Creating a style guide to keep the look of slides consistent in an organization Many of you will be familiar with the idea of using a template to give your slides a common look. A Master Slide (in combination with a Theme in PowerPoint 2007 and later) sets the background color, text colors and fonts and any branding on the slide. This way, every slide has a consistent look and the audience is not distracted by changing slide appearances. Some organizations take this idea one step further and create a style guide. Your template is one part of a style guide, but it goes further than just the look and feel. A style guide can contain elements such as: 1) Guidelines on when to use different slide masters If you are creating presentations that have distinct sections, such as a workshop, seminar or longer session, you may want to create multiple slide masters so that the graphical look indicates to your audience what this slide is about. For example, you may have one slide look for the start of a section and another slide look for introducing an exercise. This type of graphical cueing can increase the engagement of your audience. 2) Guidelines on the use of notes The Notes section of a slide can be used for speaking notes that you print to keep yourself on track. There is another use for the Notes section. When you are creating slides that people with disabilities will view, the Notes section