Do you need to have slides in your presentation that have different backgrounds, buttons, animations, or fonts? You need to learn how to use PowerPoint’s Multiple Masters features.

In PowerPoint 2000 and earlier, you could create two master slides per presentation: the title master and the content master. PPT 2002 (XP) gave us the ability to have more than one pair of master slides within the same presentation. You can set up your slides to look the way you want instead of having them all look the same.

To add master slides to your presentation or template, View –> Master–> slide master. You will see the master slides in the presentation.

To add new masters, do one of the following:

a. Select the masters in the left column. Copy and Paste them. Voila - New masters just like the ones you had.
b. Select the masters in the left column. Do Insert–> Duplicate master. Again, a copy of the master will appear for each of the masters you had selected.
c. With nothing selected, do Insert–> New Master. This time, you get a blank content master that you can adjust as you desire.

In each case, you can set up the masters just the way you need. This is great, but… How do you use them?

Go back to the regular view and bring up the Slide Design task pane. At the top, you’ll see a section with just the master slides in this presentation. To apply a slide design (another term for master slide) to all the slides in the current file, click the appropriate slide design thumbnail.

Want to apply the design to only one slide? Select the slide you want changed and click the drop down arrow for the slide design you want to apply. From the list, click “Apply to Selected Slides.”

If you have more than one slide selected and you click on a slide design, PowerPoint will guess that you want to “Apply to Selected Slides.” Use this with caution. Sometimes, it can have unexpected results.

One last multiple master hint: If you save a file that has unused slide masters (masters that are not used on any slides currently in the file), the unused masters will be deleted. To prevent this, go back to the Slide Master view, select all of your masters, right click, and select “Preserve Masters”. You will see a thumbtack icon appear next to each master. These masters are now “pinned” or “preserved.” That means that they will stay in the file, even if they aren’t currently in use.