How to Create and Apply PowerPoint Templates For Dummies

Creating a PowerPoint template allows you to control and change theme colors and fonts, effects, backgrounds, and specific layout elements in one place instead of on each individual slide. You don't need to download templates; they're built into PowerPoint. This video provides tips for using them.

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in earlier versions of Microsoft
PowerPoint you could create a template
for a specific design style and apply
that design template to an existing
presentation microsoft powerpoint 2007
is a little different in this newer
version what used to be called design
templates are now known as themes themes
and templates are similar but they have
slightly different uses a template is
like a pattern or blueprint for your
slides when you're building a
presentation from scratch themes are a
collection of complementary colors fonts
and design elements that can be applied
to a presentation once it's built a
template can include theme colors and
fonts theme effect and background colors
as well as specific layout elements
microsoft powerpoint comes with a number
of built-in templates that you might
find useful when you click on the office
button and select new to create a new
presentation
look for the installed templates option
in the dialog box when you select
installed template you'll see a list of
thumbnails for the built-in options just
select one that you like and click
create PowerPoint will open your new
presentation in normal view so you can
see the thumbnails for the different
layout pages in the slides pane on the
left and then you can start adding your
own content to the built-in template so
for example in this first slide i can
place my cursor in the built-in text
boxes highlight the text and type in my
new text you can also save your own
custom template if you've created a
presentation that you like and you want
to use the same blueprint and future
presentations you may want to first save
the file under a new name so you don't
accidentally overwrite your original
presentation then the new file go up to
the View tab in the top navigation and
select the slide sorter view now delete
all the slides in the active
presentation on your screen the easiest
way to do this is to press the ctrl key
and the letter A at the same time to
highlight all of the thumbnails and then
just hit the Delete key next press ctrl+
the letter M twice to insert two blank
slides for your new template the first
slide will be a title
five and the second will be for title
and content don't make any changes to
these slides were just setting up the
template for now finally click the
office button in the top left corner of
your screen and choose save as then
select other formats in the dialog box
name your template file and then open
the pulldown menu for save as file type
and select powerpoint template then
click save now the template you created
will be available to use when you create
a new presentation so i can go up to the
office button and select new them in the
templates list i'll select my templates
here in the preview i can see the
template that i just created and select
that one you can create a template from
an existing presentation but if you have
a presentation open and you want to
apply a different design you actually
have to use a theme so in addition to
saving your new design as a template you
may also want to save it as a custom
theme to have it available for other
presentations to do this mouse click on
the design tab in the top navigation and
click the arrow to open the drop-down
menu for the themes group the template
you're working from will be the first
thumbnail on the menu but it hasn't been
saved as a theme yet so that's what you
need to do in the bottom of the menu
just click on save current theme and in
the dialog box give it an appropriate
file name then click save now when you
open an existing presentation you can
choose the theme that you just created
from your template and apply it to some
or all of the slides in that
presentation
here's a quick demonstration I'm going
to open another powerpoint presentation
that i've already created then i'll go
up to the View tab and select slide
sorter so i can see all the thumbnails
if I want to apply the theme to just
some of the slides i can highlight only
those thumbnails but i'm going to apply
it to my whole presentation so actually
I won't highlight any of the slide then
i'll select the design tab in the top
navigation and I'll open the menu for
the themes group here under custom
themes i can see the theme that i just
created from my new template so i'll
just click on that theme
and i can see that all of my slides here
in the slide sorter view changed to
reflect the new design themes and
templates give you a lot of control over
the look of your presentations and they
make it easy for you to recreate the
same design styles for multiple
presentations with the latest version of
Microsoft PowerPoint you can change the
whole look for your presentation with
just a few easy clicks