How Do I Use Brand Templates?

Import your PowerPoint template (.potx or .potm), add layout descriptions, link slide rules — and every AI-generated presentation follows your brand.

Brand templates let you bring your organization's colors, fonts, layouts, and decorative elements into Rideful. Once imported, AI agents automatically discover your template and use it to create brand-consistent presentations — no manual formatting needed.

Tip: Enable extended thinking on your AI assistant for the best results with templates. The extra reasoning time helps the agent match content to the right layouts and follow your brand guidelines more carefully.

Step 1: Import Your Template

Go to the Templates page in your Rideful dashboard and upload a .potx or .potm file. You can drag and drop or use the file picker.

Rideful extracts everything from the file:

• Master slide — background layer with logos, decorative shapes, and default styling
• Layouts — each slide layout with its placeholders, positions, and sizes
• Theme colors — 6 accent colors plus dark/light pairs
• Fonts — heading and body font families
• Sample slides — starter slides included when creating a new deck from this template
• Images — embedded logos, backgrounds, and other media

If any fonts from your template aren't in Rideful's font library, you'll see a warning with the font names. You can override them on the template detail page.

Step 2: Review and Configure

Click into your template to see the detail page. Here you can review and adjust:

• Master slide preview— a live thumbnail of the background layer
• Theme colors — all accent colors displayed as swatches with hex codes
• Fonts — heading and body fonts with live previews. If a font isn't available, you can override it with a different one from the font picker
• Layouts — browse all layouts in grid or list view, each with a thumbnail and placeholder info
• Sample slides — the starter slides that come with the template

Step 3: Add Layout Descriptions

This is the most impactful step for AI quality. Layout descriptions tell AI agents when and how to use each layout. Without descriptions, the agent has to guess which layout fits each slide's content. With descriptions, it picks the right layout every time.

Switch to list view on the template detail page to see each layout with a text area for its description. Write a short explanation of when to use the layout and any content guidelines. For example:

Use for section dividers between major topics. Keep the
title short (3-5 words). Subtitle should preview what
the next section covers. Dark background with the accent
bar on the left.

The template detail page tracks how many of your layouts have descriptions — aim for full coverage.

Step 4: Link Slide Rules

Optionally, link a slide rule to your template. When you do, every deck created from this template automatically inherits that rule — the AI reads it and follows your content and formatting standards.

You can link a rule directly on the template detail page or from the template card in the list view. If you don't link a specific rule, your default rule (if you have one) applies instead.

How AI Agents Use Your Template

When you ask an AI to create a presentation, this is what happens behind the scenes with your template:

// 1. Agent discovers your templates
slides_list_templates()
// → [{ id: "tmpl_abc", name: "Acme Corp Brand", layoutCount: 8 }]

// 2. Agent reads layout descriptions to pick the right one
slides_list_template_layouts({ templateId: "tmpl_abc" })
// → Layout 1: "Title Slide" — "Use for the opening slide.
//     Large centered title, subtitle below, dark background."
// → Layout 2: "Section Divider" — "Use between major topics.
//     Bold heading with accent bar on the left."
// → Layout 3: "Content" — "Standard content slide. Title at
//     top, body area below for bullets or paragraphs."
// → ...

// 3. Agent creates deck using your template layouts
slides_bulk_create({
  name: "Q4 Strategy Review",
  templateId: "tmpl_abc",
  slides: [
    { layoutId: "layout-1" },   // Title Slide
    { layoutId: "layout-3",     // Content
      elements: [
        { type: "text", role: "title",
          text: "Key Metrics", ... },
        { type: "text", role: "body",
          text: "- Revenue: $4.2M\n- Growth: +18%", ... }
      ]
    },
    { layoutId: "layout-2" },   // Section Divider
    // ... more slides
  ]
})

The agent reads your layout descriptions to decide which layout fits each slide's content. Every slide inherits the template's colors, fonts, backgrounds, and decorative elements automatically.

What Templates Provide

• Pre-configured color schemes — theme colors carry through to every slide
• Font pairings — heading and body fonts set once, used everywhere
• Layout placeholders — title, body, and picture zones with correct positions and sizes
• Decorative elements — logos, accent shapes, background images that appear on every slide
• Brand-consistent PowerPoint export — exported .pptx files look identical to what your template produces in PowerPoint

Common Issues

• Unavailable fonts: If your template uses fonts not in Rideful's library, they won't render correctly in the editor. You can override them on the template detail page using the font picker. See font tiers for guidance on choosing safe replacements.
• Missing layout descriptions: Without descriptions, the AI picks layouts based on structure alone — it may use a “Section Divider” layout for regular content or miss that a layout is meant for data-heavy slides. Adding descriptions dramatically improves layout selection.
• Forgetting to link slide rules: Templates handle visual brand consistency (colors, fonts, layouts), but they don't enforce content standards. Link a slide rule to also control tone, formatting, and structural guidelines.

Related

• Slide Rules & Element Roles — Per-deck rules, semantic roles, and font tier selection
• Agent Workflow — The 7-step workflow agents follow (templates are step 1)
• Export to PowerPoint — Export brand-consistent .pptx files