How to format and change Slide layout in PowerPoint at once

Formatting is an essential part of a PowerPoint presentation. You need to make sure that all the slides have the same format, so the presentation looks professional. However, if you have imported slides from another PPT, they adhere to the source formatting. The good thing is that you don’t need to fix the format one by one. Instead, you can change the formatting of the complete PowerPoint Presentation. In this post, we will show how you can use the Master View concept for the format to achieve the same.

How to format & change Slide layout in PowerPoint

Formatting should always be either the last or the first part. Doing it at the end ensures you are past your final content, and all you need to do is make it look right. So follow the steps to change the formatting of all the slides in the presentation in one go.

One thing you should understand is that by using this method, you can apply the same color, fonts, backgrounds, effects, and anything on the look and feel. For example, if you insert a logo in the master slide, it will appear on all the slides. The master slide is the first, and the rest are treated as child slides.

Open the presentation, and then switch to View mode.
Next, click on Slide Master under Master Views.
Notice how the rest of the slides are now under the 1st slide.
In Slide Master mode, you have the following options
- Insert additional Slide Master, Insert Layout and Insert Placeholder
- Enable or disable Title and Footers
- Change or Edit Themes
- Edit colors, fonts, effects, background styles, and hide background graphics
- Lastly, you can configure Slide Size (Widescreen 16:9 or Standard 4:3)

Any changes you make must be made on the parent slide, i.e., the first slide or the slide master. The changes will be picked up from all the slides under it. If you have multiple slide masters, you need to handle them individually.

In the below image, I changed the master slide theme, and it automatically applied it to all the slides. Carefully notice the change in color in the preview.

If you have multiple Slide masters, you need to change them individually. The image below shows how I was able to apply two different themes to each slide master.

Preserve Slide Master

In the end, I would like to explain the Preserve feature. If you do not want to delete a particular Slide Master and all the slides under it, then you need to select the Slide Master, and then click on the Preserve button in Edit Master section. Done that, you will see that slide as a pinned icon next to it.