Editing Slide Masters in PowerPoint 2003 for Windows

To make far reaching changes to your slides within PowerPoint 2003, you should always consider making these changes within the Slide Master rather than within individual slides. Not only will this save you a load of time, but it will also make your slides look more consistent and professional.

However, a lot of thought needs to go even before you edit the Slide Master. Here are some thoughts to get you started:

1. Do you need a new Slide Master, or is it OK if you edit the existing Slide Master?
2. Do you need to just change the color of your slide's background, or do you need a custom background created outside PowerPoint in an image editing program such as Adobe Photoshop?
3. Do you want to create a new Color Scheme for your slides from scratch, or do you want to use an existing one?

Once you have made decisions based on these thoughts, you are ready to summon the Slide Master.

Once you are in Slide Master View, you can do these tasks:

1. Choose a suitable background and apply it to your Slide Master.
2. Apply and create Color Schemes and add it to your Slide Master.
3. Duplicate or insert more than one Slide Master as required.
4. Make sure that all Slide Masters have linked Title Masters.
5. Change the font used for the Title, Text, and Footer placeholders.
6. Change the alignment and size of text within one or all placeholders.
7. Add a company logo or another branding element within the Slide Master.