I’m using OnlyOffice 9.5.0 on Nextcloud 29.0.8 via a shared hosting service. I’m trying to create a presentation with a slide master and some objects with the right font and colours.
I went into “Slide Master” mode and put my logo on the slide master, and edited the objects there to have the right font and colour for the title textbox, and the main content textbox. This seems to be the wrong way of doing it. When I add a new slide, I thought it would have the layout as it appears on the slide master, but it doesn’t have any layout.
Choosing the “TItle, Content” layout only creates one title textbox, and it doesn’t have the specified font or colour.
In Slide Master mode you can edit existing layouts to automatically apply them to all slides in your presentation or create new ones instead of configuring them manually for each slide. After making necessary changes to Master Slides you can close this mode and continue working with presentation.
Thanks for replying. So does the master slide itself play any role in the layout apart from acting as “parent” to the layouts, i.e. are the objects placed on the master slide functional or irrelevant?
It is more like a layout builder that allows creating and editing layouts to facilitate process of presentation making - instead of configuring each slide separately you can simply build/edit a layout with needed elements, they will be applied to every slide in normal mode that has configured layout.
OK. Is there any point in placing objects like text boxes on the master slide itself? It seems to have no effect when I choose a new slide. Excuse my ignorance but I haven’t found any step by step instruction to guide the way I should construct the master slide and the layouts.
Say I was starting from zero, and I want to create a layout in my master slide that includes a title text box with the specific font I want and the specific font size, alignment etc. That’s what I need to know.
You need to enter Slide Master mode via View tab, then in that mode go to Home tab and start configuring:
To create new layout press Add layout, it will add a new default layout template that you can rearrange or build from scratch by selecting all elements with CTRL+A and deleting them;
To add a title box check box Title in Insert tab, it will add a default box that inherits all properties across all layouts;
To add a text box select Content type in the Insert Placeholder dropdown, you can start configuring this box to your needs as this one is not bound to any other content box on other layouts. Via Home tab you can set all text properties for the box.
Once done, you can get back to normal mode and select this new layout.
Please note that the list of layouts corresponds to the order in Slide Master. You can remove unnecessary layouts if needed to make the list less confusing by selecting unwanted layouts and deleting them.
I have been trying to leverage this functionality again for a big 50 slide project, i.e. it will be really useful.
I can’t find answers to this anywhere:
what happens to the objects in the slide master?
I wanted to start from with the minimum number of options, so at the start of editing this presentation, I deleted all the layouts that I could. IIRC then I had the slide master and one layout.
I notice the objects on the slide master are linked to the objects on the layout, so if I move the object on the slide master, it moves the object on the layout. But then I can move the object on the layout, and that seems to break the link permanently.
What do you refer to as “objects”? If I understand the question correctly, then re-arranging shapes in Slide Masted indeed changes the layout of actual slides, but not vice-versa. Master Slide is a template builder for layouts, so changing the template, changes the layout. But changing a slide won’t change the template.
I guess I used the word “object” because it seems there are different types of objects. If I just put a text box onto the Master, it appears on all the layouts as well, and then all the pages I’ve already created in the document, yet I can’t edit it.
So to create objects which I could edit, I just copied and pasted the objects that were originally in the slide master with the text “Click to edit…”
And it also confused me that I can move the objects around on the slide master and then they will move around as well on the layouts. But if I move the object on one of the layouts, then that object on that layout become disconnected from the slide master and I don’t appear to be able to reset it.
It would be highly useful to know more details about this master - template - page relationship.
It seems there’s a lot of functionality in the slide master & layout templates, but I don’t seem to be able to find out about it. Or have I missed a pointer to some documentation somewhere? Or even another thread where someone else has already got an answer… Of course I’m grateful for what there is, but I’d be even more grateful if I could find out how to use it all.
What I need to do now with my 50+ pptx is to add a text box with a new set of styles - font size, colour and shape - to use to add quotations throughout. I could decide on the sizes and colours and other attributes right from the start and just not change them again, but my goal is to be able to add all the text first and then go over the graphic design afterwards. It looks like that would be slow and repetitive because it looks like I can’t make use of the slide master and layouts in any way at this point now.
That is main purpose of Slide Master. It allows configuring slide layouts beforehand to use in a presentation. It does not suit to the goal you want to achieve.
I can add a new slide master though, design my new look text box, create a layout from the new slide master, and change the layout of the page where I want to use my new text box to the new layout?
Yes, you can. However, keep in mind that you must preserve original structure of layouts, e.g. number of boxes, amount of layouts, etc., to make sure that nothing is lost upon applying them to existing slides.
Technically, you can even try configuring original layouts after adding the text. As an example, the process for newly created presentation will be:
Add text to original non-formatted via Slide Master slides;
Keep existing layouts that are being used;
Go to Slide Master to change layouts to your liking.
If everything is done correctly and none of slides fall behind the structure, then you should not experience any issues.
It’s all up to your tests and experience with Slide Master.