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3 shortcuts for quickly formatting multiple objects

July 19, 2019 by Ellen Finkelstein 1 Comment

I had a client who gave day-long training courses and his presentations were 200-300 slides long. He spent hours changing individual slides–mostly time he could have saved with these 3 shortcuts.

You, too, can save a lot of time using these shortcuts to avoid endless fiddling.

1. Format the slide master

The slide master lets you format the basic settings of your slides all in one place, so you don’t have to fuss with individual slides as much. Using the slide master wisely saves LOTS of time. It also makes your slides more consistent.

To get to the slide master, click the View tab and then choose Slide Master. Each theme in PowerPoint has its own Slide Master.

When you open the Slide Master, you’ll see a left column with a Master at the top (it’s a little larger) and all of the layouts that come with that theme. The Master controls the rest of the layouts and so that’s where you should start.

You should customize the font, font color, font placement, font size and any graphics you want to put there.

For more information on how to customize the theme in the Slide Master view, see these two older blog posts:

10 steps to create a better PowerPoint theme

Customize the default theme to instantly get the look you want

2. Use the Format Painter

Even if you customize the Slide Master, you’ll want to add text, graphics, etc. on individual slides and a common task is to format one object to match another. The Format Painter makes this easy to do.

By the way, the Format Painter is available in Microsoft Word and Excel as well.

To use the Format Painter, select the object that has the formatting you want, such as fill color or outline color, and click the Format Painter button on the Home tab. Then click the object that you want to match the first object.

The Format Painter becomes really powerful when you double-click the Format Painter. Then, you can select as many objects you want to make them match the first object. This makes quick work of your formatting.

When you’re done, click the Format Painter button one time to turn off that process.

3. Repeat actions with the F4 key

The third shortcut is to use the F4 key to repeat your last action. For example, if you change the color of one shape to purple, you can then select another shape and press F4 to change that to purple, too. Or if you change the size of some text to 36 points, you can select some other text and press F4 to change that text to 36 points, too.

You can save a lot of time clicking objects and pressing F4 instead of repeating the action from scratch by clicking a button on a ribbon, typing in a value, etc.

Check out “10 Hacks for Better Slides in Under 5 Minutes“

I have some free training with even more shortcuts. You can register for it here.

It’s about 1 hour long. One person said, “Your webinar was the BEST that I have attended!!!! I can use EVERY hack that you taught us.”

5 principles for easier and faster slide creation

June 9, 2017 by Ellen Finkelstein 2 Comments

I recently made over some webinar slides for a client and I can honestly say that the slides were the most messed up of any I’d ever seen.

It wasn’t the content; it was the way the slides were created. Now, my client was a PowerPoint newbie, so it wasn’t really her fault.

In fact, she bought a template for a sales webinar and part of the problem was due to that template. I’m not sure where the rest of the mess came from but here are some principles that will help make your slide creation easier and faster. Your presentation will look more professional, too.

1. Set the slide size correctly before you start

I have no idea why and I’ve never seen this before, but the slide size was set to 26.667×15, which is exactly double the size of the default widescreen size. This meant that all of the fonts were huge (88pt instead of 44pt, for example). This might make sense if you’re projecting a slide onto a large screen at a live event, but my client was doing a webinar.

I didn’t pick this up right away because when I checked the Slide Size drop-down, widescreen was chosen. But when I went back and clicked Custom Slide Size, there it was, as you can see in the screenshot.

These days most projectors, screens, and TVs are widescreen and a standard-sized (4:3) presentation will make you look a little out of date. If that’s what everyone in your company uses, then you’re OK, but if you’re presenting outside, consider using a widescreen (16:9) slide. It’s been the default in PowerPoint for a while now.

My problem was that I was going to insert a lot of images and they were too small in relation to the slide. So I had to resize the slide to the default 13.333×7.5 and do a lot of fiddling with the Slide Master and individual slides.

2. Please, please use the standard layouts!

The template my client bought did away with all of the standard layouts and included only custom layouts. The problem was that my client needed some standard layouts. There was no way for her to simply add a slide title and some text or an image!

Of course, her solution was to delete the custom layout placeholders and add text boxes. You can see an example (with text changed) on the right–I’ve selected all of the objects so you can see all of the text boxes. In her case, she didn’t have much of a choice, but I see unnecessary text boxes a LOT on my clients’ slides. Unless you’re a designer, it’s best to use the layouts that come with PowerPoint. If you know how to create custom layouts, that’s a good thing, but don’t delete the default layouts. They are really pretty useful. (And if you import slides from other presentations that use those layouts, you’ll often get a mess.)

When you add text boxes on slide after slide, not only do you waste a lot of time, but your slides will look chaotic. This adds “cognitive load” for the audience and they have to figure out each slide. The information doesn’t get digested easily.

In my blog post, Create a Custom Layout, I explain the process of creating custom layouts.

I had to recreate the standard layouts and transfer a lot of the text from textboxes to placeholders–on all 98 slides. (Placeholders are the boxes that the layouts put on the slide where you can insert text, images, etc.) This process is always very time-consuming. And annoying.

3. Keep your backgrounds simple

Branding your presentation to match your website is a good idea, especially in a sales webinar where you hope people will buy the product you’re selling and end up on that website.

But be careful.

My client took an image from that website that was vertical and huge and put it on every slide to create a background. I had to zoom out to 10% to see the entire image! This meant she really didn’t know where her slide was because the image covered the slide and so much more. So she sometimes put text off the slide (but it was on the background image, so it looked like it was on the slide).

My solution was to crop the image and then insert it on the slide master. This meant deleting it from all 98 slides.

But that wasn’t all. The template came with a background and sometimes my client left that on a slide and placed her background on top. So sometimes I had to delete 2 images!

My client’s coach told her to put her logo and link on every slide. Ugh!

It really distracts from the content, especially in a sales presentation. And the link she used was her home page, not the sales page — major confusion. So, use your logo on the first and last slides. For a sales webinar, don’t use a URL until you’re at the point of making your offer and then — of course — use only the URL of the sales page.

4. Use images consistently

Try to find images that have a similar look or choose 2-3 looks. Some “looks” are:

People with a full background, such as a nature scene behind them
People with no background (often called “isolated”) — you can make that background transparent
Light photos vs. dark photos
Stock photos vs. photos you take yourself

In the same way, you want to choose 2-3 treatments. For example:

Flat
A slight shadow
A white border and rotation (snapshot look)

Try for some consistency in where you put images on a slide, as well.

You want some variety, but without getting that chaotic look. It’s a balancing act.

Also, make sure images aren’t fuzzy when you look at them in Slide Show view. Fuzzy images are a sure way to project an unprofessional impression!

5. Be consistent with fonts and text

The slide master used Helvetica fonts. (This is a Mac font and my client was working on Keynote on a Mac. That created other issues, but they aren’t part of a typical situation.)

But her slides used Garamond for slide titles and some slide text and Helvetica for the rest. It was quite a mishmash. I’ve seen professionally designed slides that combined a serif font (like Garamond) and a sans-serif font, but I think it looks odd.

Of course, she manually changed the font on many slides — again a time waster.

Another common problem I see is inconsistent capitalization. Again, it looks unprofessional.

I prefer “Sentence case” for slide titles and definitely for text on the body of the slide.” This means that the first letter is capitalized and the rest is not (like this sentence). The reason I like Sentence case is that it makes the text easier to read and comprehend. When you use Title Case (each word capitalized), Each Capital Letter Is Like a Little STOP Sign for the Audience, notifying them that each word is important. This makes it harder to quickly read through the entire phrase or sentence. I’ve read that there’s some evidence that people read Title Case more slowly.

I think Title Case has its place. On the first slide, for the name of your presentation, Title Case makes the presentation topic seem more important. And the first slide is usually on the screen for a while. For certain types of calls to action, Title Case commands a little more attention. (This is true on websites, too.) Title Case looks more formal while Sentence case looks more casual and friendly.

A little forethought and planning will save you loads of time and give you better results. If you’re making changes on every slide, you’re doing something wrong!

What do you think about Title Case vs. Sentence case for slide titles? Have you had to redo a messy presentation? What challenges do you face in keeping the presentation building process simple? Leave a comment and please use the Share buttons to help others!

Apply a slide master to a presentation

May 18, 2014 by Ellen Finkelstein 28 Comments

I recently received this question.

“I have a power point presentation (created in 2007 and recently moved into 2010) that I want to change the master slide with a new one my designer gave me. It was given to me as a regular slide and I want to make it a master slide so all the slides will change using this new background.”

What do you receive from a designer?

The basic question is how to apply a slide master to an existing presentation.

When you receive a “regular slide” from a designer, you need to figure out where the design is.

If the design is actually on the slide itself, you need to make some changes — and your designer doesn’t know very much about PowerPoint. That’s because in order for you to easily apply the design to other presentations, the design should be on the slide master.

It’s easy to check. Follow these steps:

Choose View tab, Slide Master.
In the left-hand pane, scroll up to the first, larger thumbnail.

If the design is on the Slide Master, you’re in good shape. If not, you need to find some way to transfer the design from the slide itself to the slide master. Often all you need to do is to select all of the objects on the slide, cut to the Clipboard, and paste on the first, larger thumbnail (the “Master”) in Slide Master view. Then save the presentation.

The wrong way

You should keep the presentation you received unchanged, so save a copy to use as a basis. Then open both the designed copy and your original presentation — the one that you want to apply the design to.

In the original presentation, select all of the slides. You can click the first slide, press and hold the Shift key, and click the last slide. You can do this in the left-hand pane or in Slide Sorter view. Then copy them to the Clipboard.

Display the designed copy, click in the left-hand pane, and paste. By default, the slides will take on the destination design.

A better way

Ideally, you should create a theme file. This makes applying your design easy and you don’t have to worry about copying over your original presentation. Here are the steps:

In Normal view, click the Design tab.
At the right end of the Themes gallery, click the More button, as you see here.
At the bottom of the themes gallery, click Save Current Theme.
You’ll be in the default Themes folder. Don’t change the folder! Type a descriptive name for your theme and click Save.

To use your theme to an existing presentation, this is all you have to do:

Click the Design tab.
If you don’t see your theme, click the same More button at the right end of the Themes gallery and choose your theme from the Custom section, as you see here for a light-blue gradient theme that I created.

Do you have any questions about applying a design to a presentation? Leave a comment!

“101 Tips Every PowerPoint User Should Know” is for everyone who never took a course or read a book about PowerPoint! These tips will fill in the gaps, speed up your work, make presentations easier, and help you get better results. Now updated through PowerPoint 2016 and Office 365. Learn more at http://ellenfinkelstein.com/pptblog/101-tips/

Get rid of a template

May 8, 2002 by Ellen Finkelstein 43 Comments

Have you ever wanted to redesign an existing PowerPoint template from scratch? And get rid of that awful template?

One solution is to design your own template and apply that to the presentation. I provide steps for creating a template in another tip.

But what if you don’t want any template at all? You just want to start with white space? Many presenters don’t use templates these days. Instead, they use a lot of white space, add a small amount of text and perhaps an image. It’s a minimalist style, sometimes called the Takahashi or Lessig Method, after two presenters that used this style. One or two words per slide, keep the pictures simple.

So, how do you start from scratch? Simply attach the Blank template. In PowerPoint 2002 and 2003, follow these steps:

Choose Format > Slide Design to open the Design task pane.
Under the Available for Use section, choose Default Design.pot.

Note: Even though the tooltip says Default Design.pot, the name of the file is blank.pot.

In PowerPoint 2007, choose the blank slide from the Themes group of the Design tab. Its tooltip is Office Theme.

To remove the current template for one slide in PowerPoint 2002 or 2003, select the slide in the left pane, and then open the Design task pane. Instead of clicking the image of Default Design.pot, click its down arrow and choose Apply to Selected Slides. In PowerPoint 2007, right-click the Office Theme image and choose Apply to Selected Slides.

Unfortunately, PowerPoint hides the actual file, which is called blank.pot in 2003. If you look in the default location for templates, you won’t find this file! The default location in Windows XP is c:\Documents and Settings\[username]\Application Data\Microsoft\Templates. In Vista, it’s c:\Users\[username]\ AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Templates.

Earlier versions used blank presentation.pot. In PowerPoint 2003, the default template must be named blank.pot.

If for some reason you can’t find it in the Design task pane, you can probably open a new template based on it, as follows:

Start a new presentation .
In the New Presentation task pane, under New Presentation, choose Blank Presentation. In 2007, use the Design tab and choose Office Theme.
You can change this any way you like.
Save the file.
In the Save As dialog box, choose Design Template (*.pot) from the Save as Type drop-down list. (In 2007, choose PowerPoint Template (*.potx). When you do this, the folder automatically changes to the default Templates folder.
Type blank in the File Name text box. (The file name extension is added automatically.)
Click Save.

Create your own template

April 17, 2002 by Ellen Finkelstein 7 Comments

Recently a Web site visitor e-mailed me asking how to create a template. I thought that I would list the steps here. Most templates are simply a slide master saved as a template file. You can then use that template to create new presentations. You can include the following on the slide master/template:

Fonts
Bullets
A color scheme
Background image(s)
AutoShape defaults
Animation
Boilerplate text

Follow these steps:

Create a new presentation.
Choose View > Master > Slide Master to open the slide master.
Choose Format > Slide Design. The Slide Design task pane opens. Choose Color Schemes and choose the one closest to the colors you want. Then click Edit Color Schemes at the bottom of the task pane and change the colors as necessary. Click Apply.
To create a background, choose Format > Background. In the Background dialog box, click the drop-down arrow and choose Fill Effects. Choose the tab for the type of effect you want — for example, Gradient or Picture. Design a gradient or insert a picture. Click OK, then click Apply.
Add any graphics that you want to appear on every slide. These can be part of the background, a logo, or both. If you add AutoShapes, format them as desired.
To globally change the font, choose Format > Replace Fonts.
To change the font color and size, select the placeholder text and choose from the Font and Font Size drop-down lists on the Formatting toolbar. To change the text alignment, select the text and choose one of the options from the Formatting toolbar.
To format the bullets, choose Format > Bullets. To change the indents, use the Ruler. If you don’t see the ruler, choose View > Ruler.
To resize or move the text placeholders, select them. Use the grips to resize; drag to move.
To create footers, choose View > Headers and Footers. Choose the options that you want. Or delete footers that you don’t want.
To create a title master (for a title slide), choose Insert > New Title Master. Then format the title master as in the previous steps.
Choose View > Normal to exit the slide master.
Choose File > Save As. In the Save as Type drop-down list, choose Design Template (*.pot). Enter a name for the template in the File Name text box.
Click Save.
To use the template for a new presentation, choose Format > Slide Design. Click Browse at the bottom of the Slide Design task pane. Choose your template and click Apply.

Enjoy your new template!