Notes from the Help Desk…

PowerPoint 2003 comes with several design templates that you can use to add an artistic design to your slides. If you want a wider variety of designs from which to choose, consider downloading additional design templates from Microsoft’s web site.

If you want a more unique design for your presentation, or if you need to include your company colors and logo on each slide, consider creating your own design template. (This is more of a mini-lesson than a quick tip, but it’s well worth the time and effort.)

Using the Slide Master

To create your own design template, you need to know how to use the PowerPoint slide master. If you’ve never used this feature before, you can access it by selecting View | Master | Slide Master. The slide master is the template on which your presentation is based. It contains background graphics, formatting for titles, bulleted lists, header/footer contents, etc.

You can use the Slide Master to make global changes in your presentation. For example, suppose the design template you selected formats all slide titles in white text, and you want all titles to be blue. You can make this change by opening the slide master and selecting blue as the font color for the title placeholder. When you close the slide master and return to your presentation, all titles will be blue.

Who Cares about the Slide Master?

You do, if you plan to create your own design template. That’s where you tell PowerPoint which background graphic to use, as well as how to format titles, bulleted lists, graphical objects, etc.

Let’s Create a Design Template

Let’s say you need to create a design template for your company. It must include the company logo, the company’s colors as a gradient background on all slides, and it must appear in the Slide Design Task Pane so that you can apply it to any new presentation you might create.

Here’s how:

1. Create a new blank presentation.
2. Select View | Master | Slide Master to view the slide master. (PowerPoint will also open the Slide Master View toolbar, which you can use to close Slide Master View.)



3. Change the background by selecting Format | Background. Use this to select a background color, a blend of two colors (gradient), a texture, or a picture.
4. Add the company logo by selecting Insert | Picture | From file…
5. Drag the logo to place it on the slide and size it appropriately.
6. Select View | Header and Footer to add the date and/or slide number to each slide.
7. Close Master Slide View.
8. Save the presentation as a design template (*.pot).



9. PowerPoint will automatically save the template in C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\Microsoft\Templates. Do not save the template in a different location; it needs to be in this folder in order for it to show up in the Slide Design Task Pane.
10. Close the presentation.

Using Your New Design Template

1. Create a new presentation, or open an existing one.
2. Select Format | Slide Design to open the Slide Design Task Pane.
3. Scroll through the design templates to find the one you created. (If you don’t see it, close PowerPoint and re-open it.)
4. Apply your design template to the active presentation by clicking on it.
5. You can also use the drop-down menu to apply the design to one slide, all slides, or to use it as the default design for all new presentations.