How to keep a slide presentation theme that you can continually update and version over time

Question

How do you create a slide template in Google Slides that you can add to and alter over time and which makes it easy to create new presentations in that style?

In Keynote you do it like this:

1. Create a presentation
2. Save a new theme (as a file in a folder on my computer)
3. Next time I make a presentation I choose that theme that I saved to start with
4. If I make any changes to the master slides, I then save a new theme again (as a file in a folder on my computer) and use that new theme the next time I create a new presentation

In Google slides I can't find a way to "save the theme" except by simply saving the file (which obviously happens automatically). Is there a way that I don't know about?

Answer 1

In Google Slides there isn't a special file type for presentation templates / themes. What about this.

1. Create a folder and name it "My themes"
2. Create a new presentation
3. Customize the presentation theme
4. If you have not created the presentation on "My themes" folder, move it to this folder.

The next time that you want to use one of your themes, you have two options

1. Make a copy
2. Import the theme

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From Change the theme, background, or layout in Google Slides:

Import new theme

Note: Your imported theme must be from an existing Google Slides or PowerPoint presentation. You can also use your own image as the background for the entire presentation.

1. On your computer, open a presentation in Google Slides.
2. At the top, click Slide > Change theme.
3. In the bottom right, click Import theme.
4. Double-click the presentation you want to use.
5. Click the theme you want.
6. Click Import theme.

Answer 2

Good question. Adding custom templates is supported in Google Slides, but this may be limited to Google Workspace users (e.g. this admin guide is for Google Workspace, but there's no equivalent for personal users).

Assuming you're using a personal Google account, as a workaround I suggest maintaining your template document as its own presentation, which you can either copy to use it as a template, or use Slides - Change Theme - Import Theme to reuse the custom theme in another presentation.