How to Change Layouts in PowerPoint

PowerPoint can be used for a wide variety of purposes, and not just for creating slideshows. It is a design tool after all. You can social media posts, flyers, posters, banners, and so much more. People who are already familiar with the PowerPoint workflow will find it easier to create designs on it, instead of spending time and money on acquiring and learning another software. But there are some limitations on PowerPoint, including some challenges. One of them is layouts. How do you change layouts in PowerPoint?

Sometimes there comes a time when you need to use a different layout in PowerPoint. It could be to create a presentation for a different type of screen, or something else like a social media post. In this article, we’ll take a look at layouts in PowerPoint, and how you can change them in PowerPoint.

What are Layouts in PowerPoint?  

Layouts are simply templates within PowerPoint that are pre-designed and ready to go. These layouts provide different arrangements and combinations of image and text placeholders, which you can use to easily add your content and to speed up your design creation process.

Each layout comes with a different arrangement of text and image placeholders. You just need to choose the layout that suits your need. And this choice depends on the type of design you are trying to create in PowerPoint. You also need to pay attention to visual hierarchy. More on that in another article.

How to Use and Change Layouts in PowerPoint

To use layouts in PowerPoint, first go to the Home tab in the PowerPoint ribbon. In the Slides section, you’ll find the Layout button.

Click on it, and a drop-down menu will appear with all the pre-built layout options PowerPoint has to offer by default. These layouts will have different placeholder arrangements, and you can choose the one you need by clicking on it.

Before adding a layout to your PowerPoint presentation, you can either select the slide where you want to change the layout, or create a new one by pressing CTRL + M.

After clicking on a layout from the drop-down menu shown above, it will be applied to your current slide, automatically adjusting any pre-existing content you already had on your slides to fit the new placeholders. You may need to do some adjustments to get your design right.

Additionally you can even right click on a slide in the overview on the left, and choose Layout to quickly change the layout of the slide.

In case you want to reset the slide to the original layout, there’s even a Reset button you can use. Or you can just press CTRL + Z to undo any changes.

How to Create New Layouts in PowerPoint

If in case you need something other than the pre-existing slide layouts in PowerPoint, you can easily create your own.

To do this, you will have to first go to the Slide Master View. Click on View in the PowerPoint ribbon, and select and click on Slide Master.

Now in the Slide Master view, find the Edit Master section in the ribbon. Select Insert Layout.

This will create a new layout that you can edit.

In the Master Layout section in the ribbon, click on Insert Placeholder, and select and add the placeholders you need in your new layout.

Finally, give your layout a unique name, by right clicking on the slide on the left, and selecting Rename Layout.

Once you are done, click on Close View.

To access the new layout, repeat the above steps. You’ll be able to see the new layout added in the drop down menu.

So, there you are, a quick article on using layouts in PowerPoint. Using layouts in PowerPoint also helps you achieve design consistency. I hope this article was helpful. Do check out some of other articles as well, and explore SlideBazaar.com for PowerPoint presentation themes, and templates.