Page 1 of 5 PowerPoint Design Tools: Using the Slide Ma ster This tutorial shows how to use the Slide Master tool. The Slide Master Tool is used by PowerPoint to create a template for the slides in your presentation. In order to make changes in the background of your slide, you have to go through the Slide Master Tool. These are not editable through regular slide view, which can be helpful when you want to use a consistent design or a change across multiple slides. 1. To view the Slide Master, select the “View” tab from the Ribbon at the top of the screen, then “Slide Master”. 2. On the left, notice the different layouts that PowerPoint creates by default. 3. To start, click on the Master slide. 4. Areas that are marked as “Click to edit ...” are called text placeholders. When you view the layouts in the Normal view, they are clickable areas where you can enter text. Any text you enter here in the Slide Master view will appear on any slides using that layout.