Reset Slides in PowerPoint 365 for Windows

Occasionally, you may encounter slides that are difficult to view comfortably. A quick glance at a slide like the one shown in Figure 1, below, and the strength of the content almost becomes irrelevant.

Figure 1: A slide that is hazardous to our vision

Admittedly, this slide is an exaggeration—you are unlikely to encounter something quite this extreme in practice. The content itself is also ironic, because it speaks about color blindness. Nevertheless, the example serves a useful purpose: if you can transform a slide like this into something usable, you can improve almost any slide.

As in this slide, when slide elements don’t seem to have any visual cohesion, audiences shift their focus from the speaker to the screen, trying to interpret what they see. When that happens, the message itself becomes secondary.

It is also important to note that this situation is not always the presenter’s responsibility. In many cases, you may be required to deliver slides prepared by someone else. When that happens, you inherit not only the content but also the design choices, effective or otherwise. These choices influence how the audience perceives and responds to the presentation.

At this stage, the goal is to remove unnecessary formatting and restore a simpler structure to the slide. You may also need to adjust the position, size, and text layout of the placeholders to re-establish order and clarity. Fortunately, PowerPoint offers a straightforward, one-click way to address this: the Reset option.

Follow these steps to reset all changes made on a slide in PowerPoint 365 for Windows:

1. Select the slide which you want to reset, such as the slide shown in Figure 1, above. Alternatively, select all, one, or some of your slides in Slide Sorter view, as shown in Figure 2, below.
2. 
   Figure 2: Slide selected within the Slide Sorter view
2. Go to the Home tab on the Ribbon, locate the Slides group, and click the Reset button, highlighted in red within Figure 3, below.
3. 
   Figure 3: Press the Reset button
4. Alternatively, if you need to reset only the active slide, simply click the same Reset button without selecting additional slides. You can also right-click on an empty area of the slide to open the contextual menu and then choose the Reset Slide option, highlighted in red within Figure 4, below.
5. 
   Figure 4: Reset Slide option within the context menu
3. Selecting either of these options restores the text placeholders to their default position, size, and formatting, as defined by the template and the Slide Master. Figure 5, below, shows the same slide you saw earlier in Figure 2, after applying the Reset option. Compare it with Figure 2, and you will notice that the additional formatting has been removed.
4. 
   Figure 5: Slide reset to its default settings
5. Your slide may not look the same as the slide shown in Figure 5, above. Your post-Reset look depends on the Theme applied to the presentation. Do you notice that one of slides uses a different slide background, as shown highlighted in red within Figure 5? To know the reason, look at the Reset Backgrounds section, later on this page.

6. Reset Text Formatting Only

   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 view, and not necessarily all text within your presentation.

   

   PowerPoint Keyboard Shortcuts

   Do you want more keyboard shortcuts?

   Explore our PowerPoint Keyboard Shortcuts and Sequences Ebook that is updated for all PowerPoint versions.

   Reset Backgrounds

   Also, remember that the Reset option does not revert any changes you make within the Format Background Task Pane. To reset those changes, you will have to click the Reset Background button within the Format Background task pane, as shown highlighted in red within Figure 6, below. To learn more, explore our Format Slide Background in PowerPoint tutorial.

   
   Figure 6: Reset Background button

4. Save your presentation often.