Guide
How SlideFit maps slide layouts
A layout is a named arrangement of placeholders: a title box, a subtitle, a body, sometimes a picture. SlideFit does not invent a new design. It scores the template’s layouts and puts your content in the winner. The preview names that choice, for example “Title and bullets · Title and Content”.
How a source slide is classified
- Table. If the slide contains a table, it is a table slide even if it also has a title. Cell text is kept. The table is drawn in the body placeholder and tinted with the theme accent.
- Image and text. Any other slide with a picture. The title is the title placeholder, or the top text box if the author did not use placeholders. Remaining paragraphs become the caption.
- Title. The first slide, when it has no bullets and no picture. A subtitle placeholder becomes the subtitle.
- Section header. A later slide whose only text is a short title, about eight words or fewer, with no subtitle and no bullets.
- Title and bullets. Everything else that has a title or a list.
Placeholder type wins over guesswork. A shape marked ctrTitle is the title even if a text box sits higher on the slide. Loose text boxes, like the picture slide in the Northwind sample, are ordered from top to bottom. The first one becomes the title.
How a layout is chosen
Names matter. “Title Slide”, “Section Header”, “Title and Content”, and “Picture with Caption” are strong matches for the four kinds above. Placeholders break ties: a centred title plus a subtitle beats a body layout for an opening slide. A picture placeholder beats a plain content layout for a photo slide. Layouts whose names include “vertical” are pushed down the list so a normal deck does not land on the vertical-text layout.
If the template has none of the usual names, the score falls back to placeholder types. A layout with a title and a body still receives bullets. A layout with no placeholders gets the content in a safe margin inside the slide size, and the master still shows behind it.
Where the text is written
Each new slide is a real slide part linked to the chosen slideLayout. Title text goes in the title or centred-title placeholder. Bullets go in the body or object placeholder, with a level so the layout’s bullet style can apply. Picture bytes are copied into ppt/media and placed in the picture placeholder, letterboxed so the aspect ratio survives. Geometry comes from the layout, or from the master when the layout placeholder does not set its own position. That is why a widescreen template does not keep the coordinates of a 4:3 source.
The free watermark is an extra slide on the Title Slide layout. It is content, not a stamp burned into your pictures, so Pro can omit it entirely.
What this mapping will not do
It will not recreate a two-column comparison that used text boxes with no placeholders, except as a single bullet list. It will not split one source slide into two. Charts, SmartArt, speaker notes, and animations are not rebuilt. Inline formatting — bold, colour, and links — is not kept. Video and equations are not kept either. If that slide matters, copy it from the original onto the new master by hand after the bulk of the deck is converted.
Try it on the samples: Northwind’s seven slides should land on Title Slide, Section Header, Title and Content, Picture with Caption, then Title and Content again. Open SlideFit.