How to Create a PowerPoint Template

Edited 4 weeks ago by ExtremeHow Editorial Team

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Creating PowerPoint templates can be a very useful skill. Whether for business, education or personal use, having a consistent structure helps communicate messages effectively. A template ensures that your presentation is uniform, professional and visually appealing, eliminating the need for repetitive formatting and design work.

Why use a PowerPoint template?

Before we dive into the creation process, it's important to understand the benefits of using templates. Templates standardize the visual presentation, making it easier to maintain a consistent look across multiple slides or presentations. This is especially useful for companies that want to maintain branding guidelines or for teachers who want to create a cohesive lesson plan.

Basic structure of a PowerPoint template

A PowerPoint template contains pre-designed slides that include placeholders for different types of content such as text, charts, images, and multimedia. These templates also provide layouts that help maintain a consistent font size, color scheme, and other stylistic elements. Key components typically include the following:

• Slide Master: This is the backbone of a PowerPoint template. It controls the overall design, layout, and format of all the slides in the presentation.
• Layouts: These are different arrangements of slides, each of which contains placeholders that define where the content will be inserted.
• Themes: Color and font settings provide a visual framework for your slides.
• Background styles: Set the background look for your slides, which can include images or solid colors.

Creating a PowerPoint template

Creating your own PowerPoint template involves several steps, which we will explain in detail. This guide assumes that you have a basic understanding of PowerPoint.

Step 1: Determine your purpose and audience

Start by asking yourself what the purpose of the presentation you are going to create is. Is it for a corporate environment, academic purposes, or personal use? Understanding your audience will help you select elements that match their likes and needs. Corporate presentations require professionalism, while educational templates can be more engaging to keep students' attention.

Step 2: Open the Slide Master view

To create a template on PowerPoint, you need to access the Slide Master view:

1. Open PowerPoint and start a new presentation.
2. Go to the "View" menu on the top toolbar.
3. Select "Slide Master" from the dropdown options.

Slide Master view is where the magic happens. Here, you can work with layout design, background colors, typography, and more.

Step 3: Design your master slide

The master slide is the top slide in the Slide Master view and controls the overall format and design for all the slides under it. Changes made here will affect every slide:

1. Select the master slide (the top slide) in the slide navigation panel.
2. Customize the background. You can do this by right-clicking on the slide background and choosing "Format Background." Choose from a solid fill, gradient, picture, or texture or pattern fill.
3. Set your fonts: Use the "Font" option in the Slide Master tab to choose or customize a font set for your presentation. Consistent fonts keep the presentation uniform.
4. Choose a color theme: Click "Color" in the Slide Master tab to choose a color theme. Consistency in colors supports brand identity and keeps your slides visually consistent.

Think about what types of slides you'll need for your content. You'll probably want to include at least a title slide, content slide, section headings, and a conclusion slide.

Step 4: Create the custom layout

Layouts are specific formats that determine the position of headings, content, and other elements. By default, PowerPoint provides a set of standard layouts, but you can customize them to suit your needs:

1. Select one of the layouts listed under Master Slides.
2. You can add a placeholder by clicking "Insert Placeholder." This can be a placeholder for content, text, images, charts, tables, SmartArt, or media files.
3. Set the position and size of these placeholders according to your design needs.
4. Remove any unnecessary placeholders or items that do not match the purpose of your template.
5. Repeat the process for different slide types as needed.

Having different customized layouts saves time when creating presentations later, as the structure is pre-defined.

Step 5: Customize the slide elements

Now, add and style any other design elements, such as headers, footers, and logos/or branding marks:

1. To include a consistent element, such as a company logo, select the master slide and click "Insert" and then "Picture" to browse and add your logo.
2. Include headers and footers: Click "Insert" and then "Header and Footer" to insert these. These can show things like dates, slide numbers, and text.

Step 6: Add theme effects

Theme effects modify the look of text, shapes, and graphics. These subtle changes can give your template a beautiful look.

1. On the Slide Master tab, click "Effects."
2. Choose an effect that complements your design scheme.

Step 7: Save as template

Once you're satisfied with your design and layout, it's time to save your template:

1. Close the Slide Master View by clicking "Close Master View."
2. Select "File" from the top menu.
3. Select "Save As" and decide where to save your file.
4. Under the "Save as type" dropdown, select "PowerPoint Template (*.potx)."
5. Give your template a descriptive name so its purpose is easily recognized.

Now your template is ready to use. Whenever you want to create a new presentation using this template, just select it from your saved templates and start working without having to deal with the design from scratch.

Best practices for creating PowerPoint templates

To increase the effectiveness of your PowerPoint template, consider the following best practices:

• Keep it simple: Avoid clutter and keep your slides clean. Focus on the essentials for more effective communication.
• Consistent design: Every part of the presentation should be visually consistent. This includes the use of fonts, colors, and slide elements.
• Brand identity: If you're creating a template for a brand, make sure brand elements such as logos and color schemes are used correctly.
• Readability: Text should be easy to read against the slide background. Avoid distracting backgrounds that can impair comprehension.

Conclusion

Creating a PowerPoint template may seem tricky at first, but once you understand the basics, it becomes a streamlined process. A well-crafted template saves you time and ensures consistency, allowing you to focus more on the content rather than repetitive formatting work. Whether for business, education, or personal projects, a custom PowerPoint template is a valuable asset. Happy designing!

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