Master slide deck for multiple presentations

Hi Luke,

To address your concern, we suggest that you check the article: Apply one or more slide masters to a presentation and refer to Copy and paste a slide master from one presentation to another.

Let us know how it goes.

Hi,

Thanks for the input. I was hoping for a more automated solution as I need to change a large number of presentations (>100), so I don't really want to do each presentation manually.

I also need to future proof the process as much as possible as at my organisation we often being out more modern and stylish templates. I don't want to have to update each presentation each time.

All our slides use slide masters in their respective presentations, but ideally I would have only one slide master for all the presentations to use.

Regards,

luke

You should be able to automate the process with code. It would be easiest if all were in the same folder (make sure you use copies!) Obviously change the paths to suit your situation.

Sub EveryPresentationInFolder()
' most code taken from www.pptfaq.com
   Dim sFolder As String
   Dim sFileSpec As String
   Dim sFileName As String
   Dim oPres As Presentation
   ' Edit this:
   sFolder = "C:\Users\Optiplex\Desktop\ppt\"      ' must end with a \ character
   sFileSpec = "*.PPTX"
   ' Get the first filename that matches the spec:
   sFileName = Dir$(sFolder & sFileSpec)

   While sFileName <> ""
      Set oPres = Presentations.Open(sFolder & sFileName, msoFalse)
      Call oPres.ApplyTemplate(Environ("APPDATA") & "\Microsoft\Templates\testing.potx")
      oPres.Save
      oPres.Close

      Set oPres = Nothing
      ' Once done, see if there's another presentation that meets our spec
      ' then around the loop again
      sFileName = Dir()
   Wend
End Sub

The code that John's provided in his answer is the best bet.

There's no way to have presentations A, B, C ... etc. refer back to a single master deck so that changing the master deck *automatically* updates all of the decks that are based upon it. 

A cleverly written add-in might be able to, as each presentation is opened, check which master file the presentation is based on and the most recent update date of the master, then look at a central repository of masters and if the presentation's date is earlier than the repository's version, do the update (using the code John's posted or an adaptation of it).

Of course, this would only work if the repository is available; it could be local to the user, or on a network.

Thanks guys, I'll give the code a go. I'm not really much of a coder but I should hopefully be able to get it working.

I like the idea of an add in. All our documents are on a local network which means it should be possible to follow Steve's proposed strategy. I just now need to find someone at work who is more tech savvy to write it for me!

Thanks for the help.