master View.

PowerPoint returns you to normal slide-editing mode, and the Notes Master tab disappears.

Note: To see how your notes pages look with slide content filled in, choose View

Presentation Views

Notes Page. Figure 5-18 shows an example.

Figure 5-18. Oddly enough, PowerPoint lets you delete the placeholder that displays your speaker notes (don't!). To get a more accurate preview of how your speaker notes will look when you print them out, select View Notes Page. When you do, PowerPoint displays your actual content (notes, thumbnails, date, page number, and so on) instead of the placeholders.

NOSTALGIA CORNER
The Title Slide Master

Back in PowerPoint 2003, you explicitly had to insert a new Title layout master by zipping over to the Slide Master view toolbar and selecting Insert New Title Master. Not so in PowerPoint 2007: You get a Title layout master automatically, free from cost or obligation. In fact, the Slide Master view toolbar no longer exists.

Now, when you switch to Slide Master view (View Presentation Views Slide Master), the Title layout master automatically appears in the Thumbnail view, right beneath the slide master.