Format templates

Created: 2026-08-02 12:00 · Updated: 2026-08-08

With a format template you capture the complete look of the table of contents and divider slides once and apply it to any new agenda with a single click. The principle is "template by example": you design a sample slide in the normal PowerPoint way, and PPPTools reads from it how your agenda should look.

Opening the Agenda template designer

The former "Template" tab in the Agenda panel is gone. Designing templates now lives in its own "PPPTools: Agenda templates" task pane. You open it with the ribbon button 🎨 Agenda-Vorlagen in the Tools group — right next to the Agenda button.

The designer has four tabs — Vorlage (Template), Varianten (Variants), Design, and Optionen (Options) — plus a fixed footer.

"Vorlage" (Template) tab

Here you open, name and manage your format templates and create the sample slides.

Under Vorlage zum Bearbeiten (Template to edit), the Vorlage field picks the template you want to design — independently of which template the deck uses. These buttons act on it:

You create a new template like this:

1. Enter a name — in the Name (neu/umbenennen) field.
2. 🧩 Muster-Folien erzeugen (Generate sample slides) — PPPTools creates tagged sample slides for the table of contents and dividers, which you can design freely.
3. Design — adjust font, colours, positions and background in the normal PowerPoint way; the tools for placeholders, decoration and title targets are on the Design tab, the named variants on the Varianten tab.
4. 💾 Als Vorlage speichern (Save as template) — at the bottom in the footer. Same name = update the existing template, otherwise a new one.

"Varianten" (Variants) tab

A format template can contain several named variants — for the table of contents (ToC variants) and for divider slides (divider variants). That way you keep, say, a compact and a detailed ToC overview, or several divider looks, in one template.

• Each sample slide is a variant with its own name and its own preview image (thumbnail).
• You add variants with ➕ ToC-Variante, ➕ Text-Trenner (text divider) and ➕ ToC-Trenner (ToC divider); 🔄 Liste aktualisieren (Refresh list) re-reads the list and makes sample slides copied inside PowerPoint independent (new names/ids).
• Exactly one variant per collection is marked as the default. On Save as template, all sample slides are taken over as variants; if a collection is missing its single default, the save step reports it.

Selection in the deck: which variant a deck uses is chosen not here, but in the Agenda panel:

• The deck-wide ToC variant on the Presentation tab via the ToC-Variante dropdown (only shown when there is more than one variant).
• The divider variant per agenda item in that item's row (only shown when there is more than one divider variant).

"(Default)" or an empty field means: the variant marked as default.

"Design" tab

Here you shape how the sample slides behave: individual placeholders on the text divider, the decoration layer, and the title targets in the slide master.

Own fields on the text divider

On the text divider sample slide, Responsible, Time slot, Duration and Own column are separate elements you can position and format freely. You add them via the Platzhalter einfügen (Insert placeholder) chip palette and arrange them anywhere on the slide.

On save, the template remembers position and style for each captured field; on generation, each captured field appears in its own place. Fields you do not capture as a separate element still appear collected in one meta row — so older templates behave unchanged.

Marking decorative elements

Not every element of a sample slide is content — much of it is pure design: a coloured bar, a logo, an ornamental shape. So that PPPTools redraws this decoration on generation (instead of confusing it with content placeholders), you mark it explicitly:

• 🎨 Auswahl als Deko markieren (Mark selection as decoration) — flags the selected objects as decoration.
• ✖ Deko-Markierung lösen (Clear decoration mark) — removes the mark again.

Elements marked as decoration are cloned faithfully onto every generated slide; they follow the variant currently chosen. The mark itself is invisible and affects neither printing nor export.

Title targets on the layout

Once per layout you determine in the slide master which placeholder carries the main title and which the subtitle. This solves corporate masters that ship without a native subtitle placeholder. In the slide master, select the placeholder on the desired layout and assign it:

• Auswahl → Haupttitel-Ziel (Selection → main-title target) — the selected placeholder becomes the target for the main title.
• Auswahl → Untertitel-Ziel (Selection → subtitle target) — the selected placeholder becomes the target for the subtitle.
• ✖ Titel-Ziel-Markierung lösen (Clear title-target mark) — removes the mark from the selection.

Only placeholders can be marked, not the content placeholder that holds your slide text. The mark applies to all content slides of that layout. It is stored locally on the layout in the deck/master — not in the portable template — and stays with the master (including in new decks from that master). More on this under Title management.

"Optionen" (Options) tab

This holds template-wide options; the area grows with future enhancements. Whether this deck is generated with a corporate master layout or neutrally is set not here but in the Agenda panel on the Layout tab — that is a deck setting, not a template property.

The footer

Regardless of the active tab, two buttons are always reachable at the bottom:

• 💾 Als Vorlage speichern (Save as template) — reads the formatted sample slides, saves them as a template and then clears the sample slides away.
• ✖ Abbrechen (Cancel) — removes the sample slides again without saving.

Applying a template

Applying happens in the Agenda panel, not in the designer. Switch there to the Presentation tab, pick the desired template under Format template (and, with several variants, the ToC variant if needed) and click ✨ Generate at the bottom. You set the master layout on the Layout tab. The table of contents and dividers are created in the saved look — switching template changes only the design, your agenda items stay untouched.

Portability: templates are local

Format templates are stored on your computer, not inside the presentation. If you send a finished presentation to another person, they will see the generated slides in full — but your template is not available to them. If that person wants to generate new agendas from the same template, the template must be shared separately.

Related pages: Layout from the master · Title management · Layout · Presentation