Add Photos and Layouts to Title Slides with PowerPoint Designer in PowerPoint 365 for Windows

What if you added a new title slide, and typed in your title—and then get suggestions for a layout with a picture already added that uses your title content as keywords? PowerPoint Designer provides this option already. In this tutorial, let's become more aware of this amazing feature that's built using Microsoft Office's intelligent services.

Follow these steps to learn about how PowerPoint Designer automatically suggests pictures and layouts for title slides in PowerPoint 365 for Windows:

1. Launch PowerPoint, and you will typically see Backstage view. Choose the Blank Presentation option, highlighted in red within Figure 1, below.
2. 
   Figure 1: Blank Presentation
2. As soon as you see the new blank presentation, you will also see the Design Ideas Task Pane on the right, as shown highlighted in red within Figure 2, below. In this Design Ideas Task Pane, you will see thumbnails of some template designs that can replace the white background and black text deck that you see. Since we do not want to apply a new design idea for now, ignore the suggestions. Optionally, go ahead and close the Task Pane by clicking on the X button located on its top-right.
3. 
   Figure 2: Design Ideas Task Pane with template ideas

Troubleshooting PowerPoint Designer

PowerPoint Designer is an amazing feature, but there may be times when it may not work in the way you want it to. Sometimes, there may be explanations provided within the interface itself—and sometimes, there may be no explanations! Explore troubleshooting areas in our Troubleshooting PowerPoint Designer in PowerPoint 365 for Windows page.

3. Now you will see the basic title slide as can be seen in Figure 2, above. Start typing your title content. We typed "Flowers from Nature" without quotes, as can be seen in Figure 3, below.
4. 
   Figure 3: Type text and PowerPoint Designer brings up suitable pictures
4. You will see that the Design Ideas Task Pane now shows pictures of flowers, as shown highlighted in red within Figure 3, above. If you closed the Design Ideas Task Pane in a previous step, you can summon the Pane again by accessing the Home or the Design tab of the Ribbon, and clicking the Design Ideas button. We chose a picture that contains several roses, as can be seen in the slide shown in Figure 4, below.
5. 
   Figure 4: Picture of roses added to the Title slide
5. If you don't like the picture, you can simply select it and press the Delete key to remove the picture. On the other hand, you can now use PowerPoint Designer to choose variations of the picture in a different size and position.
6. Since you just inserted a picture in the preceding steps, the Design Ideas Task Pane will continue to show you more picture options rather than variations of the picture in a different size and position. To force-refresh options in the Design Ideas Task Pane, shut down the Pane by clicking on the X button on the top-right of the Pane. Then, bring up the Design Ideas Task Pane again by accessing the Home or the Design tab of the Ribbon; then, click the Design Ideas button. Now options in the summoned Design Ideas Task Pane will relate to picture treatments, as can be seen in Figure 5, below.
7. 
   Figure 5: Picture treatments in the Design Ideas Task Pane

PowerPoint Designer or Design Ideas?

We use the terms PowerPoint Designer and Design Ideas interchangeably. To be technically correct, this feature is called PowerPoint Designer while the Task Pane variant that you see is called Design Ideas.
6. You can now choose from any of these picture treatments, and also provide some slide background treatments. Look at Figure 6, below to see the changed slide treatments (compare with Figure 4, shown previously on this page).
7. 
   Figure 6: Design Ideas provides many slide treatments

Resize and Reposition Without PowerPoint Designer?

While PowerPoint Designer is so awesome and provides you with several choices of picture treatments, there will be times when you want your picture a little smaller or even in a different area of the slide. That's easy to accomplish since you can always select the picture manually and resize it or reposition, as needed.