Slide Master & Linked Slides

Jun 11, 2013

I have a duplicate slide master and want to delete it however it is linked to a slide and don't know which one to relink to the current master,

Is there a way to locate a specific slide master to a specific slide?

15 Replies
David Anderson

Hi James - 

You're right that when you hover over a slide master/layout slide, there's no indication which slide/s is using that layout. 

A quick way to identify the slide/s is to put a large, contrasting graphic on the slide master. Return to story view and you can quickly identify the slide/s based on that layout.

The other option is to right-click slides in story view and choose Layout to view the slide master currently applied. 

Phil Mayor

David Anderson said:

Hi James - 

You're right that when you hover over a slide master/layout slide, there's no indication which slide/s is using that layout. 

A quick way to identify the slide/s is to put a large, contrasting graphic on the slide master. Return to story view and you can quickly identify the slide/s based on that layout.

The other option is to right-click slides in story view and choose Layout to view the slide master currently applied. 


Great idea

Allan Dunlop

Thanks for this, David. Since reading this about a month ago, I've used this a lot.

Here's something I find happens now and then. In addition to my primary slide master in a project, I'll have one or more slide masters with layouts that are shown to be linked to a slide ("used by X slides"), but there is no corresponding slide visible in story view. As a result, I can't delete these extra masters.

Do you have any idea how these false links come about, and how I can remove them?

Allan

Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard

Hi Content Dev, 

I don't see where Allan shared his file, so I'm not certain if there was something specific causing his issue. If your experiencing some odd behavior with your Storyline file, I'd suggest to start by checking the following:

  • Work on your local drive (your C: drive).Working on a network drive or a USB drive can cause erratic behavior, includingfile corruption, loss of audio, and other unexpected behavior. test
  • You should also make sure the directory pathto your project files and your published output is less than 260 characters(for example C:\Articulate).
  • Avoid using special characters, accents orsymbols in your file names.

Also, you may want to try importing the existing project into a new Storyline file to see if that resolves any lingering issues.

If you're still experiencing some difficulty with it, can you share your .story file here so we can take a look, or if you'd prefer send it along to us privately. 

Marcus White

Hi All,

I thought I'd comment as we have just had the same issue and none of the suggestions helped solve it.

I then realised that the file contained a question bank that was no longer used.  As it doesn't appear within the Story view or when you preview the file, we hadn't realised it was still there.  Deleting the questions, allowed us to delete the unwanted master slides and layouts.

Anyway thought i'd share in case it helps anyone else save a few hours of their life.

Marcus

 

Prospect Digital

Hi,

Was this ever resolved? 

I have been using a course as a template to start new courses. Seems like the master slides are remembering old slides as they have extra slides - not being used in current course.  When hovering over thay say things like " Layout 36 Used by -20 slides" or "Layout 23 used by -1 slide".

 

Yes I've checked and double checked they are Not being used by anythink. I've also deleted Q banks, even though i never use Q banks.

Regards,

Mark

 

Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard

Hi Mark,

This thread is a bit older, but our team is aware of an issue where the master slide count is not being accurately reflected as you mentioned. Our team is looking into this further, and in the meantime you can right-click on the master slide for the layout(s) showing incorrect usage counts and un-check the 'Preserve Master' option (if it's not checked, then check it, and then un-check it).

Unchecking 'Preserve Master' will force SL2 to re-calculate all of the layout usage and should get everything back to normal. You can re-check that option afterward without it harming anything, but be  sure to save the project immediately afterward to make sure that the updated counts are persisted.

Once I have additional information to share we'll post an update here as well. 

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