Introduction

By the end of the lesson, you should be able to:

• Design a master slide
• Create a title master
• Work with text boxes on the master slide

The master slide

If you work for a company, you may be asked to prepare long presentations periodically. Theses creations can have all types of slides, but usually the company wants them all to have the same overall look.

To make all slides in a presentation have the same design elements, create a master slide. This slide contains information about the elements you want on every slide in a presentation, such as the company logo, background, and font color.

Having a master slide eliminates having to format every slide in a presentation with the same basic design and text.

Creating a master slide

To create a master slide:

• Choose ViewMasterSlide Master.
• A slide with placeholders appears.

• Choose FormatBackground and choose the background color.
• Choose FormatBackgroundFill Effects.
• Select the text in the Master title style placeholder.
• Choose FormatFont and choose a font, font color, and font style.
• The Master text styles placeholder contains a model of up to five bullet levels in which the text gets smaller for each level. For each level, select the text and choose a font and font color.
• Choose a font and font color for the page number (#) placeholder and for the footer and date and time placeholders, if necessary. Note: Keep the master slide open to complete the rest of this lesson.

Generally, you should keep the text the same color for the title and all text levels. Notice that in the master slide, font sizes are preselected for you. The sizes are based on what someone is able to read from a reasonable distance. You can change the font size, but this is fine tuning you might want to do later.

Inserting the new title master

With the master slide open, insert a new title master. This is a special slide for the title slide of your presentation. The Slide Master is a basic blueprint for all the slides of your presentation, while the Title Master only addresses the elements of your title slide.

To insert a new title master:

• Click the Insert New Title Master button from the toolbar to see a special master slide for the title slide. (You can keep the title master as is, or you can change it so it's different from your master slide.)
• Choose ViewNormal.
• Click Click to add Title to begin creating your presentation. Notice that the first slide of your presentation contains all of the background, fonts, and other elements you chose when you created your master slide and title master.

Viewing and making changes

To view or make changes to your master slide and title master, choose ViewMaster, and choose either Slide Master or Title Master.

• Choose Normal view to return to your presentation.
• To add a new slide, click the New Slide button in Normal view.

Working with small text boxes

If you find it difficult to work with the small text boxes in the master slide, click the down-pointing arrow in the zoom box.

Increase the size of the text. To return the slide to its previous size, choose Fit at the bottom of the zoom box.

Challenge!

Design a new presentation for the Terrific Tool Company.

• Design a master slide for the Terrific Tool Company. Choose elements such as font and background color. Don't type a title yet.
• Insert a new title master slide. Keep the same design elements you created for your master slide.
• Choose Normal view.
• Select Click to add first slide.
• Choose Title Slide.
• Type the title Terrific Tool Company and the subtitle Quality and Ease of Use.
• Save the presentation in My Documents and call it Terrific Tool Company.

Notice as you work that the basic design features from the master slide you created are carried over to the new slide.