Using PowerPoint Files

When using PowerPoint as the Document Type and an uploaded Template for the generated Financial Package report, ensure you can customize the look and feel of the generated Financial Package report for all slides in a single location. For example, you can add background images (such as Corporate logo), change color schemes, or apply different fonts and bullet styles. Financial Package uses the Slide Master from the uploaded template to generate the Financial Package (in PowerPoint, select View from the Ribbon and then select Slide Master). Therefore, you do NOT need to add any slides to the template to reflect the different styles to use during Financial Package generation (a template can be blank, saved successfully, and loaded to the Financial Package). The one exception is a Cover Slide, which is discussed below. Control the Cover Slide through Slide Master and the Slide Layouts contained within.

The Slide Master is usually made up of several different Slide Layouts which represent Title slides, Content slides, or different slide orientations. The following Slide Layouts are used by the Financial Package to generate Financial Package reports in PowerPoint.

• Title Slide Layout – used to generate the Financial Package report level slide (for example, the root level Financial Package member)

• Section Header Layout – used to generate the Group sections from the Financial Package report

• Title and Content Layout – used to generate all other sections within a Financial Package report (Text, Document, and Financial Report, for example)

The Slide Master allows you to design a template with appropriate styles which will be used in all generated slides. The following items can be set in the Slide Master, and Financial Package will respect them during report generation.

• Font color and size

• Bullet styles – such as circle or square

• Background style – such as image or color

• Theme – packaged set of formats including background style, bullet styles, and font colors and sizes

• Slide Orientation – portrait or landscape

• Slide Layouts – different slide types used depending on whether you are displaying content, images, or titles/section headers

The Slide Layouts that are created in a Slide Master in PowerPoint have a particular “signature”. This signature is a Microsoft identifier that can’t be modified and is used by the Financial Package to determine an appropriate template to generate the Financial Package. Therefore, you must use a Microsoft Slide Master that has not been modified as the baseline for creating your PowerPoint template. More specifically the Slide Layouts mentioned above should not have the following alterations made otherwise it will impact the produced Financial Package report.

• Slide Layout name change

• Removal of Placeholders. Placeholders are items such as text boxes, images, picture, chart, or table. You can modify Placeholders in terms of size and placement on the slide.

The recommended approach to working with a Slide Master is to start with the default PowerPoint Slide Master and then add items. For example a background color or image can be applied to the Slide Master, which means that all Slide Layouts will inherit this color or image. In addition, items such as footers with page numbers and dates can be defined in the Slide Master and applied to all slides. You can control the use of items in the footer by selecting Insert > Header & Footer in PowerPoint. You can control which items you want included in the template. For example you can control whether to include the date, slide number or footer for example. You can format these objects in the footer by selecting View > Slide Master.

Add a Cover Page to a presentation when the first page needs to be formatted differently from the other Slide Layouts in the Slide Master. A Cover Slide can be added to a template as an actual slide in the Normal View of PowerPoint. This Cover Slide can be formatted in any way. You can add images, background styles, text, and titles. When the template is used to generate the Financial Package, the Cover Slide is inserted as the first slide in the PowerPoint presentation with the formatting applied in the template (ignoring the Slide Master formatting). You can have more than a single Cover Slide. The Report Title slide will follow the Cover Slide(s).

Perform Template setup in the Microsoft PowerPoint application using the concept of a Slide Master. A Slide Master is the top slide in a hierarchy of slides. It contains information such as slide layout, font, and background. It also may contain placeholders (for titles for example) based on the setup. The benefit to using Slide Master is that you can make changes to the style of one slide and it will affect all slides in the group or hierarchy. The following items can be set in the Slide Master and the Financial Package will not change them during report generation.

• Font color and size

• Bullet styles – such as circle or square

• Background style – such as image or color

• Theme – packaged set of formats including background style, bullet styles, and font colors and sizes

• Slide Orientation – portrait or landscape

• Slide Layouts – different slide types used depending on whether you are displaying content, images, or titles/section headers for example

The Slide Layouts that are created in a Slide Master in PowerPoint have a particular “signature”. This signature is a Microsoft identifier that can’t be modified. This signature is used by Financial Package Publisher to determine an appropriate template for generating Financial Package reports. Therefore, it is recommended to use a Microsoft Slide Master that has not been modified as the baseline for creating your PowerPoint template. More specifically the Slide Layouts mentioned above should not have the following alterations made otherwise it will impact the produced Financial Package.

• Slide Layout Name – this should NOT be changed. For example, Title Slide Layout, Section Header Layout, and Title Content Layout

• Placeholders – these are items such as text boxes, images, picture, table, and chart. These items should NOT be removed from the default Slide Layouts mentioned above because they will impact the placement of text and objects coming from the Financial Package. These can be modified in terms of size and placement on the slide.

• Do not create your own Slide Layouts with the names mentioned above as they will not have the appropriate signature for use by Financial Package Publisher

The recommended approach to working with Slide Masters is to start with the default PowerPoint Slide Master and add items to customize.

Your Financial Package report is displayed based on the set up of your master slide in Slide Master. To access Slide Master, open Microsoft PowerPoint, click View, and select Slide Master.

Setting Up a Slide Master with a Cover Slide

In this example, a Financial Package report will be produced with a cover page that is different from the title slide and subsequent pages. The remainder of the pages may contain different reports, however, all reports will have the same layout.

The cover slide is set up as a slide in the PowerPoint template itself (not within Slide Master).

If this template is selected as the PowerPoint template in Financial Package Publisher and the Cover page is the page, then the Title page will contain the title of the Financial Package report and the remainder of the report pages will be displayed on the Financial Package Template designed.

Now, return to the Planful application and select the PowerPoint Template as the Template for a Financial Package report.

Add a section to the Financial Package report.

The Slide Title checkbox is selected so that the Name of the report (called Finance Report) appears on the generated slide in the report output.

Setting Up a Slide Master without a Cover

Sometimes you do not want a cover page. In this case the Slide Master setup will be the same as the setup in Example 1, but the cover page will be deleted. Therefore, you would have a PowerPoint template that is blank, there will be no slides.

When Example 2 (without a cover page) is selected as the PowerPoint Template, the Financial Package report is generated without the cover page; only the Title page and the Financial Package template are generated for the text section.

An error will occur when you open a Microsoft PowerPoint file attached to a generated email. Set component security settings back to defaults to avoid the error.

1. Open the Windows Control Panel.

2. Open Administrative Tools.

3. Open Component Services and expand the tree under Console Root to Computers, My Computer.

4. Right-click on My Computer and select Properties.

5. Select the Default Properties tab and set the following values:

• Default Authentication Level: Connect

• Default Impersonation Level: Identify