The default Slide Layouts available
in PowerPoint help you choose various placeholder arrangements for your slide content. It's easy to create good looking slides
using them. These ready-made layouts include containers for text, pictures, charts, etc. These layouts can be
edited (or
duplicated/renamed) within the Slide Master
View to create more Slide Layouts. While duplicating and editing Slide Layouts is a great way to make small changes, it's
not the best way to create a Slide Layout from scratch. As an analogy, duplicating and editing a Slide Layout is more like using
a coloring book to fill color between the lines of pre-drawn art. However, creating your Slide Layout from scratch is more like
starting with a blank sheet of paper and drawing your art before you start coloring between the lines. Decide which of these
approaches works best for you before starting. If you prefer the latter approach, follow these steps to create a new Slide
Layout:
- Launch PowerPoint. By default, PowerPoint opens a blank presentation. Select the View |
Master | Slide Master menu option as shown in Figure 1.
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Figure 1: Slide Master option within the View menu
- This opens Slide Master View, as
shown in Figure 2. In Slide Master view, you'll find that the left pane contains a larger
thumbnail on the top, called the Slide Master (highlighted in blue
within Figure 2), and several smaller slide thumbnails representing individual
Slide Layouts (highlighted in red within Figure 2).
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Figure 2: Slide Layouts within the Slide Master view
- To add a new slide layout, click in between the layout thumbnails to place an insertion cursor. We placed our
insertion cursor right below the Slide Master thumbnail at the position of the first Slide Layout, as shown in
Figure 3.
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Figure 3: New Slide Layout insertion point
- Within the Slide Master tab of the
Ribbon, click the New Layout button,
as shown highlighted in red within Figure 3 above. Alternatively,
right-click (Ctrl+click) at the insertion point to bring up a context menu. Within this menu, choose the
New Layout option as shown in Figure 4.
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Figure 4: New Layout option
- Either way, you will add a new Slide Layout at the position of insertion point.
In Figure 5 below, you can see the new Slide Layout selected within the left pane (highlighted
in red) and the same Slide Layout can be seen within
the Slide Area (highlighted
in blue).
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Figure 5: New Slide Layout added
- By default, the new Slide Layout added has a name that PowerPoint automatically provides—it's
called Custom Layout. To rename the Slide Layout, select it and click the
Rename button within the Slide Master tab (highlighted in green
within Figure 5, above). This brings up the Rename Layout window, containing the default name
Custom Layout. Within this window type in the new name. We renamed our new layout
as Test Layout as shown in Figure 6. Click the Rename button.
-
Figure 6: Rename Layout window
- Notice that our new Test Layout (see Figure 6, above) already
has Title and Footers placeholders. You may remove these placeholders by deselecting the two
check-boxes Title and Allow Footers, that are shown highlighted
in red within Figure 7.
-
Figure 7: Title and Footers check-boxes
- Once you deselect both the check-boxes (highlighted in red
within Figure 8), you will remove both the placeholders from the newly added Slide Layout,
as you can see highlighted in blue within Figure 8.
-
Figure 8: Title and Footers removed from new Slide Layout
- When done, click the Close Master button (highlighted in green
within Figure 8). This will get you back
to Normal View.
- Access the Home tab of the Ribbon and click the Layout button
to bring up the Layout drop-down gallery you see in Figure 9, below. Notice that your new layout
shows up here (highlighted in red within Figure 9), ready to be used in your
presentation. Once your layout has been added, it's time to add new placeholders to the created layout. We explain the process
in our Inserting New Placeholders
in Slide Layouts in PowerPoint 2011 tutorial.
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Figure 9: New Slide Layout within the Layout drop-down menu
- Save your presentation often.