Requirements: Power-user version 1.6.1201 or higher, with a Premium Entreprise license

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• Introduction: what are Master Templates?
• Benefits of configuring Master Templates for PowerPoint, Excel & Word
• How to configure a Master Template for PowerPoint 
• How to configure a Master Template for Excel
  • Customize the Theme Colors
  • Customize Tables and PivotTables Styles
  • Customize Cell Styles
• How to configure a Master Template for Word
  • Customize the Theme Colors
  • Customize Styles
• Publishing the Master Template

Introduction: what are Master Templates?

Master Templates are one of the simplest yet most efficient solutions to strengthen brand compliance in your organization, while saving users a considerable amount of time. 

What we call Master Template is the default blank presentation (for PowerPoint), spreadsheet (for Excel) or document (for Word) that will be used every time one of the users launches the application.

When these templates are properly defined, every new document created in your organization will natively start with the right colors, fonts, styles etc. Instead of requiring each user to actively format their documents correctly, it will already be compliant by default and they will have to take active steps to deviate from the corporate template. This means you will see a big and immediate impact on the format consistency of all the documents prepared in the organization.

With Power-user,  you can easily configure a Master Template for PowerPoint, for Excel and for Word and roll them out to all the users in your organization. This article will show you how.

Benefits of configuring Master Templates for PowerPoint, Excel & Word

There are several benefits of deploying Master Templates to all the users in your organization:

• Brand compliance by default: 
  • Whenever a user launches the application (e.g. PowerPoint), instead of a pure blank slide they will start directly with a blank presentation in your corporate theme (template, colors, fonts, effects).
  • All content created inside these documents, such as tables, PivotTables, charts, shapes etc. will be already compliant with the corporate branding.
• Design consistency by default: because the theme will be the same in PowerPoint, Excel & Word, your presentations will be more visually consistent instead of using different sets of colors for each chart.
• Enhanced productivity: 
  • Because all new content will be brand compliant by default, users will save a huge amount of time which is usually spent on formatting. 
  • Also, since users will be using Theme colors instead of "hard" colors, the slides will be much easier to convert to another template later in the future (see How a smart use of color themes can save you hours on PowerPoint).

How to configure a Master Template for PowerPoint 

• Launch PowerPoint with a blank presentation or an existing presentation that includes your corporate Master Template.
• Go to the "Design" tab, click "Slide size" and select the desired slide size.

We recommend a "Widescreen (16:9)" slide size, which is optimal for modern monitors dimensions. Users will have more usable space on their slide, it will print better on A4 paper, and it will be easier to read when users share their screen during a virtual presentation.

• Go to the "View" tab and click "Slide Master".

• Customize with your corporate master.
• When your master is ready: 
  • Go to "File", "Info" and click the arrow next to "Properties", and then "Advanced Properties":
  • In the window that opens, check "Save preview picture".
    
  • Then go to "File", "Save as" and save your file on the Desktop as "Blank.potx", saving your file as a PowerPoint Template (.potx). The file HAS to be named exactly like that, otherwise it will not work.

• Now you can connect to the Admin portal and publish your Master Template (see below).
• After that, when a user starts PowerPoint, the master template should be opened by default and show in the PowerPoint backstage "Home" and "New" menu, as below:

How to configure a Master Template for Excel

Customize the Theme Colors

• Launch Excel with a blank spreadsheet.
• Go to the "Page Layout" tab, click "Colors" and "Customize Colors"

• Customize each color to fit your corporate Theme Color.
• Save the Theme Color under the name of your organization.

Customize Tables and PivotTables Styles

• Go to the "Home" tab, click "Format as Table" and "New Table Style".
• For each item, click "Format" and apply the desired format.
• Name the new "Table Style" with your organization's name (so that users can later spot the corporate style without ambiguity) 
• Click "OK" to save.
• You can do exactly the same and add a "New PivotTable Style" from the same "Format as Table" menu.

Customize Cell Styles

• Go to the "Home" tab, click "Cell Styles" and "New Cell Style".

• Click "Format" and customize the format to match your needs. 
• Save your changes.
• Repeat these steps for every cell style you want to configure.

Try creating custom Cell Styles for numbers and currencies that users will frequently need. For instance, use format # ##0  " m€" to configure a "m€" style for cells in millions, or # ##0   " Bn€" to configure a "Bn€" style for cells in billions.

• When your master is ready, click "File", "Save as" and save your file on the Desktop as "Book.xlts", saving your file as an Excel Template (.xlts). 

Now you can connect to the Admin portal and publish your Master Template (see below).

How to configure a Master Template for Word

Customize the Theme Colors

• Launch Word with a blank document.
• Go to the "Design" tab and adjust the Colors theme, just like described above for Excel.

Customize Styles

• Go to the "Home" tab and click the arrow under the "Styles" gallery.

• Click "Create a Style" and customize the style to match the needs of your corporate brand and usage.
• When your master is ready: 
  • Go to "File", "Info" and click the arrow next to "Properties", and then "Advanced Properties". In the window that opens, check "Save preview picture".
    
  • Click "File", "Save as" and save your file on the Desktop as "Normal.dotm", saving your file as a Macro-Enabled Word Template (.dotm). 

• Now you can connect to the Admin portal and publish your Master Template (see below).

Publishing the Master Template

After configuring your Master Templates, you can now publish them so that they become available to all users in your organization. To publish a master template:

• Add a new folder to your file-sharing solution (e.g. shared drive or network). You can name it as you wish (for instance, "Master Templates")
• In that folder, place the relevant files with the correct name and extension
• Connect to your admin portal, using your organization's credentials
• Go to the "Brand compliance" menu
• Click a pre-defined Master Template to edit it, or click "New" to add a new one
• For pre-defined Master Templates, the "Local path" field is already filled with the default location that will be used by PowerPoint/Excel/Word on each user's computer to pick the default file. But it is still possible that your organization has a different default path for some reason, in that case locate the default path or contact us for help to locate it.
• Enter the direct link to the Master Template file (see Getting the direct link to a file or folder)
• Save your changes

Before rolling-out a template to all users, we strongly recommend you to assign it only to a "Test" team, assign yourself as a user to that "Test" team and check that it works as expected.