Best practices for applying an updated theme

Aug 24, 2019

Allan Dunlop
By Allan Dunlop

Hello, all.

I'm often making changes to my design theme as I add new course features. When I apply it to my many course modules, I often get several versions of the same theme applied to different slides (see attached image). I have to go in and change many slides over to the 'new' theme's layouts--even though the theme and layout names have not changed.

Phil Major's suggestion of adding a distinctive object to the previous masters/layouts to see where they're being used is a huge help in this (I use a large star shape that extends beyond the layout's borders).

Whenever an updated theme is applied, this conversion process can take a great deal of time. Is there some way I can have the project recognize an update to a theme, and not use two or more versions of the same theme?

Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

Allan

5 Replies
Lauren Connelly
over 4 years ago08/27/19 at 7:45 pm (UTC)

Hi Allan!

Thank you for sharing that image with us! We are all for a quick workflow, so I understand how that would be time consuming.

This sounds like the perfect way to use Slide Masters. Especially if the changes are being made course by course.

This support article explains everything you need to know about using slide masters for cohesive content.

Allan Dunlop
over 4 years ago08/28/19 at 7:11 pm (UTC)

Thanks, Lauren.

I'm using masters quite extensively. The trouble is that when I apply an updated theme including them, I get some slides in the project using masters from the earlier version, and others that have masters from the new version applied to them.

I've found it reduces this if I create a blank project with the updated theme applied to it, and import the existing project into it. There are often instances where I still have to go through and apply the new masters to many of the slides.

I was just wondering if there was a way to reduce or eliminate that additional work.

Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard
over 4 years ago09/03/19 at 8:13 pm (UTC)

Hi Allan,

A theme will include slide masters if present, and won't overwrite your existing slide masters either. 

Similarly, importing in a .story project into a new project will carry over its master slides as well. So there may have to be some slide master clean up that occurs whichever direction you go with editing content. 

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