Reset Slides in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac

You might have come across slides that look plainly bad. One look at a slide similar to what you see in Figure 1, and it really doesn't matter whether the content is great or not. You just feel like looking away from it! Also, some visually loud slides can ensure that audiences concentrate more on the horrors presented by the look of the slide rather than the content. You might end up with such slides even with no fault of yours, because someone else designed them for you?

Figure 1: A slide that looks very bad

To make the slides pristine again, you may have to spend some time. You may have to change the position, size, and text layout for the placeholders on the slide too. Fortunately, there is an easy, one-click process to restore the sanity in the slides. It's called the Reset Layout to Default Settings option.

Note: The Reset Layout to Default Settings option uses the template or Theme as a reference, and resets your placeholders to their default settings. Thus it only works with text placeholders since they are referenced from the Slide Master. For that reason, the Reset Layout to Default Settings option does not work with text boxes. Learn about the difference between a text box and a text placeholder in our Text Boxes vs. Text Placeholders tutorial.

To reset all the changes done on a slide, follow these steps:

If you select no slide, then the active slide will be considered selected, as shown in Figure 1 above. Alternatively, select all, one, or some of your slides in Slide Sorter view, as shown in Figure 2.
Figure 2: Slide selected within the Slide Sorter view
Access the Home tab of the Ribbon, click the Layout button (highlighted in red in Figure 3). This brings up the Layout drop-down gallery. Here select the Reset Layout to Default Settings option.
Figure 3: Reset Layout to Default Settings option
This resets the position, size, and any other formatting of the text placeholders to their default settings, as specified in the template and Slide Master. You can see the changes within Slide Sorter view itself, as shown in Figure 4 (compare with Figure 2).
Figure 4: A reset Slide layout within the Slide Sorter view
Figure 5 shows the same slide within Normal view.
Figure 5: Slide is reset to its default state
Your slide may not look the same as the slide shown in Figure 5. Your post-reset appearance depends on the Theme applied to the presentation. Also, you can apply the Reset Layout to Default Settings option to multiple slides by selecting them within Slide Sorter view.
Save your presentation often.

Tip: Want to reset just the text formatting to defaults? Access the Outline view, and select all text (Ctrl+A). Then press the Ctrl+Space shortcut key to reset all text formatting to the default text attributes. Note that this only resets the text that you can see within the Outline pane, and not necessarily all text within your presentation.

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