Definition: The Master Slide is the design template or design theme used for the slides within your presentation. There are four different master slides -- title master, notes master, handout master and the most common, the slide master.
The default design template when you first start a PowerPoint presentation, is a plain, white slide. This plain, white slide and the font choices used on it were created in the slide master. All slides in a presentation are created using the fonts, colors and graphics in the slide master, with the exception of the Title slide (which uses the title master). Each new slide that you create takes on these aspects.
Many colorful, preset design templates are included with PowerPoint to make your presentations more interesting. To make global changes to your slides, edit the master slide rather than each individual slide.
Also Known As: The term master slide is often used incorrectly when referring to the slide master, which is only one of the master slides.
Examples: Mary did not like the color choice of the design template. She made a change to the master slide so that she did not have to change each slide individually.
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