Section 5.4. Editing Slide and Layout Masters


5.4. Editing Slide and Layout Masters

Slide masters and layout masters determine the initial look of every single slide in your slideshow. For example, if you place one background image, three text placeholders, and a date-and-time footer on a slide master, then every slide in your slideshow will contain the same background image, the same three text placeholders positioned in the same spots, and the same date-and-time footer.

In fact, you've been using slide masters without even knowing it. Whenever you choose a theme for your presentation, you're actually applying a set of slide masters. A theme is nothing more than a collection of masters. (PowerPoint comes with a bunch of themes, and you can also find themes on the Web or create your own; see the box on page 153.) More specifically , a theme includes a slide master and a handful of layout masters packaged in a special file format ( .thmx ) so that you can easily apply them to different presentations.

The purpose of slide masters is to help you create an attractive, cohesive-looking slideshow: Make a change once, and it appears on dozens of slides instantly. And because PowerPoint lets you override the slide master by editing individual slides directly (using any of the techniques described in Chapter 3), you're not locked into an all-or-nothing look.

But if you want to tweak a theme or create your ownin other words, if you want to add the same color scheme, formatting, or object (graphic, text, background, and so on) to multiple slidesthen you need to learn to how masters work. Fortunately, editing PowerPoint's masters is just as easy as editing any other slide. The only difference is that you're not editing an individual slideyou're setting up a sort of blueprint that you can then apply to any number of slides.

PowerPoint has a few different types of masters, which makes sense because the different presentation elementsslides, notes, handoutsrequire slightly different kinds of formatting. To understand masters in PowerPoint, all you need to know is what each one does:

  • Slide master. A slide master is a visual blueprint of how you want to format all the slides in your slideshow. Add a blue background and your company logo to your slide master, for example, and every single slide in your slideshow will have a blue background and that logo. Although most of the time one slide master per slideshow will do you just fine, you can create additional slide masters if you like. (The box on page 157 explains why you'd want to do this, and how to.)

  • Layout master. A layout master expands on the slide master to let you tell PowerPoint how you want specific types of slides to look. In other words, you can apply different formatting to Title slides, Title and Text slides, Title and Content slides, Comparison slides, and so on. For example, say you have a slide master similar to the one described in the previous paragraph. If you put an italicized header on the Title and Content layout master, then that header (in addition to the blue background and logo) automatically appears on every slide you format using the Title and Content layout. Then you're free to use, say, a bold header (not italicized) on Title slides, since that's a different layout.

  • Notes master. A notes master tells PowerPoint how you want to format your speaker notes. Because speaker notes are intended for your eyes only (and because graphics, fancy fonts, and colors make them harder to read), you may never need to tweak the notes master.

  • Handout master. A handout master controls the way your PowerPoint handouts look. Anything you add to your handout masteryour company's contact information, a footer, or the word Confidential stamped across the backgroundappears on all of the handouts you print. (See Chapter 8 for more on printing handouts.)

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTION
Turning Slide Masters into Themes

I've got a slide master and a bunch of layouts that I've worked really hard on. They look great, and I want to use them on a bunch of different presentations. When I switch from Master view to Normal view and click Design, I can see my theme in the Themes gallery. But if I open up another presentation and look in the Themes gallery, my theme's not there. What gives?

Before you can use a theme (which consists of a slide master and layout masters) in another presentation, you need to save it in .thmx format. That way, PowerPoint recognizes it as a theme and adds it to the gallery the next time you open a presentation. Here's how to make it so:

  1. Choose Office button Save As.

  2. Still in the Save As dialog box, click Save.

The next time you open a PowerPoint presentation, your new theme appears in the Design ribbon's Themes gallery.


PowerPoint automatically attaches one slide master and several layout masters to every presentation you create. To edit them, you have to switch into Slide Master view. You use the same steps whether you're editing a slide master or one of the layout masters:

  1. Create a new presentation (or open an existing one). Select View Presentation Views Slide Master.

    PowerPoint displays the slide master in your workspace, ready for editing (Figure 5-9). The Master Slide tab appears and, on the left side of the screen where the Slides pane usually sits, you see instead the Thumbnail view of the slide master and the layout masters.

    Figure 5-9. You can tell you're looking at a slide master (as opposed to an individual slide) by the Master Slide tab and by the dashed lines you see in the Thumbnail view. These dashed lines remind you that the layout masters all depend on the slide master. In other words, PowerPoint applies any changes you make to the slide master to all of the other layouts in the theme.


    DESIGN TIME
    The Right Way to Add Graphics to Slide Masters

    Slide masters and layouts give you a lot of power. Make a change once, and PowerPoint applies it to every slide on your slideshowwhether it's a scrap of text, a graphic, or a color and formatting effect.

    But before you go crazy applying textured backgrounds and logos, you need to think about these two important design considerations:

    • Always leave blank spots for your titles and subtitles . Ever notice how, on most CD and book covers that contain graphics, the designers leave a blank spot for the title? They do this for one very simple reason: Generally speaking, text looks awfulif not downright unreadablewhen you plaster it over a busy background.

    • Apply the same look and feel (but not necessarily the same images and formatting) to all your slides. Your title page is a good place to go a bit wild with backgrounds, textures, colors, and fonts. But for the meat of your presentationyour text and content slidesyou want your audience to focus on your message, not your skill with Clip Art.

    To continue the tone of your title page throughout your slideshow without adding unnecessary clutter, consider placing a specially designed, scaled-down version of your title art across the top or along the side of your content slides (Figure 5-11 shows an example). This strip approach is widespread on the Web and in professionally designed PowerPoint themes because it's effective. It reinforces the tone you're going for and makes your presentation appear cohesive without sacrificing readability.


  2. Mouse over the thumbnails on the left side of the screen to see a description of each layout. Then click to choose the slide master or layout you want to edit.

    • [ Name of Theme] Slide Master. All of the changes you make to this granddaddy slide master affect each of the slides in your slideshow (or, if you've got more than one slide master attached to your slideshow, each of the slides based on this slide mastersee the box on page 157). The changes you make to this slide master affect all of the associated layout masters, too.

    • [Name of Content] Layout. These masters are your layout masters. Edits you make to them affect only those slides that have that particular layout applied to them. Your choices include Title Slide, Title and Content (a title plus some text), Section Header, Two Content (two-column), Comparison (another two-column option, this time with column headings), Title Only, Blank, Content with Caption, and Picture with Caption.

    After you make your choice, PowerPoint displays the selected slide master or layout master in the workspace.


    Note: When you want to add text to a slide master (because, for example, you want to add the same quote or slogan to each of your slides), you need to insert a new text placeholder. Typing text inside an existing text placeholder doesn't affect what you see on your slides when you run your slideshow. Instead, it appears only when you're editing your slides.
  3. Edit the slide master or layout master.

    Everything you can add to a regular slidetext, special effects, background colors, and so onyou can add to a slide master or layout master. On the Slide Master tab, you see options for changing the theme, theme- related fonts, effects, colors, and background of your slide master or layout master. You can also click the Home tab or Mini Toolbar (to format text) or the Insert tab (to insert text boxes and other objects). Figure 5-10 shows you an example of editing the Title and Text Content layout master.

    Figure 5-10. The Title and Text Content Master has been edited to change the font of the title and to include a graphic. You can change the formatting of the text placeholders that PowerPoint gives you, but you can't change the text itself. (Well, you can, but PowerPoint won't apply the changed text to your slides.) To add text to a slide master or layout master, you need to add your own text box and then type in your text.



    Tip: If you like, you can delete the page-number and date footers that PowerPoint automatically assumes you want on your title masters. But an easier way to get rid of it is to wait until you go to run or print your slideshow and then tell PowerPoint not to show the footer (page 267).
  4. When you're finished editing the master, click Close Master View.

    PowerPoint scoots you back to the slide editing workspace, where you see that PowerPoint has automatically updated all of the slides that correspond to the slide master or layout master you just changed (Figure 5-11).

    Figure 5-11. This slide was created using the Title and Text layout, so it reflects the changes made in the Title and Text Content Master, as shown in Figure 5-10. The title is in a funky font and a graphic strip appears across the top of the slide.


UP TO SPEED
When Bad Things Happen to Good Masters

PowerPoint starts all slide masters off with a handful of text placeholders for things like titles, columns , and footers. If you delete one of these text placeholders and want to put it back, here's what to do:

  1. Click your master slide and then, on the Slide Master tab, click Master Layout. Alternatively, you can right-click any slide in Thumbnail view and then, from the context menu that appears, choose Master Layout.

  2. In the Master Layout dialog box that appears, turn on the checkbox next to the placeholders you want to restore. Your choices include Title, Text, Date, Slide number, and Footer. (PowerPoint grays out the checkboxes for placeholders that you didn't delete.)





PowerPoint 2007
PowerPoint 2007
ISBN: 1555583148
EAN: N/A
Year: 2006
Pages: 129

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