Change Slide Layout in PowerPoint for the Web

Each PowerPoint presentation contains one or more slides. Until you add content including text to them, these slides appear like a blank canvas or an empty sheet of paper! You can thereafter add content to the slides in much the same way as you use brushes to create strokes of paint, or a pen to write. For example, do you want some text? Then you must add a text box. Want a picture? Just insert a picture and place it anywhere on your slide. But wait, because this is not really the best way to work in PowerPoint!

Often though, audiences expect something structured in your slides. Unlike a new canvas or a blank sheet of paper, PowerPoint is not intended for unstructured freedom, and this can be good in many ways. Primarily, PowerPoint structures each slide you create into one of its prescribed layouts.

Examples of such layouts include:

• Title layout (comprising placeholders to add a title and a subtitle),
• Title and Content layout (comprising a slide title and a multi-purpose Content placeholder),
• Title Only layout (comprising an entirely blank slide with just one title placeholder),
• Blank layout (comprising an entirely blank slide with no placeholders at all),
• And several other layouts

Follow these steps to change the layout of any selected slide from one to the other in PowerPoint for the Web:

1. Launch PowerPoint and open any existing presentation, or create a new Blank presentation. Such a presentation already includes one slide, as shown in Figure 1, below.
2. 
   Figure 1: Blank presentation with one slide

PowerPoint Online, or PowerPoint for the Web?

Although we refer to the browser-based version of PowerPoint as PowerPoint for the Web, some screenshots on this page may show PowerPoint Online instead. Rest assured that both these names are used interchangeably and refer to the same browser-based version of PowerPoint.
2. Each slide within a presentation is based on a Slide Layout. To ascertain which layout your active slide uses, right-click it’s thumbnail within the Slides Pane to bring up a contextual menu, as shown in Figure 2, below. Within this menu, choose the Layout option.
3. 
   Figure 2:Layout option for the active slide
3. Doing so will bring up the Slide Layout menu, as shown in Figure 3, below. As you can see, the selected slide in this instance uses the Title Slide layout because its thumbnail has a highlighted background, as shown highlighted in red within Figure 3. To change the layout of the active slide to another type, click on another thumbnail that represents a different layout in the same sub-menu, as shown in Figure 3. Then, click the Change Layout button, as shown highlighted in blue within Figure 3.
4. 
   Figure 3: Slide Layout menu
5. Alternatively, select the slide for which you want to change the layout and access the Home tab on the Ribbon. Click the Layout button, as shown highlighted in red within Figure 4, below.
6. 
   Figure 4: Slide Layouts drop-down gallery
4. Doing so brings up the Slide Layout menu, as shown in Figure 5, below. Note that the Slide Layout menu is the same menu, as shown in Figure 3, previously on this page. Thereafter, click any of the other Slide Layouts available. In Figure 5, you can see that the Title and Content Slide Layout is selected, as shown highlighted in red within Figure 5. Then, click the Change Layout button, as shown highlighted in blue within Figure 5.
5. 
   Figure 5: Slide Layout menu
5. This action will change the Layout of the selected slide. In Figure 6, below, you can see that the Title Slide Layout has been changed to Title and Content. Compare Figure 6 with Figure 1, shown previously on this page.
6. 
   Figure 6: Slide with a changed Slide Layout

So, why would you want to change the Slide Layout? That’s because some layouts are more appropriate for the content of your slide. We already explored some examples for choosing slide layouts earlier on this page.