To make a custom slide on Google Slides, you typically create or modify custom layouts within your presentation's theme. This allows you to design specific structures and styles for different types of slides that you can reuse throughout your presentation.
Customizing Slide Layouts Through Theme Editing
The primary method for creating truly "custom" slide types that maintain consistency and reusability across your presentation involves editing the theme. This process lets you define the default appearance for various slide layouts, including placeholders for text, images, and other elements.
Here's how you can do it, as described in the reference:
- Access the Theme Editor: From the Google Slides menu bar, click on Slide.
- Select "Edit theme": Choose the Edit theme option from the dropdown menu.
This action opens the Theme editor view.
What You Can Do in the Theme Editor
In the Theme editor, you are working with the slide masters and the various layouts associated with your theme.
- Edit Slide Masters: The main slide master controls the default styles for the entire theme (like background, fonts, and logo). Changes here affect all layouts based on this master.
- Customize Layouts: Below the master slide, you'll see thumbnails for different slide layouts (e.g., Title slide, Title and body, Two columns). You can:
- Edit Existing Layouts: Manually edit the placeholders, add shapes, lines, or images, and adjust formatting for any existing layout.
- Create New Layouts: Add a new layout and design it from scratch with custom placeholder types and positions.
According to the reference, you can manually edit the slide masters to customize the layouts, colors, fonts, and formatting for each slide type in your document.
By editing these layouts, you define what a "custom slide" of a certain type will look like when you add it to your presentation. Once you've customized or created a layout in the Theme editor, you can then return to your main presentation view.
Applying Your Custom Layout
When you add a new slide to your presentation, you can choose which of your now-customized or newly created layouts to use.
- Click the + (New slide) button.
- Click the small arrow next to the + button to choose a specific layout.
- Select the custom layout you designed from the options provided.
This creates a new slide in your presentation that adheres to the specific design and structure you defined in the Theme editor.
In summary, making a custom slide that can be reused involves modifying or creating slide layouts within the theme using the "Edit theme" feature, allowing you to define custom colors, fonts, and formatting for different slide types.
