See Also: Create a PowerPoint Template
Introduction
Case Study 1
Case Study 2
Case Study 3
Disclaimer
Introduction
PowerPoint templates are an irony - they are gateways to both excellent and ridiculous presentations, yet many of us want to collect as many templates as we can. They are like fonts - no number is too much. Considering how easy it is to create a template, its surprising that many of us never get down to creating one. And many who actually do create their own templates rarely use them - partly because they look so amateur. So, what's the key to creating professionally designed templates - this is more easily explained as a case study - read on...
All these case studies are fictitious and any resemblance to actual situations is purely coincidental.
Case Study 1
John works for the Infrastructure Development Authority - his boss needs to present to a visiting foreign delegation on the benefits of investing in their region - primarily in a new airport. They are certain they need a presentation template that reflects their objectives - but have no idea where to start!
They approach a professional presentation designer - the following thoughts ensue into action:
- They choose midnight blue as the background colour
- around 75% of presentations today are presented on
a blue background - there's a reason behind this choice:
blue is the colour of the sky and the sea and represents
unlimited potential - it also looks good with most other
colours and most importantly is also considered conservative.
- The background used is a textured fill design from
Corel PhotoPaint. If you're using the same application,
create a new 1076 x 768 pixels blank image, go to Edit
-> Fill and choose a textured blue fill.
- A nice aeroplane image was found in Hemera's excellent
Photo Objects collection - the program allowed export
with alpha channels intact - great if we're using a professional
image editor like Photoshop, PhotoPaint or Paint Shop
Pro.
- The aeroplane image was imported into PhotoPaint to
be superimposed over our textured fill - the program's
excellent interactive transparency tool was used to blend
it into a complete composition. The final image was flattened
and exported to a JPG image with no compression applied.
- In PowerPoint 2000, choose to create a blank presentation.
Go to View -> Slide Master, and then Format -> Background.
Choose the
Picture tab, and browse to wherever you saved your background image.
- Now select the text boxes and select a suitable typeface
- also change their colour to white.
- Go to Insert -> Title Master and repeat the steps
for inputting your
background and changing the text attributes.
- Go to View -> Normal. This brings you back into
the default mode.
- Go to File -> Save As - in the resultant dialog
box choose 'Design Template (*.pot)' in the 'Save As
Type' drop down menu.
- Save your presentation template.
Case Study 2
Anita has been a frequent creator of her own custom templates - presently, she's installed the new PowerPoint 2002 and would like to use its Multiple Masters feature to create a template that offers more backgrounds and layouts. Yet, she doesn't know where to start.
She manages to convince Rex, the resident geek to help her out - this is how they proceed:
- Follow the first four steps under 'Case Study 1' to
create a distinctive identity for your template.
- Create similar backgrounds with a few variations -
for example, you could remove the aeroplane altogether
in one instance - or maybe scale or rotate some elements.
You could also lighten or darken the background or change
the opacity of some elements. Basically, we need backgrounds
that have something common in their identity. Substituting
a blue background for a pink one is a very bad idea -
since continuity in look is important, even if we are
using Multiple Masters.
- Open PowerPoint 2002. If PowerPoint does not open an
introductory dialog box, click on the 'Blank Presentation'
option on the right task pane.
- Choose View -> Master -> Slide Master and then
Format -> Background. Choose the Picture tab, and
browse to wherever you saved your background image.
- Now select the text boxes and select a suitable typeface
- also change their colour as required.
- Go to Insert -> New Slide Master and repeat the
steps for inputting your
background and changing the text attributes - you could use a completely different picture or something else here.
- Repeat the last step as often as required to increase
the number of individual slide masters would be contained
within your final template.
- In normal circumstances, the 'Slide Master View' toolbar
will be open - you can experiment with the various options
included - and finally click the 'Close Master View'
button.
- Go to File -> Save As - in the resultant dialog
box choose 'Design Template (*.pot)' in the 'Save As
Type' drop down menu.
- Save your presentation template.
Case Study 3
Martin needs to use a presentation as a medium to propose a script for his new movie commercial - a little dramatic effect is required in each slide - as also an opening animation. Basically, he requires a multimedia equipped PowerPoint template - but he doesn't know how to go about creating such a template.
Basically - a little dramatic effect can be achieved using some movement during a slide transition. Explaining how to create such a template on this page could be a complicated affair - yet here are a few guidelines to get one started:
- Use slide transitions to advantage - at least one template
included with PowerPoint - "Pulse" includes
an animated light transition. Create a single slide presentation
with this template - we are going to deconstruct the
design to easily learn the concept behind such effects.
The techniques listed here were executed in PowerPoint
2000 - if you're using PowerPoint 97 or 2002, you may
have to complete the sequence differently.
- Choose View -> Master -> Slide Master.
- Click any of the light blue light portions on the
right - all the
portions get selected - actually it one thin long column stacked behind all objects. So you only view the portions exposed.
- Right click the light blue column and choose Custom
Animation.
- In the Order and Timing tab: You'll find the Fly From
Right transition
selected with a timing of 0.01 seconds after a slide loads.
- In the Effects tab: You'll find that the 'Hide After
Animation' option
has been selected.
- Since all these settings have been used on the Slide Master, they affect every slide in the presentation.
Now that we have learnt about inserting a 'lighted' transition - it may be a good idea to include an 'aperture' style sound with each transition. This is easily accomplished. In slide-sorter view, right-click on any single slide and choose 'Transition' from the resultant flyout menu. The Transitions dialog box has an option called 'Transition Sounds' - choose a suitable sound and press either 'Apply to All' to reflect the change in all slides or just 'Apply' to restrict the sound effect to just this slide.
Disclaimer
No support can be provided for the techniques listed above. If you need any assistance, you could use Microsoft's product support for PowerPoint. An alternate route would be to post your queries on the Microsoft PowerPoint newsgroup: