Slide Master:
The slide that stores information about the design template applied, including font styles, placeholder sizes and positions, background design, and color schemes.
Design Template:
A file that contains the styles in a presentation, including the type and size of bullets and fonts; placeholder sizes and positions; background design and fill color schemes; and a slide master and optional title master.
Slide-Master Title Pair:
The slide master and title master for a given design template that you have applied to a presentation.
Prevent a slide master from being deleted
In some cases, Microsoft PowerPoint automatically deletes a slide master when all the slides that follow that master are deleted, or when another design template is applied to all the slides that follow that master. You can "preserve" a master so it isn't automatically deleted in these cases.
- On the View menu, point to Master, and then click Slide Master.
- In the thumbnails on the left, select the slide master you want to preserve.
- On the Slide Master View toolbar, click Preserve Master
If you don't want to preserve the master, just click this button again.
Notes
- A master can be deleted manually even when it has a "preserved" setting.
- In a slide-title master pair, preserving one master automatically preserves the other.
- A slide master is preserved by default in some cases: when you insert, copy/paste, or drag a slide master into master view or when you add a new design template in master view (which automatically inserts a new slide master)