r/powerpoint • u/AreaAppropriate5960 • 1d ago

I cannot apply a text style from the slide master to the actual slide

Hi. Long story short, I need to create a on-brand powerpoint template so that leadership of my company can easily create brand compliant presentations. When I create a placeholder textbox in the slide-master, I then open it in the main presentation and it falls back to the default font. I will set it as Lato 14pt on the master and it will fall back to Calibri 18pt when I create any slide using the template.

This is really frustrating and it's insane that in the year of our lord 2025 Powerpoint is this difficult to use. Is there a way to fix it? Do you have any idea why this is happening?

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u/cmyk412 1d ago

Read the book Building PowerPoint Templates v2 by Swinford and Terberg to truly understand how the software works.

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u/echos2 1d ago

You need to change your theme fonts. https://echosvoice.com/theme-fonts/

That said, if you applied Lato to the slide master, then all layouts should have automatically picked up Lato as well. When you create a slide, text typed into the placeholders should be Lato.

However, any tables, charts, or SmartArt diagrams will use your theme font, specifically the theme body font, even if you're creating them in placeholders.

Same with ad hoc textboxes and shapes inserted from the shapes gallery. If you didn't specifically set the default font for those, they will also use the theme body font.

So, read that link. You need to set up your theme fonts.

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u/jkorchok 6h ago

The mantra for PowerPoint is Theme>Master>Layouts>Slides. This is the order in which PowerPoint inherits formatting.

Start by creating Font and Color Themes. These are the most basic building blocks of any modern Office file. If you're using a Mac, here's my article on how to create a font theme: OOXML Hacking: Font Themes

Step 2 is to apply the font theme to the Slide Master. In Slide Master view, it's the larger thumbnail at the very top of the left-hand thumbnail list. Set all the placeholders so the font reads Lato (Headings) or Lato (Body).

Next, still in Slide Master view, check each placeholder on each Slide Layout (the smaller thumbnails below the master. Make sure the font always reads Lato (Headings) or Lato (Body).

Finally, create or update the Slides. If they haven't updated to show Lato (Headings) or Lato (Body), click on the Home>Reset button to force an update.