Slide Masters and Layouts

pptx-automizer supports importing slide masters and their associated slide layouts into the output presentation. It is important to note that you cannot add, modify, or remove individual slide layouts directly. However, you have the flexibility to modify the underlying slide master, which can serve as a workaround for certain changes — each modification on a slideMaster will appear on all related slideLayouts.

Please be aware that importing slide layouts containing complex content, such as charts and images, is currently not supported. For instance, if a slide layout includes an icon that is not present on the slide master, this icon will break when the slide master is auto-imported into an output presentation. To avoid this issue, ensure that all images and charts are placed exclusively on a slide master and not on a slide layout.

Import and modify slide Masters

You can import, modify and use one or more slideMasters and the related slideLayouts.

To specify the target index of the required slide master to import, you need to count slideMasters in your template presentation. To specify another slideLayout for an added output slide, you need to count slideLayouts in your output presentation.

To add and modify shapes on a slide master, please take a look at Find and Modify Shapes — masters use the same selectors and modifiers as slides.

// Import another slide master and all its slide layouts.
// Index 1 means, you want to import the first of all masters:
pres.addMaster('SlidesWithAdditionalMaster.pptx', 1, (master) => {
  // Modify a certain shape on the slide master:
  master.modifyElement(
    `MasterRectangle`,
    ModifyTextHelper.setText('my text on master'),
  );
  // Add a shape from an imported templated to the current slideMaster.
  master.addElement('SlideWithShapes.pptx', 1, 'Cloud 1');
});

Any imported slideMaster will be appended to the existing ones in the root template. If you have already e.g. one master with five layouts, and you import a new master coming with seven slide layouts, the first new layout will be #6.

// Import a slideMaster and its slideLayouts:
pres.addMaster('SlidesWithAdditionalMaster.pptx', 1);

// Add a slide and switch to another layout:
pres.addSlide('SlidesWithAdditionalMaster.pptx', 3, (slide) => {
  // use another master, e.g. the imported one from 'SlidesWithAdditionalMaster.pptx'
  // You need to pass the index of the desired layout after all
  // related layouts of all imported masters have been added to rootTemplate.
  slide.useSlideLayout(12);
});

// It is also possible to use the original slideLayout of any added slide:
pres.addSlide('SlidesWithAdditionalMaster.pptx', 3, (slide) => {
  // To use the original master from 'SlidesWithAdditionalMaster.pptx',
  // we can skip the argument:
  slide.useSlideLayout();
  // This will also auto-import the original slideMaster, if not done already,
  // and look for the created index of the source slideLayout.
});

Please notice: If your root template and your imported slides have an equal structure of slideMasters and slideLayouts, it won't be necessary to add slideMasters manually.

If you have trouble with messed up slideMasters, and if you don't worry about the impact on performance, you can try and set autoImportSlideMasters: true to always import all required files:

import Automizer from 'pptx-automizer';

const automizer = new Automizer({
  // ...

  // Always use the original slideMaster and slideLayout of any
  // imported slide:
  autoImportSlideMasters: true,
  // ...
});

Import and modify slide Masters​

Import and modify slide Masters