How do I create custom slide layouts in PowerPoint?

I want to create my own layout to apply to a few of the slides in my
PowerPoint file. None of the pre-made slide layouts are adequate--I want to
have the main text box take up 2/3 of the width, and a colored-background
text box take up the remainder of the width. I've tried doing this by
creating a new Slide Master but have not been able to get a usable side text
box (i.e. it's there but not fillable). There has to be a way to customize
the layout and apply those customizations to more than one slide. No?

I now see there's a thread started 7/26/2004 by Peter Vanbrussel about a
similar (or the same?) problem. I made my original post from a form linked
to in some Office Help section of the greater MS website, and it told me
there were no similar posts, so sorry for any duplication. Anyway, based on
that discussion it looks like there's no way to create custom layouts. Quite
a shame.

I suppose I should focus on making a second Master Design... Can anyone tell
me why, when I copy and paste the original bullet area of the slide master,
the second bullet region is not editable in normal working view? Same thing
happens if I add a text area to the Master--I can't edit it once I've applied
the design to a slide.

**confused!**


"th77" wrote:

I want to create my own layout to apply to a few of the slides in my
PowerPoint file. None of the pre-made slide layouts are adequate--I want to
have the main text box take up 2/3 of the width, and a colored-background
text box take up the remainder of the width. I've tried doing this by
creating a new Slide Master but have not been able to get a usable side text
box (i.e. it's there but not fillable). There has to be a way to customize
the layout and apply those customizations to more than one slide. No?

There is good news and bad news. The bad news is that you cannot create
your own placeholders on a slide master. That is why you were able to
create a new slide master, but none of the text boxes were fillable. If
you put a text box on the master, it is a normal textbox.

However, if you only need two placeholders, you can create your own
master and modify the placeholders that are on the master. You can set
the location, fonts, and background colors for these placeholders, so any
slides based this new master will have the appropriate look.

--David

--
David M. Marcovitz, Ph.D.
Director of Graduate Programs in Educational Technology
Loyola College in Maryland
Author of _Powerful PowerPoint for Educators_
http://www.loyola.edu/education/PowerfulPowerPoint/

"=?Utf-8?B?dGg3Nw==?=" wrote in
news
I want to create my own layout to apply to a few of the slides in my
PowerPoint file. None of the pre-made slide layouts are adequate--I
want to have the main text box take up 2/3 of the width, and a
colored-background text box take up the remainder of the width. I've
tried doing this by creating a new Slide Master but have not been able
to get a usable side text box (i.e. it's there but not fillable).
There has to be a way to customize the layout and apply those
customizations to more than one slide. No?

Thanks for the reply, David. So you're saying that when I add a text box to
a slide master, it's just a text box and is only editable in that mode--so I
could include a text badge (e.g. a company name) to have appear on all slides
following the design.

What I'm really looking for are placeholders. When I create my own master,
I start out with the default generic black and white arrangement. There is
only one placeholder that I can use for the body of the slide: Object Area
for AutoLayouts. Duplicating this Object Area does not result in a usable
placeholder. None of the other placeholder Areas seem to be suitable for
rearranging and resizing, and there doesn't seem to be an "Insert
Placeholder" or "Insert Object Area" command.

I suppose I could resize the main body's placeholder, stop there, and then
manually paste in a blank text box to fill the area I need, on each
applicable slide.

I'm glad these newsgroups are here--just when I feel like I'm getting rather
proficient with an application I run into a new situation that baffles me!



"David M. Marcovitz" wrote:

There is good news and bad news. The bad news is that you cannot create
your own placeholders on a slide master. That is why you were able to
create a new slide master, but none of the text boxes were fillable. If
you put a text box on the master, it is a normal textbox.

However, if you only need two placeholders, you can create your own
master and modify the placeholders that are on the master. You can set
the location, fonts, and background colors for these placeholders, so any
slides based this new master will have the appropriate look.

--David

--
David M. Marcovitz, Ph.D.
Director of Graduate Programs in Educational Technology
Loyola College in Maryland
Author of _Powerful PowerPoint for Educators_
http://www.loyola.edu/education/PowerfulPowerPoint/

"=?Utf-8?B?dGg3Nw==?=" wrote in
news

Unfortunately, it is exactly as you say. Placeholders are what you want,
and PowerPoint won't let you create them.

Fortunately, it is exactly as you say. This newsgroup is one of the most
useful places on the Internet (at least if you want to know something
about PowerPoint).

--David

--
David M. Marcovitz, Ph.D.
Director of Graduate Programs in Educational Technology
Loyola College in Maryland
Author of _Powerful PowerPoint for Educators_
http://www.loyola.edu/education/PowerfulPowerPoint/

"=?Utf-8?B?dGg3Nw==?=" wrote in
:

Thanks for the reply, David. So you're saying that when I add a text
box to a slide master, it's just a text box and is only editable in
that mode--so I could include a text badge (e.g. a company name) to
have appear on all slides following the design.

What I'm really looking for are placeholders. When I create my own
master, I start out with the default generic black and white
arrangement. There is only one placeholder that I can use for the
body of the slide: Object Area for AutoLayouts. Duplicating this
Object Area does not result in a usable placeholder. None of the other
placeholder Areas seem to be suitable for rearranging and resizing,
and there doesn't seem to be an "Insert Placeholder" or "Insert Object
Area" command.

I suppose I could resize the main body's placeholder, stop there, and
then manually paste in a blank text box to fill the area I need, on
each applicable slide.

I'm glad these newsgroups are here--just when I feel like I'm getting
rather proficient with an application I run into a new situation that
baffles me!

Have a look at http://shapestyles.pptools.com

The free demo might be enough to do most of what you want, though not exactly in
the way you describe.

You could format a text box the way you want it, create a style from it.
Then on a new slide, click Apply Style to create a new text box formatted just
like the first one, text selected and ready to type into.



In article , Th77 wrote:
Thanks for the reply, David. So you're saying that when I add a text box to
a slide master, it's just a text box and is only editable in that mode--so I
could include a text badge (e.g. a company name) to have appear on all slides
following the design.

What I'm really looking for are placeholders. When I create my own master,
I start out with the default generic black and white arrangement. There is
only one placeholder that I can use for the body of the slide: Object Area
for AutoLayouts. Duplicating this Object Area does not result in a usable
placeholder. None of the other placeholder Areas seem to be suitable for
rearranging and resizing, and there doesn't seem to be an "Insert
Placeholder" or "Insert Object Area" command.

I suppose I could resize the main body's placeholder, stop there, and then
manually paste in a blank text box to fill the area I need, on each
applicable slide.

I'm glad these newsgroups are here--just when I feel like I'm getting rather
proficient with an application I run into a new situation that baffles me!

"David M. Marcovitz" wrote:

There is good news and bad news. The bad news is that you cannot create
your own placeholders on a slide master. That is why you were able to
create a new slide master, but none of the text boxes were fillable. If
you put a text box on the master, it is a normal textbox.

However, if you only need two placeholders, you can create your own
master and modify the placeholders that are on the master. You can set
the location, fonts, and background colors for these placeholders, so any
slides based this new master will have the appropriate look.

--David

--
David M. Marcovitz, Ph.D.
Director of Graduate Programs in Educational Technology
Loyola College in Maryland
Author of _Powerful PowerPoint for Educators_
http://www.loyola.edu/education/PowerfulPowerPoint/

"=?Utf-8?B?dGg3Nw==?=" wrote in
news


--
Steve Rindsberg, PPT MVP
PPT FAQ: www.pptfaq.com
PPTools: www.pptools.com
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