| Mastering Slide Masters And Layouts In PowerPoint 2007 |
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| Written by AlanSpencer | |
| Saturday, 03 October 2009 | |
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Consistency is one of the key elements of good design and plays a critical role in any professional PowerPoint presentation. The position, colours, sizes and alignment of similar elements should be consistent from slide to slide. It would be quite an imposition on the user if he or she were to attempt to achieve this consistency entirely manually. Besides, what happens when you decide to change one element? For example, if you want to make all your headings slightly bigger, imagine having to go from slide to slide making the same change again and again.
Consistency is one of the key elements of good design and plays a critical role in any professional PowerPoint presentation. The position, colours, sizes and alignment of similar elements should be consistent from slide to slide. It would be quite an imposition on the user if he or she were to attempt to achieve this consistency entirely manually. Besides, what happens when you decide to change one element? For example, if you want to make all your headings slightly bigger, imagine having to go from slide to slide making the same change again and again. When Microsoft created PowerPoint, they anticipated the need for consistency and for a mechanism for controlling elements across several slides. The solution they provide within PowerPoint is the use of slide masters. The slide masters act as blueprints for the actual slides and changes made on a slide master will be reflected on all slides based on that master. PowerPoint 2007 even allows you to create multiple slide masters within the same presentation. Slide masters work hand in hand with PowerPoint layouts. If all slides had exactly the same layout, the presentation would be pretty boring. Slide layouts allow you to vary the look of slides: some will have just text and bullet points, others may have text and a photograph, while others my contain charts and other business graphics. The definition of a master includes the definition of all the layouts which that master will offer. Each master contains a series of preset layouts which you can edit or delete and, naturally, you can also add new layouts to any master. The thing that makes layouts so flexible is the use of placeholders. These allow you to preset the position, size and formatting attributes of the elements contained on that type of layout, such as titles, subtitles, picture or chart. Given that each master contains multiple layouts, before creating a new master, you should always ask yourself: do I need a new master or just a new layout? Very often, a new layout will be all you actually need. When you click on the New Slide button in the Home Tab of the PowerPoint Ribbon, a drop-down menu appears with all of the layouts for all the slide masters you have defined in the presentation. Similarly, you can select any slide in a presentation and click on the Slide Layout button to choose the master and layout on which the slide is based. Naturally, if you update a slide master or master layout, all slides based on that master or layout will also be updated. About the Author: The writer of this article is a developer and trainer with Macresource Computer Training, a UK IT training company offering Microsoft PowerPoint 2007 Classes in London and throughout the UK. From the Webmaster: "Having the opportunity to share my hobbies and interests with so many people around the world gives me great satisfaction. As a bonus, I blog and produce websites about topics that interest me and receive ad revenue from the websites and Blogs."
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