How to make a PowerPoint template?

Most organizations have recorded their corporate identity in a corporate identity manual (also called a brand book). It describes the visual characteristics that can be recognized as being unique to the organization. Its purpose is to present professionalism, reliability and recognition to the outside world. The following elements can be used to make up this corporate image:

The corporate logo (and the location)

• The use of color
• The font
• Design elements (rectangles, circles, triangles, etc.)
• A standard place for text
• A standard bottom navigation bar

You can embed these characteristics as follows:

1. Create a blank presentation and go to the View tab. Click on the Slide Sorter.
   
2. You are then given the option to adapt the standard slides by clicking on Color, Font or Background Styles.

Think carefully about how you want the layout to be. You only need to record this once in your PowerPoint template and can then make unlimited use of it, so it is really worth the time investment. Take enough time to consider the placement of the company logo, the colors, but also the legibility (contrast and fonts).

With the application of the layout according to the corporate identity of your organization, your template is not quite done yet. To make your PowerPoint template as user-friendly as possible and to ensure consistency, it helps to provide structure in the presentation in advance. For this you can make various, commonly occurring, slides. For example:

• Title page
• Slide for text and images (multiple variants)
• Slide for tables and graphs
• Slide for videos
• Concluding slide (original, eg with a Quote)

How is it done?

1. You can add these slides by clicking Insert layout and then providing it with a recognizable name such as 'Title slide' or 'Graphs & Tables slide'. Next, you can customize the layout to match your choice of text, image, video and graph fields to the slide.
2. Add placeholders by clicking Insert placeholder and then selecting the desired content object from the selection field.

This option is very useful to indicate to the end user where images, text or tables can be placed.

On the template slides, you will find standard indicator fields, however they will only be displayed in the presentation if the fields are filled. This is a handy tool to define the structure in advance so that the user can easily choose a template slide and fill it according to the required content.

It is most important to save the file so that other users do not save their own presentation over your template presentation. That would be such a waste, because that template will be lost. Luckily, it’s possible to save the file in such a way that when changes are made, the user is required to give the file another name on attempting to save.

1. Go to the tab File and click Save as.
2. Type in a file name and select the field below labeled ‘Save as:’.
3. In the ‘Save as’ type list, click PowerPoint Template.
4. Click Save.

After having saved the template, you will be able to reuse it time and again by following the steps described below.

1. Go to File and click on New
2. Depending on which version you are working with, click Custom/Personal/My Templates.
3. Select your template.

As end-user, you now have the freedom to adapt the contents of the presentation and then save it under a new name without risking losing the PowerPoint template.

The great benefit of PowerPoint templates, is that all employees work with the same presentations that all have the same corporate identity. A very important part of template management, is keeping the templates up to date each time changes are made to the corporate identity. iWRITER is a handy tool that can be used to make, change and manage templates in a central location which is accessible to the whole organization. This means that you can adapt a template in one central location whereby the changes are automatically implemented throughout the whole organization. In this way, all representatives always have the latest version available to them with the correct corporate identity and everyone benefits from the huge time saving element through the use of templates.

Would you like to experience how easy it is to use iWRITER for yourself? Please contact us.