PowerPoint Layout Tips and Tricks

A well-designed PowerPoint layout is essential for any presentation.

Why? Simple: a visually interesting and coherent slide grabs your audience’s attention and makes you and your content look professional.

A good PowerPoint layout creates a common thread running through your presentation by coordinating design elements. This allows your audience to easily follow the content of your presentations without getting distracted, meaning your ideas come across clearly and you can deliver your message effectively.

Creating a PowerPoint layout is easy and allows you to customize your presentations to best effect. In this article, we show you which aspects you need to pay attention to in order to guarantee a good slide layout.

PowerPoint Layouts: What Exactly Do They Involve?

A PowerPoint layout basically contains important formatting, placeholders, and positioning for your slide content. Using these guidelines, you can easily build a great presentation, inserting the images, text, and charts you need to persuade the audience of your ideas.

PowerPoint slide layouts pull together the design elements which are so important to a coordinated presentation: colors, fonts, backgrounds, and effects are preset for you. They can of course be modified individually once you’ve decided on your layout, but setting them leaves you time to concentrate on the content you want to present rather than fiddling with design.

Why Use a PowerPoint Layout? The Advantages

PowerPoint layouts help you build a presentation quickly and easily with preset placeholders, designs, and positioning. Because the elements of your slides are already coordinated, you don’t have to spend time trying to make your slides look uniformly professional or attempting to line up content perfectly.

A PowerPoint layout means one thing above all: saving you time. And that’s a huge advantage—the time you save can now be used to concentrate on the actual content of your presentation.

What’s more, using a preset slide layout makes you look professional. Your slides are coordinated throughout, letting your audience follow the thread of your arguments without getting distracted.

PowerPoint layouts can be really eye-catching, too. Preset designs enhance the visual impact of your presentations but allow you to make individual modifications when needed, guaranteeing brand recognition value.

Creating PowerPoint Layout: Here’s How!

1. Open Microsoft PowerPoint.

2. Click Start, then in the Slides group, select Layout.

3. A window will open with a selection of slide layouts.

4. Choose the template which best suits your needs; you can use it as it is or change individual elements.

Modifying a Preset PowerPoint Layout

So you like the layout you’ve chosen but want to customize it by changing some of the elements? No problem. This is where the Slide Master function in PowerPoint comes in:

1. Select Slide Master in the View tab.
2. When the thumbnail area pops up, select the slide that comes closest to the layout you want.

Tip: If you don’t like any of the layouts on offer, select Blank and create your own layout with placeholders.

Adding a Placeholder

Simply click Insert Placeholder in the Slide Master tab. Select the type of placeholder you want. Then decide where you want to place it on the layout and drag the cursor to insert the placeholder.

Resizing a Placeholder

Select the slide on which you want to change the placeholder in the View tab in Slide Master, then click the placeholder. Click on a corner and drag (the cursor will change to a crossed arrow) until the placeholder is the size you want.

Changing a Placeholder’s Position

To move a placeholder, hover the cursor over it. Once the cursor changes to the double arrow, just click and drag to the right place.

Deleting a Placeholder

To remove a placeholder, select Slide Master in the View tab, and click on the slide containing the placeholder you want to remove. Select the placeholder in the layout and then press delete.

Rotating a Placeholder

Click on the placeholder; an arrow curving round in a circle will appear at the top. Just click on that and drag it round to rotate the element any way you want.

Bring Particular Elements into the Foreground, or Send Them to the Background

Right-click on the element you want to highlight or mute, and a drop-down menu will open. Select either Bring to Front or Send to Back, and save.

When you’ve made the changes you want, click Close Master View in the Slide Master tab.

1. In Normal view, in the Thumbnails pane, select all the slides you’ve just revised (hold down Ctrl and click to select).
2. Next, select Layout from the Home tab and choose the layout containing the placeholders you just changed.

Duplicating a PowerPoint Layout

Once you’ve got a slide layout exactly to your liking, it’s easy to duplicate it for use on multiple slides.

1. In the View tab, click on the Normal option.
2. An overview of all your slides will appear on the left. Right-click the slide whose layout you want to duplicate.
3. Select Duplicate Slide in the menu that opens. A slide with an identical layout will appear.

Nothing in the Preset Options Appeals? Just Create Your Own Personal PowerPoint Layout!

If you find the preset slide layouts unsatisfactory, you can create a custom layout in just a few steps:

• Open Microsoft PowerPoint.

• Select Slide Master in the View tab.

• Slides with suggested layouts will appear on the left.

• Right-click on any of the options and select Insert Layout, or click on Insert Layout from the menu at the top.

• Rename the layout to keep track of it easily.

• Start editing by deleting preset placeholders if you don’t want them or modifying them as needed.

• Insert the placeholders you want for your layout using the Insert Placeholders option, and position them accordingly.

• Close the master view and save your presentation.

Tip: To use your layout in an existing presentation, open the relevant presentation and select the Browse for Designs option in the Design tab.

Save Your Personalized PowerPoint Layout as a Template!

Saving your layout as a template makes it easy to use in future presentations. Here’s how:

• While in the layout, go to the File tab and select Save As.
• Find your template in C:\\Users\\\<your username>\\Documents\\Custom Office templates.
• Select the file type PowerPoint Template and save.

Next time you open PowerPoint, you can use your template by clicking New, selecting Custom Office Templates, and clicking on Create once you’ve selected your individualized template.

Professional Design for Your Slide Layout: 6 PowerPoint Layout Ideas that Will Make Your Presentation a Real Eye-Catcher!

Persuading your audience of your ideas is much easier with an excellent layout. Here are six professionally designed PowerPoint layout ideas, illustrated with reference pictures of slides we’ve designed for clients:

1. PowerPoint Layouts for Title Slides

Every presentation needs a title slide. Since this slide is the first your audience sees, it should be designed for maximum impact. In 2022, the trend for title slides is large-format images. Choose a background image that appeals to your audience, related to your topic or business.

2. PowerPoint Layouts for Agenda Slides

Your agenda slide reflects the content of your presentation, making it important to structure correctly. Agenda slide layouts can be presented traditionally as a list or as a process, utilizing large-format images as backgrounds.

3. PowerPoint Layouts for Slides Combining Images and Text

Layouts for image-text combinations are crucial for the body of your presentation. These can include bulleted lists, product presentations, or portfolios, focusing on how image and text interact within the slide.

4. PowerPoint Layouts for a Combination of Icons and Text

Icons effectively illustrate complex content simply while adding visual interest to your presentation. Layouts combining icons and text work well with image-text combinations.

5. PowerPoint Layouts for Lists

When presenting lists, bullet points are classic, but visualizing them as a process can be more engaging. Use the entire width of the slide for maximum impact.

6. Further Options for Image/Text Layouts

Explore various layouts, such as text on the left and images on the right, or full-format images with overlays to enhance your presentation’s impact.

Conclusion: A Great PowerPoint Layout Can Really Support Your Content!

If you want to create a professional and effective presentation, try modern layouts that grab your audience’s attention. Be creative, but ensure to contrast your text properly with any images or icons for optimal legibility.