The Default Layouts

The default layout for the first slide in the presentation is Title Slide. This layout has two placeholders: one for the title of the presentation and one for the subtitle (see Figure 3-1).

The default layout for all other slides in the presentation is Title and Text. This layout also has two placeholders: a title across the top (for the individual slide's title, not the overall presentation title) and a large text box in the center where the text is automatically formatted in bulleted paragraphs (see Figure 3-2). Whenever you insert a new slide (by using the New Slide button on the toolbar or typing in the Outline pane-both of which are covered in Chapter 4), the resulting slide starts out in this Title and Text layout. If you want a different layout, it's up to you to select something else.

Tip

An add-in is available that enables you to change the default layout for the first slide in new presentations to something other than Title Slide. Download the add-in from http://officeone.mvps.org/sdsl/sdsl.html. Once it's installed, use Tools⇨Set Default Slide Layout.

Note

The exact positioning of the placeholder text boxes on these two layouts (Title Slide and Title and Text) comes directly from the Title Master and Slide Master, respectively. That's why applying a different design template to a presentation sometimes shifts the text around on certain slides.

Choosing a Different Slide Layout

Most of the other slide layouts available in PowerPoint include more than just text. You would select a different layout whenever you wanted non-text content to supplement your words, such as clip art, video clips, or diagrams.

There is also a slide layout with a table placeholder. Even though you and I would consider a table to be "text," PowerPoint considers it to be a type of graphic object that serves as a text container.

To select a different layout for an existing slide:

1. Select the slide.

2. Choose Format⇨Slide Layout. The Slide Layout task pane appears (see Figure 3-3).

3. Click the desired layout.

4. Close the task pane (or leave it open, your choice).

There are two kinds of placeholders on slide layouts (besides text): single-type and multi-type. The single-type ones insert one kind of object, such as a table or graph. The multi-type placeholders have six little icons and can be used for any of those six types of content.

XREF

I explained the content placeholders in Chapter 1, so turn back there if you need some more information.

When you insert a new slide with the New Slide button on the toolbar, the Slide Layout task pane opens automatically. It does not do so when you create a new slide via the Outline pane, however. To choose a different layout after typing text in the Outline pane, you must choose Format⇨Slide Layout to open the Slide Layout task pane manually.

Tip

One of the most annoying things about changing the slide layout for me is that there's no toolbar button. You have to go through the menu system for it. You can fix this, however, by adding a button to the toolbar yourself. See Chapter 18 to learn how.

AutoLayout and Text/Graphics Interaction

Throughout much of the second and third parts of this book, you'll learn various ways of inserting various types of content on a slide. You can use one of these placeholder layouts if you want, but it's not required; you can also manually insert items on any type of slide layout. For example, you could start with a plain Title and Text layout and then manually place a piece of clip art on top of it.

So why use a placeholder layout for non-text elements, if it's not required? One reason is that using the placeholders makes it easier to change to a different slide layout later without having to manually reposition anything. For example, suppose you start out with a Title, Text and Clip Art layout, as shown on the left side of Figure 3-4, and then you change it to a Title, Clip Art, and Text layout, as shown on the right side of Figure 3-4. Since you used the layout originally to position the clip art, the clip art moves gracefully to the other side when you apply the new layout. If the clip art had been manually placed on the slide and then the new layout applied, you might have had to manually move the clip.

So why did I say "might" in that last sentence? Because PowerPoint tries its best to save you from yourself. It has an AutoLayout feature that attempts to plug your existing content into the appropriate layout, whenever possible. It works with some object types (but not all).

To check it out, try the following experiment:

1. Create a new presentation, and insert a new slide in it that uses the Title and Text layout (the default bulleted list one from Figure 3-2). Type a bit of text in each of the placeholder boxes, just so you'll have something there.

2. Manually insert a piece of clip art (Insert⇨Picture⇨Clip Art). Any one will do. Notice that PowerPoint plops it down in the center of the slide, on top of the text box.

3. Delete the clip art (press Delete). We've learned from this experiment that PowerPoint does not do the AutoLayout thing for clip art.

4. Click the Insert Diagram or Organization Chart button in the Drawing toolbar. Click any of the diagram types and click OK. This time, PowerPoint switches to a different slide layout automatically and places the diagram to the right of the text box.

5. Notice the AutoLayout icon in the bottom right corner of the diagram. Click it to open a menu, and from there choose Undo Automatic Layout. The diagram moves to the center of the slide, and the layout switches back to the default Title and Text layout.

If you don't like AutoLayout, you can turn it off completely in either of the two following ways:

• Click the AutoLayout icon after an AutoLayout operation has taken place and choose Stop Automatic Layout of Inserted Objects.

• Choose Tools⇨AutoCorrect Options, and on the AutoFormat As You Type tab, clear the Automatic layout for inserted objects checkbox.

What About a Blank Layout?

Sometimes it can make sense to start with a Blank layout or a Title Only layout and then add the objects to the slide manually. The Blank layout gives you a totally empty canvas on which you can use the drawing tools, insert a collage of pictures, place manual text boxes, or insert any other combination of content. The Title Only layout does the same thing except it retains a placeholder for a title at the top consistent with the other slides in the presentation.

When you switch to a Blank or Title Only layout after having inserted content in placeholders in some other layout, that content remains but is converted to manual objects. (This is not just with those two types of layout-it happens any time you switch to a layout that does not include a placeholder for some content that you already have in place.) For example, try this experiment:

1. Create a new slide with Title, Text, and Clip Art. Type some text in both of the text placeholder boxes, and insert a piece of clip art in the art placeholder.

2. Switch to the Title Only layout. The text box and clip art remain, but their positions change, indicating they are no longer being constrained by placeholders.

3. View the Outline pane. Notice that the text appears there, even though it is not officially in a placeholder.

4. Switch to Title and Text layout. Notice that the text comes back into the text placeholder, and the clip art also remains but not in a placeholder.

5. Delete the bulleted text. Notice that the text placeholder appears to take its place.

6. Delete the clip art. No clip-art placeholder appears to take its place because the current slide layout has none for clip art.

One thing you might not have expected in the preceding steps is that in step 3, the text appears in the outline even though it's not part of a placeholder. Remember, earlier I told you that only placeholder text shows up in the outline, not text from manual text boxes? Well, that's still true. In step 3, the text is in a special class of text box. It's not really manual, because we didn't create it ourselves, but it's not really a placeholder box either. Let's call it an orphaned text box. It retains its ties to the outline because it could spring back into full placeholder-type membership at any moment should you choose to apply a layout that contained a text placeholder.