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Powerpoint Microsoft Templates

How To Create A PowerPoint Template

If you are tired of using PowerPoint's default blank template, it is easy to create your own custom templates. You can add logos and pictures to the template, and also change the fonts and colors. The PowerPoint template can also be saved for future use. A simple template is very easy to create and you can reuse it as many times as you want with little effort. You can use your template to display your company's logo or to make it a little more personal.

Creating a Template

* You will begin by opening a new presentation in PowerPoint

* Select a slide layout and click OK

* You can now alter the template. You can add a color scheme or background, pictures, shapes, ClipArt, or WordArt.

* Click on File>Save As>Design Template

* In the pull down menu under Save As, click on the pull down arrow and choose Microsoft>Templates

* You will want to save the template in the Templates folder

You are now ready to apply your template as a presentation. You will begin by double clicking on the name of your template in the General tab.

Adding Color and Background Graphic

* Select Format>Slide Color Scheme. A dialog box will appear. Examples of color schemes can be found under the Standards tab. Select your color scheme and click on it. For one slide in a presentation click Apply. For all slides in the presentation, click Apply to All.

To create a custom color scheme click on Custom tab. Select the color scheme of your choice and click on Change Color. Once the changes are made, click on Apply or Apply to All.

To change the background, select Format>Background. You will see the Background Dialog Box. Choose the color you want to add to the slide and Click Apply or Apply to All. You can find many web sites allowing the downloading of free quality wallpapers for saving as your template background graphic. When searching for a template background, try to find wallpapers with solid colors and avoid colourful or visually complex images.

Adding Pictures

You can add pictures in AutoShapes, ClipArt, and Pictures from File, or Word Art.

To add an AutoShape, select Insert>Pictures>AutoShape. This will open an AutoShape Toolbar with a list of icons describing different shapes. Select one and choose a shape. A crosshair will appear when you move over on on the slide. Click and Drag until the shape is the size you want.

To move an image below the text, click on the shape. A box with 8 white squares surrounding it will appear behind the text.

To add ClipArt, pictures you have taken, or WordArt, you will follow the same steps. You will want to make sure once you finish the template that you resave it for future use.

There are many more advanced options to customize a template, however it is outside the scope of this article. With a little time and effort, you will be creating enriching PowerPoint templates in minutes.

About the Author

Nathan Martyn is webmaster of
Free PowerPoint Templates
, created with the aim of providing the highest quality free PowerPoint templates and PowerPointbackgrounds.

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Powerpoint Microsoft Templates
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Corporate Style Guide – How to Make Professional Powerpoint Presentations

A Corporate Style Guide helps in defining a consistent visual design for your company. This essential to make professional Powerpoint presentations. This article from www.24point0.com, would help you to understand and create a corporate style guide and how this style guide could be used in Powerpoint Presentations

What is a Style Guide?
A Style guide is a classification of rules or guides for a specific application. Ultimately the goal of using a corporate style guide is to provide consistent visual design across all materials created by a company.

This article will specifically discuss how a corporate style guide can be applied to a Microsoft PowerPoint application. It will also offer a few tips from what we have learned through creating corporate identity guides.

Creating a Corporate Style Guide for MS Powerpoint and MS Word applications
About five years ago one of our customers, a professional consulting firm, wanted the Chillibreeze designers to create general design guides and a corporate style guide. Like many corporations, an elaborate style guide was being created so that a consistent look and feel could be applied across all applications. Our customer specifically wanted style guides for Microsoft PowerPoint and Microsoft Word applications.

Our customer already had a corporate logo, so the Chillibreeze design team worked with the logo and corporate colors to create the PowerPoint style guide that would be used as a reference point for all company consultants, designers, writers and other professionals associated with the company. The aim was to ensure all their PowerPoint presentations would share a consistent corporate identity. Given below are some of the elements that were included in the Corporate Style Guide.

Sample of Style Guide Elements for PowerPoint Presentations:

• Rules for logo and use of color
• PowerPoint template layout examples or options
• Fonts: type face size and use of color rules
• Bullets
• Arrows and Shapes
• Charts
• Graphs
• Tables
• Icons

The customer was extremely satisfied with the PowerPoint Style Guide we created. Chillibreeze continued to serve this customer by providing “next day” PowerPoint presentation polishing services. As the months passed by, our customer began sending examples of other visual elements that they wanted to implement. Our designers began to provide slide options on each PowerPoint deck so that the customer could choose the best presentation layout that communicated his/her concept.

We had to create custom icons that fit the new and emerging look. We encountered the same situation with our Microsoft Word presentations. Each whitepaper had more and more graphic elements which communicated concepts or comparisons which did not fit the previous style guide format.

Usability Issues with a Set Style Guide

Both Chillibreeze and the customer discovered that while we had a set of guidelines and readymade tools, we were not using them. In fact a new style guide began to develop over the months. You could say that this new style guide was much more practical as it developed via an informal process by applying actual PowerPoint content to the most efficient and professional outcome.

As with the above scenario, businesses often commission a style guide as a solution to creating a common look and feel for their company. Too often usability issues creep up and the style guide begins to constrain the PPT developer. In such cases, the end goal of creating a common professional look is finally achieved but at the cost of effective visual communication.

Our recommendation – Evolve a Style Guide

All too often, a style guide becomes too huge, out-of-date, and difficult to implement. So instead of commissioning a style guide equivalent to a simplistic rules book, evolve a corporate style guide.

At Chillibreeze, we become part of the process of evolving a style guide to meet your company’s needs. Together, we learn and understand your needs and how your company uses various applications such as Microsoft PowerPoint, Microsoft Word, OneNote and Excel. Based upon your usability of these applications we see your requirements and create what we call “style guide templates” that may actually be used!

Contact us today (http://www.24point0.com/contact-us/) to find out more about evolving style guides for your company.

Style Guides for SMEs
We suggest that the best option and starting point for small and medium enterprises (SME) would be creating the logo, tone of the company and various template style guides that first focus on the application most used by SMEs.

Creating a Corporate Identity
The Style Guide serves as the starting point for other corporate identity services that we offer. These are:

• Creating Logos
• Creating Microsoft PowerPoint Templates
• PowerPoint polishing services specifically tailored to consultants

24point0, as an arm of Chillibreeze Solutions Pvt Ltd, has extensive experience in working with customers across the world, in creating corporate style guides and corporate identities.  Whether you are a busy consultant or a new one trying to make a mark, our professional Powerpoint services will help you fine-tune your PPTs and give it a makeover. We also help create presentations out of concepts and assemble PPTs from parts of other presentations. fine-tuning services will provide value.

About the Author

www.24point0.com is part of the Chillibreeze Group, with years of experience in providing corporate identity and style guide services to global clients. www.24point0.com also provides Professional Powerpoint Services to create, modify, finetune corporate presentations in really fast turnaround times.

Powerpoint Microsoft Templates