PowerPoint 2010

Customizing slide layouts

You can use Slide Master view to modify any slide layout in your presentation. It's easy to make small tweaks, like adjusting background graphics, or big changes, like rearranging or deleting placeholders. Unlike with Slide Master, changes to a slide layout will only be applied to slides using that layout in your presentation.

To customize an existing slide layout:

In our example, our newly added logo overlaps a background graphic in the Content with Caption Layout. We'll customize this layout to make room for the logo.

1. Navigate to Slide Master view.
2. Locate and select the desired layout in the left-navigation pane. You can hover the mouse over each layout to see which slides are currently using that layout in the presentation.
   Selecting the desired layout
3. In some layouts, the background graphics may be hidden. To show the graphics, uncheck the box next to Hide Background Graphics.
   Showing background graphics
4. Add, move, or delete any objects as desired. In our example, we'll move the purple rectangle to better show our new logo.
   
   Moving an object and placeholder
5. If you want to change the arrangement of the placeholders, you can move, resize, or delete any of them. In our example, we'll rearrange our placeholders to create more room for text on the slide.
   
   Moving placeholders
   
6. When you're finished, click the Close Master View command on the Slide Master tab.
   Closing Slide Master view
7. All slides using the layout will be updated.
   The modified slide layout

To add a new slide with the customized layout, click the bottom half of the New Slide command, then select the desired layout.

Adding a new slide with the customized layout

You can also move placeholders on the Slide Master, which will move the placeholders on multiple slide layouts at the same time. However, some slide layouts may still need to be adjusted manually.

Moving a placeholder on the slide master

Customizing text formatting

You can also customize the text formatting from Slide Master view, including the font, text size, color, and alignment. For example, if you want to change the font for every title placeholder in your presentation, you can modify the Master title style on the Slide Master.

Changing the Master title style on the slide master

Every title placeholder is connected to the master title style on the Slide Master. As you can see in the example below, modifying the font on the Slide Master changed the title font on every slide.

The old and new title fonts

Rather than customizing individual placeholders, you can change the theme fonts for the presentation. From the Slide Master tab, click the Fonts command in the Background group, then select the desired fonts.

Changing the theme fonts from the Slide Master tab