Setting PowerPoint templates to designs tailored to brand guidelines or specific presentation needs might require adding picture placeholders to make it easy for end users to insert pictures. You can add a PowerPoint picture placeholder and customize the slide design using simple methods.
How to Add Insert Picture Placeholder in PowerPoint
When creating PowerPoint templates and designs and looking to answer questions about how to start a presentation or end a presentation, picture placeholders can do wonders for your slide design. Enabling you to create a feel for your presentation using appropriate images.
Step 1: Open Slide Master and Select a Layout
To insert a picture placeholder in PowerPoint, go to Slide Master via the View tab and open an existing or create a new layout to make a slide design with a picture placeholder.
Step 2: Insert a Picture Placeholder
From Slide Master, go to Insert Placeholder -> Picture to add a picture placeholder in PowerPoint. Using this option, you can create a design with a picture placeholder in Slide Master by creating a new layout or adding the placeholder to one of the slide layouts. If added to the Master Slide, the placeholder will appear on all slides.
Step 3: Close Slide Master
Once you have added the placeholder to your desired layout, close Slide Master and return to check how the placeholder appears on your selected layout.
Step 4: Select Layout with Picture Placeholder
Go to Home -> Layout and select the layout to which you added the placeholder. In this example, we will select the Title Only slide since we added the placeholder in Slide Master to the Master Title Slide.
Adding a Picture to a Picture Placeholder
Once you have added a placeholder and selected the layout, double-click the placeholder and select a picture to insert into your slide.
When designing a slide with a PPT placeholder, you can use various slide titles and related text to make your picture stand out.
Tips to Stylize the Picture Placeholder
To adjust or stylize the picture placeholder design, you can use the Picture Format tab to remove the picture background, adjust image colors and transparency, add a picture frame, align and crop the image, etc.
Using Picture Styles
Below is an example of how you can add a picture frame to stylize your added image further.
Picture Borders, Effects, and Picture Layout
While you can add borders and picture effects, the Picture Layout menu in the Picture Format tab provides interesting options for stylizing your image with text and shapes.
Picture Transparency
Another neat trick to make your image stand out is to use the Transparency option in the Picture format tab to adjust the transparency according to your specific design needs. You can also access this and other options via the right-click menu using Format Picture.
How to Change Placeholder Shape
Now that you know how to add an image placeholder in PowerPoint, let’s look at how to change the placeholder shape.
Step 1: Go to Slide Master and Select a Layout
Go to View -> Slide Master and select the layout where you wish to add the placeholder. In this example, we will add placeholder and change its shape using the Master Title Slide.
Step 2: Insert a Picture Placeholder
Now, go to Insert Placeholder -> Picture to add a standard picture placeholder on the slide.
Step 3: Change Placeholder Shape
You can change the shape of the added placeholder by selecting it and going to Picture Format -> Change Shape via Slide Master. Simply select a desired shape to change the shape of the placeholder.
Step 4: Preview the Placeholder and Close Slide Master
Preview the changes to ensure that the placeholder is to your liking, and close Slide Master to start using the layout with your custom placeholder.
Step 5: Select the Placeholder Layout
You will be required to select the layout with the placeholder to view it. Once selected, you can add images to your placeholder to design your slides.
Once the layout is selected, double-click the placeholder to add a picture.
The example below shows two shapes used for picture placeholders with images added. In this example, we used placeholders with varying shapes for a Master Title Slide layout and added images.
Tips for Quickly Designing Slides with Picture Placeholders
While adding a picture placeholder is easy enough, making the design look professional can be challenging. Below are a few quick tips to make your slide designs look professional by making a few adjustments to the slide design.
Use a PowerPoint Theme
Once picture placeholders are added, you can go to the Design tab and pick a default theme via the Themes menu to quickly design your slides.
Change Slide Background Style or Color
You can create slide backgrounds with images, gradients, solid colors, and patterns via Picture Format -> Format Background. This can be an easy method to quickly design slides with an image or color as a background to make your slides look professionally designed.
By experimenting with colors and other design options for your background, you can give a unique look to your slides with picture placeholders.
Design Suggestions with PowerPoint Designer
When designing slides, you can always use the AI-powered design feature provided by PowerPoint, which is known as Designer. You can access PowerPoint Designer via Design -> Designer to instantly get design ideas for your slides.
The below example shows how we redesigned the Master Title Slide with two images by picking a suggested design via PowerPoint Designer.
Fixing Compatibility Issues when Slides are Exported to Google Slides
When PowerPoint slides with images are exported to Google Slides, such as for use with Google Slides templates, you might notice jagged edges of curved shapes, or the shapes might not render in the original shape format. If you face any issues with exported images with picture placeholders, you can fix this by going to Crop Image in Google Slides and selecting a compatible shape. You can pick a shape via the Shapes menu or create other placeholders with arrows, callouts, or equations.
Usually, you might be able to prevent the issue by using standard, compatible shapes that are usually available in Google Slides. The use of simplified designs might also help better rendering. Either way, you can change the shape to a more compatible version in Google Slides to resolve the problem.
FAQs
A picture placeholder is a box to add a picture to PowerPoint. It is a pre-designed box that can be added to create a space for inserting images for templates and layouts.
You can insert a picture placeholder in PowerPoint via View -> Slide Master -> Insert Placeholder -> Picture.
Yes, you can insert a picture placeholder in an existing PowerPoint slide by editing the slide layout in Master Slide.
Yes, you can resize a picture placeholder in PowerPoint by dragging and dropping it using its corners.
Once you select an image, it will be automatically adjusted according to the picture placeholder in PowerPoint.
Final Words
Image placeholders can help add visual appeal to slides by ensuring they don’t appear dull due to an overload of text. Images can also help explain certain concepts better, make the design appear fresh, and create a feel based on the presentation topic by conveying a visual message.
You can add picture placeholders in PowerPoint via Slide Master to an existing or new layout. If added to the Master Slide, the placeholder will appear on all slides in the presentation. However, if added to a specific layout, it will be limited only to that layout, which can be selected anytime in Normal view. You can also create custom layouts with picture placeholders to use them according to need.
To change the space of a picture placeholder in PowerPoint, go to Shape Format -> Change Shape in Slide Master view to switch to any available shape. If the slide is to be exported to Google Slides and you find the shape incompatible, a compatible shape in Google Slides can be selected via Crop Image. Using this option, you can use regular shapes and callouts, arrows, and equations as image placeholders. You can avoid compatibility issues with Google Slides by using simple shapes and designs to improve the rendering for picture placeholders exported from PowerPoint to Google Slides.
Other than adding image placeholders, you can also consider adding multiple images using the method explained in our tutorial about how To insert many pictures into Individual slides in PowerPoint. This can be one handy method to make an engaging presentation when considering how to make a presentation stand out using novel methods to add visual appeal to PowerPoint slides.
