As you progress in your PowerPoint journey, you will often find the need to combine slides from different decks to create a comprehensive presentation. In this part of the series, we provide you with simple yet effective techniques to merge slides from various decks without breaking a sweat. We will guide you to avoid common pitfalls and ensure a seamless integration of diverse slides into one powerful deck. Let’s step up your PowerPoint game!
What’s covered in this part:
- Understanding the basics of Slide Masters and how to manage them effectively
- Learning the right and wrong ways of copying slides from different templates
- Special cases: Incorporating slides with different template sizes without affecting the presentation layout
Navigating the Complexities of Slide Masters
Fundamentals of Slide Masters
- Slide masters dictate the aesthetic elements of all slides within a deck, including the font styles, color schemes, title positioning, and footer details.
- A single slide master governs each slide, but one slide master can influence numerous slides.
- Slide masters are designated via the Home -> Layout menu and can be reset using the Home -> Reset function.
- To access and manage slide masters, navigate to View -> Slide Master.
Incorporating Slides from Other Decks
- Importing slides from other decks also brings along their associated group of slide masters, potentially cluttering your current collection and escalating the file size.
Potential Pitfalls
- Such integration can result in:
- Unmatched titles
- Varied fonts and color schemes
- Incorrect logos and footers, possibly displaying outdated dates
- A manual, error-prone process for future modifications
- Challenges in sharing decks across different projects, leading to “slide debt”
Avoiding Common Mistakes when Incorporating Slides from Different Templates
In the event of merging slides from a distinct template, particularly from different client decks, adhere to the following guidelines to prevent inconsistencies and formatting errors:
- Refrain from copying and pasting entire slides with their original formatting as it brings along the slide master, necessitating adjustments in fonts, colors, and more.
Exceptions to this rule
- It is permissible to copy and paste slides that employ the same template and corresponding slide masters.
- In cases where slide decks possess different size dimensions, refer to the “Special Case Scenario” detailed at the end of this segment for a handy workaround.
Adopting the Correct Approach to Slide Integration from Various Templates
Copying Content Exclusively
- Focus on copying the content, excluding the title and subtitle, from the source slide.
- Create a new slide in the destination deck and paste the copied content.
- Decide whether the pasted content should retain the destination template’s formatting or maintain the source format.
- Transfer the title text from the source slide to the destination slide, removing any automatically inserted line breaks at the end.
- Repeat this process for the subtitle, if present.
- Depending on your formatting choice (destination versus source), adjustments to font styles, sizes, and colors might be necessary.
Special Case Scenario: Integrating Slides from Differing Template Sizes
Identifying the Issue
Occasionally, the pasted content might exceed the dimensions of your template, as depicted below:
Implementing the Solution
- Transfer the entire slide from the source deck, allowing it to auto-adjust to the destination deck’s dimensions. Choose between retaining the source or destination format.
- Copy only the content from the newly inserted slide onto a fresh slide in the destination deck, making necessary adjustments in fonts and colors.
- Discard the initially transferred slide. Verify and remove any incorrect slide masters that might have been added (navigate to View -> Slide Master).