Changes to slide master will not apply to all slides.

[Guest]

I've never been able to figure out what I'm doing wrong. I have a completed
presentation. I want to make some general formating changes (text color a&
size) to all the slides at once. I go to view...master...slide master and
makes my changes on the slide master. When I close master view, the changes
are not applied. What I'm I doing wrong? I've looked through some of the
other post and still can't figure it out. What are place holders anyway?

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

I've never been able to figure out what I'm doing wrong. I have a completed
presentation. I want to make some general formating changes (text color a&
size) to all the slides at once. I go to view...master...slide master and
makes my changes on the slide master. When I close master view, the changes
are not applied. What I'm I doing wrong? I've looked through some of the
other post and still can't figure it out. What are place holders anyway?

If you insert a new title+text slide into your presentation, you'll see two
"Click Here" boxes, one for the title, the other for the body text of the
slide.

These are placeholders; they "inherit" their formatting from the similar
placeholders on the slide master. For example, if you change the title text on
the master to blue, then when you insert a new slide and type in some title
text, it'll be blue too.

Sometimes people delete the placeholders and create their own text boxes
instead. In that case, changes to the master won't affect the text.

How can you tell? Does the text appear in Outline view or the Outline pane?
If so, it's placeholder text. If not ... you're in for some manual formatting.

If the text IS in placeholders but still doesn't seem to be following your
changes to the master, it's because the slide text has been reformatted on the
slide. In that case, try reapplying the slide layout (ie, Title and Text or
whatever) again. Try applying it several times if need be.

 

[Guest]

Everything Steve says but if the text has been manually formatted to not
follow the original master then changing the master probably wont change it.
Powerpoint assumes that you changed it because you needed to! (sometimes)

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

Everything Steve says but if the text has been manually formatted to not
follow the original master then changing the master probably wont change it.
Powerpoint assumes that you changed it because you needed to! (sometimes)

Yup. That's why I tacked on the bit about reapplying the AutoLayout. Did I
mention "layout" or did I say "design" by mistake? Tentative "Ooops"

Apparently the logic is something like:

User applies AutoLayout
User overrides master formatting, makes text Blippo instead of Arial, for example
User applies AutoLayout
PPT assumes that since user overrode formatting, they MEANT it.
Text stays Blippo.
User applies AutoLayout again. And possibly again. Andagainandagain.
PPT realizes that this time, one of those times, they really MEANT it about the
autolayout more than about the Blippo. Arial now. Ahhhhh.