Do the hard work once with PowerPoint Templates
If you find yourself looking for the most recent/best presentation from which to make a new one, or pondering the question, “Now, how did I do that last time?” it’s time to get familiar with custom PowerPoint templates.
The basic steps are pretty straightforward:
- With the presentation from which you’d like to create a template open, click on the File tab (Office Button for 2007).
- Then, click on Save as…
- Name your template.
- In the Save as Type field, select to PowerPoint Template.
- Make sure that you are saving it to your Templates folder (see below).
- Close the file.
That last step is pretty important! It would be too easy to forget that you’re in your template and not in the presentation you are intending to create.
Before you save…
Make sure you have selected a Theme from the Design tab. You can customize the Theme and choose Save Current Theme to create a custom one. Add any static content such as legal language on a cover page, a Thank You slide or basic company information slides that would be required in all presentations using this template. Also be sure that the slide master has all the layouts you might need. This will really cut down on the time you now spend formatting individual slides. If you think a second slide master makes sense, create that as well.
