Custom PowerPoint template

Upload a PowerPoint template for exports

Updated at August 9th, 2022

Specify a custom PowerPoint template so that Protobi exports charts into your presentation. 

Export charts into a blank template that has your colors, fonts and branding or export into a polished deck and just update the data in the existing charts.

Upload a template

The first step is to upload a template to your project.  

  • Go to the project settings "Data" tab 
  • Press + New document
  • Name the new file (i.e. template.pptx)
  • Upload your PowerPoint
  • lastly set "Is template" to "Yes" to bring up customization options

Customize layout and sizes

Each PowerPoint template is different, so the next step is to specify detailed settings.  At a minimum you need to specify  the page size, which slide layout to use for new slides, and optionally you can set things like chart size, location and font.

PowerPoint presentations come a wide variety of sizes.  You can check the size of your template in PowerPoint by selecting "Page setup..." from the File menu

The most common is now Widescreen (16:9) which is the current default for new presentations.   This is  proportional to the smaller On-screen Show (16:9) and the same height as Letter Paper (8.5x11 in) which was the prior default for new presentations. 

The most common aspect ratios are 16:9 and 4:3. This is the ratio of width to height for the drawing area, excluding the margin. Widescreen is 16:9 and letter size is 4:3.

Basic settings

Select the size of your presentation to populate the options with suggested defaults.  You can specify sizes in inches, centimeters or points using the suffixes "in", "cm" or "pt".

To choose a default slide layout, in your PowerPoint template press the "layout" button in the ribbon and identify the layout you want to use. Layouts are numbered starting from 1, the "Title only" slide below is called "slideLayout6". Make sure to use this naming convention when referencing the layout.

Set default template for the project

The next step is to set the default template for the project. Under the "Overview" tab of the project's Admin page, enter the template name:

Anytime data from the project is exported to PowerPoint, it will now be on a template that you created and customized. 

Update a report with new data

You can export Protobi charts as new charts on blank slides, but you can also connect Protobi charts to an existing report and just update the data in the slides. 

PowerPoint export options

You can choose PowerPoint export options from the Chart type dialog.

charts: Export to PowerPoint as native, editable charts. For some chart types, like Word Clouds, there isn't a native chart option in PowerPoint, so even if you select charts the export will be shapes.

shapes: Export as editable shapes and text.

image: Export as static image.

keep table: For Print layout charts, export legend, y-axis categories, and statistics columns as a table behind the chart.

update only: Only update the chart data and keep other chart formatting as it is in the template. This is for projects with custom PowerPoint templates.

Advanced support

Contact us at support@protobi.com to discuss data updates to your existing reports.

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