In PowerPoint 2016, the
Slide Master influences the layout and look of all slides
in your presentation. Make changes to the Slide Master and those changes reflect on your presentation slides. For example, you can
apply another Background Style so that all Slide Layouts and slides in your presentation use this changed slide background. In this
tutorial, we will explore how you can choose from any of
the 12 available Background
Styles to apply to the Slide Master.
Note: You can also have more than one Slide Master in your presentation, and any of those multiple Slide Masters
can influence the actual slides following that master in your presentation.
Follow these steps to learn more:
- Launch PowerPoint 2016. You will see
the Presentation Gallery here. Select
the Blank Presentation option to open a new presentation with a blank slide. Typically the new presentation has
Office Theme applied. If your presentation is using another Theme, apply the Office Theme since
this is a basic and clean Theme that lends itself best to changes and edits that we discuss later in this tutorial. If you do not
know how to apply a Theme, explore our Applying Themes in
PowerPoint, Word, and Excel 2016 tutorial.
Figure 1: Blank presentation with Office Theme applied- Now, access the View tab of
the Ribbon and click the Slide Master
button, as shown highlighted in red within Figure 2.
Figure 2: Slide Master button- This opens Slide Master View, as shown in
Figure 3. Here, within the left pane you'll find one large slide thumbnail that represents the Slide Master. We
have selected this Slide Master as shown in Figure 3. Below the Slide Master are several smaller slide
thumbnails. These represent individual Slide
Layouts. For now, do understand that changes made to the Slide Master influence its Slide Layouts, and in turn, this
influences all slides within your presentation that are following that Slide Master.
Figure 3: Slide Master view
Note: In hierarchy terms, Slide Layouts are dependent for their appearance on the Slide Master although you can
individually override these dependencies.
- Now, make sure that the Slide Master is in selected status as shown in Figure 3,
above and click the Background Styles button (highlighted in blue
within Figure 3).
- This brings up the Background Styles drop-down gallery with 12 default slide background styles shown
highlighted in red within Figure 4. Click on the style of your choice to apply it to the
Slide Master. In Figure 4, you can see the Style 11 being selected. Also, you will see a
Live Preview of the Background Style applied on the active
slide (not shown in Figure 4).
Figure 4: Background Styles drop-down gallery
Note: These 12 default styles change when you apply a different
Theme to your presentation. Also, do you see the
Format Background and
Reset Slide Background options (highlighted
in
blue within
Figure 4) below the Background Style thumbnails? These options are
explained in our
Custom Backgrounds in the
Slide Master in PowerPoint 2016 tutorial. The
Reset Slide Background option is meant for individual Slide
Layouts. It is used to reset the slide background to its original status, on a particular slide layout.
- This will apply the selected Background Style to the Slide Master and all the Slide Layouts belonging to the selected
Slide Master as well, as shown in Figure 5 (compare with Figure 3 shown earlier on this page).
Figure 5: Background Style changed within the Slide Master view- Click the Close Master View button (highlighted in red
within Figure 5, above). This will get you back
to Normal view, where you can see the new Background Style
applied to all your slides.
- Save your presentation often.
