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PowerPoint Template Checker
Drop a .pptx and get an instant report of everything that breaks your corporate template: fonts and colours outside the theme, text outside placeholders, tiny type, pictures without alt text, missing titles, shapes hanging off the slide and stray slide masters. Add your official .potx to compare the deck against it.
Your file never leaves your device
The check runs entirely in your browser. Nothing is uploaded, stored or sent to offgen or anyone else, so you can check confidential client and deal material. Macros in .pptm files are never executed: only the slide XML is read.
Runs locally in your browser. No upload.
Checking is the first step. offgen keeps every new slide on brand. See how
Optional: compare with your official template
Add the .potx or .pptx your brand team publishes. The checker then compares theme fonts, theme colours, masters and layout names with it.
What the checker looks at
Eight groups of checks, run on every slide. Each finding names the slide and the shape and tells you how to fix it in PowerPoint.
Fonts
Fonts in text runs that are not the theme heading or body font.
Colours
Hard-coded colours on text, fills and lines that are not in the theme palette.
Placeholders
Text typed into free text boxes instead of the layout placeholders.
Font sizes
Text below 10 pt, and slides that mix more than five font sizes.
Accessibility
Pictures without alt text and slides without a title.
Position
Shapes that hang over the slide edge or sit completely outside it.
Masters and layouts
Extra or unused slide masters and unused layouts from foreign templates.
Reference template
With a reference: differing theme fonts and colours, foreign masters and layouts.
What each check means and why it matters
A deck can look right on screen and still be built against its template. These are the eight things that most often cause rework, broken layouts and brand reviews.
01
Fonts outside the theme
Every template defines a heading font and a body font. Text that points to another font, often Arial or Calibri from a pasted slide, does not change when the template is updated and may be substituted on machines where the font is missing. Theme references such as +mj-lt and +mn-lt, and the theme fonts written out by name, pass.
02
Hard-coded colours
Colours picked from the theme palette follow the template when it changes. A colour typed in as a hex value stays exactly as it is, even after a rebrand. The checker lists each off-palette colour with how often it appears, which usually reveals a handful of leftovers from an old corporate design.
03
Text outside placeholders
Placeholders carry the template's position, size and text styles. Text typed into a free text box ignores all of it, does not appear in the outline view and does not move when you switch layouts. Text boxes are warnings; labels inside drawn shapes are listed as info because diagrams need them.
04
Small and inconsistent font sizes
Text below 10 pt is hard to read on a projector and in print. Many different sizes on one slide are a sign of manual formatting instead of the template's text levels. The checker reads sizes that are set directly on the text; sizes inherited from the layout are not counted.
05
Alt text and slide titles
Screen readers announce pictures by their alternative text and slides by their title. Titles also drive the outline view and slide navigation. Pictures marked as decorative in PowerPoint pass.
06
Shapes off the slide
Anything that extends beyond the slide edge is cut off in the slideshow, in PDFs and in print. Content parked completely outside the slide is invisible but still inside the file, which matters when decks go to clients. Shapes are measured by their frame without rotation.
07
Slide masters and layouts
When slides are pasted with their source formatting, PowerPoint copies their master into the file. After a few projects a deck can carry several masters and dozens of layouts, and colleagues pick the wrong ones. More than one master, or a master no slide uses, is the clearest sign of foreign or legacy templates.
08
Comparison with your official template
Add your published .potx or .pptx as a reference and the checker compares the deck's theme fonts and colour palette with it, and flags slide masters and layouts whose names do not exist in the reference.
What the checker does not do
- It does not render slides, so it cannot judge spacing, alignment or visual balance.
- Fonts and sizes inherited from layouts and masters are not resolved; only formatting set on the slide itself is checked.
- Charts, SmartArt, embedded objects and pictures of text are not inspected.
- It never changes your file. Fixes are made in PowerPoint.
Step by step: checking a deck against the template by hand
The guide walks through the same checks inside PowerPoint, including Slide Master view, the Selection Pane and the Accessibility Checker.
Read the guideFrequently asked questions
Is my presentation uploaded anywhere?
No. The file is opened by JavaScript in your browser tab and analysed on your device. There is no upload, and nothing is stored or sent to offgen or third parties. Once the page has loaded you can even disconnect from the internet and the check still works.
How is this different from PowerPoint's Accessibility Checker?
PowerPoint's built-in Accessibility Checker focuses on accessibility, for example alt text, slide titles and reading order. This tool also covers accessibility basics but adds template and brand checks: theme fonts, theme colours, placeholders, slide masters, off-slide content and a comparison with a reference template. The two complement each other.
Why does a deck that looks fine get a low score?
The score measures how the deck is built, not how it looks. A slide can look on brand while every font is set by hand, colours are typed in as hex values and text sits in free text boxes. Such decks break when the template changes, when slides are reused or when someone switches the layout.
Can the checker fix the issues automatically?
No. The checker is read-only and never changes or saves your file. Each finding tells you which slide and shape it concerns and how to fix it in PowerPoint. To fix them at the source, offgen works inside PowerPoint: it brings existing decks onto your approved master and creates new slides directly on it.
Prevent template breaks instead of hunting for them
offgen creates slides on your approved master, so fonts, colours and placeholders are right from the first draft. Existing decks move onto the master with the offgen agent in PowerPoint, and every deck built with a skill can be checked against your brand rules before export.
Cross Consult has started moving its legacy decks onto a new corporate design with offgen. Read the story