Let’s look at how to edit Design Ideas in PowerPoint.

If you’re like me, you probably love the Design Ideas slides in PowerPoint.

Design Ideas is available in PowerPoint for Office 365.

Design Ideas in PowerPoint

You can find the DesignIdeas option on the Home tab…

Design Ideas in PowerPoint

Or, as you create your presentation in PowerPoint, the Design Ideas pane may appear on your screen.

PowerPoint displays a gallery of professional design ideas for the slide you are currently on on this pane.

Change Design Ideas Slide

Scroll through the suggestions, click the design you like most, and your slide will suddenly be transformed into that design.

Change Design Ideas Slide

I use this all the time. I do not mind telling you that I’m not creative.

I know what I like when I look at it, so I skim through these all the time, looking for slides that will give my PowerPoint presentation a little bit more ‘pizazz’.

But what I found was that when I wanted to edit design ideas slides and make changes to the objects on them, I couldn’t select them.

However, when I used the Selection Pane, I could!

Edit Design Ideas slides

To open the Selection Pane, on the Home tab go to the Editing area, click Select and then Selection Pane and turn it on. 

BTW, if you still have the Design Ideas pane displayed, you might like to turn this off so that you have more room on your screen.

Change Design Ideas Slide

The Selection Pane allows you to select the objects on the slide.

Just click on each object listed on the pane, and you will see that you are actually selecting the object on the Design Ideas slide.

For example, clicking on ‘Oval 26’ on the Selection Pane will select the small grey circle in the centre of the slide.

Change Design Ideas Slide

Once the object is selected, you can change its format (colour, outline, etc.) or delete it.

Change Design Ideas Slide

However, it’s not as easy if you want to move or resize an object.

Here’s a workaround to move and resize objects on a Design Ideas slide

You may have noticed that you can’t select the object to move or resize it, which can be a pain.

Whenever I have an object in the way, not placed where I want it, too big or too small, I just select it using the Selection Pane, delete it, and manually replace it.

If you’re unsure how to do this, please watch my video to demonstrate how I did this.

It’s not ideal, I know, but it will give you a workaround.

By the way, manually changing your slide doesn’t change the Design Ideas slide, so you will need to do this for every slide that you need updated.

Watch the powerpoint make changes design ideas slides tutorial

[Watch on YouTube]  /  [Subscribe to our YouTube Channel]

Was this blog helpful? Let me know in the comments below.


Sharyn Baines
Sharyn Baines
Certified Microsoft Office Specialist

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32 Comments

  1. Wonderfully helpful! I’ve been wanting to do this for, like, YEARS!

  2. Not necessarily for public reading, but as an FYI…to return the favor, I tried to share on Facebook, but when the link is clicked in Facebook, a 404 page is shown…

  3. Thank you so much for this! I love Design Ideas formats but often abandon them because of colors – really appreciate you sharing this and your instructions were so clear. Thank you, thank you!

  4. Thank you so much for letting us know. Really appreciate it! We’ll check it out.

  5. This is exactly what I was looking for! I could not even find this information on the official Microsoft pages. Thank you!

  6. Thanks Jessica. You are so welcome. I’m so glad it helped you out!

  7. I’m so happy it was helpful Mohammad! Thank you for letting me know it helped 🙂

  8. I don’t have the editing section and options on my Mac. Is it somewhere else?

  9. Hi Penny. I did write this post for Windows but I beleive you can access the Selection Pane option from a different tab. First select any shape on your slide (if you don’t have one just draw a temporary shape and then delete it latter). Then go to the Shape Format tab and then click the Selection Pane button. The selection pane will be opened at the right side of the slide. Please let me know if this worked for you and I’ll add the instruction to the blog post. Thanks!!

  10. I’m missing the editing area in my version of Powerpoint on Mac, can anyone help?

  11. Hi Michelle. Thankfully we had a lovely contributor who uses a Mac share ‘how to find the Selection Pane on a Mac’ on our YouTube Channel. This is what Katie wrote: “Thank you for this video! I use a Mac and had trouble finding the selection pane tool, so I figured I would comment for anyone else struggling with this. On the home tab, select arrange, and then you will see selection pane. Then make changes as this wonderful video shows! This is a game changer for me, seriously! THANK YOU!” You can check out the video and Katie’s comment here https://youtu.be/4u9bex_Hhs4 I hope it helps.

  12. THANK YOU!! So frustrating to see those weird little design details and not be able to fix them.

  13. So happy we could help! Thank you so much for letting us know 🙂

  14. Thanks, this is helpful. Just got a PPTX for use as a speaker at a conference, and it must have been set up with Design Ideas – couldn’t do anything, no layout (my usual approach(!

    So I opened Selection Pane and think I found a way to change objects – there’s a padlock on the right that is open for some, closed for others – click on it to open it, then all the editing can be done – pretty cool!

    I would probably take the objects and put them on layouts in Slide Master. Maybe Microsoft had that in mind – these ARE just ideas, right?

    Thanks again!

  15. Thanks Vern! I’m so glad our blog helped! Putting the objects into the Slide Master is a great idea!

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