How To Add A Template To Powerpoint Office 365

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

What is a PowerPoint template and why do you need one?

In short, a template is a set up of pre-built slide layouts and defined formatting to help you apace create brand consistent and professional PowerPoint presentations.

Below is an example of the properly built template you'll learn how to create in this tutorial.

Fourth dimension Saving Tip:You can save yourself a bunch of time by first buying a professional person PowerPoint template and then tweaking it to meet your needs.

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

If yous and your team make 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 broken (which many are), it can make working in PowerPoint a nightmare.

Chances are that if your current PowerPoint template is hard to work with, y'all are using a broken template. This tutorial will help y'all gear up it (fast).

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

Part #1. Creating Your PowerPoint Template Slide Backgrounds

In the first function of this tutorial, you'll find how to create your own slide backgrounds and how to:

Build the overall frame for your template
Utilise and navigate the PowerPoint Slide Master (and how the Parent and Kid
Slides work together)
Use the different paste special options
Add a pattern background to your slide
Ingather images to fit your entire slide background
Add a radial gradient fill to a shape with transparency
Add new guides and movement them effectually on your Slide Primary
And more!

Additional template resources: If yous're not 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.

one. Prepare the colors for your template

The start step is to select a colour scheme for your template. You lot tin easily do that in the Design tab, under Variants.

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

Navigate to the Design tab
Open the More than variants options
Click on Colors to open up the dropdown
Select the color scheme y'all desire to use

If you lot want to use a color scheme that isn't listed here, you tin can create your own. To acquire how to create your own 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 accept to work with inside your presentation (assuasive you to maintain consistent formatting throughout).

Your theme colors volition exist reflected in all of your colour dropdowns every bit pictured below (with pre-populated variants for those colors).

Note: Selecting your ain custom theme colors does non supervene upon the standard colors at the bottom of your formatting dropdowns. Y'all cannot change 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 control

The next footstep is to select a font pairing for your template, which you can also do in the Design tab, under Variants.

NOTE: This is one of my top PowerPoint template tips, and is 1 yous don't want to mess up. To see my ix other top tricks for your PowerPoint templates, read my guide hither.

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

Navigate to the Design tab
Open the More variants options
Click on Fonts
Select the font combination y'all want to employ

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 i of the major benefits of creating a PowerPoint template. You fix your formatting in one place, and information technology updates throughout your entire presentation (amazing!).

Once yous have your colors and fonts selected, you are ready to create the framework. This includes your slide backgrounds and other mutual design elements yous will desire in your presentation.

iii. Navigate to the Slide Primary View

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

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

Navigate to the View tab
Select the Slide Primary command

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

#ane. The Parent Slide (the bigger slide) is where y'all desire to make the macro-level edits that you want to see reflected on the majority of your slides. For instance, this is likely where you volition want to see things like your company logo or whatsoever corporate branding design element.

#two. The Kid Slides (the smaller slides) are where you want to customize the private layouts. For example, your title slides and divider slides may look quite different from the rest of your slides, which is why they'll accept their ain Child Slides.

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

Every bit Julie Terberg and Repeat Swinford bespeak out in their volume on templates, "Building PowerPoint Templates Step by Stride with the Experts", if y'all delete these Kid Slide layouts, you are likely to encounter formatting bug and errors when copying and pasting betwixt your templates down the road.

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

4. Customize your Parent Slide groundwork

Now that you are on your Slide Master, yous'll want to start by formatting your Parent Slide.

That's because the formatting that you set on your Parent Slide will affect all of the other slide backgrounds inside your template.

A. Cull your PowerPoint template'southward groundwork

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

In the instance below, I've chosen a blueprint for my template that is minimalist and modern. You can download and insert any picture or pattern you want to apply as your slide background paradigm.

To expand your cognition 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 are using a moving-picture show for your slide background, the fastest mode to make it fit on your slide is to ingather information technology using the Aspect Ratio Ingather tool. To practise that, simply:

Select the background paradigm yous have pasted on the slide
Navigate to the Format tab
Open the Crop dropdown
Open the Aspect Ratio options
Choose your aspect ratio. In the picture to a higher place I chose sixteen:ix for widescreen to friction match my slide dimensions (another mutual aspect ratio is iv:three for printed slides).
Accommodate your photograph within the frame
Hit the Crop command again or hit Esc on your keyboard

This will brand resizing the epitome to fit your template much easier without having to worry about whatever warping.

To learn more about the cropping pictures in PowerPoint, read our guide hither.

C. Fill out your slide background

To make the epitome fit your entire slide infinite, there are 2 options.

Option #ane. Yous can just drag the handlebars to expand the paradigm. Just make sure you concur the Shift cardinal while yous enlarge your epitome, so you lot don't accidentally warp information technology.

Pick #two. You can resize your epitome more than precisely:

In the Shape Width box, enter thirteen.33 and hit Enter on your keyboard
Elevate the image in the center to fit the entire slide

Notation: In my example in the video above, I wanted a smaller pattern. That'south why I duplicated the groundwork image so that I have two smaller images side by side to each other.

And so I made certain to group the 2 images together so that they function as a unit. To learn all about group in PowerPoint, check out our guide here.

The final example of the background shown below is the effect of that. And because the epitome is attack the Parent Slide like this, by default it will show upwards equally all of the slides in my PowerPoint template.

After resizing your background image, you lot will desire to send information technology back behind all other elements.

To send the epitome backward, only:

Select your background prototype
Navigate to the Motion picture Tools Format tab
Click on the Send Backward dropdown
From the dropdown menu, select Ship to Back

This sends the background behind the text as shown in the picture beneath. This makes all the Parent Slide content placeholders visible once more on your slide.

D. Create a semi-transparent slope layer

With the slide background set up for my PowerPoint template, I'thousand additionally going to make the slide background less visible by adding a semi-transparent layer.

That's considering as yous can come across in the moving picture beneath, the text is non crystal clear against the groundwork image I used. This volition make it hard for people to read my slides during a presentation.

In the steps below, I volition use the old method (not-Office 365 subscription) for creating a transparent background in PowerPoint. If you have an Office 365 subscription and want to run into the brand-new way to create a transparent image, see our guide here.

Pace #1. 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 it covers your entire groundwork prototype (for this to work, your rectangle needs to be the same verbal size as the prototype you want to make transparent).
Remove its outline past going to the Shape Outline dropdown and selecting No Outline.

Step #2. Add a gradient fill

With the rectangle still selected, make the following adjustments:

Select your rectangle and click Format Shape to open the Format Shape dialog box. This gives you a broad multifariousness of formatting options y'all tin can use to format your shape backgrounds for your template.
Select the Gradient fill.
In the Blazon dropdown, select Radial.
For the Direction, select the "from center" option (in the center).
In the Gradient stops bar, select the starting time gradient stop, and from the make full Color dropdown, select white. Under Transparency, enter 5 %. So that it almost looks 100% white in the center.
Next, select the second gradient bar and drag information technology to the right. From the fill Color dropdown, select white. For Transparency, enter 10%.
So, select the third gradient bar and drag information technology to the right. From the fill Color dropdown, select white. For Transparency, enter 10%.
Finally, select the terminal gradient bar and drag information technology to the correct. From the fill Color dropdown, select white. For Transparency, enter 60%.

Using the gradient fill options described in a higher place, your rectangle should expect like mine, with some of your text bleeding through it.

Close the Format Shape pane and you're all set up with your gradient formatting.

Every bit a final stride, right-click your slope rectangle and select Send to Dorsum and so Ship Forward so that it sits behind your placeholders merely on top of your design background.

5. Add a slide background design element

As a next step, I'1000 going to add a bright bar downwardly the right-side of my slide as a nice design element. To do that, simply:

Navigate to theInsert tab and select theShapes dropdown.
Select aRectangle and draw it on the correct-hand side of your slide. Make sure to place it on the edge of your slide.
Select No Outline

Note: Make certain you are adding this to your Parent Slide and not a Child Slide. This automatically populates the design element on all the Kid Slides.

That's the power of creating a PowerPoint template – you lot add a pattern element in 1 identify, and it shows up throughout your presentation.

6. Add and edit your guides

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

Consider guides equally the anchors on your slide that help yous to consistently align your objects. Information technology's an optional stride, but I recommend adding them to your template.

To add guides to your PowerPoint template, simply:

Click on the View tab
Select Guides. Notice that at that place are ii guides: i vertical and one horizontal.
To motion a guide, place your mouse over it, and when your cursor becomes a double-headed arrow, elevate the guide to where y'all desire it on your slide.

For now, I volition simply place my guides on the edges of the slide, to create a "bleed area" in case role of the presentation gets cutting off in impress.

We volition look at adding more guides in part #2 of this series.To add a new guide, merely start dragging an existing 1, then hit the Ctrl fundamental on your keyboard before you let go.

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

Office #2. Setting up your template placeholders and footers

With your slide groundwork at present fix upwardly, permit's nail downwards 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 apply 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, yous run the risk of letting default formatting skid through the cracks and ruin an otherwise perfect template.

Later in this tutorial, you'll acquire how to tweak your slide layouts abroad from the Parent Slide if that's what you lot want to do.

ane. Format the Title placeholder

There are a number of ways in which y'all can format your placeholders and there is no correct or wrong formatting.

Simply before we dive into that, let'southward talk near what placeholders are.Placeholders are blank spaces that are designated for certain types of content.

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

Three keys to remember nigh your content placeholders are:

They tin can simply exist gear up and edited (for existent) on your Slide Master.
Merely text typed into your placeholders will show in the Outline View of your presentation.
Only text that has been typed into your placeholders volition modify fonts automatically when y'all change your theme's fonts.

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

Yous can alter the font size, alignment, size, position, etc. of your placeholders to meet your requirements. Below I'll run yous through the most common formatting elements.

A. Change the font size

Earlier y'all kickoff formatting your placeholders, make certain yous are on your Parent Slide. We will focus on formatting your Child Slide layouts later.

Equally a first step, let'south modify the font size of the title placeholder:

Select your title placeholder
In the Font Size dialog box, enter 40 (or any size you want)

B. Resize and position the placeholder

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

Use the iv-headed pointer cursor to motility the placeholder to where you want it on your slide.
With the placeholder still selected, drag the resizing handles (the 8 little white circles) in or out to resize the placeholder.

At that place is no right size and position for your championship. You'll but want to make sure that it fits your slide.

Y'all'll also want to recall about how much text you're expecting people to type into the placeholder for their slides. Make sure the placeholder is big enough to fit the typical scenario.

C. Gear up your vertical text alignment

Side by side, ready the vertical text alignment for your title. To exercise that:

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

Unless you accept a specific reason to exercise otherwise, I recommend that yous choose Lesser for your vertical text alignment. That mode your title text will ever stay perfectly aligned at the lesser, 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 yous plan on having short titles for all your slides (no more than one line), I recommend using the Middle text alignment instead.

Regardless of what you determine, make sure you test different title lengths to run into 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 we'll set them to marshal with our title.

Drag your Horizontal Guides to lucifer the tiptop and the bottom of your title placeholder (add together more guides if necessary)
Drag your Vertical Guidesto match the left-hand and right-paw sides of the title placeholder (add more guides if necessary)

To add together a new guide, simply start dragging an existing one, and then hit the Ctrl key on your keyboard before you let go.

Adjusting your guides like this will make aligning objects on your slides much easier as your Smart Guides volition automatically snap them together.

Annotation: If your Guides are not visible, just right-click on a blank office of your slide and select Grid & Guides, so Guides. That volition turn them on. Alternatively, you tin go up to the View tab in the Ribbon and select Guides inside the Prove surface area.

two. Format the Text placeholder

The Text placeholder on your Parent Slide is special in that information technology 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 hither on the Parent Slide is important because it makes it a lot easier to brand fast and consistent changes to swathes of content down the road.

Later in this template series, I will show you how to format away from this default behavior on the Child Slides. But first you want to set its default formatting.

A. Resize and position the Text placeholder

The kickoff thing to do with your Text placeholder is change its position and/or size then that it'southward exactly aligned with the Title and Footer placeholders. To do that:

Select the Text placeholder and when the cursor becomes a iv-headed arrow, drag the placeholder to the superlative and left side so that it is aligned with the Title placeholder.
With the placeholder still selected, utilise its sizing handles to arrange its size until information technology is just right (factoring the amount of text that you predict you'll blazon in, equally well as the alignment with the other placeholders).

B. Align the guides

In this step, 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 match the top and the bottom of the Text placeholder.
Similarly, drag the vertical guides to match the left and right-hand sides of the Text placeholder.

C. Change the font size

The next step is to change the font size of the different levels of text within the placeholder. To do that:

Select the first level of text
In the Font Size box, blazon in 20 and hit Enter

Repeat these steps for the second, third, 4th, and fifth levels of bulleted text, changing their font sizes to 18,xvi, 14, and 14 respectively.

D. Adjust and marshal the bullet points

Once you have set the font size, it is important to accommodate 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 manner bullets

Next, you accept to suit the indent of the bulleted lists so that it appears in all your slide layouts. To exercise that:

Select the bulleted listing you want to adjust
Click, hold, and drag the desired indent marker. In our instance, we'll drag the hanging indent marker.
Repeat this for each text level

Yous tin can accommodate the bullets as per your personal preference. Based on your noesis of how someone is going to be using this template, you might determine to add more or less space.

Note: My recommendation as per Julie Terberg and Echo Swinford'southward book, "Building PowerPoint Templates Pace by Stride with the Experts," is to ever brand sure that you lot format every single item you have bachelor. That includes formatting each text list level.

You lot can encounter their book on templates here.

That way, you accept everything set in case someone decides to break the rules or do their own affair. This inevitably happens with templates and you want to be prepared for it!

3. Formatting the footers of your template

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

Slide number
Footer text
Date and fourth dimension

A. Fix the font size for all your footers

The first stride is to modify the font size of the footer placeholders. To practice that:

Select all your footer placeholders property theShiftkey.
In theFont Sizedialog box, type ten (of any your desired font size is) and hit Enter.

B. Resize and position the placeholders

The next thing 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 do that:

Select each placeholder and when the cursor becomes a four-headed arrow, drag the placeholder to its desired location (use the guides for assistance).
With the placeholder even so selected, use its sizing handles to adjust its size until information technology is just right (factoring the amount of text that you predict you'll blazon in, as well equally the alignment with the other placeholders).
Repeat this for each placeholder.

If you want to be 100% certain that all the Footer placeholders are the aforementioned, select them 1 at a time and go to the Shape Format tab in the Ribbon. In the Size department, verify that the summit of the placeholders is the aforementioned.

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

Remember to also add new guides around these placeholders to help keep them in identify. Hither, I'grand just going to add the peak and bottom guides, so as to avoid confusion and overkill.

C. Format the Slide Number placeholder

Side by side, we'll need to adjust the formatting of the text inside the slide number placeholder. To do that:

Correct-click the placeholder, click onFormat Shapeand select Text Options
Open up 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 besides add symbols as I accept here (such as a bar and two spaces), in order to create a visual break from the other placeholders.

Slide numbers are often catchy to get correct when trying to properly display them on all your slides. To aggrandize your knowledge and larn how to add slide numbers in PowerPoint (and how to troubleshoot them), read our guide here.

D. Format the Date and Fourth dimension placholder

The side by side affair is to format the date and time footer placeholder. You tin can choose whatever kind of format you like. Beneath you'll find the steps that I took in the video tutorial at the top of this page.

First, select the placeholder and hitting Ctrl+R on your keyboard to right-align the text to the right (and so that information technology's flush with the slide number to the right).

And so, you'll want to cull what kind of appointment formatting you want. To do that, simply:

Select the Date and time placeholder and hit Ctrl + R on your keyboard to align the text to the right.
Go up to the Insert tab and in the Text group, select Header & Footer.
Click on Date and time so that at that place is a checkmark next to it.
Click on the Appointment dropdown and select the option equally required. In this example, we are going to select December 30th, 2017.
Click Employ to All to save the changes. You tin can see that the date and time text has inverse accordingly.

E. Format the Footer text placeholder

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

All you need to practice here is to select the placeholder and hitCtrl+Fifty on your keyboard to left-align the text. This way, information technology is next to the logo and the text inserted will extend out towards the correct.

F. (Optional) Add together your logo

While all the default placeholders have now been set and formatted correctly, there is nonetheless one element that you tin add on the Parent Slide of your Slide Master; and that is a logo.

This is optional, so don't feel obligated to add one. In fact, a common practice today is to display the logo more sparingly and but identify information technology on sure Child Slide Layouts.

To add together a logo, simply:

Copy the logo and hit Ctrl+V to paste it on the slide. Make sure you paste it as a PNG considering it won't lose its quality over time, whereas a JPEG will.
Resize and reposition the logo to brand information technology fit nicely in its desired position. Alternatively, you can click on the Motion-picture show Format tab in the Ribbon and set the elevation to 0.35 to make it even with the other placeholders.

You can also use this same technique to add a watermark to your PowerPoint slides. To run across how to add together a watermark to your slides (like Typhoon or Confidential), read our guide here.

Part #iii. Creating Custom PowerPoint Template Slides

In the last function of this guide, you'll finalize the slide layouts that you lot want to utilise in your PowerPoint presentation past formatting the Child Slides.

TheChild Slides stand for the blueprints for each blazon of slide included in your template. By default, your Child Slide layouts volition inherit your Parent Slide formatting. But every bit y'all volition encounter, you lot can tweak these layouts to encounter your private needs.

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

In this department you lot'll learn how to:

Remove groundwork graphics then that they're hidden on your Child Slide layouts,
Make the slide groundwork an existing picture,
Rename your custom Child Slide,
Add prompt text to assist the template user properly fill in each layout,
and more!

1. 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 full general information most your presentation.

Typically, its looks slightly different than the residuum of the layouts. It normally has less text and fewer images/objects, and information technology stands apart.

That existence said, it yet needs to match the other layouts overall and look like it's a function of the same template.

The first affair we demand to do when formatting our Championship slide layout is to think well-nigh the background. Typically, a Title slide will have a slightly different background from the regular Content slides.

However, because the groundwork has been attack the Parent Slide, this ways that you volition have to deviate from information technology. There are 2 ways to approach this – permit'southward go over each one.

A. Hide the background graphics on a Child Slide - Method #1

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

To embrace up your slide background with a white rectangle, simply:

Go to the Insert tab on the Ribbon, click on the Shapes dropdown, select a rectangle.
Draw in the rectangle so that it fills out the unabridged slide.
Change the rectangle's fill colour to White.
Remove the rectangle's outline.

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

To do that, with the rectangle notwithstanding selected, go to the Shape Format tab on the Ribbon, click on the Send Backward dropdown and select Transport to Back.

Note: Proceed in mind that roofing up the background elements like this means that the logo (and any other paradigm y'all've pasted onto the Parent Slide) will exist hidden. If you want that element to exist visible on this Kid Layout, you'll take to copy/paste information technology in.

B. Hide the background graphics on a Child Slide - Method #two

The "technically better" way to do this is to use the default PowerPoint characteristic set to exercise this for you. Just:

Become to the Slide Principal tab in the Ribbon
Click on Hide Background Graphics to add a checkmark next to information technology

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

Y'all tin can easily make them visible again by unchecking the Hide Groundwork Graphics checkbox.

C. Add together in a new background for this layout

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

While the background paradigm can be dissimilar, nosotros want to keep it consistent. So permit's get dorsum upwardly and take some elements nosotros can reuse.

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

Then, go back to your Championship slide layout and:

Right-click a bare area on your slide and select Format Background.
In the Format Groundwork tab, select Movie or texture fill.
Select Clipboard.

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

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

If instead you lot paste information technology straight onto the slide as an paradigm, you can always become back in and make adjustments to the prototype, and therefore to the background too.

Information technology'south upward to yous whether yous want your template's users to be able to edit the groundwork image or not.

So if y'all're putting the epitome straight into the slide background, I recommended that you only do then when you are sure that this is the concluding background image you want to use.

D. Add in an extra design element

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

Become 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) and then that it fills nigh 80% of your slide.
Make certain the rectangle is centered and in the middle of the slide.

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

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

Eastward. Arrange the placeholders

First, adjust your Championship and Subtitle placeholders. To practise that, only select the two placeholders and:

Change their Font colour to white.
Adjust their position and size on the slide, keeping in heed how much room y'all demand to leave for the text.

Next, let's address the Footer placeholders.

Fifty-fifty if you don't want footers visible on the Title slide of your template, I don't recommend deleting them here in the Slide Main View.

Why? Considering if someone decides to utilise them despite your instructions, yous withal desire them to appear correctly and match the rest of the template.

To format and hibernate your footer placeholders, just:

Format the footer placeholders the mode you'd like them to appear if they were used.
Go upwardly to the Slide Principal tab in the Ribbon and deselect the Footerscheckbox.

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

To turn them on, you lot take to go to the Insert tab in the Ribbon and select Header & Footer. There, you tin can turn them on.

So, unless y'all truly want someone to NEVER be able to add a page number, date and time, and footer text to the Title layout, then I recommend leaving them on the Child Slide, to go along that pick open.

If you deselect the Footers checkbox in the Slide Principal View as nosotros did higher up, then when someone tries to insert footers in the Normal View, they will not announced.

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

One more than thing you might discover is that the guides are not visible on the Title slide. Since this is a Child Slide, you can't edit the guides here.

Unfortunately, the guides you set on the Parent Slide will likely not friction match the content y'all have on the Championship slide (and any Child Slide whose content deviates from it). At that place is no way around this in PowerPoint at this point in fourth dimension.

2. Format your Title and Content layout

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

This specific slide layout volition look almost identical to to the Parent Slide layout that nosotros've already prepare at this betoken. This means that in that location isn't much we have to practise to change information technology.

However, in this example, nosotros are going to add one more design element to the layout, which is a straight line. To practise that simply:

In the Inserttab on the Ribbon, click on theShapes dropdown and select the straight line. To make sure it's 100% directly, hold the Shift key equally yous draw in the line.
Drag the straight line and identify it underneath the title. It should perfectly fit in thanks to the Smart Guides. Make sure that it'southward long plenty to become past the text in the Title placeholder.

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

That means that the Parent Slide has to be relatively bare-bones. You can ever add together actress elements in the Child Slides.

3. Format the other Kid Slides

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

You will desire to follow the same process every bit in Step #ii above, keeping in mind what each Kid Slide is designed for and how the content should be placed.

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

4. Optional step: Create your own Child Layouts

In addition to the default Kid Slides that PowerPoint gives you, y'all have the option to create your own.

You can choose to create your own if you have a very specific type of slide that you'll need to create over and over in your presentation.

If you make the slide under x times, it may not be worth clogging upwardly your Slide Principal area. Only if you use it frequently, creating a layout template for that type of slide volition save yous countless hours.

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

Table of Contents / Calendar
Quote page
Team bios / Team headshots
Case studies
Thanks / Learn more
Nearly us
Data dashboard
and more

Keep in mind that the blank layout (and other blank variations) can ever be used to create more one-off slides.

Creating a custom agenda slide

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

Go to the Slide Master tab in the Ribbon and click Insert Layout. You'll see that a new Child Slide gets added in with merely a Title placeholder and the Footer placeholders.
Add together whatsoever additional placeholders you need (Slide Master tab > Insert Placeholder) and format them as per your requirements. In this instance, I've added twenty text placeholders that I've resized and formatted.
Adjust the prompt text in the placeholders to fit the respective content need. For example, in the epitome beneath you can write "Type in item" and so that the user knows to blazon in the right text into each placeholder.

Note: You can change the shape of a placeholder, likewise as adjust all other properties of a typical shape. That means that you tin as well add fill, outline, effects, etc.

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

You lot can also rename the custom Child Layout by:

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

Annotation: You can perform these steps for all custom Child Slides. Yous can also create custom layouts for a lot of slides such as for products, instance studies, contact usa, etc.

Even so, endeavor non to become overboard because you lot don't want to accept a layout expanse packed full of slides, which will confuse the user.

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

There are also other slides in the template such as the content slide with subtitles or a blank slide with a championship. Y'all can format them per your requirements.

5. Finalize your PowerPoint template

Now that the template is almost finished, you lot still take a few critical steps.

A. Set animations and transitions

The get-go matter is to prepare the animations and transitions for your slides. For all placeholders that yous want to automatically animate in your template, only select it and apply your animation.

Note: Proceed in mind that animations should exist used in your template VERY sparingly. That's not simply because animations can be overly distracting, only it's also considering the user of your template may not want to take animations set up automatically for them.

In short, make sure you create the template in a mode that makes your users' life easier, rather than harder.

Once that'southward done, let's set the slide transitions. To practise that, simply:

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

Next, allow's brand sure we shut the Slide Primary View since we are done with it. From the Slide Primary tab in the Ribbon, clickClose Master View.

Note: There is likewise a Notes Master and Handout Master in PowerPoint that you tin can prepare and format. These masters determine the look and feel of your PowerPoint handouts when you print them.

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

B. Stress test your template

It is highly recommended that you test your template earlier you distribute it. That way you catch any errors before your users exercise.

Here are some means you lot can stress test your template:

Attempt to use it in a variety of different ways to come across if it breaks
Type in all kinds of dummy text
Delete things and turn them back on over again
Paste slides in from other templates to see what happens in your template

Final Template Thoughts

And that's how to create a PowerPoint template that works the manner information technology is supposed to.

You now have the foundational skills to start creating your own PowerPoint templates and edifice cute and tailor-fabricated presentations.

If yous want to learn more than almost edifice and deploying your template in professional settings, I recommend checking out my step-by-footstep training grade, see details here.

As a quick epitomize of everything we covered, yous learned how to:

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

If yous enjoyed this in-depth tutorial, yous'll love our PowerPoint grooming courses and tutorials that you tin learn more about hither.

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