PowerPoint offers a slide master feature that gives your presentation a consistent, professional look. A slide master is helpful if you want every slide in your show to be the same color, to have the same header or footer, or to carry a particular logo.

The background color, title, and images on the slide master appear on every slide of your presentation. You can set the appearance of bullets, placeholding for images, and the font for each section of your slides. Universal style changes can be made to every slide in your presentation by formatting the master slide, leaving the content of each slide unchanged. PowerPoint offers a title master feature as well, allowing you to determine a unique format for title slides.

Selecting a Design Template

1. Open a new presentation
2. Save it with a meaningful name
3. Click the design tab and Select a design template
4. Select a Color Scheme from the Color Options on the right of the Ribbon
5. Select a Font Group from the Ribbon
6. Select an Effect Set from the Ribbon. The control the Styles for autoshapes and other built in Graphics

These options will be sufficient for most presentations but sometime you want more control. That is where the slide master comes into play.

Formatting a Slide Master

A slide master determines the basic design for every slide in your presentation. To format a slide master you will be using Slide Masterview. The Slide Master view allows you to work on the slide master and the title master without having to go to a separate view.

NOTE: The slide master controls the text formatting (e.g., font style, size, and color), background color, and effects (e.g., shadowing and animation) for all slides in your presentation. There is a Slide Master for each slide layout in the presentation.

1. Open the View Tab in the Ribbon
2. Select Slide Master in the Ribbon
3. In the Slides pane on the left, select the First Slide
4. Design the slide master as you would design a normal slide
   NOTE: The Slide Master controls the text formatting (e.g., font style, size, and color), background color, and effects (e.g., shadowing and animation) for all slides in your presentation.
5. To Enable the Footer go to the Insert tab in the Ribbon and select Header & Footer
6. Click CLOSE MASTER VIEW
   The changes you made are applied to all slides.

Formatting a Title Master

You can create a title master with unique formatting for the title slides in your presentation. The title slide is usually the first slide of your presentation and introduces your audience to the subject of your presentation. Title slides may also be used within the presentation to introduce main sections. Make your title master complementary to your slide master but unique enough to grab the attention of your audience.

The Slide Master view must be open to format a title master. After you format a title master, it is easy to determine whether you are in Slide Master or Title Master view. From the View menu, in the Master section, a gray check marks Slide Master or Title Master view.

NOTE: The title master controls the text formatting (e.g., font style, size, and color), background color, and effects (e.g., shadowing and bullets), and placeholders for all title slides in your presentation. If you make changes to the title master after it is designed, only the slides in your presentation based on the title master are affected.

1. From the View menu, select Master » Slide Master
   The window changes to Slide Master view and the Slide Master View toolbar appears.
2. In the Slides pane on the left, select the Title Master (slide 2)
   NOTE: If it does not appear, on the Slide Master View toolbar, clickINSERT NEW TITLE MASTER
3. Design the title master as desired
   NOTE: The title master controls the text formatting (e.g., font style, size, and color), background color, and effects (e.g., shadowing and bullets) for all title slides in your presentation.
   HINT: Make your title master complementary to your slide master but unique enough to grab the attention of your audience.

Creating a Slide that Differs from the Slide Master

Slide master elements appear on each slide of your presentation unless you suppress them. When designing your slide show, you might need a different format from the slide master for certain slides. For example, you might need to format the font, background color, or bullet design to differ from the slide master. Or your master slides might contain a large image in the lower right corner, but for one slide you want text in that corner and do not want the image to show through. You need to alter the slide by removing the background graphic.

Changes you make to the slide master after customizing an individual slide will overwrite the design of that particular slide except for the individual changes you have already made to that slide. For example, if you removed a background image or changed the background color of a particular slide, changing the slide master color will not change the color of this slide or reinsert the background graphic.

Customizing an Individual Slide

1. Open the slide you would like to alter
2. Make the appropriate changes to the open slide
   WARNING: Any changes you make to the slide master after customizing an individual slide will overwrite the design of that slide except for the already made custom changes.

Removing a Background Graphic

There are times when the background graphics from the slide master do not fit with the content of a slide in your presentation. You can remove the background graphic from individual slides.

1. In Normal View – Right click the slide on which you wish to use a different background
2. Select Format Background from the contextual menu
3. From the Background dialog box, select Hide background graphics
4. Set the Fill color of your choice
5. Click Close
   The background image from the master slide disappears from the open slide. Important ! – If you click apply to all it will change all of the slides in the presentation.