Multiple Slide Masters in PowerPoint 2003 for Windows

Every presentation you create has its own Slide Master, even if you are not aware. This Master governs the default attributes of all slides in your presentation such as the background, font choices, colors, and even the positioning of the placeholders. This makes all your slides look consistent. However, even then some sets of slides within the same presentation may have disparate slide elements. So, you may have some slides that are governed by one Slide Master and other slides that are governed by a completely different Slide Master!

So how do you know where these multiple Slide Masters are? Read more:

1. Launch PowerPoint 2003, and choose the View | Master | Slide Master menu option, as shown in Figure 1.
2. 
   Figure 1: Slide Master option within the Master sub-menu of View menu
3. Alternatively, you can Shift+click the Normal View button located right beneath the Slides and Outline pane within the PowerPoint 2003 interface (highlighted in blue in Figure 2) to get the Slide Master view.
2. Either of these options brings up the Slide Master view, as shown in Figure 2. As you can see, the Slide Master view shows just one Slide Master (highlighted in red within Figure 2).
3. 
   Figure 2: Slide Master view in PowerPoint 2003
3. Now get back to Normal view by choosing the View | Normal menu option (see Figure 1, earlier on this page). Right click on an empty area of your active slide and choose the Slide Design option. This will open the Slide Design task pane, as shown in Figure 3 below. Note that only one Slide Master is being used within this presentation, indicated by the solitary preview thumbnail in the Used in This Presentation area (highlighted in red with Figure 3).
4. 
   Figure 3: Single Slide Master within the Slide Design task pane
5. On the other hand, if your presentation contained multiple Slide Masters, then you will find multiple thumbnail previews within the Used in This Presentation area (highlighted in red with Figure 4).
6. 
   Figure 4: Multiple Slide Masters within the Slide Design task pane
7. Also such a presentation would show multiple Slide Masters within Slide Master view as well, as shown in Figure 5, below (compare with Figure 2, earlier on this page).
8. 
   Figure 5: Multiple Slide Masters within the Slide Master view

Learn how you can create your own Slide Masters in Creating and Renaming Slide Masters in PowerPoint 2003 for Windows.