Office 2008 for Mac All-in-One For Dummies®

Chapter IV.4. Mastering the Masters

In This Chapter

• Finding your master

• Customizing Slide Masters

• Fine-tuning slide layouts

• Building an army of masters

• Customizing Notes Page View

• Exploring the handout master

Knowing what a master is can make you seem like a PowerPoint guru, even though the subject isn't complex, as long as you follow the basics. With just a few hints from us, you can be in control of PowerPoint, using masters in ways that make your friends want to have your PowerPoint skills.

Allow us to explain what we're talking about when we use the word master. A master is in charge. In PowerPoint, you find several masters, each overlooking their respective domains. Using Slide Masters can save you a lot of time while you build presentations. The idea behind a master is that you put text, adjust formatting, or add objects to the master, and the changes are instantly reflected throughout the entire presentation. PowerPoint handles these masters efficiently, so your presentation's file size doesn't grow proportionately, which is important when distributing your presentations.

The neat part is that you're in charge of all PowerPoint's masters. They're here to do your bidding. And new for PowerPoint 2008, you have the ability to edit your own slide layouts. PowerPoint has several different kinds of masters (all of which we explain in this chapter):

• Slide Master: Whatever text, formatting, or objects you apply to the Slide Master are instantly applied to the entire presentation and to any ...