How do you lock elements in a Powerpoint page so they cant be moved?

Anonymous
2011-10-14T00:56:46+00:00

How do you lock elements in a Powerpoint page so they cant be moved?

Can you lock and unlock a given element on a page?

Microsoft 365 and Office | PowerPoint | For home | Windows

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

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Steve Rindsberg 99,176 Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
2011-10-14T15:22:13+00:00

There are lots of good reasons why you might want to lock a shape in place, and some of us have been begging for this feature for years.  I've even written this into a couple of my add-ins but haven't ever done 'em for Mac.

One workaround is to use a new master and put the "locked" content on the master.  Users won't be able to select it/move it while editing slides based on that master.

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  1. Steve Rindsberg 99,176 Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2016-05-14T16:48:34+00:00

    As Jim points out, learning how to work with themes will be very helpful. 

    At root, though, unless you can get your team members to cooperate on a set of standards (theme, template in use, presentation aspect ratio), the problems you describe won't go away.

    If everyone standardizes on the same theme and the same slide size and a short list of fonts to use when it's necessary to choose non-theme fonts, most of the problems you describe will go away.

    Incidentally, if you need more information on this topic, visit Echo Swinford's site, www.echosvoice.com

    She and Julie Terberg (www.terbergdesign.com) have written THE book on creating templates/themes for corporate/branding purposes. 

    Building PowerPoint Templates - Step by Step with the Experts

    Full disclosure: Both of the authors are friends and colleagues, both are PowerPoint MVPs, as am I, but I've no financial interest in the book.  Other than the fact that I've already bought two of them.  One real book, one for the e-reader.

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  2. Jim G 134.1K Reputation points MVP
    2016-05-13T18:41:44+00:00

    While it is not possible to lock positions in PowerPoint it is very easy to make an Office Theme that adjusts fonts and placeholder positions and sets colors for an entire presentation in a single click. 

    If you're not familiar with Themes (.thmx) files then I think you should take the time to learn about them. They may be just what you need.

    To make an Office theme, in a new, blank presentation switch to Master Slide view. Set the page size and format the slide master's background. Go to the Format menu and choose Theme Colors. Set the colors as desired. Then, on the slide master use Command-A to select all the elements at once and apply the font family you want.

    If you want to add/remove/edit slide layouts, do that now.

    When you're ready to save everything as a theme, click the Themes button on the Slide Master tab of the Ribbon and choose Save Current Theme.

    Return to Normal View and your theme will now show up in the RIbbon when you click on Themes,

    Distribute the .thmx file and save it in the same location on each workstation. When you want to enforce the theme simply apply it.

    As a bonus, theme fonts and colors also become available in Word and Excel. When a Theme is applied in all Office apps the colors and fonts chosen apply to many ingredients such as charts, Excel tables, WordArt and SmartArt.

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  3. Anonymous
    2016-05-12T21:31:36+00:00

    When our teams use PPT, our information needs to look the same regardless of the author (within our  own team). The people we present to have visibility to the work from 2, 3, or 4 of us, and thus when one comes in with content on 4:3 format, and the next one comes in with the same content on 16:9, and the other one has a different color for certain box, or when someone else copy and pasted their favorite font things go horribly wrong. Not to mention the other comment when someone puts a picture\snip to a page, and now EVERYTHING has to be re size\removed. Net, there are many reasons why i would like to have\control key elements of the design of the page. Having format\colors...etc break when you copy and paste or add pictures is not acceptable.

    PPT maybe a small portion of MS, but IMO this is a pretty basic functionality of PPT. Apple is successful because they have 10 times that work right as opposed to 101 things that are either not working right, user does not even know they exist, it takes google to find the answer (much like this thread)

    Let nobody get offended, but we spend too much time realigning, format, boxes, colors where we should focus on content

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  4. Steve Rindsberg 99,176 Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2015-11-14T18:08:22+00:00

    Please do read Jim Gordon's post above and follow the link he provided (and I've copied below)

    This forum is for user-to-user support.  MS folks sometimes check on threads here but it's not intended to be, and isn't, a direct shout to MS' ear.

    Uservoice is a good way to let MS know what we want and how many of us want it.  You can request features, vote on features that have already been requested and apply more than one vote to the features you REALLY want.

    The most up-voted feature requests are the ones most likely to get implemented.

    http://powerpoint.uservoice.com/forums/288925-powerpoint-for-mac

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