always been mine…

Insofar as templates provide a genuinely useful way of adding decorative and stylistic elements all at once, they’re generally useful. Their usefulness is even greater when you consider that you can create your own template, and customize a set of design choices that you’ll be able to return to in presentation after presentation.

To build your own template, start with a new blank presentation, and select the blank new slide option.

Click the OK
button, and then, from PowerPoint

’s main menu, select View|Master|Slide Master

When the slide master appears on the screen (as represented below), you’ll see a fairly black-and-white uninspiring template.

You can, however, change the fonts, colors, and background of the slide.

Begin by setting the background color: right-click over a blank area of the slide (outside any of the frames) to view a menu of options for adjusting the template’s background and color schemes.

From the menu, select Background
to introduce the Background
dialog that controls background colors.

From the Background

dialog, you can select from the default palette of colors, click on the More Colors
option to introduce more colors still, and/or click on the Fill Effects
option to introduce a variety of pattern/fading color options. (You might want avoid the fill effects, since they can potentially interfere with the clarity of text elements on the screen: if you do use fill effects, always double-check for visibility and clarity.)

Once you’ve set your background color, you can adjust the slide color scheme: this lets you choose default colors for a variety of elements that might appear on your slides. Again, start by right-clicking over a blank area of the slide (outside of any frame). Select the Slide Color Scheme
option from the context menu that appears. You’ll then be presented with a two-tabbed dialog, as illustrated below:

A range of preset color combinations appears under the Standard
tab. Under the Custom
tab, you have the option of setting screen element colors one at a time. Make your adjustments as you’d like and then click the Apply to All
button.

Next, you’ll want to adjust the Font styles, the Bullet styles, and the Animation Effects. To do this, you’ll need to click on the screen element you’d like to adjust (i.e. the title area) to highlight its border.

Then right-click on the selected frame to bring up a context menu of possible actions.

For differing slide elements, you’ll want to set differing properties, as outlined below:

Title Style
: Set only the font and font color; avoid applying animations to titles.

Text Style

: Font colors and animations can be set for the entire Text area by selecting the frame; alternately, individual heading levels can have font sizes, colors, bullet styles, and animations set one at a time if you select each line individually and right-click on a single line.

Date/Footer/Number Styles
: Animations should be avoided here. Font sizes and colors can be set.

Finally, if you’d like to include a picture (or a logo) as part of your slide template, you can use the Insert|Picture
item from PowerPoint’s
main menu,  and then add to your template whatever image you’d like. You should remember also that right-clicking on a picture and selecting the Order

option allows you to send the picture behind the text elements on your screen.

That’s it. Your template is finished. Click on File|Save As
and select Design Template(*.pot)
from the Save as type
field. Give your template file a name in the File Name

field, and then click the Save
button.

The next time you create a presentation, you’ll be able to apply your very own design template by selecting it from the list of options under the Format|Apply Design Template
list of templates.