PowerPoint Formatting:
Design Template

Title: Jan's Illustrated Computer Literacy 101

Did you want: Working with Presentations: PowerPoint 2007,2010,2013,2016 or español



PowerPoint comes with a number of design templates for formatting presentations. When you apply a design template, you are actually changing the Masters.

Custom Template

You can create your own Masters and then save them as a template. It is usually faster to modify an existing template and then save it under a different name.

To see your new template in the list of choices you must save it to the right location. Problem! The location varies with the version of PowerPoint and the version of Windows you are using. The lesson Save As Template deals with this issue.

TipContent template as a design template: A content template is intended to create a new presentation. You can, however, apply it as a design template to an existing presentation by browsing to the template from the task pane Slide Design: Design Templates or in the Templates dialog. The text and images in the content template are not applied, just the background and design settings.


Where you are:
JegsWorks > Lessons > Presentations

Before you start...

Project 1: PowerPoint BasicsTo subtopics

Project 2: PowerPoint Formatting
    Design Issues
    Templates To subtopics
    Icon: Step-by-StepContent Template
    Icon: Step-by-StepDesign Template
    Icon: Step-by-StepSave As Template
    Transitions & AnimationsTo subtopics
    Summary
    Quiz
    ExercisesTo subtopics

Project 3: Advanced PowerPointTo subtopics


    Search
    Glossary
    Appendix



Icon: Trouble Missing templates: You may not have the templates used in the exercises. Different versions of PowerPoint come with different templates.

Microsoft has grouped the templates that came with PowerPoint 4.0, 97, and 2000 into 3 zipped files for you to download. Some features may not work in earlier versions of PowerPoint but the backgrounds and formatting should be OK.

Download details: PowerPoint Templates Pack 1 - A - EL - 1268 KB
Download details: PowerPoint Templates Pack 3 - EM - P - 1357 KB
Download details: PowerPoint Templates Pack 2 - Q - Z - 1554 KB

(and, yes, Pack #3 has the templates from the middle of the alphabet.)


Icon Step-by-Step 

Step-by-Step:Design Template

 Icon Step-by-Step

What you will learn:

to apply a different design template to all slides
to apply a design template to selected slides

Start with:  Anniversary Trips Offer.ppt from the previous lesson

About Current Design Template

  1. View Title Master: From the menu select View | Master | Slide Master. If necessary, click on the thumbnail for the Title Master.

    Status Bar - Design Template = Project Post-MortemThe current template's name is in the middle of the status bar: Project Post-Mortem.
     
    The Title Master shows what the design template has assigned for the background and fonts.
     
  2. Task Pane:  If necessary, click on Button: Design the Design button in the Formatting bar to open the Slide Design Task Pane.

    Anniversary Trips Offers - Title Master with Slide Design task pane shows the current template and the Status Bar shows the name of the current template.

    The current slide design is at the top of the pane.

    Other recently used designs are in the second section of the task pane,  Recently used. Below that section are other slide designs that are available to you. Your choices are almost certainly different from what is showing in the illustration.
     

  3. Popup tip over Slide Master: used by slide(s) 2-5,7-10Move your mouse over the two masters at the left. A popup tip shows which slides use which master.
    Popup tip for Title Master: used by slide(s) 1,6,11Handy!

  4. View Slide Master: Click on the Slide Master (first one in the Slides pane at the left.)
     
    This master controls the slides with bulleted text.

    Slide Master

    Box added by templateHmmm. The Master does not show the colored box that is at the bottom of certain slides. The content template added something that is not part of the Masters for the template. Interesting! Or is it going to be confusing??

    If you apply a different design template, the text may not be positioned properly over this box. You will have to learn how to move and resize some slide parts!
     

  5. From the menu select  View | Master  again but pick Handouts. The content template did not make any changes from the default for this Masters.
     
  6. Repeat for the Notes Master. Again, no changes from the standard layout.
     
  7. Close the Master view by clicking Button: Close Master View the Close Master View button on the Masters toolbar. (This bar appeared when you switched to Master view.)

Apply Design Template: All Slides

You can apply a new design template at any time. 

  1. Click on another Slide Design to apply it to all slides.
     
  2. View each slide with this new design template. Does it work well for this presentation?
     
    For some templates, the text of the bullet point Actual is not over the box. You could, of course, change the position of the blue box on each of the slides that has one.
     
  3. Return to the original template, Project Post-Mortem. (Select it from the Task Pane or use Undo.)

Apply Design Template: Selected Slides

You can apply a design template to a single slide or to selected slides.
  1. Menu: Design Template thumbnail (click down arrow)Switch to Slide Sorter view by clicking Button: Slide Sorter the Slide Sorter button on the Views bar.
     
  2. Select the title slides 1, 6, and 11.
     
  3. Scroll down the design thumbnails in the Task Pane. Let your mouse hover over each thumbnail. A popup tip will tell the file name.
     
  4. Find the Stream.pot template. It is dark blue, shading to black at the top with faint curvy lines at the bottom right. The lines do not really show in the thumbnail and the shading looks more like stripes.
     
    Icon: TroubleIf you do not have this template, choose one with a dark, fairly simple background. We will be changing the color shortly.
     
  5. Click the down arrow at the right of the Stream.pot template in the Task Pane. A menu appears that gives you the choice of applying the template to the whole presentation or to just the slides currently selected. Neat!
     
  6. Select Apply to Selected Slides. The selected slides change and the new template shows in the Slide Design pane as Used in this presentation.
     
  7. Select slide 1 and run the Slide Show by clicking Button: Slide Show the Slide Show button in the Views bar. The dark blue color in the new template is one of the colors in the original slide design, but is it the best color? Aha! An opportunity to change things on the Master.

Check Outline

The design template you applied to the text slides has created a nice layout using two placeholders for Goals text and Actual text. Some of this text will not show in the outline. Does that matter? That depends on what you might want to do with the outline!

  1. Outline of Anniversary Trips Offer2.pptClick on the Outline tab in the Navigation pane at the left. The outline of the presentation shows, but it is missing some of your points! The Actual text on slides 2 - 5 is not in the outline. Unexpected!
     
    TipPowerPoint recognizes only the default text and title placeholders when it creates the outline.

    The Project Post-Mortem template contains a second text placeholder on each Performance Against Goals slide. This placeholder lines up over the blue box.


 


Save As

  1. Icon: Class diskFrom the menu select Save As. The Save As dialog appears. Use the name Anniversary Trips Offer2.ppt and save it to your Class disk.

    Full floppy disk How to handle a full Class disk


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Last updated: 30 Apr 2012