[mdawson]

In PowerPoint 2004, when I try to set up the default title slide for a presentation Title Slide is grayed out in View:Master. Ironically, new presentations open on a title slide by default, but for some reason I cannot access the master view. I have tried repairing permissions and removing the preferences for PowerPoint in vain. Any ideas on how to correct this problem would be greatly appreciated.

[maczan1205]

Have you tried holding the shift key down when selecting the slide view?

[mdawson]

I did not know about that feature, but it is also in vain. Even when I hold the shift key and switch to Slide View the effect is the same as selecting View:Master:Slide Master even though the slide I was on is a title slide. I tried accessing some older presentations today and it seems that I can access the title master on those presentations that already have one, but if a title master does not already exist, PowerPoint will not permit me to create one. I find that rather odd as the slide that is present when I open a new document is a title slidewhen I add additional slides the default design is a bulleted list slidebut under no circumstance will PowerPoint allow me to create a title master. The default title slide is treated as just another slide; that is, if I apply a graphic to the slide master it will appear on the initial slide despite the fact that the slide is formatted as a title slide by PowerPoint.
If I recall correctly, I also had this problem intermittently in PowerPoint 2001, but at the time I attributed it to lack of experience with PowerPoint; I did not have to do as many presentations as I do now. It seems to be an issue with PowerPoint for the Mac.

[maczan1205]

That is strange, for curiosity I tried opening a blank presentation and used the shift key + slide view and it switched to the master slide no problem. (office 2004 - version 11.3)
Have you updated recently? Perhaps something got corrupted?
Have you tried re-installing office?

[maczan1205]

Sorry after re-reading your original post I realized you were talking about the "New Title Master"
Try in a blank / new presentation.
Switch to Master view and then in the insert menu < "New Title Master"
Once you create the new title master it will no longer be greyed out.

[mdawson]

Thanks for the advice, inserting a new Title Master from the Master view mode seems to work. Given that a new document has a title slide as the first slide by default, a user should not have to go through that many steps. Unintuitive; typical Microsoft. I probably figured that out at some time previous, but unlike Word and Excel, it is not too often that I have to create a new document in PowerPoint and even when I do, many of them start out in Windows.