This may well be a fairly basic thing to answer, but I'm a programmer and not a Powerpoint user as a rule. I'm going to build a program that takes a template powerpoint and populates the placeholder fields with data on the fly for a number of slides.

I've already got an existing powerpoint document that somebody did and I'm going to use it as the basis of my template. The original document has colored bands going across the screen at the top and bottom as well as some graphics and text.

I imported one of these slides into my new powerpoint document using the reuse slide command and told it to keep source formatting. It imports, but the top colored bar isn't as tall as it used to be and the bottom one isn't as short as it used to be. I'm not sure how to edit them. I can't click on them to edit them and I'm not sure what part of Powerpoint I can use to adjust them. The only thing I've found is that ticking the hide background graphics checkbox makes them all vanish, but there seem to be no edit option in the format background section other than setting a new fill.



I'm using Powerpoint 2013.

Any help please?

There are a couple things to consider. First, was the original document also created in 2013 and second, are the document settings (page size, margin) the same. If it wasn't then you'll have to resize by hand in the Master Slide. In your document go to View > Slide Master. You can edit the bars from there.

Ok, thanks. It seems the main part of the master slide was where I needed to be looking.