Although PowerPoint presentations are usually displayed on screen, they are no different from other documents in the Microsoft Office suite, such as Word, Excel, and Publisher.
As with other applications, you can add custom headers and footers to your PowerPoint presentation to display various important information.
Why display headers and footers in PowerPoint?
There are three main reasons for displaying headers and footers in a PowerPoint presentation. First, headers and footers let you display repetitive information on slides to help your audience keep track of your presentation’s content. The most popular use is page or slide numbers.
Second, headers and footers can help you stay on track during your presentation. No matter how well you prepare for your presentation, it never goes exactly as planned.
Interruptions, audience questions, and a few deviations from the topic are just some of the reasons why you may need to awaken the memory of where you are in the presentation and what to present next.
Finally, headers and footers will help keep your name in the eyes of your audience. Many people like to print the PowerPoint presentations they receive. By placing your name in the corner of key slides, you can be sure your audience won’t forget who you are.
Add headers and footers to PowerPoint slides
Adding headers and footers to PowerPoint slides is slightly different than adding them to a Word document. The reason is that where the header and footer appear depends on the theme you choose for your presentation.
For illustrative purposes, we’ll be using the Civic theme, one of the more popular designs that comes with PowerPoint. You may need to experiment to make the headers and footers you add to your PowerPoint presentation look the way you want. Luckily, the options available for all themes when it comes to headers and footers are the same.
With a theme selected, click the Insert tab on the ribbon and locate the section of the ribbon labeled Text. Then click the Header and Footer button.
This will open the Header and Footer Options window. You will immediately notice that adding headers and footers to a slide is very different from adding to other applications.
First, note that you have no direct control over what appears in the title. For this area of ??the slide, you can choose to insert a dynamic date, fixed date, or slide number. By checking the Footer checkbox, you can add any text you want.
Note, however, that when you insert the header and footer into a PowerPoint slide, the information in these areas does not appear where you might expect.
The header appears in the lower right corner, the footer appears in the lower left corner, and the page number appears in a circle on the civic slide.
Second, you can apply the header and footer only to the current slide by clicking the Apply button, or you can apply them to each slide by clicking the Apply to All button.
This makes it much easier to add custom header and footer information to slides as you see fit. Also note that you can select the Do Not Show On Title Slide option to remove the header and footer from the first slide in your presentation.
There are two tabs at the top of the window. We are currently working on adding a header and footer to the slides themselves. You can also apply a different set of headers and footers to your presentation notes and handouts.
This is useful for keeping the slides you use on screen as clean as possible by adding information to notes and handouts that are often printed on paper for you and your audience.
The location of the header, footer, and page numbers on PowerPoint slides depends on the theme you choose. Once placed on your slides, however, they can be moved just like any other text box in your presentation.
However, leaving them where they are by default will create a neat and professional look, so be careful moving them around because you will have to move them manually on each slide.
This can create a cluttered look when looping through slides in your presentation if they are not perfectly positioned from slide to slide.
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