Make maximum use of the multiple slide master

SOFTWARE AND SYSTEM USED: Microsoft PowerPoint 2002 (XP); Windows 2000.

Nearly every presenter knows the pain of having to merge presentations from different sources. In earlier versions of PowerPoint, such as 95, 97 and 2000, slides copied from another presentation were automatically reformatted by PowerPoint to reflect its current template design. This made it necessary to painstakingly reformat all the new slides, or to program links from one presentation to another, to make everything appear consistent. It was a time-wasting hassle.

But with PowerPoint 2002 (also known as XP), the problem can now be easily solved. PowerPoint 2002 offers multiple slide masters, a feature that allows you to copy slides from different presentations and still retain their original formatting. Multiple slide masters also make it easy to design a variety of layouts within one template.

The master basics

Multiple slide masters have been on my PowerPoint wish list for some time. When I create a presentation, I like to vary the slide formats, sometimes for different sections or for inserting an unusual graphic or chart. In earlier versions of PowerPoint, this was accomplished by changing the background and text formatting on individual slides. Then I would duplicate the new slides when necessary. In essence, I had to ignore the slide master, and make changes to the slide itself.

But with PowerPoint 2002, you can have as many slide masters as you wish. This is especially useful when setting up a new template that others will be applying to their presentations. It also gives you the option of setting up a title master, which is the design template for title slides. As you explore these new features in PowerPoint 2002, it's easy to see how multiple masters can help the presentation design process. You can set up a separate title master for section headings, and another slide master for text and photo slides. The possible combinations are almost limitless.

It is important to understand the relationship between slide masters and title masters, however. Each template will have at least one slide master, which may or may not have a corresponding title master. You can add as many new slide masters as you wish, but if you want to add another title master it must be paired with an existing slide master.

Merging slides from different presentations

Begin by opening the PowerPoint presentation into which you wish to copy slides from another presentation. Select the Slide Sorter View (either select the second icon that looks like four squares in the lower left of your screen, or