Master Files Overview

An overview of Master files.

Standardizing a report template helps an organization agree on a Document or Presentation report style across all the teams.

Master files or base templates contain a standardized template for a Document or Presentation report. These documents contain standard definitions for word styles, designs, header/footer sections, and so on. Using master documents ensures uniform report generation every time. In the Report tool, the master documents are the starting point for all Document and Presentation report creation.

Word Master

A Word master file must contain placeholders for the following components:
  • Table of contents
    Note: When exporting a Word report, a Word processing application is required to auto-update the Table of Contents.
  • Table of figures
  • Table of tables
  • Table of references
  • Style formats (available in the Styles ribbon)
There are other elements which are not mandatory, but a Word master file may contain:
  • Headers/footers
  • Page numbers
  • Watermark images
  • Design and borders

PowerPoint Master

You can create PowerPoint master files based on the following approaches:
  1. Slide Master Layouts - PowerPoint master files based on Slide Master Layouts must contain placeholders for the following elements:
    • Slide masters
    • Secondary slides with image, text, and table placeholders
    • Style formats (available in the Styles ribbon)
  2. Slides with Existing Content - Presentation master files based on slides with existing content must contain sample images, text, and table data. This sample data will later be replaced while exporting a report.
  3. Slides with Generic Placeholders - Generic placeholders for image, text, and table placeholders. This allows you to open the Presentation reports in open source applications such as Google Docs and LibreOffice.
Tip: While creating a layout, follow a sequence for creating the content placeholders. You can use the Edit Master feature in the respective applications.

You may arrange the content (image, text, or table) shapes in your application by dragging text within the selection pane or using the right-click context menu. By default, a newly added item appears at the top of the list. Use the Z-Order technique for arranging the shapes in the slides.

During PPT export, order is decided based on the list in selection pane.