Question / Answer text positioning for custom MC template (using Slide Master)

Nov 16, 2015

Hi all,

I've been searching for a bit for a solution to this, so I thought I'd pose the question here.

I'm customizing my Slide Master setup so that I can have consistent looking slides and questions across the team. In customizing a slide for a Multiple Choice question layout, I can't figure out how to 'assign' the question text to a particular text placeholder; the same is also true for the MC answer choices. In my images you can see how I set this up, and then the results when I try and use this layout.

We use titles on the slides, and then I would like for the existing text area for the question to be a reserved space (s visual cue of the length limits we'd like to softly impose). And of course the third area would be for the MC choices.

I tried renaming, hoping that they were assigned by name, but it didn't seem to make a difference. I tried restacking the order of layers, and still have the same result. Do I need to add a dynamic text are and call in the question text and choices from there? Not quite sure how to get this squared away.

Thanks,
-Tim

 

4 Replies
Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard

Hi Tim,

When setting up the slide masters, the "title" field will always be the question text and then the first "choices" option will default to the possible answers. So it looks like you may want to move the location of the title to where you currently aren't showing the "question" text and then you'll have to manually enter the title text no matter what. 

Tim Jeter

Ashley,

Thanks for the answer. I did start to lean in that direction yesterday; the title is something that is typically entered manually, but that brings up another question: is there a variable that I can call on that will populate the title field? Something like %slideTitle% or currentSlideTitle% - something like that?

Also, one more quick question: in the attachment, what is the difference between the two text box icons? They appear to be the same on-screen; I can never add one like the lower one, just the upper one? What's the difference (I'm guessing it's something to do with templates only)?

Thanks!
-Tim

Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard

Hi Tim,

The slide titles are ones that you manually create, so there isn't a built in variable for them (or if you're referring to the slide numbers, or similar those system variables aren't accessible). 

As for the image, it's a title placeholder vs. a text box placeholder. You'll see it says "master title" vs. "master text". There can only be one title placeholder per slide - and it's can be added/removed using the small checkbox for title next to "insert placeholder".

There is more information on working with slide masters here. 

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