In the slide master if you mouse over any of the slides a pop-up shows how many slides are using the slide layout. How do you find out which slides are using a specific layout? I have some duplicate slides in my slide master and some of them are only used once by a slide. I want to find that one slide and change the layout so I can get rid of the duplicate in the slide layout.

Hi Sarah, Our training courses are very modular. Each module is developed as if it were a separate training course. When we create a new full course we import all the individual parts into an SL-file. With this, all master-files are imported as well Some functionality is to be kept on 1 master slide. So we re-apply the master on all our imported slides. The slidemaster we don't need we delete. Sometimes we forget to re-apply the master on a slide and can therefore not delete the master. To identify that slide, we change the background colour of the master slide we want to delete to, in our case red. When we then look at our course in course view, the slide stands out... Cheers geert

I recently found a solution to the impossible-to-find '1 slide' that used a particular Slide Master, even after going through every slide. A Draw from Question Bank uses the 'Blank' slide layout from whatever the first / top Slide Master is. It can't be changed, or even seen, at the slide level because the draw is not itself a slide. The solution is to delete the draw, then delete the now-orphaned Slide Master, and re-create the draw (which will now use the 'current' or top Master Slide blank layout. Hope this helps!

Hi Alan, No way to currently find that out. It would make a great feature request though. Always Happy to Help, Adrian

I see that this was asked back in 2012. Has this feature been added yet? I would love to be able to track down exactly which slides are using a specific master. Cheers! Sarah

Geert's trick is clever, simple and awesome! I love a quick and easy work-around for a missing function like this. Thanks very much!

How to find master slides being used? | Articulate

ChristineHendri
Former Staff
12 years ago

Hi there Sarah,

It may not be the quickest method, but you can find the Master for specific slides. First, select the slide (in either Slide View or Story View), then right-click on the slide. Select "Layout". A new menu will open for the layout options. The Master that's currently being used will be listed here and the slide being used from that Master will be highlighted.

It should look something like this:

I definitely agree that a little more specific information from the Master itself would definitely be a great option. Until then, hopefully this information will help!

If you haven't already, you may want to share a feature request with us as well.

Thanks!
AmandaBlakley1
Community Member
9 years ago
Geert, thanks for the clever trick! It was really quick and easy and saved me so much time.
ChristiePollick
Community Member
9 years ago
Glad to hear your are all set, Amanda! Thanks for stopping into let us know. :)
RaquelHernandez
Community Member
9 years ago
I just used the trick on the feedback master to change the layout on slide layers, and it was very useful seeing the bright color.
DebbieChaddock-
Community Member
9 years ago
Thank you Geert, this is brilliant. If only we could use the same method for duplicate Feedback Masters.
CharityDishon-F
Community Member
8 years ago
Hard to believe this is still an issue. I agree with Brett, it is tedious - especially when you have 100+ slides! I've just run into an issue where the Master Slide states it is used by 1 slide, but after going through every slide, I am unable to locate it. :(
DebbieChaddock-
Community Member
8 years ago
Hi Charity! I agree, and I took Brett's advice a step further. I added a dark red rectangle to every slide in the offending Slide Master set and Feedback Master set. It was much easier to hunt down the one or two slides that used the extra Master sets.

I guess in the end it's not a crucial issue to have the extra Master set; the project should run fine either way.
AshleyT-Pollard
Staff
8 years ago
I've seen a few discussions of users doing something similar to what you described Debbie. Additionally, if you look at importing the existing slides into a new .story file it should bring over only the slide masters that are actually in use by the slides you look at importing in.

Again, an extra one or two slide masters shouldn't be causing problems in your project - so they'd be safe to leave alone.
AshleyT-Pollard
Staff
8 years ago
Such a great point Kim - and exactly why we keep these discussions around.

If you needed to get in touch with Geert directly, he may no longer be subscribed but you could use the "contact me" button on his profile to reach out directly.
LeslieMcKerchie
Staff
8 years ago
Awesome! Thanks for popping in to share Stacey :)