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Understanding Custom Layouts

First there was a slide master with a title master till PPT 2002. PPT 2002 introduced the concept of multiple masters - Designs. Each design contained a slide master and possibly a title master. Several designs could be stored within a presentation. This is discussed in detail in -  Multiple masters and how to access them. PowerPoint 2007 introduces a new concept - Custom Layouts. With it you can define any number of your own custom layouts associated with a slide master. Each design will contain one and only one slide master. But the slide master can contain several custom layouts which can be fully customized. Custom layouts inherit the slide masters properties like background, color etc. But these can be overidden. Let see how we can enumerate this information.

Sub EnumCustomLayouts()

Dim oDesign As Design
Dim oCL As CustomLayout
Dim lngLayoutCount As Long
Dim I As Integer

For Each oDesign In ActivePresentation.Designs
    lngLayoutCount = oDesign.SlideMaster.CustomLayouts.Count
    
    Debug.Print "Total number of custom layouts in design " & Chr(34) & oDesign.Name & Chr(34) & ": " & lngLayoutCount
    

    'Enumerate all the available layouts 

    For I = 1 To lngLayoutCount
        Set oCL = oDesign.SlideMaster.CustomLayouts(I)
        Debug.Print "Name of layout: " & oCL.Name
    Next
Next
End Sub

Sub AssignCustomBGTo1stLayout()

With ActivePresentation.Designs(1).SlideMaster.CustomLayouts(1)

    'The layout will inherit the background from it's parent - slide master - so override it.
    .FollowMasterBackground = False

    With .Background.Fill
        .UserPicture ("C:\Workarea\Documents\My Pictures\GaryGoh_A_1600x1200.jpg")
        .Visible = True
    End With
End With

End Sub

To assign a custom layout is equally straightforward. To assign the 4th custom layout to the slide, use -

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