Work with handout masters

When you want to print handouts in PowerPoint, you can choose most of the handout settings in the print view.

But for a few handout settings, you need to change the handout master, a page that contains the master layout and properties for handouts.

I’ll show you what I mean.

Let’s say I am ready to print handouts for my presentation. I start by clicking FILE and then Print to open the print view.

There, I choose the type of handout by clicking the Page Layout button.

I select a handout, such as 4 Slides Horizontal.

Then I scroll down and choose a page orientation for the handout: either Portrait Orientation or Landscape Orientation. I’ll choose Landscape Orientation.

PowerPoint remembers these selections and chooses them automatically, the next time I open the print view.

Another thing I can do in this view is add header or footer text to the handout.

To do that, I click Edit Header & Footer at the bottom of the view.

In the dialog box, I make sure the Notes and Handouts tab shows.

To add a header, I check the Header box, type my text, and click Apply to All.

The header text shows in the print preview.

But, regarding the header and footer information, what if I don’t want the date to appear at all, or I want to reposition the header text and page number, or make them bigger?

To make such layout and formatting changes, I need to open the handout master.

I’ll start by going back to Normal view.

To open the handout master, you click VIEW and Handout Master.

On the HANDOUT MASTER tab, notice this group of options — they represent all the header and footer placeholders, and you use them to show or hide the placeholders on the master.

To hide any of them, like the Date placeholder, for example, you uncheck it.

It disappears from the master.

I don’t really need a text footer, either; I’ll uncheck that placeholder, too.

Note that if I later decide to have a date or text footer, I’ll need to recheck the placeholder boxes on the master.

Another thing I can do is format the placeholders. For example, I’d like the header to be centered.

I’ll select the header placeholder on the master.

Then, I’ll click the DRAWING TOOLS FORMAT tab, click Align, and Align Center.

That centers the placeholder.

To make the header’s font size bigger, I’ll leave the placeholder selected, click HOME, and increase the font size to 14.

Then, I’ll center the header text.

Pressing the down arrow, I’ll move the placeholder down, just a little bit.

Now, I’ll make similar changes to the Page Number placeholder.

I’ll center it using Align, and click HOME to increase the font size and center the page number.

To close the handout master, I click the HANDOUT MASTER tab and click Close Master View.

Now, I’ll reopen the print view to preview the handout and print.

In the print preview, the header and footer information now looks the way I want it to, reflecting the changes I made on the handout master.

These settings will be in place on all the subsequent handouts for this presentation.

I am ready to print!

For more information, see the course summary.