Slide Master View in PowerPoint 2010 for Windows

The Slide Master view in PowerPoint 2010 provides you with access to the Slide Master, any edits you make in this view influence all slides in the presentation. For example, if you need to show a company logo on all slides, you will make these edits in the Slide Master, or if you want the font size of your slide titles to be a little larger or smaller, then those edits also need to be made in the Slide Master. Having said that, this page is not a tutorial on how you can make changes in the Slide Master but just a brief overview of how you can access the Slide Master view, and what the interface in this view looks like, as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1: Slide Master view in PowerPoint 2010

Figure 1 above shows how a typical Slide Master looks like. Here are some guidelines on working in this view:

• First, look at the pane on the left, and you will find one large slide thumbnail, and several smaller slide thumbnails below.
• The larger slide thumbnail represents the Slide Master, and changes made to the Slide Master influence all the slides contained within that particular Slide Master.
• The smaller slide thumbnails represent individual Slide Layouts, these are the same layouts that you see in the Layout gallery (see Changing Slide Layouts in PowerPoint 2010). Any changes you make to these individual Slide layouts influences only the slides based on that particular layout.
• The active slide in Figure 1 is the Slide Master itself, the two most important placeholders here are the Title and the Text placeholders, these represent the title and body text in your slides respectively.

To access the Slide Master view, you can choose either of these options:

1. Shift+click the Normal view button on the Status bar (highlighted in red in Figure 1, above).
2. Access the View tab of the Ribbon, locate the Master Views group, and click on the Slide Master button (highlighted in red in Figure 2).
3. 
   Figure 2: Slide Master button within Master Views group

Once you are in Slide Master view, you can edit the actual Slide Master(s) and its Slide Layouts. Here are links to some Slide Master tutorials that will help you understand this concept better:

1. Change Background Styles in the Slide Master
2. Slide Layouts within Slide Master View
3. Change Background Styles for Slide Layouts
4. Custom Backgrounds for Slide Master and Layouts
5. Duplicate, Rename, and Edit Slide Layouts
6. Add New Slide Layouts
7. Inserting New Placeholders in Slide Layouts
8. Formatting Picture Placeholders
9. Create Custom Shaped Picture Placeholders
10. Add Your Logo or Graphic to the Slide Master
11. Add and Rename Slide Masters
12. Duplicate Slide Masters

To go back to Normal view from Slide Master view, choose any of these options:

1. Access the Slide Master tab of the Ribbon. Within the Close group, click the Close Master View button (highlighted in blue in Figure 1, above).
2. Access the View tab of the Ribbon, locate the Presentation Views group, and click the Normal button (highlighted in blue in Figure 2).
3. You can also click the Normal button located on the Status bar (highlighted in red in Figure 1, above).