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Guides and editions for PowerPoint templates
A guide tells the assistant how a recurring presentation is made, so each new one comes out the way you want. An edition is one presentation made from the template, such as this week's post. Guides and editions work for PowerPoint templates the same way they do for Google Slides templates.
Write a guide
Only the project owner and administrators can write a guide.
- Open the project's settings and go to Templates
- Open the PowerPoint template and click Guide
- Describe the presentation as a whole: what it is for, how often you make it, and what the file should be called
- Go through the slides and give each one a role
| Role | What the assistant does |
|---|---|
| Keep | Leaves the slide exactly as the template has it |
| Fill | Replaces the content, following the instructions you wrote |
| Repeat | Makes one copy of the slide for each item in your list, such as one per region |
| Optional | Deletes the slide when it does not apply this time |
| Remove | Always deletes the slide |
For a slide that repeats, you can add a default list of items. The assistant uses it when you do not give a list.
To mark a spot to fill in, type a name in double braces in the slide text, for example . Add a field of the same name in the guide and say what belongs there. The guide warns you about a name that has no field, and about a field whose name is no longer on a slide.
Make an edition
Ask the assistant for the presentation in your own words, for example "make this week's post". It reads the guide, asks you for numbers it does not have, and saves the new file in your workspace as a copy of the template. Each copy remembers which template and which version of the guide it came from.
Ask for it to look like last time
Earlier editions are the presentations Hub made from the template. Ask for "last week's post, with this week's numbers" and the assistant reads the most recent edition, keeps what stays the same, and changes what should change.
The same editions help when you write a guide. Ask the assistant to draft one from earlier editions: it compares them, sees which slides change and which stay, and proposes roles and instructions that you can edit.
When the template changes
When you publish a new version that drops or replaces slides, guidance for a slide that is gone is not lost. The guide lists it under No longer in the template. For each one you can:
- Move it to a slide that has no guidance yet, or
- Remove it
Editions made before the change stay as they were.
Next
- Desktop basics – share a PowerPoint template with your team