If you've added footer information (such as slide numbers or the date) to your slides but they still don't appear, the likely problem is that footers are currently turned off in Slide Master view. Read on for instructions on how to turn on footers in Slide Master view.
Turn on the display of footers for a specific layout
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Select the slide you're having trouble with.
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On the View tab, select Slide Master.
In Slide Master view, the layout for your slide appears in the main pane.
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On the Slide Master tab, in the Master Layout group, select the Footers box:
In the main pane, immediately you should be able to see the footer placeholders on the slide layout. If that doesn't happen, skip to the next procedure, Turn on the display of footers for a slide master.
Turn on the display of footers for a slide master
In step 3 above, if PowerPoint doesn't accept your selection of the Footer box, it means that footers are turned off in the hierarchical parent of the current layout—which is known as the slide master. In that case, we first need to adjust that setting, then repeat the procedure above.
In the procedure above, you attempted to edit a slide layout. The following picture shows the left-hand thumbnail pane in Slide Master view. It depicts two layouts that have a parent slide master:
The slide master and its child slide layouts are part of the theme that is applied to your presentation.
If you have multiple themes applied to different parts of your presentation, then in Slide Master view there will be a slide master corresponding to each theme.
As the picture shows, layouts are indented under the slide master. For the next procedure, you have to locate and select the parent slide master of the layout you're attempting to edit.
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In the thumbnail pane, select the slide master.
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On the Slide Master tab of the toolbar ribbon, select Master Layout.
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In the dialog, turn on the Date, Slide number, and Footer options, then select OK.
At this point, all layouts that are subordinate to this slide master have the ability to show footer information. You just have to turn on footers for each layout in turn. Select a layout in the thumbnail pane, then follow the instructions in the first procedure above, Turn on the display of footers for a specific layout, beginning with step 2.
Background information about slide layouts and slide masters
If you are new to editing in Slide Master view, see What is a slide layout? and What is a slide master? for more information.
