How To Save As Powerpoint Template

In this epic PowerPoint tutorial, you lot'll learn how to create a PowerPoint template from scratch.

What is a PowerPoint template and why do you lot need ane?

In short, a template is a gear up of pre-congenital slide layouts and defined formatting to help you lot speedily create make consistent and professional PowerPoint presentations.

Beneath is an instance of the properly built template y'all'll acquire how to create in this tutorial.

Time Saving Tip:You can salvage yourself a bunch of time by start buying a professional PowerPoint template and and then tweaking information technology to meet your needs.

To meet the 4 best places I recommend finding professional PowerPoint templates online (and why I similar them), read my guide here.

If you lot and your squad brand lots of PowerPoint presentations, a properly built template can save you THOUSANDS of hours building and editing your slides (no joke).

On the flip side, if your template is cleaved (which many are), information technology can make working in PowerPoint a nightmare.

Chances are that if your current PowerPoint template is difficult to work with, you are using a broken template. This tutorial will help yous fix information technology (fast).

To larn how to create your own custom PowerPoint theme (that you lot tin can use with your template), read my guide here.

Part #i. Creating Your PowerPoint Template Slide Backgrounds

In the commencement part of this tutorial, y'all'll detect how to create your own slide backgrounds and how to:

Build the overall frame for your template
Apply and navigate the PowerPoint Slide Master (and how the Parent and Kid
Slides piece of work together)
Utilise the dissimilar paste special options
Add a pattern background to your slide
Crop images to fit your unabridged slide groundwork
Add a radial gradient fill to a shape with transparency
Add new guides and move them around on your Slide Chief
And more!

Boosted template resources: If you're non 100% clear on what exactly a PowerPoint template is, read my guide here.

And for a list of questions I recommend asking yourself before you build your template, read my guide hither.

i. Set the colors for your template

The start step is to select a color scheme for your template. You tin easily practice that in the Design tab, nether Variants.

To choose a color scheme for your PowerPoint template, just:

Navigate to the Pattern tab
Open the More variants options
Click on Colors to open up the dropdown
Select the color scheme you want to utilise

If you want to use a color scheme that isn't listed here, you tin can create your own. To learn how to create your ain custom PowerPoint theme, including colors, font combinations, and shape effects, read my guide here.

Selecting a new PowerPoint theme changes all the default colors you have to work with inside your presentation (allowing you to maintain consequent formatting throughout).

Your theme colors will be reflected in all of your color dropdowns equally pictured below (with pre-populated variants for those colors).

Note: Selecting your own custom theme colors does not replace the standard colors at the bottom of your formatting dropdowns. Y'all cannot modify these Standard Colors, unfortunately.

2. Set the fonts for your template

To navigate to your PowerPoint Slide Master, simply:

Navigate to the View tab
Select the Slide Master command

The next stride is to select a font pairing for your template, which y'all can also do in the Design tab, under Variants.

Annotation: This is one of my top PowerPoint template tips, and is ane you don't want to mess upwards. To meet my 9 other superlative tricks for your PowerPoint templates, read my guide here.

To choose a new font combination for your PowerPoint template, but:

Navigate to the Design tab
Open the More than variants options
Click on Fonts
Select the font combination you want to use

After selecting your new font combination, all the placeholders throughout your presentation will automatically update to your new font styles.

The power to make this kind of macro level formatting is one of the major benefits of creating a PowerPoint template. You lot gear up your formatting in 1 identify, and it updates throughout your entire presentation (amazing!).

In one case you lot take your colors and fonts selected, you lot are set to create the framework. This includes your slide backgrounds and other mutual design elements you volition want in your presentation.

3. Navigate to the Slide Master View

In order to properly create the slide backgrounds for your template, y'all'll need to create a presentation framework on the Slide Master.

To choose a new font combination for your PowerPoint template, simply:

Navigate to the View tab
Select the Slide Chief command

Inside the Slide Master, you'll see two sets of slides on the left as pictured below:

#i. The Parent Slide (the bigger slide) is where you want to make the macro-level edits that you lot want to run across reflected on the majority of your slides. For instance, this is probable where you will want to see things similar your visitor logo or any corporate branding design chemical element.

#2. The Child Slides (the smaller slides) are where you want to customize the private layouts. For instance, your title slides and divider slides may look quite dissimilar from the rest of your slides, which is why they'll have their own Child Slides.

Warning: Although you can delete the Child Slide layouts within a presentation, I don't recommend information technology.

Every bit Julie Terberg and Echo Swinford betoken out in their book on templates, "Building PowerPoint Templates Stride by Pace with the Experts", if you delete these Child Slide layouts, you are probable to encounter formatting bug and errors when copying and pasting between your templates down the road.

And so unless you lot are 300% sure yous are never going to use these layouts (and nobody on the planet is ever going to send yous a slide deck with one of these layouts), I don't recommend deleting them.

4. Customize your Parent Slide groundwork

Now that you are on your Slide Primary, you'll desire to start by formatting your Parent Slide.

That'southward because the formatting that you set up on your Parent Slide volition affect all of the other slide backgrounds within your template.

A. Choose your PowerPoint template's background

Next, yous are going to format your slide background with the various pattern elements you want for all your slides.

In the instance beneath, I've chosen a pattern for my template that is minimalist and modern. You lot can download and insert any moving picture or pattern you desire to use as your slide background image.

To expand your knowledge and learn how to create PowerPoint backgrounds using the Designer feature (and how to troubleshoot it), read our guide here.

B. Crop to Aspect Ratio

If you lot are using a picture for your slide groundwork, the fastest way to get in fit on your slide is to crop it using the Attribute Ratio Crop tool. To practice that, simply:

Select the background prototype you have pasted on the slide
Navigate to the Format tab
Open the Crop dropdown
Open up the Aspect Ratio options
Cull your aspect ratio. In the picture higher up I chose sixteen:9 for widescreen to lucifer my slide dimensions (another common attribute ratio is 4:iii for printed slides).
Adapt your photo within the frame
Hit the Crop control once again or hitting Esc on your keyboard

This will make resizing the image to fit your template much easier without having to worry about any warping.

To learn more virtually the cropping pictures in PowerPoint, read our guide here.

C. Fill out your slide background

To make the image fit your entire slide space, there are ii options.

Option #1. You can simply drag the handlebars to expand the image. Just make sure you hold the Shift cardinal while you enlarge your image, so you don't accidentally warp it.

Option #2. You lot can resize your image more precisely:

In the Shape Width box, enter 13.33 and hit Enter on your keyboard
Elevate the image in the center to fit the unabridged slide

NOTE: In my instance in the video to a higher place, I wanted a smaller pattern. That's why I duplicated the background epitome and so that I have two smaller images next to each other.

And so I made sure to grouping the two images together then that they function equally a unit. To learn all about grouping in PowerPoint, check out our guide here.

The final instance of the groundwork shown below is the issue of that. And considering the image is ready on the Parent Slide similar this, by default it will show upward as all of the slides in my PowerPoint template.

After resizing your background paradigm, you will want to ship information technology back behind all other elements.

To send the paradigm astern, only:

Select your background paradigm
Navigate to the Picture Tools Format tab
Click on the Send Backward dropdown
From the dropdown carte du jour, select Send to Back

This sends the background backside the text as shown in the pic below. This makes all the Parent Slide content placeholders visible again on your slide.

D. Create a semi-transparent gradient layer

With the slide groundwork prepare for my PowerPoint template, I'yard additionally going to brand the slide background less visible by adding a semi-transparent layer.

That'due south because as you tin can run across in the moving-picture show below, the text is not crystal clear confronting the background image I used. This will make information technology difficult for people to read my slides during a presentation.

In the steps below, I will use the old method (non-Role 365 subscription) for creating a transparent background in PowerPoint. If y'all accept an Part 365 subscription and want to see the brand-new mode to create a transparent epitome, see our guide here.

Pace #one. Insert and format a rectangle

To insert and format a rectangle in PowerPoint, simply:

From the Insert Tab, click on the Shapes gallery, and select a rectangle (mine is on my QAT).
Depict in the rectangle so that information technology covers your entire groundwork paradigm (for this to piece of work, your rectangle needs to be the same verbal size every bit the prototype you want to brand transparent).
Remove its outline by going to the Shape Outline dropdown and selecting No Outline.

Stride #two. Add a gradient fill

With the rectangle yet selected, make the following adjustments:

Select your rectangle and click Format Shape to open the Format Shape dialog box. This gives yous a wide diverseness of formatting options you can utilise to format your shape backgrounds for your template.
Select the Slope fill.
In the Type dropdown, select Radial.
For the Management, select the "from center" pick (in the middle).
In the Gradient stops bar, select the commencement slope stop, and from the make full Color dropdown, select white. Under Transparency, enter five %. Then that it almost looks 100% white in the middle.
Next, select the second gradient bar and drag it to the right. From the make full Color dropdown, select white. For Transparency, enter 10%.
Then, select the third gradient bar and drag it to the right. From the make full Color dropdown, select white. For Transparency, enter 10%.
Finally, select the terminal slope bar and drag it to the right. From the fill Color dropdown, select white. For Transparency, enter sixty%.

Using the gradient fill options described higher up, your rectangle should look like mine, with some of your text bleeding through information technology.

Close the Format Shape pane and you lot're all set with your slope formatting.

Equally a final stride, right-click your slope rectangle and select Ship to Back and so Send Forwards so that it sits backside your placeholders only on elevation of your pattern groundwork.

5. Add together a slide groundwork design element

Equally a next pace, I'm going to add a bright bar downwards the right-side of my slide every bit a nice design chemical element. To do that, but:

Navigate to theInsert tab and select theShapes dropdown.
Select aRectangle and describe information technology on the right-paw side of your slide. Make sure to identify it on the edge of your slide.
Select No Outline

Note: Make certain you are adding this to your Parent Slide and non a Child Slide. This automatically populates the blueprint element on all the Child Slides.

That's the ability of creating a PowerPoint template – you add a pattern element in ane place, and it shows upwards throughout your presentation.

vi. Add together and edit your guides

In PowerPoint, guides help with formatting, positioning, and slide-to-slide consistency.

Consider guides as the anchors on your slide that aid yous to consistently marshal your objects. It's an optional footstep, but I recommend adding them to your template.

To add together guides to your PowerPoint template, merely:

Click on the View tab
Select Guides. Detect that at that place are two guides: one vertical and one horizontal.
To move a guide, place your mouse over it, and when your cursor becomes a double-headed arrow, drag the guide to where you want information technology on your slide.

For at present, I will but place my guides on the edges of the slide, to create a "bleed area" in example role of the presentation gets cutting off in impress.

Nosotros volition wait at adding more guides in function #2 of this series.To add a new guide, merely kickoff dragging an existing one, and then hit the Ctrl key on your keyboard before you let go.

Depending on how you lot ready upwardly your guides, they tell users where they should and shouldn't exist placing content on your slides.

Part #2. Setting up your template placeholders and footers

With your slide background now fix, let'due south nail downwardly the following three placeholders on theParent Slide:

Title placeholder
Content placeholder
Date and time, Footer, and Slide Number placeholders

And even if you don't want to utilize these placeholders on all of your slides, it's still important to set and format them on your Parent Slide.

Why? Because if you don't, you run the risk of letting default formatting slip through the cracks and ruin an otherwise perfect template.

Later on in this tutorial, you'll acquire how to tweak your slide layouts abroad from the Parent Slide if that'south what yous desire to do.

1. Format the Title placeholder

In that location are a number of ways in which you can format your placeholders and there is no right or incorrect formatting.

But before nosotros swoop into that, permit'due south talk well-nigh what placeholders are.Placeholders are bare spaces that are designated for sure types of content.

You lot fix these on your Slide Master and then that they are locked when people fill up them in when building their PowerPoint slides using your template.

Three keys to recollect virtually your content placeholders are:

They can only be set up and edited (for real) on your Slide Primary.
Merely text typed into your placeholders volition show in the Outline View of your presentation.
Just text that has been typed into your placeholders will modify fonts automatically when y'all change your theme'south fonts.

To learn all virtually the Outline View in PowerPoint and how to use it, read our article here.

You tin can change the font size, alignment, size, position, etc. of your placeholders to meet your requirements. Beneath I'll run y'all through the most common formatting elements.

A. Change the font size

Before y'all start formatting your placeholders, make sure you are on your Parent Slide. We will focus on formatting your Child Slide layouts later.

As a first step, let'south modify the font size of the championship placeholder:

Select your title placeholder
In the Font Size dialog box, enter forty (or whatsoever size yous want)

B. Resize and position the placeholder

Next, conform the size and position of your title placeholder. To do that, but select the placeholder and:

Use the four-headed pointer cursor to movement the placeholder to where y'all want it on your slide.
With the placeholder still selected, drag the resizing handles (the 8 picayune white circles) in or out to resize the placeholder.

There is no right size and position for your title. You'll but want to make sure that information technology fits your slide.

You'll as well desire to think about how much text you're expecting people to type into the placeholder for their slides. Make sure the placeholder is large enough to fit the typical scenario.

C. Set your vertical text alignment

Side by side, set the vertical text alignment for your title. To do that:

Select your title placeholder
From the Home tab, select the Align Text dropdown menu
Choose your desired vertical text alignment (I'll cull Lesser for mine)

Unless you accept a specific reason to do otherwise, I recommend that you choose Bottom for your vertical text alignment. That fashion your title text will always stay perfectly aligned at the bottom, from slide to slide.

This helps avoid jumping titles for any slides that have more than ane line of text.
On the flip side, if you programme on having short titles for all your slides (no more than than 1 line), I recommend using the Eye text alignment instead.

Regardless of what you decide, make certain you exam different championship lengths to encounter what volition work best for your PowerPoint template.

D. Align the guides to the title

Since we added our guides in the first part of this series, now nosotros'll set them to align with our title.

Drag your Horizontal Guides to match the meridian and the bottom of your title placeholder (add more than guides if necessary)
Elevate your Vertical Guidesto match the left-manus and right-hand sides of the title placeholder (add more than guides if necessary)

To add a new guide, just commencement dragging an existing one, and then hit the Ctrl key on your keyboard earlier you let go.

Adjusting your guides similar this will make adjustment objects on your slides much easier every bit your Smart Guides will automatically snap them together.

Note: If your Guides are not visible, but right-click on a blank function of your slide and select Grid & Guides, so Guides. That will plough them on. Alternatively, you can go up to the View tab in the Ribbon and select Guides inside the Bear witness area.

2. Format the Text placeholder

The Text placeholder on your Parent Slide is special in that it will dictate the default formatting of all the other content placeholders in your presentation (except for the Title placeholder and the Footer placeholders).

Setting the default here on the Parent Slide is important considering information technology makes it a lot easier to brand fast and consistent changes to swathes of content downwards the road.

Later in this template series, I volition show you lot how to format away from this default behavior on the Kid Slides. But first yous want to fix its default formatting.

A. Resize and position the Text placeholder

The get-go thing to do with your Text placeholder is change its position and/or size so that it'south exactly aligned with the Championship and Footer placeholders. To practise that:

Select the Text placeholder and when the cursor becomes a four-headed arrow, elevate the placeholder to the top and left side so that it is aligned with the Title placeholder.
With the placeholder nonetheless selected, use its sizing handles to adjust its size until information technology is but right (factoring the amount of text that you predict yous'll blazon in, equally well as the alignment with the other placeholders).

B. Align the guides

In this pace, you need to align the horizontal and the vertical guides to that they align with the Text placeholder. To do that:

Drag the horizontal guides to friction match the summit and the bottom of the Text placeholder.
Similarly, drag the vertical guides to match the left and right-mitt sides of the Text placeholder.

C. Change the font size

The adjacent stride is to change the font size of the different levels of text inside the placeholder. To do that:

Select the first level of text
In the Font Size box, blazon in twenty and hit Enter

Repeat these steps for the 2nd, third, fourth, and fifth levels of bulleted text, changing their font sizes to xviii,16, 14, and 14 respectively.

D. Adapt and align the bullet points

One time y'all take gear up the font size, it is of import to adjust the bullets.

Select all the text styles in the content placeholder
In the Paragraph group, click on the Bullets and Numbering dropdown
Click on the square style bullets

Next, you accept to adjust the indent of the bulleted lists then that information technology appears in all your slide layouts. To do that:

Select the bulleted listing you want to arrange
Click, concur, and drag the desired indent marking. In our example, nosotros'll drag the hanging indent marker.
Repeat this for each text level

You can adjust the bullets every bit per your personal preference. Based on your cognition of how someone is going to be using this template, you might decide to add more than or less space.

Note: My recommendation every bit per Julie Terberg and Repeat Swinford's book, "Building PowerPoint Templates Stride by Step with the Experts," is to always make certain that you format every unmarried item you have bachelor. That includes formatting each text listing level.

You lot can meet their volume on templates hither.

That way, you lot have everything set in case someone decides to break the rules or practice their own thing. This inevitably happens with templates and you want to exist prepared for information technology!

3. Formatting the footers of your template

The footer section of the Slide Master has three types of placeholders:

Slide number
Footer text
Engagement and time

A. Set the font size for all your footers

The first step is to change the font size of the footer placeholders. To practise that:

Select all your footer placeholders holding theShiftkey.
In theFont Sizedialog box, blazon 10 (of whatsoever your desired font size is) and hit Enter.

B. Resize and position the placeholders

The next matter to do with the footer placeholders is to alter their position and/or size so that they're aligned with the rest of the placeholders. To practise that:

Select each placeholder and when the cursor becomes a four-headed arrow, elevate the placeholder to its desired location (use the guides for aid).
With the placeholder still selected, use its sizing handles to adjust its size until it is simply right (factoring the corporeality of text that you predict you'll blazon in, as well every bit the alignment with the other placeholders).
Repeat this for each placeholder.

If you desire to be 100% certain that all the Footer placeholders are the same, select them one at a fourth dimension and go to the Shape Format tab in the Ribbon. In the Size department, verify that the pinnacle of the placeholders is the aforementioned.

In this example, note that I am swapping the positions of the Date & Time and Footer placeholders.

Remember to also add new guides effectually these placeholders to assistance go along them in place. Here, I'one thousand just going to add the meridian and bottom guides, so as to avoid confusion and overkill.

C. Format the Slide Number placeholder

Adjacent, we'll demand to accommodate the formatting of the text inside the slide number placeholder. To practise that:

Right-click the placeholder, click onFormat Shapeand select Text Options
Open the Text box tab
Type 0 for the Left margin and hit Tab or Enter on your keyboard

Note: For the slide number placeholder, you can also add symbols as I accept here (such as a bar and 2 spaces), in order to create a visual break from the other placeholders.

Slide numbers are oftentimes tricky to get right when trying to properly display them on all your slides. To aggrandize your cognition and learn how to add slide numbers in PowerPoint (and how to troubleshoot them), read our guide here.

D. Format the Date and Time placholder

The next affair is to format the date and time footer placeholder. You lot can cull any kind of format you like. Below y'all'll find the steps that I took in the video tutorial at the summit of this page.

First, select the placeholder and hit Ctrl+R on your keyboard to right-align the text to the right (so that it'due south flush with the slide number to the right).

Then, y'all'll want to choose what kind of date formatting y'all want. To do that, merely:

Select the Date and time placeholder and hit Ctrl + R on your keyboard to marshal the text to the right.
Become up to the Insert tab and in the Text grouping, select Header & Footer.
Click on Date and time and then that there is a checkmark side by side to it.
Click on the Date dropdown and select the option as required. In this instance, we are going to select December 30th, 2017.
Click Apply to All to salvage the changes. Yous can see that the date and time text has changed accordingly.

E. Format the Footer text placeholder

The final default placeholder to format on the Parent Slide hither is the Footer text placeholder. This placeholder is designed for a tagline, an author's proper name, or cited sources. For helping citing sources in PowerPoint, read our guide here.

All you need to do hither is to select the placeholder and hitCtrl+L on your keyboard to left-align the text. This way, it is next to the logo and the text inserted will extend out towards the right.

F. (Optional) Add your logo

While all the default placeholders have now been prepare and formatted correctly, at that place is yet one chemical element that y'all can add together on the Parent Slide of your Slide Master; and that is a logo.

This is optional, so don't feel obligated to add together one. In fact, a common exercise today is to display the logo more sparingly and just place it on sure Child Slide Layouts.

To add a logo, simply:

Copy the logo and hit Ctrl+V to paste it on the slide. Make certain yous paste it as a PNG because it won't lose its quality over time, whereas a JPEG will.
Resize and reposition the logo to make it fit nicely in its desired position. Alternatively, you tin click on the Flick Format tab in the Ribbon and prepare the elevation to 0.35 to make it even with the other placeholders.

Y'all tin also utilise this same technique to add together a watermark to your PowerPoint slides. To come across how to add a watermark to your slides (like Draft or Confidential), read our guide hither.

Part #3. Creating Custom PowerPoint Template Slides

In the concluding part of this guide, you'll finalize the slide layouts that you want to use in your PowerPoint presentation by formatting the Kid Slides.

TheChild Slides represent the blueprints for each blazon of slide included in your template. By default, your Child Slide layouts will inherit your Parent Slide formatting. Only as you will see, you can tweak these layouts to run into your individual needs.

The key to designing good Child Slide layouts is to keep in listen how the stop-user is likely going to insert content on each type of slide. You want to make it easy for everyone to quickly fill them in when using your template.

In this section you'll learn how to:

Remove background graphics so that they're hidden on your Child Slide layouts,
Make the slide background an existing flick,
Rename your custom Kid Slide,
Add prompt text to help the template user properly fill in each layout,
and more!

one. Format the Title slide layout

The first step is to edit the Title slide layout. This layout is designed to be filled in with the title and general data about your presentation.

Typically, its looks slightly unlike than the rest of the layouts. It usually has less text and fewer images/objects, and it stands autonomously.

That being said, it even so needs to lucifer the other layouts overall and look like it's a part of the same template.

The first matter we need to do when formatting our Championship slide layout is to think about the background. Typically, a Championship slide will have a slightly different groundwork from the regular Content slides.

However, because the background has been attack the Parent Slide, this means that you will accept to deviate from it. In that location are two means to arroyo this – let'southward become over each 1.

A. Hide the groundwork graphics on a Kid Slide - Method #1

The first method for hiding anything in the background (graphics such as the logo, background patterns, pattern elements, etc.) is to insert a blank rectangle to cover it upwardly.

To cover up your slide background with a white rectangle, merely:

Go to the Insert tab on the Ribbon, click on the Shapes dropdown, select a rectangle.
Depict in the rectangle and then that it fills out the entire slide.
Change the rectangle'due south fill up color to White.
Remove the rectangle's outline.

Next, we'll demand to make sure the placeholders are visible on the slide, in forepart of the newly inserted rectangle.

To do that, with the rectangle still selected, become to the Shape Format tab on the Ribbon, click on the Transport Astern dropdown and select Ship to Back.

Note: Keep in heed that covering up the background elements similar this means that the logo (and any other prototype yous've pasted onto the Parent Slide) will be hidden. If you lot want that element to be visible on this Child Layout, you lot'll have to copy/paste it in.

B. Hibernate the background graphics on a Kid Slide - Method #2

The "technically better" way to do this is to apply the default PowerPoint feature fix to do this for yous. Only:

Go to the Slide Master tab in the Ribbon
Click on Hide Groundwork Graphics to add a checkmark next to information technology

This hides anything from the Parent Slide that isn't a placeholder. This includes whatever groundwork images or patterns, logos, and other design elements.

You can easily make them visible once more by unchecking the Hide Groundwork Graphics checkbox.

C. Add in a new groundwork for this layout

Now that we've removed the background inherited from the Parent Slide layout, nosotros'll need to add in groundwork elements nosotros want on this particular Child Slide.

While the background epitome can be dissimilar, we desire to keep it consistent. So let's become back up and take some elements we can reuse.

First, navigate back to the Parent Slide and select the pattern epitome (without the gradient). Then hit Ctrl + C on your keyboard to copy it.

And then, go dorsum to your Title slide layout and:

Correct-click a blank surface area on your slide and select Format Background.
In the Format Background tab, select Picture or texture fill.
Select Clipboard.

This pastes any is currently copied on your clipboard into your slide background.

Note: Pasting an object directly into your slide background like this ways that it can no longer be edited in your PowerPoint template.

If instead you lot paste information technology directly onto the slide as an paradigm, you tin always go back in and make adjustments to the epitome, and therefore to the background likewise.

It's up to you whether y'all want your template's users to be able to edit the background image or not.

And so if you lot're putting the image directly into the slide background, I recommended that you only do so when you are sure that this is the concluding background paradigm you want to employ.

D. Add in an extra design chemical element

The next step is to add in a pattern element that matches the general theme and style of the template. To practice that:

Go to the Insert tab on the Ribbon, click on the Shapes dropdown and select a rectangle.
Draw in the rectangle (it should be filled with the first accent color of your theme) so that it fills near 80% of your slide.
Brand sure the rectangle is centered and in the middle of the slide.

Next, let's send the rectangle behind the placeholders.

To exercise that, right-click the rectangle, open the Send Backward dropdown and select Ship to Back.

E. Conform the placeholders

First, arrange your Title and Subtitle placeholders. To practice that, simply select the two placeholders and:

Change their Font color to white.
Accommodate their position and size on the slide, keeping in mind how much room you lot need to exit for the text.

Side by side, permit'southward address the Footer placeholders.

Even if you don't desire footers visible on the Title slide of your template, I don't recommend deleting them here in the Slide Master View.

Why? Because if someone decides to utilize them despite your instructions, you still want them to appear correctly and match the residue of the template.

To format and hide your footer placeholders, simply:

Format the footer placeholders the style you lot'd like them to appear if they were used.
Become up to the Slide Master tab in the Ribbon and deselect the Footerscheckbox.

Note: Even if your footers stay selected on this Title slide layout in the Slide Primary View, they typically don't appear on that Championship slide in the Normal View.

To turn them on, you take to go to the Insert tab in the Ribbon and select Header & Footer. There, y'all can plow them on.

So, unless you truly desire someone to NEVER be able to add a page number, date and time, and footer text to the Title layout, and then I recommend leaving them on the Child Slide, to go on that option open.

If you lot deselect the Footers checkbox in the Slide Master View equally nosotros did above, then when someone tries to insert footers in the Normal View, they will not appear.

To learn all most how to add slide numbers in PowerPoint (and troubleshoot ones that won't show up), read our guide here.

One more matter yous might notice is that the guides are non visible on the Title slide. Since this is a Child Slide, you can't edit the guides hither.

Unfortunately, the guides you ready on the Parent Slide will likely not friction match the content you accept on the Title slide (and any Child Slide whose content deviates from information technology). There is no fashion effectually this in PowerPoint at this point in fourth dimension.

2. Format your Title and Content layout

The next step is to edit the most commonly used PowerPoint slide in any presentation, the Title and Content layout.

This specific slide layout will look almost identical to to the Parent Slide layout that we've already set up at this point. This means that there isn't much we have to exercise to change it.

All the same, in this case, nosotros are going to add together one more design element to the layout, which is a straight line. To exercise that simply:

In the Inserttab on the Ribbon, click on theShapes dropdown and select the straight line. To make certain it's 100% straight, hold the Shift cardinal equally y'all depict in the line.
Elevate the straight line and place it underneath the title. It should perfectly fit in thank you to the Smart Guides. Make sure that it'due south long enough to go past the text in the Championship placeholder.

The reason you don't add together this line to the Parent Slide is that the layout has to exist formatted to piece of work for the bulk of the layouts in your template.

That ways that the Parent Slide has to be relatively bare-bones. Yous tin can always add extra elements in the Child Slides.

3. Format the other Child Slides

From here onward, you volition need to format each of the Child Slides to friction match the content that goes in them.

You lot will want to follow the aforementioned procedure every bit in Step #2 above, keeping in listen what each Child Slide is designed for and how the content should be placed.

Some layouts will require more custom formatting and design elements.For instance, for the Divider slide (the kickoff slide in the examples below,) I have added a rectangle that matches the design elements on the Title Slide layout.

4. Optional footstep: Create your own Kid Layouts

In improver to the default Child Slides that PowerPoint gives you, you have the pick to create your ain.

You tin can choose to create your own if y'all accept a very specific type of slide that y'all'll demand to create over and over in your presentation.

If you make the slide under x times, information technology may non be worth clogging up your Slide Master area. But if you lot employ it frequently, creating a layout template for that type of slide will relieve y'all countless hours.

Here are the kinds of slides you lot may want to create a custom layout for:

Table of Contents / Agenda
Quote page
Team bios / Team headshots
Case studies
Thank you / Learn more
Most united states of america
Information dashboard
and more than

Go on in mind that the blank layout (and other blank variations) can always be used to create more ane-off slides.

Creating a custom agenda slide

In this instance, we're going to add together a custom Agenda Child Slide. To add this custom layout:

Go to the Slide Chief tab in the Ribbon and click Insert Layout. You'll see that a new Child Slide gets added in with just a Title placeholder and the Footer placeholders.
Add any additional placeholders you need (Slide Primary tab > Insert Placeholder) and format them as per your requirements. In this example, I've added twenty text placeholders that I've resized and formatted.
Adjust the prompt text in the placeholders to fit the corresponding content need. For case, in the image below you lot can write "Type in item" and so that the user knows to type in the right text into each placeholder.

Notation: You can alter the shape of a placeholder, also as suit all other properties of a typical shape. That means that you lot can likewise add fill, outline, effects, etc.

This is how I was able to create the circular TOC numbers in this layout:

You can as well rename the custom Child Layout by:

Right-clicking it in the Thumbnail View on the left-manus side and selecting Rename Layout.
Type in a helpful name and click Rename.

Note: You can perform these steps for all custom Child Slides. You can as well create custom layouts for a lot of slides such as for products, case studies, contact united states of america, etc.

However, try non to go overboard considering you don't desire to have a layout area packed total of slides, which will confuse the user.

But for very frequently occurring slides, I highly recommend making a custom layout.

In that location are also other slides in the template such every bit the content slide with subtitles or a blank slide with a title. You can format them per your requirements.

5. Finalize your PowerPoint template

Now that the template is nearly finished, you lot still have a few critical steps.

A. Set animations and transitions

The first thing is to set the animations and transitions for your slides. For all placeholders that you want to automatically animate in your template, simply select it and apply your blitheness.

Note: Go along in mind that animations should be used in your template VERY sparingly. That'south not only considering animations tin can be overly distracting, but it's besides because the user of your template may not want to have animations set automatically for them.

In curt, make certain y'all create the template in a way that makes your users' life easier, rather than harder.

One time that's washed, let's set the slide transitions. To do that, simply:

Select all of the slides in your template (in the Slide Master View).
Click into the Transitions tab in the Ribbon and select your preferred slide transition.

Side by side, permit's make certain we close the Slide Master View since nosotros are done with it. From the Slide Principal tab in the Ribbon, clickClose Master View.

Note: There is also a Notes Master and Handout Primary in PowerPoint that you lot can set up and format. These masters make up one's mind the look and feel of your PowerPoint handouts when you print them.

To acquire how to format these elements in regards to press multiple slides per page in PowerPoint, read our guide here.

B. Stress exam your template

It is highly recommended that y'all test your template before y'all distribute it. That manner you lot catch any errors before your users do.

Here are some means y'all can stress exam your template:

Endeavour to use it in a diverseness of unlike ways to encounter if it breaks
Blazon in all kinds of dummy text
Delete things and turn them back on once again
Paste slides in from other templates to see what happens in your template

Final Template Thoughts

And that'due south how to create a PowerPoint template that works the way information technology is supposed to.

Y'all now take the foundational skills to start creating your own PowerPoint templates and building cute and tailor-made presentations.

If you want to larn more virtually building and deploying your template in professional person settings, I recommend checking out my stride-by-step training class, see details here.

As a quick epitomize of everything nosotros covered, you learned how to:

Navigate the Slide Master View,
Create and insert slide backgrounds, as well as hide background graphics,
Format each of the elements on the Parent Slide layout,
Format each Child Layout and create your ain custom Child Slide layouts,
Add and adapt the Guides on your Parent Slide layout,
And more!

If you enjoyed this in-depth tutorial, you'll love our PowerPoint training courses and tutorials that you can acquire more about hither.

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