UpSlide's administrator option allows you to set up your own automated template or modify existing ones. This article will introduce you to all the elements that take part in making an UpSlide template to get a better understanding of the feature. 

Preparing your presentation

Creating presentation layouts

To create an UpSlide template, you can use your company's existing template as a base. Its Slide Master should have a collection of layouts such as a title slide, a closing slide, slides with contents, etc.

If you're not familiar with the Slide Master or how it works, you can have a look at Microsoft's documentation.

You can see your presentation's available layouts by clicking the Layouts button in the UpSlide ribbon, as shown in the example below:

Setting a colour palette

You should make sure your template has a colour palette.  Setting a colour palette for your presentation will change the colours available by default in PowerPoint's menus, such as font colour, shape fill, and shape outline. It will make your company's colours easily accessible.

To create your template's colour palette:

• Go to your presentation's View tab, then click on Slide Master.
• Click on the Colors dropdown menu in the Slide Master tab and Customize Colors...
• Select your company's colours in the appropriate fields, select a name and click Save. 

Selecting a template

If you open a presentation that wasn't created with UpSlide, the Table of Contents section of the UpSlide ribbon will read Set up Agenda. Click on it to start your design process.

You can select one of the following preset designs:

• Light
• Standard

Use the table below to see which options are available in each design to pick the one that would work best for your template. You can switch designs later if you wish, but changing the design delete your changes.

If you already have an automated UpSlide template created by our teams, open it using the Templates dropdown button, return to your blank template and use Pick up from open presentation to import its TOC Options to your new design.

Getting to know the Slide Master

Once you’ve selected a Light or Standard template, UpSlide will import all the automation elements into your template’s Slide Master. To access the Slide Master, go to PowerPoint > View > Slide Master.

On the left side, where you can preview your template’s layouts, you’ll see two sections. The first one contains your original template with your presentation’s available layouts. The second section is for UpSlide elements. Both are necessary for the automation to work. The distinction is important because to set up the Agenda, you’ll need to modify the slide’s layout and the automation slides.

The five grey automation layouts contain the elements that you will modify later. If you put your mouse on each slide to display their names, you’ll find in order:

1. Table of content Storage Layout
2. Section Divider Storage Layout
3. SubSection Dividers Storage Layout
4. Reminder shapes Storage Layout
5. UpSlide Breadcrumbs (Disabled) Layout

Where to go from here

Now that your template contains UpSlide's automated slides, you can customise it to fit your desire. To update your template, click Options in the References section of the UpSlide ribbon.

The Options pane will open with several tabs. Below is the list of tabs available to all users and unrelated to agenda design.

• Agenda > Display Options - It contains the available detail level of the agenda for the current presentation. This tab is available to all users.
• Footers - This tab is available to all users. Footers contain reminders of a presentation’s title, confidentiality level, etc.
• Footnotes - This tab is available to all users. For more information, click here.

The following articles will relate to each different tab in the Agenda's Options pane that you will be using to automate your template.

• Agenda
• Section Divider
• Subsection Divider
• Appendix Divider
• Reminders
• Advanced Options
• Template