Art of Presentations

Slide Master in PowerPoint – A Complete Beginner’s Guide!

By: Author Shrot Katewa

Slide Master in PowerPoint – A Complete Beginner’s Guide!

When I first started using PowerPoint, I had no idea about the “Slide Master”. In fact, when I first learned about it, I was quite confused. I didn’t quite understand its purpose and how it worked. Furthermore, some of the changes I made to the slide master were scary at first simply because I didn’t understand how it worked!

Slide Master in PowerPoint allows you to have master control over all slides. It allows you to make changes to all slides at once. You can also use the slide master to create footers, add watermarks and slide numbers, generate custom presentation templates, edit placeholders, among other things.

Retrospectively thinking, having a “Slide Master” in PowerPoint is such an important feature! Knowing how to use the slide master properly can help you save a lot of time while creating a presentation!

So, in this article, I’ll share with you all the details you need to know about a Slide Master in PowerPoint. Without further adieu, let’s get started!

1. What is the Slide Master In PowerPoint and Why is it Used?

Slide Master is a Microsoft PowerPoint feature that allows you to easily edit all the slides at once or the individual slide layouts of a presentation.

1a. What is a Slide Master?

The slide master in Microsoft PowerPoint contains all the information on the slide layout as well as the theme of a presentation. This includes the fonts, color, effects, background, and the size and position of the placeholders.

powerpoint slide master best practices

To access the slide master, first, click on the “View” tab in PowerPoint . Then, click on the “Slide Master” option. This will open the slide master view in PowerPoint.

The master slide is the top slide in a hierarchy of slides in a presentation (as shown in the image above). Changes that you make to the master slide impact all the slides in the slide master.

It is important to note that the actual design and content of the presentation must be added to the slides in the “Normal View”. Any images or content you add to the slide master will become uneditable in the normal view of the PowerPoint presentation.

The best way to use the slide master is by using “Placeholders”. I’ve written a detailed article on “Placeholders” in PowerPoint . Make sure to check out that article to learn more about them!

1b. Uses of Slide Master View in PowerPoint –

Since the slide master stores information about the theme and the layout of the slides in a PowerPoint presentation, you can use the “Slide Master” view to edit several elements in the presentation.

a. Change Slide Background

powerpoint slide master best practices

Using the “Slide Master” view, you can change the background of all the slides at once. The background editing features are available in the “Background” section of the “Slide Master” menu.

You can click on the “Colors” option to change the colors for the slides, the “Fonts” option to set a specific font for the presentation, and the “Effects” option for the background effects. Besides, you can click on the “Hide Background Graphics” option to remove all background graphics from the entire presentation.

Clicking on the “Format Background” option under the “Background Styles” button, you can access various customizable background colors and designs for the presentation.

b. Rearrange Placeholders in Slide Layout

powerpoint slide master best practices

In Microsoft PowerPoint “Slide Master” view, you can edit both the master slide and the slide layouts. By rearranging the placeholders in a slide layout, you will only create changes for the slides using that specific layout instead of the entire presentation.

To rearrange the placeholders, all you have to do is click on a placeholder and drag it to your preferred position on the slide.

c. Customize Overall Text Formatting

powerpoint slide master best practices

In the “Slide Master” view, you can easily change or customize the overall text formatting. You have to first click on the content placeholder in the master slide which is the top slide in the slide layout panel on the left side of the screen.

Then click on the “Home” tab from the menu ribbon. In the “Font” section of the “Home” menu, you can customize the fonts like the style, size, color, highlights, etc. This will customize the text of all the slides.

d. Customize Theme Fonts

powerpoint slide master best practices

By customizing the theme fonts in the “Slide Master” , you can choose a set of fonts for various list levels of text in all the slides. To do so, click on the “Fonts” option in the “Background” section under the “Slide Master” tab. Then click on your preferred set of fonts from the dropdown menu.

e. Customize Theme Colors

powerpoint slide master best practices

The theme color in a “Slide Master” contains a set of colors for various elements of the slides in a presentation like the background, heading, body text, etc. By customizing the theme color in “Slide Master” , you can customize the colors for the entire presentation.

All you have to do is click on the “Colors” option in the “Background” section of the “Slide Master” menu and select your preferred theme colors from the dropdown menu.

f. Create Unique Slide Layouts and Templates

Using the features in the “Slide Master” menu, you can edit any element and object in the presentation. You can change the color, font, arrangement, theme, etc. of the entire presentation.

You can also create and edit individual slide layouts. You can easily use the “Slide Master” view to create fully unique slide layouts and templates.

2. Difference Between Slide Master and a PowerPoint Template?

In Microsoft PowerPoint, a Slide Master contains information about the layout and the theme of the presentation.

A PowerPoint template, on the other hand, is a design or pattern of a slide or even a whole presentation. In short, a template is a copy of a presentation blueprint that can be edited to fit your needs, while the master slide stores the layout and theme of that template.

3. How to Access the Slide Master in PowerPoint?

powerpoint slide master best practices

In Microsoft PowerPoint, you can access the slide master in the “View” menu. You have to first click on the “View” tab in the menu ribbon located at the top of the screen. Then click on the “Slide Master” option in the “Master Views” section of the “View” menu. This will open the “Slide Master” view where you can edit the master slide and the slide layouts.

4. How to Edit a Slide Master in PowerPoint?

Microsoft PowerPoint allows you to edit the slide master using the “Slide Master” view. You can edit the master slide itself, and also the slide layouts separately. You can even add or remove master slides and slide layouts.

4a. Using the Master Slide to Apply Changes to All Slide Layouts in PowerPoint

Since the master slide contains all the information on the theme and layouts of the entire presentation, any change in the master slide will be automatically applied to all the slide layouts under the master slide.

To apply changes in the master slide, all you have to do is click on the master slide from the slide layout panel and use the features available in all the tabs in the menu ribbon.

4b. How to Change Slide Background in the Slide Master?

powerpoint slide master best practices

In the “Slide Master” view, click on “Background Styles” and select the “Format Background” option from the dropdown menu. This will open a sidebar on the right side of the screen.

In the “Format Background” sidebar, you can change the color, gradient, or pattern of the background. You can also add an image as the background.

4c. How to Customize Fonts and Text Formatting in the Slide Master in PowerPoint?

To customize fonts and text formatting in the “Slide Master” view, you have to follow the 2 simple steps.

Step-1: Click on the “Customize Fonts” option

powerpoint slide master best practices

You have to first click on the master slide from the slide layout panel. Then click on the “Fonts” option from the “Background” section of the “Slide Master” menu. From the dropdown menu, click on the “Customize Fonts” option at the bottom.

Step-2: Click on the “Save” button

powerpoint slide master best practices

In the “Create New Theme Fonts” dialog box, click on the “Heading font” box to customize the heading and on the “Body font” box for the body text. Then click on the “Save” button at the bottom of the dialog box.

4d. How to Customize Theme Colors in Slide Master?

In the “Slide Master” view of Microsoft PowerPoint, you can customize the theme color by following the 2 easy steps.

Step-1: Click on “Customize Colors”

powerpoint slide master best practices

In the “Background” section of the “Slide Master” view, click on the “Colors” option. Then click on the “Customize Colors” option at the bottom of the dropdown menu.

Step-2: Click on “Save”

powerpoint slide master best practices

In the “Create New Theme Colors” dialog box, click on the box next to each option to select your preferred colors. Then all you have to do is click on the “Save” button at the bottom of the dialog box.

4e. How to Apply Effects in PowerPoint Slide Master?

powerpoint slide master best practices

To apply effects in the “Slide Master” view of PowerPoint, click on the “Effects” option in the “Background” section. This will open a dropdown menu containing fifteen effect options to choose from. All you have to do is click on your preferred effect from the dropdown menu.

4f. How to Edit Footer in PowerPoint?

powerpoint slide master best practices

The footer in a PowerPoint presentation is a text that appears at the bottom of all slides. To edit the footer in the “Slide Master” view, all you have to do is click on the “Footer” box at the bottom of the master slide. Then type in the text you want in the footer.

Check out my other article on “How to Add a Footer in PowerPoint?” to learn more about editing, adding, and removing footers in PowerPoint.

4g. How to Add Logo to All Slides Using Slide Master in PowerPoint

Adding a logo to your Microsoft PowerPoint presentation can be a smart way of branding. It is quite easy if you know the correct steps.

In fact, I’ve written a detailed article on how to add a logo in PowerPoint . Do make sure to check out that article as well to get all the advanced tips and tricks and to know the correct way to do it!

Meanwhile, here are the key steps to add a logo to all slides using the “Slide Master” in PowerPoint –

Step-1: Click on the “Insert” tab

powerpoint slide master best practices

The first step is to click on the master slide from the slide layout panel on the left side of the screen in the “Slide Master” view. Then click on the “Insert” tab from the menu ribbon.

Step-2: Click on the “Pictures” button

powerpoint slide master best practices

The next step is to click on the “Pictures” button in the “Images” section of the “Insert” menu. Then click on the “This Device” option from the dropdown menu. This will open a dialog box.

Step-3: Click on the “Insert” option

powerpoint slide master best practices

In the “Insert Picture” dialog box, click on the logo you want to add to the presentation. Then click on the “Insert” button at the bottom of the dialog box to add the logo to the master slide. This will automatically add the logo to all the slides of the presentation.

4h. Use Slide Master to Add a Watermark in PowerPoint 

A watermark is an identifying text or image that usually appears across a document and is semi-transparent. You can learn about how to add or remove watermarks in PowerPoint in my other article.

Meanwhile, I’ll share the key steps in a brief manner below –

powerpoint slide master best practices

In the “Slide Master” view, click on the master slide which is the top slide in the slide layout panel. Then click on the “Insert” tab from the menu ribbon located at the top of the screen.

Step-2: Click on the “Text Box” option

In the “Insert” menu, click on the “Text Box” option from the “Text” section. Then draw the text box on the master slide. You can now type in the text you want as a watermark on all the slides.

Step-3: Click on the “Format Text Effects” option

powerpoint slide master best practices

The next step is to select the text in the watermark text box. Then “Right Click” on the selected text and click on the “Format Text Effects” option. This will open the “Format Shape” sidebar on the right side of the screen.

Step-4: Increase the text transparency

powerpoint slide master best practices

In the “Format Shape” sidebar, click on the “Text Fill and Outline” option which is the first icon. In the “Text Fill” section, click on the “Solid Fill” option. Then drag the slider next to the “Transparency” option to the right until the text reaches your preferred transparency.

5. Understanding Slide Layouts in PowerPoint Slide Master

Slide Layouts in Microsoft PowerPoint are slide designs that have pre-arranged placeholders that you can use to add your content quickly and easily. To understand the functions of slide layouts in PowerPoint and how to use them, you can read my article on slide layouts in PowerPoint .

5a. How to Know Which Slides Use What Slide Layouts

Using the “Normal” view in PowerPoint, you can see which slides are using what slide layouts. All you have to do is follow the 2 simple steps.

Step-1: Click on the “Normal View” option

In the menu ribbon located at the top of the screen, click on the “View” tab. In the “View” menu, click on the “Normal” option which is the first option in the “Presentation Views” section. This will return the screen to “Normal View” .

Step-2: Click on the “Layout” option

In the slide thumbnail panel at the left side of the screen, “Right Click” on a slide. Then click on the “Layout” option from the context menu. This will open a list of all the slide layouts available in the presentation. You will see the slide layout being used by the selected slide is highlighted in the list.

5b. How to Insert and Rename Slide Layouts

To insert or rename slide layouts, you have to first access the “Slide Master” menu from the “View” tab in the menu ribbon.

Inserting Slide Layouts

powerpoint slide master best practices

In the slide layout panel on the left side of the screen, you have to first click on the place where you want to insert a new slide layout. Then click on the “Insert Layout” button in the “Edit Master” section of the “Slide Master” menu.

Renaming Slide Layouts

powerpoint slide master best practices

To rename a slide layout, you have to first click on the layout from the slide layout panel. Then click on the “Rename” option next to the “Insert Layout” button in the “Slide Master” menu. This will open the “Rename Layout” dialog box where you have to type in the new name for the slide layout.

Finally, you have to click on the “Rename” button in the dialog box to rename the slide layout.

6. Understanding Placeholders in Slide Master in PowerPoint

powerpoint slide master best practices

In Microsoft PowerPoint, a placeholder is a pre-formatted box on the slide where you can easily add content with a single click. You can learn more about placeholders in PowerPoint in my other article.

Using the “Slide Master” view, you can add, remove and edit the type and position of the placeholders in each slide layout. There are seven types of placeholders: “Text” , “Pictures” , “Chart” , “Table” , “SmartArt” , “Media” , and “Online Image” .

Besides, you can also use a “Content” placeholder which allows you to add any type of mentioned content.

7. How to Insert a Slide Master in PowerPoint?

powerpoint slide master best practices

To insert a slide master in Microsoft PowerPoint, the first step is to open the “Slide Master” view from the “View” tab. In the “Slide Master” view, click on the “Insert Slide Master” button. It is the first button in the “Edit Master” section of the “Slide Master” menu.

Alternatively, you can press the “Ctrl+M” keys on your keyboard to insert a new slide master.

8. How to Delete a Slide Master in PowerPoint?

powerpoint slide master best practices

To delete an unused master slide in PowerPoint , you have to first “Right Click” on the master slide from the slide layout panel on the left side of the screen. Then click on the “Delete Master” option in the right-click menu. Alternatively, you can press the “delete” key on your keyboard.

9. How to Exit the Slide Master View in PowerPoint?

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In Microsoft PowerPoint, you can exit the “Slide Master” view with one click. All you have to do is click on the “Close Master View” button. It is the last button under the “Slide Master” tab and is located in the “Close” section.

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powerpoint slide master best practices

PowerPoint Slide Masters

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Watermarks and logos are often found in the PowerPoint Slide Master. If you don’t know how to work with Slide Masters, here is a quick tutorial.

A bit about Slide Masters

Watermarks and logos are often found in the PowerPoint Slide Master. If you don’t know how to work with Slide Masters, you’ll need to learn about opening and closing them.

To open the Slide Master, select VIEW > Slide Master . Make sure you select the Close Master View button when you are done with changes.

Webinar: Working with Photos in Office

If you want to go further into backgrounds, you need to know a little bit about slide masters. Slide masters are like a skeleton of your PowerPoint.

You can view it at any time. On the HOME menu, go over here to New Slide , and click on that.

And you can see there is a whole bunch of different slides in Theme . They have different elements to them.

And, that is great to use. Anytime you do a new slide, just don't copy or duplicate the previous slide.

You can use a new one here.

Now you can edit those and that is what the master slide can do. I'll show you how to get into that.

So, click up here in the menu and click VIEW .

And, then click Slide Master . Now, everything on the left-hand side is the Slide Master.

You are not working on your presentation anymore, you are just working on slide masters.

Let me make these a little bigger for you.

OK. So, you can change anything here and you can use those slides.

This one at the top, you want to be careful, It's a little extra big. It is extra special.

Anything you put on this slide will appear in all the other slides. Again, you want to be careful with that.

When you are done with slide masters, just click here, Close Master View , and, you are back to your presentation.

We'll show you how to put something in there, like a watermark in our next video.

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PowerPoint Slide Master: Full Tutorial, Video, and Sample Files

In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to use the Slide Master in PowerPoint, why it’s useful, and how to use it to create elements that appear on every slide in the presentation, such as company logos and slide numbers.

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The PowerPoint Slide Master is useful for creating templates in presentations and repeating specific elements on each slide .

For example, if you want to repeat your company logo, the date, or the client’s name in the bottom-left corner of each slide, you can do that with the Slide Master.

You can also use it to set the default colors, fonts, and other design elements and ensure that everything on your slides looks consistent.

In this tutorial (video above and written version below), you’ll learn why the Slide Master is useful, how to set it up, and how to use it to insert logos, headers, and footers in presentations.

Video Table of Contents:

0:52:  Slide Master 101

11:24:  Slide Master Setup

14:35:  Exercise: Fix the First Layout Slide

24:31:  Recap and Summary

[Click the “Files & Resources” tab to get all the PowerPoint files for this lesson.]

The PowerPoint Slide Master: Why It’s Useful

To understand the value of the Slide Master, consider several of the slides in the “Before” file here :

Repeated Elements on PowerPoint Slides

As shown above, these slides have common elements: the divider line next to the title at the top, the “Goldman Stanley” logo in the bottom left, and the “Project Jaguar” text in the top left.

However, we manually inserted these elements on each slide , which is not ideal.

For example, what happens if something changes in the design? What if we need to replace the logo everywhere? Or what if we swap the positions of the logo and the project name?

We would have to go through each slide and manually change the positions and formatting of these elements.

If there are only 5-10 slides, that’s not a big deal, but with 50 or 100 slides, it would be extremely time-consuming to do this.

A better solution is to open the Slide Master (Alt, W, M on PC or ⌘ + Opt + 1 on Mac) and insert these common elements on a “Layout ” (template) so they repeat across all the slides in the presentation that use this particular Layout:

PowerPoint Slide Master - Inserting Shapes on a Layout

When you insert a normal slide in the standard view of PowerPoint (Alt, H, I on PC), you can base the slide on one of these “Layouts”:

PowerPoint Slide Insertion - Selecting the Layout

The PowerPoint Slide Master: Key Shortcuts

The key shortcuts are as follows:

Slide Master View: Alt, W, M (PC) / ⌘ + Opt + 1 (Mac)

Close Slide Master: Alt, M, C (PC) / ⌘ + 1 (Mac)

Normal Edit Mode: Alt, W, L (PC) / ⌘ + 1 (Mac)

Move to Next or Previous Layout: Arrow Keys (PC and Mac)

Change Slide Layout (outside of the Slide Master): Alt, H, L (PC) / N/A on Mac

Reset Slide Layout (outside of the Slide Master): Alt, H, Q (PC) / N/A on Mac

Header & Footer (outside of the Slide Master): Alt, N, H (PC) / N/A on Mac

NOTE: The “,” in these shortcuts means that you press and release each button sequentially. The “+” means that you press and hold down each button and then release them all at the end.

For example, with Alt, W, M, you press and release Alt, press and release W, and press and release M.

But with ⌘ + Opt + 1 (Mac), you press and hold ⌘, press and hold opt, and press and hold 1 and then release all 3 keys at once.

You will enter and exit the Slide Master all the time in longer presentations, so you should know at least the first few shortcuts above.

The PowerPoint Slide Master: Placeholders vs. Shapes

When you’re on a Layout in the Slide Master, you can insert shapes, lines, and textboxes .

However, if you insert these objects within the Slide Master, you will not be able to edit them on normal slides that use the Layout .

Let’s look at a simple example, where we add a rectangle shape to the default “Title and Content” Layout in the Slide Master:

PowerPoint Slide Master - Inserting a Shape on a Layout

If we now return to the normal slides with Alt, W, L (⌘ + 1 on Mac) and insert a new slide that uses this “Title and Content” layout, it’s impossible to select or edit the shape:

Inability to Edit Shapes from PowerPoint Layouts

To edit this shape, we need to return to the Slide Master and insert a Placeholder on this layout, which is in the “Slide Master” tab under “Insert Placeholder”:

PowerPoint Slide Master - Inserting a Placeholder on a Layout

We can insert a “Content” Placeholder here and then format it with the same fill color, font color, and other attributes:

Content Placeholder on a Layout in the Slide Master

Then, when we return to the normal slide view and reset the Layout of the slide we just inserted, the blue shape is now editable:

PowerPoint - Resetting a Slide's Layout

In real life, you would not use Placeholders for something trivial like this – you would normally use them for slide titles or blocks of text that change on each slide:

Placeholders vs. Shapes on a Layout in the Slide Master

You need to consider the Shape vs. Placeholder distinction before using the Slide Master, or your templates will not work correctly.

Finally, note that Placeholders are not allowed on “Layout #1” in the Slide Master – the one that looks like this:

Slide Master - Layout #1 (Office Theme)

This Layout determines the default font and paragraph styles for all the other slides and Layouts.

You can add normal shapes, lines, and textboxes to Layout #1, but not Placeholders; the option is greyed out:

Restrictions on Placeholders in Layout #1 (Office Theme)

In real life, you might add the company or client logo to Layout #1 – but it’s rare to repeat any other element in the same spot everywhere in the presentation .

A better approach is to create a few Layouts, such as 1-column and 2-column designs, and add “repeated elements” like the title/header/footer divider lines on each Layout.

The Problems with the PowerPoint Slide Master

The Slide Master is great for ensuring consistency, creating templates, and repeating common elements across the slides, but it does have some drawbacks.

First , not all formatting carries through to normal slides the way you necessarily want.

Similar to the copy/paste shape format commands, only the formats of the first line of text in a Placeholder are carried through to normal slides.

Second , many people do not know about the Slide Master or do not use it properly, and it is cumbersome to “convert” a long presentation with normal slides into one that uses Layouts consistently.

Third , an existing slide will not update even if you change the slide’s Layout within the Slide Master.

You can “reset” the slide to its base Layout using the Alt, H, Q shortcut, and this will update all the elements on the slide, including additions/deletions and edits you’ve made in the Slide Master.

However, you’ll also lose any additional formatting you have applied to the Placeholders on this normal slide.

Because of these downsides, it’s best to keep the Slide Master simple and use it for tasks like inserting logos, headers, footers, and slide numbers rather than complex layouts.

Setting Up the PowerPoint Slide Master Properly

If you’ve just created a new presentation and you want to use the Slide Master extensively, here’s what we recommend:

Step 1: First, go to the Slide Master with Alt, W, M (PC) or ⌘ + Opt + 1 (Mac) and delete the default Layouts you will not use.

We recommend keeping the “Title and Content” Layout – ignore the recommendation in the video – but everything else can go:

Deleting the Unused Layouts in the Slide Master

Step 2: We also recommend removing the Drawing Guides in the Slide Master because they’re separate from the Drawing Guides in the normal presentation, and you usually don’t need multiple sets of Guides.

To do this, enter the Slide Master and go to Layout #1 there (the “Office Theme Slide Master”).

Press Alt, W, S (PC) or ⌘ + Opt + Ctrl + G (Mac) to show the Drawing Guides, which should appear in red, and drag them off the slide to remove them.

Removing the Drawing Guides in the Slide Master

Next, go to each Layout you plan to use and do the same thing.

These Drawing Guides will appear in orange , and by default, they’ll be single vertical and horizontal lines.

We recommend removing these unless you plan to customize them for a more complex Layout in which specific alignments would be helpful:

Removing the Orange Drawing Guides in the Slide Master

Step 3: Add the company logo, the slide number, and the header or footer elements that should appear on all slides on Layout #1.

The logo is straightforward: insert a normal shape or textbox, format it appropriately, and drag it to the bottom left or right corner:

Adding the Company Logo on the PowerPoint Slide Master

To add the slide numbers, press Alt, N, H (Insert –> Header & Footer on Mac) and make sure “Slide Number” is checked:

PowerPoint Slide Number Options

If you want to add something else in the header or footer, such as the client’s name or the project name, you can also do that at this stage.

But in most cases, elements like lines for the header and footer areas should be added directly on the custom Layouts because you usually don’t want to show these on the title slide or “section divider” slides.

Step 4: Set the default themes, colors, fonts, and background styles.

Within the Slide Master view, click the “Slide Master” tab and go to “Edit Theme” and “Background” to set these:

PowerPoint Slide Number - Themes and Colors

If you go to the normal slides and set the fill/font color of a shape or textbox, you can access all these theme colors easily:

Accessing the Theme Colors on Normal Slides

The main benefit of this feature is that it lets you change all the colors in the presentation from within the Slide Master .

You just need to ensure that each shape, textbox, and line uses one of the “Theme Colors” you’ve selected.

If it does, you can return to this area of the Slide Master and change the colors here, and everything that uses one of these colors will update automatically.

Many companies have their own themes and color schemes, so you should follow your internal standards when doing this.

Practice Exercise: Create a Custom Layout in the Slide Master

Your task in this practice exercise is to start with the “Before” version of the file and modify it to set up the Slide Master properly, which means:

1) Remove the unused layouts.

2) Delete the unnecessary Drawing Guides.

3) Add the “Goldman Stanley” logo and the slide numbers.

4) Set the text and bullet styles on the first Layout in the Slide Master.

To save time, remember that you can copy and paste shapes, lines, and textboxes from normal slides into Layouts within the Slide Master.

Start by pressing Alt, W, M to enter the Slide Master and delete the unnecessary Layouts:

Deleting the Less-Useful Default Layouts

Then, press Alt, W, S and remove the unnecessary red Drawing Guides by dragging them off the edges:

Deleting the Red Drawing Guides in the Slide Master

Next, go to one of the normal slides with the “Goldman Stanley” logo at the bottom, copy the logo from that normal slide, and paste it into the bottom left corner of Layout #1 in the Slide Master:

Copying and Pasting the Logo into the Slide Master

Once you’ve done this, the “Goldman Stanley” logo will repeat on each slide, but all the existing slides have “duplicate logos” – because each one also had this logo as a separate shape!

So, you should go to each slide individually and delete the logo in its bottom-left corner:

Deleting Unnecessary Company Logos on Normal Slides

You can press Alt, N, H to add the slide numbers in the footer, and you can format them as you want.

Make sure the slide number textbox in the bottom right corner is aligned properly to the right edge of the “main content area” on each slide (demonstrated in the video using extra lines).

Finally, as we do in the sample video, you can adjust the font sizes, bullet styles, and indentations on Layout #1.

These are standard PowerPoint commands/shortcuts not specifically related to the Slide Master.

More Advanced Features in the PowerPoint Slide Master

In our full PowerPoint Pro course , you’ll set up many slides and Layouts within the Slide Master, including ones for company profiles and the Table of Contents.

You’ll also get practice “retrofitting” existing slides to use Layouts.

Finally, in the VBA and macro module of the course, you’ll learn how to use Drawing Guides in the Slide Master to align and distribute shapes, and you’ll learn how to automatically generate a Table of Contents based on Layouts for the section markers.

The PowerPoint Slide Master will not solve every problem, but it could help you create presentations more quickly with fewer errors if you use it properly.

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PowerPoint Best Practices: The Formatting Guides

  • PowerPoint Tutorials
  • December 16, 2014

When people see our slides, they often ask us: “What is all that stuff there on the left side of your slides and how do I get them on mine?”

“All that stuff” is what we have dubbed the “Formatting Guides” and in our opinion, is one of the cleverest PowerPoint best practices you can implement today, to save time…which is why you’ll see them across our website in our slide examples, screenshots and videos.

PowerPoint-Best-Practices-Formatting-Guides

You might say: “But, isn’t that what creating your own custom PowerPoint theme is for in the first place?”

The answer is yes…but the formatting guides will take your formatting selections to the next level, by creating a visual guide of all the formatting that needs to be used, and give someone the bread crumbs they need to recreate your theme if they need to.

That’s why we consider it as one of the cleverest, and low tech, PowerPoint best practices that you can immediately implement today.

These breadcrumbs will also never show up when you present your presentation or convert your presentation to the PDF file format.

To learn how to convert your PowerPoint presentation into a PDF,  read my guide here .

[Watch] Setting up your formatting guides

1. open the slide master view.

First off, you want to add the formatting guides in the Slide Master View of your presentation, next to the parent slide. And there are number of placement advantages for doing so (as discussed below).

But first off, if you’ve never navigated to the Slide Master View before, from the View tab in your Ribbon, select Slide Master.

PowerPoint-Best-Practices-Formatting-Guides-1-Open-the-Slide-Master

2. Navigate up to the Parent Master Slide

Once in the Slide Master View, on the left hand side of your screen, select the Parent Slide, or largest slide, on the left. This is where you want to add the Formatting Guides to take advantage of the three placement advantages discussed below.

PowerPoint-Best-Practices-Formatting-Guides-2-Navigate-to-the-Parent-Slide

Advantage #1: They show up everywhere

Once on your Slide Master, the formatting guides will show up everywhere within your presentation, or at least in enough places (you can toggle them off for specific layouts) that there is no way to “accidentally” not see them.

Additionally, if you ever need to update the formatting guides, you can update them all at once (on your Slide Master) and have those changes carried through to all of your slides!

Now, if you feel it’s too distracting to have them show up everywhere within your presentation, you can alternatively add them to the left side of your Title Slide (or other) layout and only have them show up on that specific layout.

PowerPoint-Best-Practice-Formatting-Guides-Show-Up-Everywhere

Advantage #2: You can’t accidentally delete them

As such, they won’t get in your way and if someone does want to change them (if they dare), they’ll have to purposefully navigate to the Slide Master view to do so.

PowerPoint-Best-Practice-Formatting-Guides-Edit-Views

Advantage #3: They don’t print on show onscreen

Placing the formatting guides on the outside of the slide space ensures that they will NEVER show up when presenting or printing your presentation.

So they are there when you need them, building out your presentation; but they aren’t there when you don’t need them, presenting or printing your presentation.

PowerPoint-Best-Practices-Formatting-Guides-4-They-Show-Up-Everywhere

3. Add your Formatting Guides off the slide space

What to include in your Formatting Guides

You can include as much or as little formatting guidance as you want, but our recommendation is that you should include the font styles (spelled out), font sizes, outline weights, hard code the fill colors to match the theme colors that should be used within your presentation, and include the RGB or HSL codes for your colors (see explanation below).

PowerPoint-Best-Practices-Formatting-Guides-5-Formatting-Guides

If you use additional formatting elements in your presentations like drop shadows, bevels, etc., you can add those to your Formatting Guides.

Tips for adding colors to the Formatting Guides

  • Within the color dialog box (hard coding the color in)
  • Within the Formatting Guide rectangles themselves

Hard coding the colors in

Notice in the picture below that even though I’ve selected a new theme color, the formatting guides remain the same.

PowerPoint-Best-Practices-Formatting-Guides-6-Hard-Coded-Colors

On the Custom tab, all you need to do is re-type the codes that are currently in each menu item there. So for Red, you would simply place your cursor where “31” is and type “31” on your keyboard, etc. And now it’s hard coded in.

PowerPoint-Best-Practices-Formatting-Guides-7-Setting-Hard-Coded-Colors

Typing in the colors codes into the Formatting Guides

The second place you want to add your color codes, is in the Formatting Guide rectangles themselves, to act as the Hansel and Gretel bread crumbs that someone can use to rebuild your theme colors if they need to.

As you can see on the right, I simply type them in with dashes separating the numbers.

PowerPoint-Best-Practice-Hard-Coding-the-Formatting-Guides-in-the-Rectangles

Yes, in an ideal world full of unicorns and cotton candy clouds, you would create your own customized theme, distribute it to everyone properly and everyone would actually use it.

But until we see unicorns crossing the street and edible clouds floating in the skies, the formatting guides is your best insurance policy (that we know of) to police formatting consistency across your presentations.

To learn more about PowerPoint best practices for building templates,  read our guide here .

If you enjoyed the depth of this article, you can learn more about our PowerPoint training courses and other free resources here .

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This Post Has 2 Comments

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Genius. I need that to “force” consistency in presentation general look and feel. I wonder if that formatting guide applies to Word Doc too.

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Hey Jimmy, and thanks for the comment! Yeah we’ve found that most people will take more notice of formatting with these guides. I WISH they applied to Word too! We haven’t found a way to do the same thing there, but what you could do is make page 1 a formatting guide sheet, where you put all that information, along with instructions to delete before sending or exclude from printing… not a great solution but it’s something. Let us know if you figure out something more elegant! 🙂

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Unlock productivity with the Slide Master in PowerPoint

Updated: Dec 20, 2023

If you've ever found yourself wrestling with inconsistent fonts, muddled color schemes, and unruly slide layouts while crafting a PowerPoint presentation, you're in for a treat.

In this article, we're about to uncover the secrets of the Slide Master, which can turn your chaotic presentation into a well-oiled, professional machine. So, fasten your seatbelts, and let's explore the world of Slide Masters!

TABLE OF CONTENT

What is a Slide Master in PowerPoint?

How to access the slide master in powerpoint, components of the slide master, how the slide master boosts the productivity and ensures brand consistency, standard formatting for slides and content creation, easily switching from one theme to another.

7 Best practices

Decide optimal format size

Set up a real theme

Have one Slide Master and just a few layouts

Position the placeholders wisely: think about the users!

Be wary of pictures

Don’t use black and colored pictures in the background

Test and validate the Slide Master with actual users

How to fix your Slide Master: the check-list

Check the Theme Colors and Fonts in the Slide Master

Check the layouts in the Slide Master

Check the placeholders on each layout in the Slide Master

How Power-user can help companies and users comply with their brandings

Optimizing your Slide Masters

Setting up your official theme as the default presentation for every user

Fixing formatting issues after the slides are created

A Slide Master controls the overall appearance and formatting of a PowerPoint presentation. It is used to establish consistent design elements, such as background colors, fonts, placeholders for text and multimedia, and other visual attributes, across all slides in a presentation.

By creating and customizing a slide master, users can ensure a uniform look and feel for their presentations, while saving time and effort in creating and editing slides. Any changes made to the slide master are automatically propagated to all the slides linked to it, making it a powerful tool for maintaining a cohesive and professional design throughout a PowerPoint presentation.

To access the Slide Master in Microsoft PowerPoint, follow these steps:

Click on the " View " tab in the PowerPoint ribbon. This tab is located at the top of the application window.

In the " View " tab, you will see several presentation views in the " Master Views " group. Click on " Slide Master ." This action will take you to the Slide Master view.

Slide Master View tab

Alternatively, you can also access directly the Slide Master View from the Power-user tab

Slide Master View Ribbon

Once you're in the Slide Master view , you'll see thumbnails of layouts on the left, and on the right the selected layout slide with various placeholders, such as title, content, and footer areas.

Remember that any changes you make in the Slide Master view will affect the slides connected to the same Master Slide or layout in your presentation, ensuring a consistent design throughout. This is particularly useful for maintaining a professional and cohesive look for your PowerPoint slides.

The initial slide within your slide master is referred to as the "master slide" or "parent slide," serving as the repository of fundamental formatting. Any modifications made to this slide will automatically extend to all subsequent layout slides, often termed the "child slides." Hence, it is advisable to set the font, size, and other attributes for titles, subtitles, footers, and logos on the master slide if they should be identical for all layout slides.

Moreover, individual layout slides can also be tailored to specific needs. These commonly used layouts encompass title slides, divider slides, comparison slides, slides incorporating text and images, image-only slides, list-formatted slides, chart slides, and more.

Utilizing a custom master template aligned with your company's requirements empowers you to establish a predefined standard for creating new presentations. This standard plays a pivotal role in shaping your company's corporate identity.

Components of Master Slide or Parent Slide in PowerPoint

The Slide Master provides a default format for your slides , with well-placed and formatted titles, page numbers, logo position, etc.

It also offers the option to reset the slide format when needed. If you go to the " Home " tab, under the " Slides " group you will find a " Reset " button. Just click it to automatically reset the slide formatting to match the corresponding layout from the Slide Master. Typically, you can automatically make your slide titles homogeneous with a simple " Reset ", as long as the slide master is properly set up.

The Slide Master also drives the default format of the content you create on the slide:

Whenever the user inserts a new shape , it will automatically be formatted with the correct colors and font. That's time saved!

Whenever the user inserts a chart , it will also be already pre-configured with the appropriate color scheme for each series, simplifying a lot the creation of charts that are visually consistent and compliant with your corporate brand.

If the Slide Master has been properly set up, all your slides and presentations can later be automatically converted to other themes.

There are 2 common cases where this can save you hours.

If you're a service provider like a consultant , you will be able to copy and paste slides into the theme of any of your clients, and these slides will adjust based on the client's Slide Master. The position and fomat of slide titles, the colors, the fonts, the bullets style, logos, footers, page numbers, etc., all this will magically match the client's visual identity.

If your organization updates the brand identity , transitioning from the old to the new PowerPoint template can sound like a challenge. But if the Slide Master was properly set up to begin with, and properly used, then it will just take a copy-pasting to convert a presentation to the new theme, reducing resistance to change and ensuring faster adoption and consistency with the new brand identity.

7 Best practices to create an efficient Slide Master

1. decide optimal slide size.

It's essential to determine the right slide size early in your Slide Master creation process. The most common options include 4:3, A4 and 16:9.

The 16:9 ratio is by far the recommended standard today . It's well-suited for modern-day computers and monitors which are based on the same ratio. This means the content on your slides will be bigger, easier to read, and it will be easier for users to prepare presentations since they will have a large working space on the screen. You will avoid having black areas left and right of your slides. 16:9 slides will also look fine when printed.

The 4:3 format is the legacy ratio , because this is the ratio old monitors use to have. But some organizations still haven't migrated to 16:9 because of the effort the transition would take. This means their presentations will be more difficult to create and to read as only part of the screen will be usable in PowerPoint.

The A4 format is used to optimize the print aspect . Some organizations prefer it to 16:9 since they need to print presentations a lot.

To adjust the slide format, access the Slide Master View , then click on " Slide Size" and choose Widescreen (16:9) or any other option.

Define the slide size in PowerPoint from slide master

2. Set up a real theme

It's crazy, but 50% of organizations don’t formalize a PowerPoint theme. They usually think they have, but they haven't. Then they waste considerable amounts of time when all their users are struggling to format slides!

The theme is the backbone of PowerPoint productivity and consistency. A PowerPoint theme consists of fonts, colors, backgrounds and effects that are defined in the Slide Master.

To define the theme, goes to the " View " tab, and then the " Slide Master " view. Check the menus shown in the below illustration to customize the colors and fonts in your theme.

Slide Master View

Under " Colors ", choose " Customize Colors ", and the below window will open where you can customize each color and save as a new theme.

Create a new color theme in PowerPoint slide master

See more details in this post on how to set up the color theme in PowerPoint . There are some good practices about which color should go where to ensure maximum efficiency.

Once you've defined the colors, similarly go to the " Fonts " menu and choose " Customize Fonts ". You will need to set up a font for Headings and one for Body.

Create a new font theme in PowerPoint slide master

3. Use only one Slide Master and just a few layouts

Keeping the number of Slide Masters and layouts to a minimum simplifies your design process. Typically, one Slide Master with a few layouts for cover pages, content slides, agenda slides, and perhaps one a few options for displaying text with charts and images is sufficient.

Users don't need 100 different slide layouts, when they need something specific they can perfectly position the objects directly on the slide themselves. Keeping the number of layouts to a minimum will help them stick to the corporate style, maintain consistency, and will streamline the editing and maintenance of their presentations.

4. Position the placeholders wisely: think about the users!

The placement and size of placeholders, such as text boxes and images, should be carefully considered. They should not obstruct important content and should be consistent across slides. Ensure they are positioned for optimal readability and visual balance.

Think about the users first! Imagine how annoying it is when you are a PowerPoint user, you need to put a lot of content on the slide but half of it is already taken by a huge title or logo!

Make sure you keep titles, footers, and logos reasonably small. Make sure you leave users with sufficient working space, or they will get creative and overlap them or bend the slide master to their needs. And then you can kiss consistency goodbye!

5. Be wary of pictures!

When adding images to your Slide Master, be mindful of the quantity and size of these pictures. Do these pictures really need to be in the Slide Master?

Large, high-resolution images will increase file size, not just in 1 presentation but in every single presentation created with the Slide Master (so virtually every single presentation in your organization!).

Fun fact : we have seen some clients who had pictures in such high quality in their Slide Master that every single presentation created in their entire company would be already 50 Mo big before even a single slide was created.

With files this big, they just couldn't email any PowerPoint presentation, and saving files took 60 seconds every time!

Don't make the same mistake. People can add images from a pictures library, if they don't really need to be in the Slide Master, keep them out of it.

6. Don’t use black and colored pictures in the background

Using black or colored pictures as the background can make your text and other elements hard to read. It's best to choose a subtle, contrasting background that enhances readability and complements your theme.

Besides, imagine what will happen in real life when users start printing presentations with a non-white background: you printer will be out of ink every few pages printed, and it's going to cost you a lot, not even mentioning the environment aspect.

7. Test and validate the Slide Master with actual users

Before finalizing your presentation, it's essential to test it with your intended audience or colleagues.

This step helps identify any design or formatting issues and ensures that your Slide Master and layouts work well on screen and on print, and that they are well accepted by the users.

By following the checklist below, you can effectively optimize your Slide Master and have a positive impact on all the PowerPoint users in your organization!

Slide Master Check-list

Check the theme Colors and Fonts in the Slide Master

✅ Check that the Slide Master really contains your theme colors, not just on the slide but in the actual theme.

There is an easy way to check this: select any shape on the slide, and look at the color palette when you want to recolor it. The theme colors are shown at the top of the palette. If you do not see your corporate colors here then your Slide Master is awfully wrong!

Theme colors in PowerPoint

✅ Do the same for fonts. There should be a Heading and a Body font defined in the Slide Master, and those fonts should be used appropriately for titles and text placeholders across your entire Slide Master.

✅ There should be just 1 parent slide in the Slide Master, with multiple layouts. If you see multiple parent slides, something's wrong and you need to do some clean up.

✅ Make sure that there are layouts for the common slides such as a Cover page and a Content slide at least. But you may have many more.

✅ Remove any layouts that are not needed in your presentation. Having too many layouts or duplicates can clutter the interface and drive users to use the wrong ones.

✅ Name your layouts descriptively to assist users in easily identifying the right layout for their content. Clear layout names enhance efficiency in slide creation and editing.

Check the placeholders of each layout in the Slide Master

✅The title should be an actual title placeholder, not a regular text placeholder. If the "Title" checkbox is not checked, then it's not a real title and this will have negative consequences (the " Reset " will not reset the title, Power-user's Pipette will not detect your titles, etc.).

Title placeholders in slide master layout

✅There should be a slide number placeholder, and maybe a footer placeholder. If you put the placeholder on the "parent" slide instead of the individual layouts, this will ensure the position remains the same everywhere for all layouts.

✅If you use subtitles on your slides, make sure there is a layout with a subtitle placeholder in the Slide Master so that each user doesn't define their own substitle's format and position.

✅If your presentations are usually in English, make sure that English is set as the Autocorrect language for each placeholder.

How Power-user can help you ensure the right template is used in PowerPoint (and Excel and Word)

There are 4 ways that Power-user can help you maintain brand consistency.

1. Optimizing your Slide Master

We have years of experience helping hundreds of organizations with their Slide Master. We can provide advice to make sure your Slide Master is efficient and makes every user's life easier.

2. Setting up the official theme as the default presentation for every user

It's great to have a beautiful Slide Master, but if users just launch PowerPoint with a blank presentation and start working in it, it's not of much use.

Power-user can set your Slide Master as the default presentation that people will see when they launch PowerPoint and start a new presentation. It doesn't sound big, but people always go for the least effort solution, and having a default presentation already there will require more effort to deviate from the brand. So this alone can make hundreds of people suddenly use the right theme without even realizing it!

Roll-out default templates for PowerPoint, Excel & Word to all users in the organization

3. Everything you create with Power-user will be based on your theme

When users work with Power-user, every object they create or insert will be inserted in your theme colors. This is true for charts, templates, icons, maps, diagrams, tombstones, etc.

This means that presentations will be properly formatted with your corporate theme, without the users even having to think about it.

4. Fixing formatting issues after the slides are created

The extensive capabilities of the Power-user add-in offer multiple features that will help users apply formatting consistent with your corporate guidelines:

The Clean menu will proof the slides by spotting and fixing font inconsistencies, missing page numbers, a Slide Master overloaded with layouts, etc.

The Replace Colors functionality will allow users to convert entire presentations from a set of colors into a new set of colors, without having to format each text and shape manually

The Pipette will allow users to make all slides titles, all bullets and other elements look consistent across all your slides in just a few seconds

The Slide Master can make a huge difference in your organization. It is your key to uniform design, saving time and effort. It streamlines content creation, maintains a cohesive corporate identity, and ensures brand consistency. It's a productivity booster, simplifying content creation and enabling easy theme switches for different clients or brand updates.

If the Slide Master is a mess, every PowerPoint user will have their life more difficult, and they will waste hours on formatting things that should have been consistent with your brand from the very beginning.

And if the Slide Master is properly set up, users will more way more efficiently without even realizing why. The presentations will be faster to build, and will be more consistent. Mastering the Slide Master will turn jumbled presentations into sleek, professional masterpieces.

For this reason, optimizing the Slide Master is arguably one of the single actions that can have the biggest impact on the efficiency of your organization.

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Top 12 PowerPoint Tips and Hacks for Flawless Presentations

Saikat Basu

Saikat Basu

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We’ve all seen our fair share of bad PowerPoint presentations . We can all agree that for a PowerPoint presentation to impress, it needs time and attention to detail.

So how can you ramp up your PowerPoint productivity in the shortest time possible?

That’s where we come in. For starters, follow our proven PowerPoint tips and tricks for business presentations , which are sure to make an impact.

Step up your PowerPoint game

Download our print-ready shortcut cheatsheet for PowerPoint.

1. Keep it simple

powerpoint tips

Keep your slides simple. It’s the visual backdrop to what you are going to say.

The most recommended PowerPoint tip for your productivity is called simplicity . You may be tempted by the graphical razzmatazz of beautiful images, background, and charts. At the end of the day, PowerPoint is a background visual aid for your talk. It is not the talk.

PowerPoint has lots of bells and whistles. But you don’t have to use them all. For instance, your content may not need the much-maligned bullet points - you can just use one key point per slide instead.

That’s why…

2. Reduce the text

powerpoint tips

Less is more when it is about the text on your slides.

The average reading speed on a screen is around 100 - 150 words per minute. Too much information on the slide is a distraction and an inattentive audience will lose the message you are trying to convey.

Don’t give them too much to read. Use high-quality pictures and eye-catching graphics instead.

To make information digestible, expert slide designers recommend you write one key idea per slide that is summarized by a clear headline.

Tip: Exploit white space. Create more space between your text, paragraphs, and graphics on your slide.

3. Plan your content first

powerpoint tips

Think about the message you want to convey and use it to write an outline.

As PowerPoint is such a visual medium, it is easy to get sidetracked with the visuals. So it’s important to chalk out what you want to say and in what order even before you open PowerPoint.

Your slides will come together quickly with the help of PowerPoint design options and you can even choose the right templates if you know your stuff inside out. 

Tip: Use brainstorming tools like mind maps, flowcharts, and even storyboards to sketch your content flow.

4. Use PowerPoint Designer for ideas

PowerPoint makes an intelligent guess by looking at the words on your slide and suggests high-quality artwork to complement it. You can pick one of the creative layouts or go back to your own design.

Tip: PowerPoint Designer can also turn lists, processes, or timelines into beautiful graphics too.

5. Use PowerPoint templates

powerpoint tips

Start with a template to break through any creative blocks.

PowerPoint templates are meant to be the starter plugs when inspiration deserts you or you are design-challenged. PowerPoint ships with a set of readymade templates and there are more available online. Pick one to begin.

Tip: Manpreet Kaur, the head of Corporate Communications at Mercer also suggests you use templates for mining ideas for your own presentation.

Whenever you receive any PowerPoint presentation from any of your clients, business partners, or sellers, make it a point to add them to any folder as a stock for templates for future reference. You can leverage these templates to find inspiration for any icon idea, layout, idea presentation, and number representation on the slides.

6. Edit the Slide Master

powerpoint tips

To open the Slide Master view, go to the View tab on the Ribbon and select Slide Master .

The first slide on the top is the Slide Master. Any changes to the Slide Master will be applied to all the slides in the presentation.

The Slide Master view also shows all the slide layouts used in PowerPoint. You can also use these Layout Master slides to control the appearance of any group of slides that share a common layout.

Tip: Make changes to the Slide Master before you start filling a presentation with the content.

7. Use PowerPoint Shapes for visuals

powerpoint tips

PowerPoint Shapes is the most powerful graphical tool in your control.

The multifaceted Shapes feature on the Ribbon gives you infinite ways to use PowerPoint like an illustration program. Look beyond the commonplace rectangle, oval, and rounded rectangle patterns.

Every shape is editable. You can customize any PowerPoint shape and create your own custom designs. They can be formatted with colors, 3-D effects and shadows too.

Tip: Most default shapes are overused. So, you can use your own custom shapes to add interest to a key point or a slide. For instance, you can turn a chevron into a more interesting arrow to illustrate the flow of a process.

8. Choose the right fonts

Choose the right fonts that are modern and pleasing.

It’s well established that fonts have a cognitive impact on how your audience will take in the information.

Sans-serif fonts are preferred for their smooth typefaces. But your typography choices will be influenced by the theme of the content. An artsy presentation can be more liberal with fonts that are decorative.

Also, to create contrast, you can use a technique called font-pairing where two complementary fonts are combined. For instance, use a serif font for titles and pair it with a sans-serif font in the body.

Tip: Want a free font library? Head over to Google Fonts and the collection of 916 free licensed fonts.

9. Use visual metaphors for your data

powerpoint tips

Visuals help everyone get the context behind data at a faster rate.

Business executives are used to spreadsheets . But that doesn’t mean they will like it in a presentation. Arresting illustrations are far better than bullet points and shoddy SmartArt.

We have talked about shapes and using high-quality photos before. But what if you have to analyze dry data?

Use visual metaphors or analogies to bring out the scale and relationships in the data. Executives can look up numbers, but the right use of an analogy can bring out the context behind it.

For instance, the evolution of man can be used to show the growth of a startup over time.

Tip: When stuck for ideas take inspiration from the best infographics on Slideshare and Pinterest. Infographics are designed to pack a lot of information in a small space.

10. Customize your slides for different audiences

powerpoint tips

Save yourself a lot of time by reusing your slides for different audiences.

This somewhat lesser-known PowerPoint tip uses a feature called Custom Slideshow to filter what you want your audience to see. Maybe, you want to hide some sensitive information for a lower level of executives while revealing it to those higher up. You do not have to create different slideshows for these two groups.

Create a custom show in five steps.

  • On the Ribbon, go to Slide Show > Custom Slide Show , and then select Custom Shows .
  • Click the New button in the Custom Shows dialog box. 
  • In the Define Custom Show box , choose the slides that you want to include in the custom show, and then hit Add .
  • You can change the order of the slides with the arrow keys.
  • Type a name in the slideshow name box, and then click OK .

  Tip: You can also create hyperlinked custom shows that you can jump to from your primary PowerPoint show.

11. Rehearse Your Presentation

powerpoint tips

Prepare your presentation according to the time allotted.

No PowerPoint tip is useful if you cannot fit the number of slides and the time you take to present them in the schedule. PowerPoint helps you rehearse your presentation before you do it. With the Rehearse Timing feature, you can tweak your delivery according to the time on hand.

A helpful Microsoft Support video walks you through the process.

Tip: Use the timer to check if you're spending too much or too little time on one particular slide. Maybe, explaining the data in a better way can shorten the time.

12. Make your PowerPoint presentations accessible

powerpoint tips

Go to File > Info > Check for Issues > Check Accessibility

Sharon Rosenblatt, Director of Communications at Accessibility Partners stresses the importance of making presentations more inclusive.

Always use the accessibility checker, and not just if your slideshow is being shared with someone you know has a disability, but you never know where files get sent to.

PowerPoint is all about visuals so it’s more important to finetune the little things that can help make the message easily understood by people who have accessibility challenges.

Tip: Microsoft details the best practices for making all PowerPoint presentations accessible .

The bottom line: Get to the point fast

When you are presenting to busy people, you have to cut the clutter but not lose the message. A successful presentation is about brevity and speed.

A business presentation is also a decision-making tool. So make sure you are presenting the information your audience wants to know. And nothing more.

Yes, they do take some work. But with the help of these PowerPoint tips and tricks, you can start and finish any presentation without losing your sleep.

Want more PowerPoint tips? Then check out these other PowerPoint features that will level up your presentations. Or try taking GoSkills top-rated PowerPoint certification course .

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Saikat Basu

Saikat is a writer who hunts for the latest tricks in Microsoft Office and web apps. He doesn't want to get off the learning curve, so a camera and a harmonica claim an equal share of his free time.

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Microsoft PowerPoint Best Practices, Tips, and Techniques by Chantal Bossé

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Leveraging PowerPoint’s Slide Master for Design

PowerPoint’s Slide Master is a design feature that is still overlooked by so many presentation creators and presenters. This is the main reason why I have seen so many presentation files where content has been created by hand on each slide . No wonder people have been complaining all this time that slide creation takes so much time!

Therefore, the use of slide masters is one of the first topics I go through in my training sessions. If you are still creating your slides by deleting the placeholders you see on the blank slides and get busy adding text boxes and other types of content manually, this chapter will help you gain hours of your life back. I usually even make this bold statement to users: ...

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PowerPoint Masters and Layouts – Best Practices

Content-single

As I write this, our clients have a mix of Office versions deployed. Some corporations are still using Office 2003, while many others have taken the Office 2007-2010 plunge and been “Ribbonized”. The most difficult are the companies that have a mix of both. This platform mix is most challenging when PowerPoint is the target program. This is because of the different way masters and layouts are used.

PowerPoint has 2 layout mechanisms: the master and the layout. Masters are customizable pages that contain graphics and text that are in common to all slides. Layouts are arrangements of text and graphic placeholders that are superimposed on the master to make the final slides. PowerPoint 2003 opened up new possibilities for presentation design by adding multiple masters. Instead of just 1 master each for slides and titles, you could now create different masters for different purposes. This made it much easier to create a presentation with varying sections and special-purpose slide designs.

Masters and Layouts in PowerPoint 2003

In PowerPoint 2003, you access the masters using the View>Master>Slide Master command. Masters display in a sidebar, where you can create rename, duplicate and create masters. You can create a slide master or a slide/title master pair, but a title master cannot exist on its own. The primary difference between a slide and a title master is that the slide master has a multi-level text placeholder, while a title master has a subtitle placeholder with only one level of text.

There are 2 problems in PowerPoint 2003, though. First, Microsoft’s user interface design for accessing these masters is counter-intuitive and hard to use. And second, slide layouts are still closed to customization. This lack of customization means that multiple master slides are often necessary to create all the slide designs that may be needed.

Masters and Layouts in PowerPoint 2007/2010/2013/2016

When Office 2007 came out, the program that was most improved was PowerPoint. In addition to long-missed features like tracking/kerning and a more discoverable user interface, Microsoft had finally made slide layouts customizable.

To access masters and layouts in PowerPoint 2007-2010, click on the View tab of the Ribbon. Then click on Slide Master in the Presentation Views group. The master is the larger thumbnail at the top. The layouts are the 11 automatically generated slides below it. Not all of these are useful. The layouts you will probably reuse are the Title Slide , Title and Content and Section Header layouts, immediately under the master. The Title Only and Blank layouts at positions 6 and 7 are also widely used.

The shift in emphasis from masters in PPT03 to layouts in PPT07 means that creating a presentation template for PowerPoint 2003 is very different from later versions. In PPT03, all customization has to be packed into the masters. In PPT07, masters become much less relevant, with most customizations built into the layouts. Multiple master slides are only necessary to use a different Color Theme, since each Master and its Layouts can only use one color theme at a time. This is a change from 2003, where each slide could have a different Color Scheme applied.

As far as support goes, a PowerPoint 2003 presentation with multiple masters will almost always require an extra tutorial. This must explain masters, layouts and their application, because Microsoft’s interface is so bad. PowerPoint 2007 usually needs only a sample presentation that shows how the different layouts are used.

Tutorial Slide explains masters and layouts

Content from a typical tutorial slide. Multiple Master presentations in PowerPoint 2003 need this information to make them useable.

The scenario that will having you tearing out your hair is the “blended family of Office versions” client who has both Office 2003 and 2007 users. These clients often believe Microsoft’s hype about 100% cross-compatibility between Office versions. PowerPoint is not totally compatible. Masters, slide layouts, charting and color palettes are all different. Behind the scenes, Microsoft has implemented eye-rolling kludges to simulate compatibility. Let me repeat: PowerPoint is not totally compatible!

In fact, the only program where we will not upgrade an older 2003 file to a newer version is PowerPoint. Instead, we rebuild it. If you’re creating a presentation that uses palette-switching to create sections with different color schemes, there is no other possible workflow. It’s the only way to guarantee it’s going to work correctly for the long term.

The best scenario is when the client is using PowerPoint 2007 or better. Compared to earlier versions, the new PowerPoint is a delight to work with and finally offers the capabilities that designers have been assuming were there all along.

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Best practices for making awesome PowerPoint slides

Sandy Writtenhouse

Whether you’re presenting a slideshow to your executives, clients, or peers, you want to convey your message clearly and successfully. Unfortunately, many mistakes can be made when creating PowerPoint presentations .

Choose the fonts wisely

Select pleasing colors.

  • Don’t overuse animations and effects

Use a standard presentation rule

From hard-to-read fonts to colors that hurt the eyes of your audience, here are some best practices to keep in mind for your next PowerPoint slideshow.

Using a fancy, dramatic, or even whimsical font can be tempting. But you must consider the readability of the font. You want your audience to easily see your headings and bullet points. Consider the two basic font styles: serif and sans serif.

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Serif fonts are more decorative, have a classic appearance, and are frequently used in print publications. Each letter has a stroke that extends from a point in the letter. Popular serif styles include Times New Roman, Garamond, Georgia, and Baskerville.

Sans serif fonts are more precise, have a clean appearance, and are frequently used in digital publications. Each letter is clear-cut without wings or curves at its points. Popular sans serif styles include Arial, Verdana, Tahoma, and Calibri.

Because of the extended strokes, serif fonts can appear a bit blurry on a screen. This makes a sans serif font the favored choice. The bottom line is that you should remain consistent and use the same type, serif or sans serif, for all fonts in the slideshow.

The colors you use in your PowerPoint presentation can be just as important as the content. You want to use those that enhance the appearance of the slideshow, not distract or give your audience a headache.

As Robert Lane explains in his article about combining colors in PowerPoint , mixing red and blue or red and green can cause eye strain. Plus, red and green mixtures are difficult to see for those with color blindness.

The article mentions that warm colors like reds, oranges, and yellows are eye-catching, whereas cool colors like blues, greens, and purples draw less attention. Additionally, lighter colors are more noticeable than dark.

One of the easiest ways to choose the colors for your presentation is to use a built-in theme. Select the Design tab and you’ll see a collection of Themes in the ribbon.

Once you select a theme, you can then use the Variants section to choose a different color scheme. Each scheme includes eight complementing colors. You can also pick the font style you want to use in the Variants drop-down menu.

Tip : You can also check out the Design Ideas if you need help with the layouts for your slides.

Don’t overuse animations and effects

Animations can be attention-grabbing additions to a slideshow. But if you overuse or misuse them, they can be detrimental to your presentation and actually turn off viewers. The best thing to do is consider your audience and slideshow’s purpose.

For instance, if you are presenting the slideshow to a classroom of 8-year-old students, animations can grab and hold their attention more than simple images or words. However, if you’re presenting to your company’s executive team or board of directors, animations can come across as unprofessional.

If you really want to include animations, make them subtle or purposeful. As an example, you may want to expand on each bullet point in your list. You can create an animation to display the bullet points one by one and only when you click.

To do this, select the first bullet point, go to the Animations tab, and choose the Appear effect. Then, in the Timing section of the ribbon, choose On click in the Start drop-down list. Do the same for each bullet point in your list.

This creates a simple animation that benefits your presentation. It doesn’t distract but instead keeps your audience focused on your current talking point.

What is the 10/20/30 rule of PowerPoint? What is the five-by-five rule? What about the 5/5/5 and seven-by-seven rules? Rules, rules, rules. These are different standards that many recommend using when it comes to creating PowerPoint presentations.

  • The 10/20/30 rule : Have no more than 10 slides, a presentation no longer than 20 minutes, and a font size no smaller than 30 points.
  • The five-by-five rule : Have no more than five words per line and five lines per slide.
  • The 5/5/5 rule : Have no more than five words per line, five lines per slide, and five text-heavy slides in a row.
  • The seven-by-seven rule : Have no more than seven words per line and seven lines per slide.

What each of these rules basically means is: Keep it simple.

The first rule, 10/20/30, is a good rule to follow for your overall presentation. While it may not always be possible, the more succinct a presentation, the more successful it will be.

The last three rules are helpful ones to follow when you’re adding text to your slides. As you know, presentations are visual. Using too much text means your audience is reading more than watching.

Hopefully, these best practices will help you create a memorable and effective slideshow. For other ways to enhance your presentation, look at how to add audio to the slides or how to  include music in PowerPoint .

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Sandy Writtenhouse

Many of the apps from the Microsoft 365 suite now run natively on Apple's new M1-powered MacBooks. Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote are now all able to take full advantage of Apple's custom ARM-based silicon.

These new Microsoft 365 apps for Apple M1 Macs are all universal apps, which means that they will also run on traditional Macs with Intel processors. This also means that the Office apps on Apple's M1 Macs -- like the new MacBook Air, 13-inch MacBook Pro, and Mac mini -- should all feel snappier and faster than when they were previously running under emulation with Rosetta 2.

This holiday season, Microsoft will release a dual-screen smartphone known as the Surface Duo. As a dual-screen device, you can stack your favorite apps side by side, span apps across the screen for a better view of your work, and generally do more while on the go.

That demands software and hardware work hand-in-hand, however, so the new Office app for iOS and Android is paving the way forward. It'll make your phone a bit more useful for work -- in Office apps, at least. One hub for all things Office You can already use the dedicated Word, Excel, and PowerPoint apps on your phone. With the new Office app, however, Microsoft is creating a one-stop hub for all things related to work. Word, Excel, and PowerPoint are all part of the Office app. Yet it's lightweight, coming in at less than 100MB.

Public speaking, including the delivery of PowerPoint presentations, can be a trial. There's the need to pace yourself, as well as to avoid reading your slides word for word. Microsoft gets that.

Leaning on the power of artificial intelligence, the company is now launching a public preview of its PowerPoint Presenter Coach, a tool which can help critique your PowerPoint presentation.

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PowerPoint Presentation Best Practices: Tips & Resources

  • Slide Content
  • The Presentation: Public Speaking
  • Tips & Resources

Watch your timing, both while speaking and going through your slides. You don't want to go too fast, but make sure you don't go over your allotted time, either. (This is where practice comes in!) You might want to leave a few minutes at the end for questions.

Sort Your Slides

Try breaking your slides into smaller chunks or segments, and make sure they flow. But don’t use too many slides, either; find a nice middle ground. If you look at all of them in the slide sorter, do they seem to flow logically without your speech backing them up?

The "B" Key

During your presentation (on either PowerPoint or Keynote) you can press the "B" key on the keyboard, and the screen will go blank. This is useful if you need to go off topic for a minute, or you want people to focus on you while you say something extremely important. Press "B" again and your presentation will reappear.

  • Keep it simple, but not simplistic
  • Have a theme and be consistent
  • Be smart with colors
  • Choose fonts wisely
  • Use high-quality graphics, not clip art
  • Try using video or audio
  • Minimize distractions in your slides
  • Pace yourself
  • Break up your slides into small chunks
  • Check your spelling and grammar
  • Don’t use stale built-in templates
  • Don’t throw off your audience with fancy fonts
  • Don’t use distracting animations and transitions
  • Don’t use clip art
  • Don’t put an entire paragraph in your slide
  • Don’t go too fast
  • Don't read from cue cards word-for-word
  • Don’t stress—act relaxed and natural, and your audience will be more receptive
  • "Design Tips" - Garr Reynolds Tips and slide examples from a communication expert.
  • "10 PowerPoint Tips to Make Your Slides More Effective" - iSpring Top 10 tips, written by Ferry Pereboom, the co-founder of a design agency.
  • Presentation Zen: "What is good presentation design?" - Garr Reynolds Tips and slide examples from a communication expert.
  • "Top 10 Tips to Make Your PowerPoint Suck Way Less" - Your PowerPoint Sucks Top 10 tips, other articles, examples, and resources.
  • "Speak up: Preparing an Engaging Presentation" - Amherst College Tips on presenting a public speech from Amherst College's Writing Center.
  • “Basic tasks for creating a PowerPoint presentation” - Microsoft A guide for getting started with PowerPoint, with tips for creating an effective presentation at the bottom.
  • "Delivery Tips" - Garr Reynolds Public speaking tips from a communication expert.
  • "Preparation Tips" - Garr Reynolds Preparation tips for presenting from a communication expert.
  • Canva Slide builder with professional and artistic templates.
  • SlideModel Professional slide and theme templates.
  • PresentationGO Free templates, slides, graphics, diagrams, tables, etc.
  • << Previous: The Presentation: Public Speaking
  • Last Updated: Dec 8, 2023 12:36 PM
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Microsoft PowerPoint Best Practices, Tips, and Techniques: An indispensable guide to mastering PowerPoint&#39;s advanced tools to create engaging presentations

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powerpoint slide master best practices

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Chantal Bossé

Microsoft PowerPoint Best Practices, Tips, and Techniques: An indispensable guide to mastering PowerPoint's advanced tools to create engaging presentations

Purchase options and add-ons, book description.

  • Editorial Reviews

Want to become a PowerPoint Pro? Written by a PowerPoint expert and Microsoft MVP, this book helps you create visually appealing PowerPoint presentations using advanced tools, features, and expert techniques for better impact

Purchase of the print or Kindle book includes a free PDF eBook

Key Features

  • Learn how to plan your content and prepare your PowerPoint masters
  • Create beautiful content using PowerPoint features and add-ins
  • Deliver impressive presentations by leveraging PowerPoint's advanced delivery tools

Giving great business presentations that stand out can mean the difference between getting and losing out on an important promotion, a critical client deal, or a grant. To start creating PowerPoint presentations that showcase your ideas in the best light possible, you'll need more than attractive templates; you'll need to leverage PowerPoint's full range of tools and features.

This is where this PowerPoint book comes in, leading you through the steps that will help you plan, create, and deliver more impactful and professional-looking presentations. The book is designed in a way to take you through planning your content efficiently and confidently preparing PowerPoint masters. After you've gotten to grips with the basics, you'll find out how to create visually appealing content using the application's lesser known, more advanced features, including useful third-party add-ins. The concluding chapters will equip you with PowerPoint's advanced delivery tools, which will enable you to deliver memorable presentations.

By the end of this book, you'll be able to confidently choose processes to create and deliver impactful presentations more efficiently.

What you will learn

  • Plan your PowerPoint presentation content and know your audience
  • Prepare PowerPoint masters to speed up the development process and maintain consistency
  • Add and modify visual and multimedia elements
  • Use transitions and animations efficiently
  • Build flexibility and interactivity into your presentations
  • Practice your delivery with Presenter Coach
  • Leverage Presenter View during delivery to increase your confidence
  • Use PowerPoint Live in Teams for easy-to-manage remote presentations

Who this book is for

If you are a business professional looking for best practices for presentations and are interested in the features PowerPoint has to offer to help you create and deliver impactful presentations, this book is for you. No formal presentation design knowledge is needed, but you do need to know PowerPoint's basic tools and functions such as starting and saving files, adding, copying, pasting, or moving slides. A sound understanding of cloud storage and the use of Office 365 is also needed.

Table of Contents

  • Analyzing your Audience and Presentation Delivery Needs
  • Using Industry Best Practices to Design Better Visuals
  • Leveraging PowerPoint's Slide Master for Design
  • Using PowerPoint's Document Masters for Accessible Handouts and Notes
  • Using Artificial Intelligence to Improve Your Visuals
  • Adding and Modifying Visual Elements
  • Adding and Modifying Multimedia Elements
  • Working with Transitions and Animations
  • Building Flexibility and Interactivity into Your Presentations
  • Using PowerPoint Third-Party Add-Ins
  • Practicing Your Presentation Delivery
  • Using Presenter View
  • Using PowerPoint Live in Microsoft Teams

"Microsoft PowerPoint Best Practices, Tips, and Techniques is an accessible and thoughtfully organized resource that will help readers create more effective and engaging presentations using PowerPoint. The author covers all the basics, shares best practices, and includes additional resources for readers interested in learning more."

Kim Denny, Head of Product, PowerPoint & Office Video

About the Author

Chantal Bossé has worked in instructional design and training for over 25 years and is the founder of CHABOS Inc., specializing in M365 training and high-stakes presentation design and coaching. She has been a Microsoft PowerPoint, M365 Apps & Services Most Valued Professional (MVP) since 2013 and has helped over 250,000 international French-speaking learners on LinkedIn Learning with her courses on PowerPoint, Teams, and communication. She thrives on helping people understand and leverage technology to help them work efficiently and deliver engaging and impactful presentations.

  • ISBN-10 183921533X
  • ISBN-13 978-1839215339
  • Publisher Packt Publishing
  • Publication date February 10, 2023
  • Language English
  • Dimensions 9.25 x 7.52 x 0.7 inches
  • Print length 338 pages
  • See all details

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Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Packt Publishing (February 10, 2023)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 338 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 183921533X
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1839215339
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.3 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 9.25 x 7.52 x 0.7 inches
  • #17 in Presentation Software Books
  • #19 in Microsoft PowerPoint Guides
  • #69 in Microsoft Office Guides

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About the author

powerpoint slide master best practices

Chantal Bossé

Chantal Bossé shares her passion for visual communications and technology through her business, CHABOS, since 2004.

As a presentation & visual communication leader, TEDx speaker coach, Microsoft Office Apps & Services MVP and expert trainer on the LinkedIn Learning platform, she helps speakers and small businesses improve their PowerPoint presentations and public speaking, and their Microsoft 365 & Teams skills.

Her goal is to help clients increase their bottom line by leveraging the power of their Microsoft 365 applications. CHABOS’ mission is helping small businesses and end-users be more empowered and efficient with communication and collaborative technologies.

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A Trainer's Guide to PowerPoint: Best Practices for Master Presenters

  • Mike Parkinson
  • Association for Talent Development

powerpoint slide master best practices

Learn the Secrets Needed to Master PowerPoint for Training

As a successful facilitator, you know the importance of the resources in your professional toolkit. How you engage your audience and improve learning can be affected by how well you use them. But mastery of PowerPoint evades many. Feedback on presentations can range from “What was the point?” to “That changed my life.” Most, though, fall closer to the former. If you are looking for a guide to the PowerPoint practices that will push your presentations into the latter category, look no further.

A Trainer's Guide to PowerPoint: Best Practices for Master Presenters is Mike Parkinson's master class on the art of PowerPoint. While Parkinson wants you to understand how amazing a tool PowerPoint is, he's the first to tell you that there is no magic button to make awesome slides. There are, however, proven processes and tools that deliver successful PowerPoint content each and every time you use them. In this book he shares them, detailing his award-winning PowerPoint process and guiding you through three phases of presentation development—discover, design, and deliver. What's more, Parkinson is a Microsoft PowerPoint MVP—most valuable professional—an honorific bestowed by Microsoft on those with “very deep knowledge of Microsoft products and services.” He shares not only his tips and best practices for presentation success, but also those from several of his fellow MVPs.

Parkinson invites you to master PowerPoint as a tool—just like a paintbrush and paint—and to realize that the tool doesn't make the art, you do.

About the Author

Mike Parkinson is one of 16 Microsoft PowerPoint MVPs in the United States. He is a PowerPoint and visual communication expert, a professional speaker, an educator, and an award-winning author. He regularly conducts workshops and creates graphics, presentations, and content for companies like Microsoft, FedEx, Xerox, Dell, and Boeing, as well as for learning institutions and small organizations. Mike is the owner of Billion Dollar Graphics (BillionDollarGraphics.com) and 24 Hour Company (24hrco.com) and author of a successful visual communication book, Do-It-Yourself Billion Dollar Graphics.

In this Book

  • Introduction
  • The Four Keys to Discovery—Problem, Mission, Learner, and Subject Matter
  • Writing a Powerful Takeaway
  • Storyboards for Faster Design
  • Render—PowerPoint Tips, Tricks, and Secrets
  • Render—Design Principles for Professional Slides
  • 10 Best PowerPoint Delivery Practices
  • Delivering Your PowerPoint Presentation

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Company Best Practices

Company best practices presentation, free google slides theme and powerpoint template.

Download the "Company Best Practices" presentation for PowerPoint or Google Slides. The world of business encompasses a lot of things! From reports to customer profiles, from brainstorming sessions to sales—there's always something to do or something to analyze. This customizable design, available for Google Slides and PowerPoint, is what you were looking for all this time. Use the slides to give your presentation a more professional approach and have everything under control.

Features of this template

  • 100% editable and easy to modify
  • Different slides to impress your audience
  • Contains easy-to-edit graphics such as graphs, maps, tables, timelines and mockups
  • Includes 500+ icons and Flaticon’s extension for customizing your slides
  • Designed to be used in Google Slides and Microsoft PowerPoint
  • Includes information about fonts, colors, and credits of the resources used

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IMAGES

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VIDEO

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COMMENTS

  1. Slide Master in PowerPoint

    1a. What is a Slide Master? The slide master in Microsoft PowerPoint contains all the information on the slide layout as well as the theme of a presentation. This includes the fonts, color, effects, background, and the size and position of the placeholders. To access the slide master, first, click on the "View" tab in PowerPoint.

  2. PDF POWERPOINT BEST PRACTICES

    To keep your colors consistent and easy to access, save a color palette in PowerPoint. Click the Design tab and under Variants, click the down arrow (1). On the dropdown menu click Colors (2) and Customize Colors (3). In the Create New Theme colors dialogue click one of the color slots (4).

  3. How to create master slides in PowerPoint

    Sep 04, 2023 7 mins read Share this article Get a complete overview of one of PowerPoint's best tools: Slide Master! The Slide Master in PowerPoint is, in short, an option that allows you to standardize specific visual aspects of your presentation. It's a feature that not many people are aware of.

  4. What is a slide master?

    1 Slide master 2 Layout masters When you edit the slide master, all slides that are based on that master will contain those changes. However, the majority of changes that you make will most likely be to the layout masters related to the master.

  5. Customize a slide master

    What is a slide master? Learn more about slide masters Learn more about themes Add a placeholder to a layout Change text alignment, indentation, and spacing. Use multiple slide masters in one presentation Need more help? Want more options? Discover Community

  6. 25 PowerPoint Presentation Tips For Good PPT Slides in 2022

    You'll see 30 of our favorite PowerPoint presentation tips and tricks, including techniques to update slide master PowerPoint 2024 designs. Jump to content in this section: How Do You Give a Memorable PPT Presentation? Practice Makes Perfect Adapt Your Presentation to the Audience Use a Custom Font Use Contrast Avoid Too Many Animations Add Audio

  7. Video: 90 seconds about PowerPoint Slide Masters

    Anytime you do a new slide, just don't copy or duplicate the previous slide. You can use a new one here. Now you can edit those and that is what the master slide can do. I'll show you how to get into that. So, click up here in the menu and click VIEW. And, then click Slide Master. Now, everything on the left-hand side is the Slide Master.

  8. PowerPoint Slide Master: Full Tutorial and Sample Slides

    To do this, enter the Slide Master and go to Layout #1 there (the "Office Theme Slide Master"). Press Alt, W, S (PC) or ⌘ + Opt + Ctrl + G (Mac) to show the Drawing Guides, which should appear in red, and drag them off the slide to remove them. Next, go to each Layout you plan to use and do the same thing.

  9. How to use PowerPoint Slide Master

    Learn how to use Slide Master in PowerPoint to control the look and feel of your whole presentation, including colors, fonts, background, effects, and just a...

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  11. PowerPoint Best Practices

    1. Open the Slide Master View. First off, you want to add the formatting guides in the Slide Master View of your presentation, next to the parent slide. And there are number of placement advantages for doing so (as discussed below). But first off, if you've never navigated to the Slide Master View before, from the View tab in your Ribbon ...

  12. Unlock productivity with the Slide Master in PowerPoint

    7 Best practices Decide optimal format size Set up a real theme Have one Slide Master and just a few layouts Position the placeholders wisely: think about the users! Be wary of pictures Don't use black and colored pictures in the background Test and validate the Slide Master with actual users How to fix your Slide Master: the check-list

  13. Top 12 PowerPoint Tips and Hacks for Flawless Presentations

    The first slide on the top is the Slide Master. Any changes to the Slide Master will be applied to all the slides in the presentation. The Slide Master view also shows all the slide layouts used in PowerPoint. You can also use these Layout Master slides to control the appearance of any group of slides that share a common layout. Tip: Make ...

  14. 60 Effective PowerPoint Presentation Tips & Tricks (Giant List)

    Here are a handful of PowerPoint presentation tips and tricks to help you avoid missteps. 37. Stop With the Sound Effects. Sound effects are distracting and outdated. In most cases avoid it. Skip sound effects if you want to learn how to make your PowerPoint stand out without distractions. (Image source: Envato Elements.)

  15. Multiple Slide Masters: Beware!

    Posted on January 31, 2021 One of my areas of expertise is to do presentation assessments for designers, finding any potential problems in their work before sending their file to their client. Something I see fairly often is multiple slide masters in a template or theme, where they are used as an organizational tool.

  16. Slide Master PowerPoint Guide

    Applying effects to the PowerPoint Slide Master. From the theme slide, you can also control the effects applicable to shapes. After you set them up in the Slide Master, you'll find the effects available in the Normal view. Insert a new shape, open the Format tab of the shape, and then the ready-to-use effect panel.

  17. Microsoft PowerPoint Best Practices, Tips, and Techniques

    3 Leveraging PowerPoint's Slide Master for Design PowerPoint's Slide Master is a design feature that is still overlooked by so many presentation creators and presenters. This is the main reason … - Selection from Microsoft PowerPoint Best Practices, Tips, and Techniques [Book]

  18. PowerPoint Masters and Layouts

    PowerPoint has 2 layout mechanisms: the master and the layout. Masters are customizable pages that contain graphics and text that are in common to all slides. Layouts are arrangements of text and graphic placeholders that are superimposed on the master to make the final slides. PowerPoint 2003 opened up new possibilities for presentation design ...

  19. Best practices for making awesome PowerPoint slides

    The 5/5/5 rule: Have no more than five words per line, five lines per slide, and five text-heavy slides in a row. The seven-by-seven rule: Have no more than seven words per line and seven lines ...

  20. PowerPoint Presentation Best Practices: Tips & Resources

    PowerPoint Presentation Best Practices: Tips & Resources A guide to layout, design, best practices, and tips for creating a great PowerPoint presentation for your class. Home Design Slide Content The Presentation: Public Speaking Tips & Resources Timing Watch your timing, both while speaking and going through your slides.

  21. Microsoft PowerPoint Best Practices, Tips, and Techniques: An

    Microsoft PowerPoint Best Practices, Tips and Techniques is an accessible and thoughtfully organized resource that will help readers create more effective and engaging presentations using PowerPoint. She covers all of the basics, shares best practices, and includes additional resources for readers interested in learning more.

  22. A Trainer's Guide to PowerPoint: Best Practices for Master Presenters

    A Trainer's Guide to PowerPoint: Best Practices for Master Presenters is Mike Parkinson's master class on the art of PowerPoint. While Parkinson wants you to understand how amazing a tool PowerPoint is, he's the first to tell you that there is no magic button to make awesome slides.

  23. PDF POWERPOINT BEST PRACTICES

    BEST PRACTICES FOR POWERPOINT PRESENTATIONS SLIDE MASTER If you are not building a presentation from an existing template, use Powerpoint's Slide Master View to easily establish consistent formatting throughout. On the View tab, click Slide Master. Here you can design a template for each type

  24. Company Best Practices Presentation

    Download the "Company Best Practices" presentation for PowerPoint or Google Slides. The world of business encompasses a lot of things! From reports to customer profiles, from brainstorming sessions to sales—there's always something to do or something to analyze. ... This customizable design, available for Google Slides and PowerPoint, is what ...