Save Design Template

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One of the best features of PowerPoint is that you can create slide masters and then save them as templates to be reused later. There are different aspects of a design which can be created and saved to ensure you can reuse the hard work you spent on creating the first copy.

Given below are the steps to save design templates.

Step 1 − Create a new design template from the Slide Master view. Depending on your needs, this template can have different colors, images, logos or symbols included in the master slide and the layout templates.

Step 2 − Go to the Edit Theme group under the Slide Master ribbon.

Step 3 − Navigate to Edit Themes > Themes > Save Current Theme…

Step 4 − In the Save Current Theme dialog, enter the Theme name and click Save.

Step 5 − This template is now saved and available on your PowerPoint design template view to be applied to any presentation.

Using Slide Master

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Slide master is simple way of applying changes to the entire slide. Every presentation has at least one slide master, but you can have more than one. Using features like copy/ paste and format painting you can make changes to different sections within the presentation to make them look similar, however, if you want to use a theme and background throughout the slide, using the slide master is a simpler and more graceful way of approaching it.

Given below are the steps to customize your slide master.

Step 1 − Go to the Master Views group under the View ribbon.

Step 2 − Click on Slide Master to open the Slide Master Ribbon. The top most slide in the left sidebar is the Master slide. All the slides within this master template will follow the settings you add on this master slide.

Step 3 − You can make changes to the master slide in terms of the theme, design, font properties, position and size of the title and other content using the remaining ribbons which are still accessible.

Step 4 − While PowerPoint provides some default slide layouts, you can create your own layouts by clicking on the "Insert Layout" in the Edit Master section of the Slide Master ribbon.

Step 5 − You can add content placeholders to the slide layouts using the "Insert Placeholder" in the Master Layout group under the Slide Master ribbon. Under the Placeholder dropdown, you can either create a generic content placeholder or specify the kind of content you want in that placeholder.

Step 6 − You can apply different themes, background and page setup settings to all the slides from the master slide

Step 7 − You can also customize individual slide layouts to be different from the master slide using the menu options available with the layouts.

Apply Formatting

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One of the most powerful tools in Microsoft Office is the application of formatting feature. This feature basically lets you define the right format once and apply the same to a series of objects in the rest of the presentation or any other file. While working with large presentations or just working on slides for a long time, if you ever need to make a change in the style and want it applied across multiple content this is the tool to use.

The following are the steps to apply formatting to your presentation −

Step 1 − Select the content you want to copy the formatting from.

Step 2 − Go to the Clipboard group under the Home ribbon.

Step 3 − Click on the Format Painter icon.

Step 4 − Select the content you want to format.

Here are some key aspects about the Format Painter −

• If you click on the Format Painter icon just once, the formatting will be copied just once.

• If you click on the Format Painter icon twice quickly, you can copy the formatting multiple times.

• If you want to copy just the text formatting and not the paragraph features, ensure that you select just the sample text and not the entire paragraph.

• If you want to copy paragraph and font formatting, you must select the entire paragraph.

Borders and Shades

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One can change the borders and shading for most of the content in PowerPoint 2010. Let’s see how it is done

Applying Borders

The following are the steps that will help you apply borders in your presentation.

Step 1 − Select the object (text box, image, chart, picture, etc.) to which you want to apply the border.

Step 2 − Go to the Drawing group under the Home ribbon.

Step 3 − Click on the Shape Outline to choose the border settings.

Step 4 − Use the color palette to choose the border color. You can choose More Outline Colors to get access to additional color choices

Step 5 − Use the Weight dropdown to define the thickness of the border.

Step 6 − Use the Dashes option to define the border style.

Applying Shades

The following steps will help you apply shades to your presentation.

Step 1 − Select the object (text box, shape, chart, etc.) to which you want to apply the shades.

Step 2 − Go to the Drawing group under the Home ribbon.

Step 3 − Click on the Shape Fill to choose the shade settings.

Step 4 − Use the color palette to choose the shade color. You can choose More Outline Colors to get access to a choice of colors.

Step 5 − Use the Picture to add a picture as the background rather than a color.

Step 6 − Use the Gradient option to add color gradient in the background. You can use the pre-defined gradients or click on "More Gradients…" to customize the shading with gradient colors.

Step 7 − Use the Texture option to add a pre-defined texture instead of a color shade.

Set Line Spacing

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While dealing with a lot of textual content, especially during projected presentations, it is a good idea to space the lines further apart to improve the readability of the overall content. PowerPoint offers line spacing options to help you change the spacing between lines in the text. Like the indentation, these settings apply at a paragraph level. Given below are the steps to set the line spacing in PowerPoint.

Step 1 − Select the text content to be spaced. You can either select the entire paragraph or just place the cursor within the paragraph.

Step 2 − Go to the Paragraph group under the Home ribbon.

Step 3 − Select one of the line spacing option from the dropdown list to apply one of predefined spacing options.

Step 4 − To customize the spacing, you can click on "Line Spacing Options…" This will launch the Paragraph dialog.

Step 5 − The spacing section in the Paragraph dialog has two settings. The Before and After are the spacing for paragraph as a whole, while Line Spacing is the spacing for lines within the paragraph itself.

Indent Paragraphs

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Relatively long paragraphs can get monotonous to read and this effect is accentuated in slides where the area is smaller and the contents are usually projected. Paragraph indentations can help ease the strain on eyes and also help present the content in a visually appealing way. This chapter will discuss the paragraph indentations available in PowerPoint.

Step 1 − Select the text content to be indented. Unlike most other settings, indentation works at a paragraph level, so regardless of what text you select the indent settings will apply to the entire paragraph. However, if the text box has multiple paragraphs you can have different indentations for different paragraphs.

Step 2 − Go to the Paragraph group under the Home ribbon.

Step 3 − Select one of the indentation options. You will notice that by default the text is set at the lowest indentation level, so you will not be able to decrease it further. You must increase indentation the first time you use it.

Step 4 − Once you have increased the indent, the decrease indent option is enabled.

Text Alignments

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PowerPoint offers various text alignment options to create visually appealing designs and organizing the content better. The table below describes the various text alignment options available in PowerPoint.

S.No	Alignment Icon & Description
1	Aligns the text to the left of the shape/ text box.
2	Aligns the text in the middle of the shape/ text box.
3	Aligns the text to the right of the shape/ text box.
4	Justifies the alignment by adjusting the character spacing so the final text looks aligned from both left and right.
5	Specifies text direction: horizontal (default), stacked (vertical), rotated by 90 or 270 degrees. You can also customize the text direction to other angles.
6	Vertically aligns the text; top, bottom or middle of the text box/ shape.

Alignment can be done on selected portion of text in text boxes, shapes and even SmartArt. The following steps will help you align text.

Step 1 − Select the portion of text that needs to be aligned. If you select a specific portion of text, the alignment settings will apply to that portion of text alone. If you select the entire shape/ text box, the settings will apply for the entire selection.

Step 2 − Go to the Paragraph group under the Home ribbon.

Step 3 − Select one of the alignment options described above to change the text alignment. Note that the default alignment for text is usually Left.

Step 4 − As long as the text is selected, you can change the text alignment multiple times.