How to Apply PowerPoint Template to Existing Presentation

If you want to learn how to apply a template to a PowerPoint presentation to enhance the design of your current presentation then here we will explain how to do it. First, you must browse or download a template you want to use. For example, let’s say that you downloaded one of our free business PPT templates from our site, and now you want to apply this template to your existing presentation. Below you can find a screenshot showing this free business presentation template.

How to Apply PowerPoint Template to Existing Presentation

To change the PowerPoint template for an existing presentation, you can open both presentations and arrange them together, as in the picture below.

Theme and template are different concepts in Microsoft PowerPoint.

While a PowerPoint Theme is a configuration of color schemes, fonts and other properties in a PowerPoint presentation, a PowerPoint template is a pattern or blueprint of a slide or group of slides that you save as a .potx file (although sometimes they are provided as .pptx files).

PowerPoint Templates can contain layouts, theme colors, theme fonts, theme effects, background styles, and even content like placeholders so you can easily edit it later.

Notice that the original layout used in the business PPT template is quite basic and not prepared for a widescreen monitor. However this article will show you how to change the aspect ratio of the presentation from a widescreen template (with a white background) to a 4:3 aspect ratio with the graphics and colors used in the business PPT template you downloaded.

Next, to change the PowerPoint template of the presentation, you can select all the slides from the original presentation (thumbnails section) where you want to apply the new Theme, and copy all of them to the clipboard (you can use CTRL-C to copy, or right click over the selection and click Copy option).

Finally, paste the copied slides into the business.ppt template and you will get a result like follows.

You may need to apply some adjustments in the final presentation, maybe in some of the slides. In this example, since the new template has new layouts that can be used, you may need to adjust the slide layouts in the final presentation. You can learn more about how to change layout in PowerPoint.

This approach works well if you already have an existing presentation in PowerPoint and you want to change the template in PowerPoint or if you want to apply a PowerPoint theme to your existing slides.

However, if you still need to start preparing your presentation content and design, you can start from scratch by downloading the business presentation template with the text placeholders and editing it. Then, save the presentation file using File -> Save As to specify a new output name.

Alternatively, you can explore other ways to change the templates. For example, SlideModel explains how to change template in PowerPoint with a step-by-step guide.