Manage presentations
What the exam expects
Managing a presentation is about deck-level settings, not individual slides. Know the three masters - Slide Master, Handout Master, Notes Master - and what each controls. The Slide Master stores theme fonts, theme colors, background graphics and placeholder geometry for every layout beneath it; editing a layout affects only slides using that layout, while editing the top-level master affects all of them. Footers, dates and slide numbers belong in Insert > Header & Footer, never typed by hand.
Traps
- Mark as Final, Inspect Document and password protection are not interchangeable. Mark as Final is advisory and trivially removed; Inspect Document (File > Info > Check for Issues) strips comments, notes and off-slide content; only Encrypt with Password actually restricts opening or editing.
- Changing slide size offers Maximize (content stretches and may land off-slide) versus Ensure Fit (content scales down).
- Embed fonts works for TrueType fonts only and inflates file size; “embed only the characters used” blocks later text editing.
- Export to video needs recorded timings and narration to look right; PDF export flattens animations and transitions.
- Review > Compare merges a second file into the open one and lists differences in the Revisions pane - you still accept or reject each change.
- Custom Slide Shows and Set Up Slide Show (speaker vs kiosk/browsed) control what the audience sees without deleting anything.
Worked example
You must stop the company logo from appearing on every slide of a template. Deleting the picture slide by slide fails because it lives on the master. Go to View > Slide Master, select the top-level master thumbnail, delete the picture, then Close Master View - every layout inherits the change. If instead you only need the logo gone from the Title Slide, edit just that layout.