Presentation Designer: templates and coaching

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Before this course, and the designer's two jobs

In simple words

A bakery has a cake tin and a head baker. The tin makes every cake the right shape, even when a new baker uses it. The head baker watches the new bakers and helps them improve. A presentation designer makes the tin (the template) and is the helpful head baker (the coach).

Before this course: Presentation Craft: data, animation and delivery (course 13.3.3). You can already build clear chart slides, bring in Excel charts, control animation with the Animation Pane, use Morph, rehearse with Rehearse Timings and Speaker Coach, and present with Presenter View. At Expert level you build tools other people use, and you help other presenters get better.

Key facts

Three file types to keep apart:

File	What it is	Source
.pptx	A normal presentation	Everyday use
.potx	A PowerPoint template: a starting file with your slide master and layouts	Microsoft Support, Create and save a PowerPoint template
.thmx	A theme: colours, fonts and effects you can reuse	Microsoft Support, Create your own theme in PowerPoint

Microsoft: "To create a template, you'll need to modify a slide master and a set of slide layouts."
A template is a promise to its users: whoever starts from it gets the right colours, fonts and layouts without having to think.
Coaching means helping someone else's talk get better while it stays their talk. You do not rewrite their slides; you point to what to change and why.
Certification-level view. Microsoft's page for Microsoft Office Specialist: PowerPoint Associate (Microsoft 365 Apps) lists five areas assessed on its exam (MO-310): manage presentations; manage slides; insert and format text, shapes and images; insert tables, charts, SmartArt, 3D models and media; apply transitions and animations. Microsoft says candidates should have about 150 hours of instruction and hands-on experience, and the assessment gives 50 minutes. This course does not award that certification.

Step by step

Open your final project from course 13.3.3 and list which slides you had to fix by hand (fonts, colours, positions). These are the jobs a good template should do for you.
Write a one-paragraph "template brief": who will use the template (for example, your class for science reports), what kinds of slides they need, and what must always look the same.
List the slide types you need, for example: title, section header, title and content, one chart with a source line, two content columns, closing slide.
Read the five MO-310 areas and tick those you have practised in courses 13.3 to 13.3.3.
Find one presenter (a classmate) who agrees to be coached during this course.
Check: you have a template brief, a list of slide types and a presenter to coach.

Watch on YouTube

How to avoid death by PowerPointTEDx Talks · YouTube · youtube.com

Videos by other creators on YouTube, for reference. They are not made by or affiliated with The Future Market.

LESSON 01Before this course, and the designer's two jobs

LESSON 01 / ANIMATED LESSON / AI VOICE00:00 / 01:00

Voice

Read the video script

[Host] "At Expert level, you stop making only your own slides."
[Text on screen: Template = the cake tin. Coach = the head baker.] "You build the tin everyone uses, and you help other presenters get better."
[Text on screen: .pptx · .potx · .thmx] "A presentation, a template and a theme are three different files."
[Host] "Start with a brief: who will use your template, and what must always look the same?"

Try it now

Write your template brief and show it to one future user (a classmate or teacher). Ask them which slide type they use most, and add anything they mention to your list.

ClaudeStuck? Copy a ready-made prompt for Claude

Copy this, open Claude, paste it, and Claude will walk you through the lesson step by step.

For a grown-up: Claude is for adults (18+). Copy this, paste it into Claude, and use the answer to explain the lesson to your child.

I'm learning "Presentation Designer: templates and coaching" on The Future Market. Lesson 1: "Before this course, and the designer's two jobs".

What the lesson teaches:
- Three file types to keep apart:
- File - What it is - Source
- .pptx - A normal presentation - Everyday use
- .potx - A PowerPoint template: a starting file with your slide master and layouts - Microsoft Support, Create and save a PowerPoint template
- .thmx - A theme: colours, fonts and effects you can reuse - Microsoft Support, Create your own theme in PowerPoint
- Microsoft: "To create a template, you'll need to modify a slide master and a set of slide layouts."
- A template is a promise to its users: whoever starts from it gets the right colours, fonts and layouts without having to think.

The exercise I'm working on:
Write your template brief and show it to one future user (a classmate or teacher). Ask them which slide type they use most, and add anything they mention to your list.

I'm stuck. Please:
1. Explain the main idea in plain, simple words with one everyday example.
2. Walk me through the exercise one small step at a time. Ask me what I've done so far before giving the next step.
3. Don't just give me the final answer. Help me do it myself, and check my work when I share it.

I'm a parent helping my child (about 8 years old) with a lesson called "Before this course, and the designer's two jobs" from the course "Presentation Designer: templates and coaching".

Here's what the lesson says:
A bakery has a cake tin and a head baker. The tin makes every cake the right shape, even when a new baker uses it. The head baker watches the new bakers and helps them improve. A presentation designer makes the tin (the template) and is the helpful head baker (the coach).

The activity:
Write your template brief and show it to one future user (a classmate or teacher). Ask them which slide type they use most, and add anything they mention to your list.

Please explain this so an 8-year-old understands: short sentences, a fun everyday example, and no hard words.
Then give me 3 simple questions I can ask my child to check they understood, and a way to do the activity together, one tiny step at a time.

Open Claude

Sources

Microsoft Support, Create and save a PowerPoint template: support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/create-and-save-a-powerpoint-templa
Microsoft Support, Create your own theme in PowerPoint: support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/create-your-own-theme-in-powerpoint
Microsoft Learn, Microsoft Office Specialist: PowerPoint Associate (Microsoft 365 Apps): learn.microsoft.com/en-us/credentials/certifications/mos-powerpoint-as

My notes

I learned this

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