How to Create a PowerPoint Template to Use with Copilot

Create reusable PowerPoint templates that work well with Copilot to effortlessly create presentations

In the magical world of Copilot, I’ve been blown away many times by how powerful the response to a simple prompt can be. We talk more about the power of the prompt in our free eBook: Transform Your Productivity With Our Top 5 Copilot Prompts!

I like having Copilot in apps, in Word, I am impressed with redrafting, in Excel, data quality suggestion. But, in PowerPoint the amaze-train seemed to de-rail.

Don’t get me wrong, it could make me a slick deck from a document but we all know that PowerPoint is visual and in a modern workplace or sales environment that means brand, brand, brand. And Copilot was very generic, which was frustrating until now…

Copilot in PowerPoint has been rebooted to start using your brand templates, and the results are good. Just watch Scott’s latest YouTube tutorial to see with your own eyes.

Getting set up for success

For Copilot to be able to create the great results demonstrated in the tutorial protecting your banding and style, it’s going to need to have access to a PowerPoint presentation template.

How many of us readily use templates? I know in my previous roles, instead of having a template, I’ve just opened the last great looking pack I had and made a copy. It’s not the best practice but don’t worry in this blog I’ll show you how you can create a new template you can use over-and-over.

There are three main steps

1. Setting up a good Slide Master
2. Giving your Layouts descriptive names
3. Saving the file as a template

Set Up The Slide Master

The Slide Master in PowerPoint is a powerful feature that controls the overall appearance and layout of your presentation. By setting up a Slide Master, you can ensure consistency across all your slides. The Slide Master is essentially the top slide in a hierarchy of slides, and it stores information about theme, layout, background, colour, fonts, and positioning of all the elements.

To create and edit a Slide Master, follow these steps:

1. Open Slide Master View: Go to the 'View' tab on the Ribbon, and click 'Slide Master'. This will open the Slide Master view, showing the master slide at the top and associated layouts beneath it.

2. Edit the Master Slide: Click on the top slide in the Slide Master pane. Here, you can customise fonts, colours, backgrounds, and other elements. Changes made to the master slide will be reflected across all slide layouts in your presentation.

3. Create New Layouts: Right-click on any layout slide beneath the master slide and select 'Insert Layout' to create a new layout. You can also duplicate an existing layout and modify it to suit your needs.

4. Add Placeholders: To add placeholders (areas where you can insert text, images, videos, etc.), click on 'Insert Placeholder' in the 'Master Layout' group. Choose the type of placeholder you need, then click and drag on the layout slide to create it.

5. Close Slide Master View: Once you have finished editing, click 'Close Master View' on the Ribbon to return to the normal presentation view.

When you add a new slide to your presentation, the layouts you created in the Slide Master will appear in the 'New Slide' menu. This allows you to select different layouts for different types of content while maintaining the overall consistent design established by your Slide Master.

Naming Your Layouts

In our example you’ll see that I’ve already got a Layout, but to make Copilot more successful I need to name my Slide Master with descriptive names so it can determine the best to use.

To rename a slide layout in the Slide Master, follow these steps:

1. Select the Layout: In the Slide Master view, click on the layout slide you wish to rename in the left-hand pane.

2. Open the Rename Dialog Box: Right-click on the selected layout slide, and from the context menu, choose 'Rename Layout'. This will open a dialog box where you can input the new name.

3. Enter the New Name: Type a descriptive name for the layout in the text box provided. This name should reflect the purpose or content type of the layout to make it easily identifiable when adding new slides to your presentation.

4. Save the New Name: Click 'Rename' to apply the new name to the layout. The updated name will now appear in the Slide Master pane and in the 'New Slide' menu when you return to the normal presentation view.

The names you use should clearly define what is in the Layout, and when the layout will be used. The format is when: what, when means is it used for titles or presentation content and what means, what placeholder are used.

For example the follow slide is a Section Title layout
The Layout name is: Title slide: Section Title placeholder

This next slide is a content slide that contains a title, text placeholder and an image placeholder.
The Layout name is: Content slide: Title placeholder + content placeholder + image placeholder

Saving Your Template

To save a PowerPoint slide as a POTX file, start by opening the presentation and accessing the 'Save As' menu from the 'File' option. Select 'PowerPoint Template (*.potx)' in the 'Save as type' dropdown menu, enter a descriptive name for the template, and click 'Save'. This will save your presentation as a POTX file.

To save templates in PowerPoint for Windows, navigate to the 'Custom Office Templates' folder within 'Documents' during the saving process. My PowerPoint automatically did this. The template then appears in your Personal template tab.

Note: if your organisation has E5 M365 licences, the IT department can upload POTX files to the Organisation's Template Library, making them accessible to all users. Certainly worth an ask!

I hope that you’ve found this little insight into preparing a good standard PowerPoint template useful, these are great even if you don’t use Copilot yet.

Matthew

Matthew Burrell is a Consultant at Your 365 Coach

Further resources

If you want to do more with Copilot but don’t work where to start check out our free eBook: Master Microsoft 365 Copilot with Our Top 5 Prompts. Download it from our website now

If you’d like more insight into getting good results from Copilot with your slide templates see this Microsoft Support Article: Use your organisation's branding with Copilot in PowerPoint