Newbie Questions

[Scott Meyers]

I'm beginning the process of converting a large number of presentations to PPT
2002 from another format (FrameMaker, FWIW). I'm new to both PPT and Office.
I have a couple of simple questions and a problem I'm hoping people here can
help me with.

Questions:
- My existing presentations are formatted for US Letter paper (8.5"x11"), so I'm
using that as a custom page size. PPT defaults to "On-screen show," which has
a page size of 10"x7.5". Are there any particular disadvantages to retaining my
current page size? Converting existing presentations to a different size is not
practical, but for new presentations, I could use the default size after
suitably modifying the slide masters. Is it worth doing? If so, why?

- Can somebody please clarify the relationship among slide masters, slide
layouts, and slide designs? I have the sense that choosing a slide design
dictates the slide masters that will be used, but I have no idea how that
interacts with slide layouts. At this point, I'm only interested in
presentations with a single design, a single title master, and a single body
master.

Problem:
- I've created slide masters for both title and body slides, and these work as
expected except for one thing. I deleted the text box for the subtitle from the
title master, but when I create a new presentation, the first slide comes up
based on my title master but with a "Click to add a subtitle" box on top of my
stuff. This box is not on the title master. I want to prevent it from
appearing on the first slide of each presentation. It only shows up when
editing the title slide (i.e., it doesn't display during a presentation), but
it's annoying, and I'd like to get rid of it.

All help greatly appreciated. If there are web pages that explain this stuff,
I'd be grateful for links. Neither the PPT help nor googling for answers to
these matters has been very helpful, unfortunately. (My favorite part about PPT
so far is the boxes on the master slides referring to "AutoLayouts," a word
completely missing from the PPT help, sigh.)

Thanks,

Scott

 

[Guest]

This might help:

A slide master is what you use to control all the common elements that
appear on every chart. For example, you want your title to be in Arial 40
points and have a corporate logo in the upper corner. Instead of formatting
each title and inserting a logo on every slide, you just format the master to
affect all the slides.

A slide design is a template with the formatting already done. It might
have a fancy background, a corporate logo, and specific fonts already done in
the slide master.

A slide layout is a set of standard formats for content on the slides. By
using them, you can take full advantage of slide designs. If you decide that
you want to use a different slide design, all you have to do is apply it, and
any text formatted via slide layout will be automatically updated. Text not
using the slide layout will need to manually updated to match everything
else. So if you have three slides where you used a text box for a bulleted
list instead of using a layout, when you change the slide design, that slide
won't pick up the formatting.

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

Questions:
- My existing presentations are formatted for US Letter paper (8.5"x11"), so I'm
using that as a custom page size. PPT defaults to "On-screen show," which has
a page size of 10"x7.5". Are there any particular disadvantages to retaining my
current page size?

If you specifically need to fill a letter size page with text/graphics, then it's
best to stay with letter size pages in PPT.

If you intend to use the presentations as on-screen computer slide shows, then I'd
go with PPT's default, since it'll be proportional to the usual 4:3 ratio computer
screen.

- Can somebody please clarify the relationship among slide masters, slide
layouts, and slide designs? I have the sense that choosing a slide design
dictates the slide masters that will be used, but I have no idea how that
interacts with slide layouts.

Slide "Design" is a tricky one. PPT seems to use it in several ways but I suspect
you mean "Format, Slide Design" ... which allows you to choose a slide template.
This applies the slide masters from the presentation design (aka Template, aka POT)
file you choose.

The slide masters may have certain elements of the autolayouts in different
sizes/positions (title, body text placeholders and so on); you can move these
around but can't create new placeholders.

Problem:
- I've created slide masters for both title and body slides, and these work as
expected except for one thing. I deleted the text box for the subtitle from the
title master, but when I create a new presentation, the first slide comes up
based on my title master but with a "Click to add a subtitle" box on top of my
stuff. This box is not on the title master. I want to prevent it from
appearing on the first slide of each presentation. It only shows up when
editing the title slide (i.e., it doesn't display during a presentation), but
it's annoying, and I'd like to get rid of it.

You'll probably have to live with deleting it manually when PPT adds it.

All help greatly appreciated. If there are web pages that explain this stuff,
I'd be grateful for links.

I'm inordinately fond of the PPT FAQ listed below.
Then again, the judgement of parents vis a vis their own offspring isn't always to
be taken uncritically. Your own judgement should prevail. ;-)

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