Microsoft PowerPoint XP Customizing a Master Slide

Making changes to slide masters can be an efficient way of applying formatting and design elements consistently to every slide in your presentation. The following topics will show you how to customize your master slides:

Working with Master Slides
Modifying Master Slides
Customizing Basic Slide Elements
Working with Placeholders
Inserting Date, Time, and Page Numbers
Resetting the Page Numbers

Working with Master Slides

Master slides are special slides that allow you to format basic information and apply it to every slide in a presentation. By using the master slides, you can add consistency to a presentation, therefore making it easier to understand. Masters let you format the title, background, color, date, time, and page number.

In PowerPoint X, there are two Masters. The Slide Master controls formatting for all slides except the title slide(s). The Title Master controls formatting only for the title slide(s).

For specific instructions on how to change backgrounds, fonts, and bullets refer to Customizing Slide Elements. Instructions on changing other options are included in Modifying Master Slides.

Modifying Master Slides

Modifying Master Slides: Slide Master

From the View menu, select Master » Slide Master
The Master toolbar appears.
Make the desired changes to the master slide
For instructions on how to change the background, fonts, bullets, or removing images, see Customizing Slide Elements.
When you have finished making your changes, from the View menu, select Normal
OR
From the Master toolbar, click CLOSE
The changes will appear on all the slides.

Modifying Master Slides: Title Master

From the View menu, select Master » Title Master
The Title Master and Master toolbar appear.
HINT: If the Title Master option is grayed out, view the Slide Master; then, from the Insert menu, select New Title Master.
The Title Master and Master toolbar appear.
Make the desired changes
For instructions on how to change the background, fonts, bullets, or removing images, see Customizing Slide Elements.
When you have finished making your changes, from the View menu, select Normal
OR
On the Master toolbar, click CLOSE
The changes will appear on all the slides.

Customizing Basic Slide Elements

You can change the color, size, and style of fonts and bullets. You can also change the background color or give it a shading effect or texture. Instructions for customizing the font, background, and bullets can be found in the Customizing Slide Elements document.

Working with Placeholders

Placeholders are boxes with dotted outlines that appear when you create a new slide. These boxes act as specified areas where you can add text or objects. Just click within a placeholder to add text or double click to add an object. Placeholders can be moved, resized, and reformatted on the master slide by clicking and dragging them. When you format the placeholders on a master slide, the placeholders throughout the slides appear in that format.

To shrink or stretch a placeholder:

Select the placeholder you want to format by clicking the mouse within that placeholder
Place the mouse pointer over any of the handles (squares) that appear around the outside of a selected placeholder
The mouse appears as a double arrow.
HINT: Select a corner handle to maintain the aspect ratio when resizing.
Click and hold the mouse
Move the mouse away or towards the placeholder until the placeholder is the appropriate size

To move the placeholder:

Select the placeholder you want to move by clicking the mouse within that placeholder
Place the mouse over the shaded border of the selected placeholder until the pointer turns into a hand
Click and hold the mouse
Drag the placeholder to where you want it located

Inserting Date, Time, and Page Numbers

Anytime during your creation process, you can go to the Slide Master to add the time, date, and page/slide numbers. The time, date, and page numbers are shown on slide shows, printed slides, handouts, and the notes pages. The time, date, and page numbers are also shown throughout every view (e.g., Normal, Slide Sorter, Slide Show, Notes Page, and the Slides and Outline tabs).

NOTES: Date and time symbols are generally used to keep track of draft versions as the presentation is developed. You might want to omit date and time symbols from the final printed versions.

Open the appropriate slide master
From the View menu, select Header and Footer...
The Header and Footer dialog box appears.
Select the Slide tab

Under Include on slide, specify the desired options:

Option	Description
Date and time	Inserts the date and time on your slide(s).
Update automatically	Updates the date and time automatically each time you open your presentation.
Fixed	Inserts the specified date and time and never updates it.
Slide number	Displays the slide number on your slide(s).
Starts at	Allows you to change the start number for your slide order. Refer to Resetting the Page Numbers for more information.
Footer	Inserts a specified footer on your slide(s). To specify a footer, select the checkbox and type the desired footer in the corresponding text box.
Don't show on title slide	Does not apply the options to the title slide.

To apply changes to all slides (including the masters, unless you specified otherwise), click APPLY TO ALL
NOTES: If you are changing the header and footer from a master slide, you will not be able to apply the changes to only one slide. You will be automatically making the changes to all the slides that follow that master slide.

Resetting the Page Numbers

If you do not want the numbers on your PowerPoint slides to start from the number one, you can change this in the Header and Footer dialog box. The Header and Footer dialog box allows you to type in the number you wish to start numbering the slides from.

From the View menu, select Header and Footer...
The Header and Footer dialog box appears.
Under the Slide tab, select Slide Number
In the Starts at text box, type or scroll to the number of the slide you wish to begin the presentation
Click APPLY TO ALL