The new slide that appears when you open PowerPoint 2013 has two placeholders, one formatted for a title and the other formatted for a subtitle. The arrangement of placeholders on a slide is called a layout.

When you add a slide to your presentation, do the following to choose a layout for the new slide at the same time:

1. In Normal view, click under the single slide thumbnail that automatically appears when you open PowerPoint.
2. On the Home tab, in the Slides group, click the arrow next to New Slide. Or, if you want your new slide to have the same layout that the slide before it has, you can just click New Slide instead of clicking the arrow next to it.

A gallery appears that displays thumbnails of the various slide layouts that are available.

 The name identifies the content that each layout is designed for.

 Placeholders that display colored icons can contain text, but you can also click the icons to automatically insert objects, including SmartArt graphics and clip art.

3. Click the layout that you want for your new slide.

The new slide now appears both on the left as a thumbnail, where it’s highlighted as the current slide, and as the large slide on the right in the Slide pane. Repeat this procedure for each new slide that you want to add.

Determine how many slides you need

To calculate how many slides you need, make an outline of the material that you plan to cover, and then divide the material into individual slides. You probably want at least:

• A main title slide
• An introductory slide that lists the major points or areas in your presentation
• One slide for each point or area that is listed on the introductory slide
• A summary slide that repeats the list of major points or areas in your presentation

So, if you have three major points or areas to present, plan for a minimum of six slides — a title slide, an introductory slide, one slide for each of the three major points or areas, and a summary slide.

If there’s a large amount of material to present in any of your main points or areas, you may want to create a subgrouping of slides for that material using the same basic outline structure.

Also, consider how much time each slide should be visible on the screen during your presentation. A good standard estimate is from two to five minutes per slide.

Apply a new layout to a slide

To change the layout of an existing slide, do the following:

1. In Normal view, click the slide thumbnail that you want to apply a new layout to.
2. On the Home tab, in the Slides group, click Layout, and then click the new layout that you want.

If you apply a layout that doesn’t have enough of the right kind of placeholders for the content that already exists on the slide, PowerPoint automatically creates additional placeholders to contain that content.

Copy a slide

Here’s a tip that might save you some time and work — to create two or more slides that are similar in content and layout, create one slide that has all the formatting and content that both slides will share, and then make a copy of that slide before you add the final, individual touches to each. Here’s how:

1. In Normal view, right-click the thumbnail of the slide that you want to copy, and then click Copy.
2. Right-click the slide thumbnail area where you want to add the new copy of the slide, and then click Paste.

You can also use this procedure to insert a copy of a slide from one presentation into another presentation.

Rearrange the order of slides

• In Normal view, click the thumbnail of the slide that you want to move, and then drag it to the location that you want.

To select multiple slides, press and hold CTRL while you click each slide that you want to move, and then drag them as a group to the new location.

Delete a slide

• In Normal view, right-click the slide thumbnail that you want to delete, and then click Delete Slide.

Source: Microsoft