When you change the Background Style of
the Slide Master, the Background Style for all
dependent Slide Layouts will also
change. However, it is not necessary for all your Slide Layouts to possess the same
Background Style as the Slide Master.
Each Slide Layout can overrule the Slide Master and have its own independent Background Style, as you will learn in the rest of this tutorial.
Follow these steps to learn more:
- Open a presentation in PowerPoint 2016 for Mac.
Access the View tab of the
Ribbon and click the
Slide Master button, shown highlighted in blue within Figure 1.
Figure 1: Slide Master button within the View tab- This opens the Slide Master view, as shown in
Figure 2. In Slide Master view, you'll see that the left pane contains two distinctly different elements: a larger thumbnail
representing the Slide Master (highlighted in red within Figure 2) and several
smaller slide thumbnails below representing individual Slide Layouts (highlighted in blue within
Figure 2).
Figure 2: Slide Master and Slide Layouts within PowerPoint
Note: In hierarchy terms, Slide Layouts are dependent for their appearance on the Slide Master
although you can individually override these dependencies.
- Now, select any of the Slide Layout(s) for which you want to change the Background Style. For this tutorial, we have selected the
Title and Content Slide Layout, as shown in Figure 3. The orange highlight around the
layout thumbnail indicates that it has been selected, as shown in Figure 3. Next, click the Background Styles
button (highlighted in blue within Figure 3).
Figure 3: Background Styles button within Slide Master view- This brings up the Background Styles drop-down gallery with 12 default slide background styles (highlighted in
red within Figure 4). Click on the style of your choice to apply it to the selected Slide Layout. In
Figure 4, you can see Style 8 being selected.
Figure 4: Background Styles drop-down gallery
Note: These 12 default styles change when you apply a different
Theme to your presentation. Also, do you see the
Format Background and
Reset Slide Background options (highlighted in
blue within
Figure 4, above) below the Background Style thumbnails? These options are explained in our
Custom Backgrounds in the Slide Master
in PowerPoint 2016 for Mac tutorial. In the same tutorial, we also explain the
Reset Slide Background option, which is used to
reset the slide background to its original status, on a particular slide layout.
- This will apply the selected background style to the selected Slide Layout, as shown in Figure 5 (compare
Figures 3 and 5). Note that any changes you made to the Slide Layout do not influence the Slide Master or even
any other Slide Layout. However, if you change the Background Style of the Slide Master now, that will reset the Background Styles of all Slide
Layouts irrespective of any changes you may have made to them individually.
Figure 5: Background Style applied to the Title and Content Slide Layout- Click the Close Master View button
(highlighted in blue within Figure 5, above). This will get you back
to Normal view, where you can see the new Background Style applied
to your slide, as shown in Figure 6. Note that for this tutorial we
selected the Title and Content Layout within the Slide Master view. Now within
the Normal view, you can see the changed background slide since the first slide of a presentation typically uses
the Title and Content Layout (highlighted in blue within Figure 6).
Figure 6: Slides in Normal View reflecting the changes made in Master View- Save your presentation often.
