Apply Master to ALL Notes Pages in MS PowerPoint

Epiphany number 3,812!!

After years and years of wondering what on earth is going on at Microsoft that they have done no feature changes of significance to PowerPoint, and frustration whenever I change the Notes Master, that I must go to every slide, one by one, and right click on the notes page, click on Notes Layout, select Reapply Master, then click OK (that is 4 clicks per slide!) a solution has landed!!!

Check out the video of this:

Now, in order to implement this, you must have the “Developer Tab”.  By default, this tab is not present. 

So the first step is to enable this tab. 

Select FILE, then select Options, and a dialogue box will pop up.  In that box, select “Customize Ribbon:

You will see on the right (highlighted) that you need to select the Developer box.  Then click OK.

You should now see the Developer Tab.

Click on the Developer Tab.  Select Macros.  In the Macro Name box, type: ApplyMasterToNotes, then click Create.

A dialogue will open.  Paste the following code in between the “Sub ApplyMasterToNotes()” and “End Sub”

' Modified version of code originally posted to
' msnews.microsoft.com public newsgroups by
' David Foster in May of 1999
'
' Further modified on 2/25/21 by Andrew Walding for Office 365
' bug that removes the slide image from the Notes page.
' See commented lines below.

    Dim ctl As CommandBarControl
    Dim oSl As Slide

    ' 700 is the control ID for Layout
    Set ctl = CommandBars.FindControl(Id:=700)
    ActiveWindow.ViewType = ppViewNotesPage

    If (ctl Is Nothing) Then
        MsgBox "command not available"
        Exit Sub
    End If

    For Each oSl In ActivePresentation.Slides

        ' go to the current slide
        ActiveWindow.View.GotoSlide (oSl.SlideIndex)
        DoEvents

        ' Bring up the dialog
        ctl.Execute
        DoEvents

        ' Send the r keystroke to reapply master
        SendKeys "%r{enter}"
        DoEvents
        
        ' If you notice that Powerpoint removes the slide image
		' after running this macro, the comment out the SendKeys and DoEvents above
		' uncomment the SendKeys and DoEvents lines below and running
		' the macro again.
		' Reinsert the slide image
        'SendKeys "%s{enter}"
        'DoEvents

    Next

 

I suggest you apply this to all presentations so this Macro is available. Now close the dialogue. Don’t worry it saved.

Now, go to the View Tab in PowerPoint. Select the Notes Pages View. Click back on the Developer tab. Select Macros. Your Macro is waiting. Select it and run it, and watch every note page get adjusted. What a great feeling!

Once done, save your presentation.  You will have to save it as a “Macro Enabled” PowerPoint – FYI.

Now seriously, how hard would it be for Microsoft to incorporate this as an option?

Enjoy!

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