PowerPointTM Apply the Master Slide - Information
You want your audience to focus on your ideas and not get distracted.  To limit distractions make all the slides in your presentation have the same look and feel.  
  • The background should be the same for all slides.  That does not mean you have to have a boring single-color background, but you must have a background that makes your text and images stand out.
  • The font should be the same from slide to slide.  Pick a font you like and stick with it for your whole presentation. There are times when certain points might need a different font to set them apart from others on a page, but use this technique sparingly and only with a clear reason.
  • The colors of text should be the same throughout the presentation. Titles might be one color and general text another. Avoid using all colors of the rainbow for text. It is distracting and gets people thinking about the artistic content of your presentation rather than focusing on your ideas.
  • The page format should be set to 35mm slides.
PowerPointTM makes it easy to maintain consistentcy throughout your presentation. You can use the Master Slide to set consistent fonts, colors, layout, and background.  You can look at and make changes to the master slide by looking under the View menu and selecting Master > Slide Master. The master slide is a template slide with a style and format that remains constant as you add slides to your presentation.

Before you start adding content to a presentation, you should have the look and feel (the background etc.) worked out. Save this "blank" file as a template by doing File > Save as..., pull down the Save as type drop-down menu and select the presentation template (*.pot) option. When you do this PowerPointTM will switch to the main template directory and allow you to place your template where you can get easy access to it the next time you want to start a new presentation by selecting File > New.  You can have several custom templates with different styles in your template directory.  After you have saved your new template, close it.

When you start to make a new presentation, open your template file by using File > New. Select your preferred template from the template menu that always opens when you use this command. After it loads, begin to add content. The document will be named "untitled.ppt" until you save it the first time. It is always a good idea to save your work frequently. As noted elsewhere, PowerPointTM saves the changes you make but does not erase your deletions completely. So if you are doing a lot of editing it is a good idea to Save as a different file name at the end of every editing session. Usually its a good idea to keep the same file name and add version numbers to it: 

-  lyophilization_techniques_v1.ppt
-  lyophilization_techniques_v2.ppt
-  lyophilization_techniques_v3.ppt
-  lyophilization_techniques_final.ppt

and so forth. This keeps any good ideas you may have had earlier and aborted on hand until the final version is completed.

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