Working With Picture Slide Layouts in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac

PowerPoint's, Slide Layouts are a very useful feature because they let you use a boilerplate arrangement of placeholders repeatedly, resulting in slides that are laid out consistently. And, you can also create your own custom Slide Layouts. While very few users create their own custom Slide Layouts, even fewer will create a custom Slide Layout with pictures! That's unfortunate since Picture Slide Layouts can make your slides look so unique. In this tutorial, we will show you how you can easily create your own Picture Slide Layout in PowerPoint 2011:

1. Launch PowerPoint. You will see the Presentation Gallery. Select the Cancel option to open a blank presentation with a new single slide, which is applied with the default Office Theme.
2. Now, access the Themes tab of the Ribbon, and from the Themes drop-down gallery, choose any Theme. For this tutorial, we choose the Pushpin Theme, as shown highlighted in red within Figure 1. You can choose any other Theme as required.
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   Figure 1: Themes drop-down gallery
3. Within the Home tab of the Ribbon, click the Layout button (highlighted in red within Figure 2) to access the Layout drop-down gallery, as shown in Figure 2. Now change the layout of the active slide to Picture with Caption, as shown highlighted in blue within Figure 2.
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   Figure 2: Layout drop-down gallery
4. This changes the layout of your active slide to Picture with Caption, as shown in Figure 3. Click the Insert Picture from File icon (highlighted in red within Figure 3) within the Picture placeholder.
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   Figure 3: Insert Picture from File icon
5. This brings up the Choose a Picture dialog box, as shown in Figure 4. Navigate to the folder where your pictures are located, select any picture you need, and click the Insert button, shown highlighted in red within Figure 4.
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   Figure 4: Choose a Picture dialog box
6. This adds the selected picture to your active slide, as shown in Figure 5, below. Note that the appearance of your slide depends on the Theme you chose earlier in Step 2. You however are not limited to the choices provided within default Picture with Caption layout. We will next create our own customized Picture Slide Layout.
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   Figure 5: Picture inserted within the Picture placeholder
7. To create your own Picture Slide Layout, start with selecting the View | Master | Slide Master menu option, as shown in Figure 6.
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   Figure 6: View | Master | Slide Master menu option
8. This opens Slide Master View. In Figure 7 below, you can see the Picture with Caption layout selected within the left pane (indicated by the orange highlight) and the same Picture with Caption layout can be seen within the Slide Area (highlighted in blue).
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   Figure 7: Slide Master view
9. Now, with the Picture with Caption layout thumbnail selected in the left pane, access the Edit menu and select the Duplicate option, as shown in Figure 8.
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    Figure 8: Edit | Duplicate menu option
10. This will create a copy of the Picture with Caption layout. Right-click (or Ctrl + click) the duplicated Picture with Caption layout, and from the contextual menu that appears, choose the Rename Layout option, as shown in Figure 9.
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    Figure 9: Rename Layout option
11. This brings up the Rename Layout dialog box. Provide a descriptive name, and click the Rename button.
Tip: Learn how to duplicate and rename the slide layout in our Duplicate, Rename, and Edit Slide Layouts in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac tutorial.
12. Now, modify this new picture layout as required. You can resize and move the existing Picture placeholder. You can also add more Picture placeholders by using the options in the Insert Placeholder button to end up with your own Picture Slide Layout, as shown in Figure 10, below (compare with Figure 7, shown earlier on the page).
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    Figure 10: Customized Picture Slide Layout
Tip: You can also add more Picture placeholders by duplicating an existing Picture placeholder and move to a different location. To do so, select an existing Picture placeholder, press both the Option and Shift keys and drag!
13. When done, click the Close button (highlighted in red within Figure 11) within the Slide Master tab of the Ribbon to get back to Normal View.
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    Figure 11: Close button
14. Do note that your active slide already uses the original Picture with Caption layout, as shown in Figure 5, previously on this page. This needs to be now changed to the new layout we just created. To do so, access the Home tab of the Ribbon and click the Layout button to bring up the Layout drop-down gallery you see in Figure 12, below. Notice that your new layout shows up, as shown highlighted in red within Figure 12. Click on this thumbnail to change the layout of the active slide.
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    Figure 12: New Slide Layout within the Layout drop-down gallery
15. In addition to the picture already inserted, now you can see extra Picture placeholders that are devoid of any pictures, as shown in Figure 13, below.
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    Figure 13: Extra Picture placeholders without pictures
16. Add pictures to all extra Picture placeholders, and provide a suitable caption so that you end up with something similar to Figure 14, below (compare with Figure 5, shown earlier on this page).
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    Figure 14: New Picture Slide Layout added with pictures
17. Save your presentation often.